by John Shirk

Following Jesus

It is common to hear Christians speak of the Great Commission as the marching orders of the church. Jesus’ last instructions to His disciples were to go into all the world and make disciples. I suspect most Christians would agree this is central to our mission. We know Jesus commanded us to make disciples and we want to obey, but knowing our mission and wanting to fulfill it doesn’t guarantee we will succeed in accomplishing it.

Let’s take a deeper dive into our mission to make disciples and how we can accomplish it.

This week I had a phone call with a church leader about making disciples. He told me of a seminar he attended where it was discussed. The first thing he noted was that there wasn’t a uniform definition of what it meant to make disciples. There were those who thought of discipleship as helping make sure someone had good doctrine and an accurate grasp of biblical truth. Others approached discipleship as helping people get connected and assimilated into the local church. A third group saw discipleship as leadership development.

None of these answers are wrong. But they are all incomplete. Discipleship should impart truth, integrate people into the church, and help them develop as leaders. But it is much more than that. In the Great Commission, Jesus defined discipleship as “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.” This is not just knowing truth, but becoming like Jesus who is the Truth. It is not just being connected to the local church, it is making sure those connections are healthy and rooted in Jesus’ command to love one another. It is not just developing leaders. It is making sure those leaders are servants who lead like Jesus, the greatest leader (and servant) of all.

If a disciple is someone who obeys everything Jesus commanded. I hope you will stay tuned to the Catch the next few days as we seek to explore how to be disciples who make disciples.