[featured_image]My friend and colleague in the Missionary Church Western District, Len Sunukjian, sent me a link to an article today in Charisma magazine entitled – Discipleship is Not a Dirty Word. While I’ve never personally viewed “discipleship” as a dirty word, I agree with these statements:
I’m still convinced that relational discipleship—a strategy Jesus and the apostle Paul modeled for us—is as vital as ever. If anything the pendulum has now swung dangerously in the opposite direction. In today’s free-wheeling, come-as-you-are, pick-what-you-want, whatever-floats-your-boat Christianity, we make no demands and enforce no standards. We’re just happy to get warm rumps in seats. As long as people file in and out of the pews and we do the Sunday drill, we think we’ve accomplished something.
But Jesus did not command us to go therefore and attract crowds. He called us to make disciples (see Matt. 28:19), and that cannot be done exclusively in once-a-week meetings, no matter how many times the preacher can get the people to shout or wave handkerchiefs. If we don’t take immature Christians through a discipleship process (which is best done in small groups or one-on-one gatherings), people will end up in a perpetual state of immaturity.
This is a big problem in churches today – immature Christians.
Immature Christians are an obstacleto accomplishing Jesus’ mission!
One of the reasons that churches are filled with immature Christians is that churches today are tolerating disobedience. I’m not trying to say that Christians can attain some state of obeying Jesus perfectly. Yet in many churches there’s no expectation that followers of Jesus will actually do what He says in Matthew 28:19-20.
How can we as followers of Jesus align our lives with the mission of Jesus?
1. Seize Jesus’ disciplemaking mission as your own
2. Commit to doing what Jesus says
3. Follow Jesus and help others to follow Jesus
Today’s Missional Challenge
Commit yourself to obeying Jesus. Do what He says!
