"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 18:19-20 NIV84).
"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Luke 2:52 NIV84).
The command to "go and make disciples" is not just for pastors and missionaries, it's for every believer. This commission is to all who would call themselves Christ-followers. It's the Great Commission, and one of the main purposes of the Church.
At the beginning of a new year, it seems appropriate to look at how we're doing at obeying Christ's disciple-making command. As a pastor, this line of thinking causes me to look in two places. Of course, I think about how we're doing as a church, but I also have to consider how I'm doing as an individual.
As a church, we want WCC to be like a discipleship "factory." A widget factory is concerned about production, how many widgets they're making, but they're also focused on quality control. They want each widget to meet certain minimum specs. Likewise, WCC's "disciple-making factory" is concerned about both quantity and quality. We want to grow both deep and wide.
Desiring to grow "deep" disciples, there are four areas in which we endeavor to lead and feed our flock. These four areas are similar to the four ways that Jesus grew in Luke 2:52. Our four areas or four "B"s of discipleship are (not necessarily in this order):
- Believing - Jesus grew in wisdom, in what He knew. We desire to lead people into a saving faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We desire to teach the whole Bible. We want our members to be biblically literate and trained in good doctrine. We have ten essentials or foundations of the faith that we seek unity of belief on.
- Behaving - Jesus grew in stature. He grew physically. We desire that our members grow in physical disciplines and self-control. We teach believers about financial stewardship, parenting, marriage and other life-skills. We teach them about the spiritual disciplines, like how to have a daily quiet time, about Bible study, witnessing, worship, prayer, fasting, sacrificial giving and more.
- Becoming - Jesus grew in favor with God. He grew spiritually. We desire that our members grow spiritually too. This is about the inner life, one's character. We believe that the nine character traits of the fruit of the Spirit, like "love, joy, peace..." and so on, found in Galatians 5:22-23 are good indicators of growing in the character of Jesus. Adding the trait of "hope," we seek to train members to yield to the Lord and grow in these ten character traits.
- Belonging - Jesus grew in favor with men. He grew socially. We desire to lead believers to have assurance of salvation, so that they know that they belong to God and to God's family. We lead them to make commitments to join together with other believers in Celebrating God's Son in worship, Connecting to God's People in fellowship, and Contributing to God's Kingdom together in service. We want WCC to be live as the family of God.
As a church we desire to build disciples that are growing in these four areas to be more like Jesus, but admittedly, we can only offer these things. To reword an old cliche, "we can lead our sheep to water, but we can't make them drink." As individuals, we have to take personal responsibility for our own discipleship. The church can only offer an environment for growth. We each have to personally desire this growth.
Do you want to grow more like Jesus? Are you taking advantage of the opportunities for growth that your church offers? Are you yielding to God's work in you?
How's your discipleship?
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