Ready Set Go - Make Disciples

TO GET READY FOR OUR STUDY read the materials linked at the Barna site IN THE ARTICLE article below and click on the Barna site link. This will help you as we start this study. Also you might want to buy the book Growing True Disciples, which you can do by clicking on this text link or by clicking on the picture of the book on the lower right side of this blog, to get there you can click on Books and Music in the table of Contents. This will connect you to amazon.com.

Over at Intersect Smyrna, Pastor Glenn has a great article on Discipleship and a book by Weber. Click here to read it. http://www.intersectsmyrna.blogspot.com/ We seem to waste a lot of time, energy and money doing all kinds of great things in Churches today, but we are not making the world wide or community wide impact we believe the Gospel can make in people's lives.

One of the encourgaing things that has happened over the last 15 years is the world wide prayer movement which has seen this need and has aimed at winning people to Christ and making disciples a priority in prayer gatherings, journeys and meetings. I am glad to see this and have learned to pray for my community as I go for my daily walks, teach classes and attend prayer meetings. Prayer is a very important in do all of God's work!

There is however a pressing need to comprehend that unless and until we as Church leaders take up the mandate of Jesus Christ to Make Disciples and to Equip God's people so that they can come into the measure and stature of Christ we will be found to have failed to be good and faithful servants of our Lord.

There is an old saying among Pastors, "You can not lead where you have not been." The jest of the saying is that as Pastors and Church leaders we must "be" some thing and take people into those things of God which we have learned and experienced. That is a long winded way of saying we must 'be disciples' who have been equipped if we are in turn to equip others.

When we look at Ephesians 4:12-14 we see that making disciples who are equipped to build up one another, do the work of the ministry and come into the full stature of Christ is the reponsibility of every God called Church leader.

When we examine the New Testament we see that making disciples who will then make disciple of Christ is a mandate for all who follow Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

Today we want to use new terms to motivate or explain Equipping and Discipleship. This has come about because the Church over the years has mostly failed at this reponsibility. I have nothing against new terms as long as we get the job done. So, there is one more article I want to recommend over at Leadership Jounal's web site. This article is called "The Apprentices: What is spiritual formation? And how does a church do it? A professor and pastor discuss the new language of making disciples. http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/003/2.20.html The professor is Dallas Willard who has written several books on the subject. His books " The Divine Conspiracy "and "Renovation of the Heart " are listed on the lower right hand of this page under Books and Music in the table of contents. You may also click on the links above to get there.
Invite your friends and enjoy the study . Let your heart be open and pray about really making this study a priority in the