Making Disciples

Last Wednesday evening was good in several ways. The food, as always, was good thanks to Erma and Garfield. Cheryl Secunda and her daughter, Kelly, led our youth in an enjoyable and effective time. Our discussion about how our church is going to obey the Great Commission and “make disciples” was stimulating to me and, I hope, to others. Two couples came to Prayer Meeting/Bible Study to learn something about our church. I left the sanctuary after choir rehearsal thanking God for the family atmosphere and the sense of God’s presence we often feel on Wednesday nights.
Our Church Health Team (Bill Batchelor, Leesa Holloway, Jim McCroskey, Cheryl Secunda, and John Wood) is working on a simple, clear, strategic plan for moving people through the steps of becoming like Christ. The very last instruction Jesus gave to his disciples according to Matthew’s Gospel was this: “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am always with you.” We believe Jesus not only gave that commission to eleven disciples on a hill in Galilee that day, Jesus also gave it to us. We members of New Hope are given the charge and the authority to “make disciples.” The question before us is this: How will we go about turning unbelievers and uninvolved church members into fully devoted disciples of Jesus?
We agreed Wednesday nigh that disciples are people who are learning from Jesus, people who know and obey his teachings, people who are serving others just as Jesus served. We saw that being a Christian is not only being saved from hell when you die. It is being saved from hell while you live and having “life in all its abundance” today in your home, in your work, in your school. Therefore, our job is to teach people to do much more than say, “Jesus is my savior.” Our job is to teach them to obey Jesus.
Making disciples is not easy. Eugene Peterson calls it “a long obedience in the same direction.” Jesus said, “Not everyone who calls me their Lord will get into the kingdom of heaven. Only the ones who obey my Father in heaven will get in” (Matthew 7:21 Contemporary English Version).
The question before us is clear: How are we going to move people along a process of learning to obey all that Jesus has commanded? That is the gate to life. It is narrow and the road is hard, but we had better be helping people to find it, because Jesus made it clear that the broad gate and the easy road is the way to hell. (Read Matthew 7: 13-14.)