I will make you fishers of men
fishers of men,
fishers of men,
If you follow me.
If you follow me.
If you follow me.
I will make you fishers of men
If you follow me.
This traditional children’s song was taken from Matthew 4:19 where Jesus says to two fishermen, “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This past weekend at Central Christian almost felt like fishing because of the sheer number of people that got baptized. But as news has spread about the amazing thing that has happened in Vegas, one subtle question has arisen from various people I have interacted with: what is next?
Becoming a believing and baptized Christian is not the end of the Christian journey, but rather the beginning. Recently I had the chance to sit in on a luncheon where author Tony Morgan gave a quick 20 minute presentation. During the talk he hit on the subject of discipleship. He quoted Matthew 28 where Jesus called us to make disciples. During Tony’s Talk he said, “It is not the churches job to disciple it is the disciples job to disciple.”
How would you disciple such a large number of people? What are your thoughts on Tony’s quote?
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
In regards to Tony's quote, while I am not sure what his elaboration was, my reaction to what is posted here is that he's wrong. That is like saying, "It is not the school's job to educate, it is the students job to be educated." People are responsible, to some level, for their own spiritual growth but they need guidance and protection from poor teaching. These things should come from the church. To stay with the educational system example, sometimes I feel that we hand spiritual kindergarters the encyclopedia and say, "Good luck!" If schools said, "A childs education is totally on them. We will teach and give resources but we're not going to hold them accountable or offer additional attention" they may have an efficient system but they may also have a bunch of uneducated students. If Tony is saying that individuals within the church need to disciple other individuals within the church I am on the same page but even that system should have appointed church oversite and leadership.
Great point Whit. Tony was really hammering home the idea of discipleship in the few moments that he had during a luncheon in the context of getting people to invest in people. He went on to say, "Unfortunately we have allowed church programs to kill discipleship." So how do we as men who work for churches not allow programs to kill discipleship? Obviously one of the best ways is how Jesus mentored and discipled. But how do you take the sheer numbers of people that got baptized this past weekend and get them involved in discipleship without over-programming them?
One at a time. One-on-one. His quote is point on. It's not the church's responsibility to feed every believer. Just as a baby learns to feed themselves, so must "baby" Christians.
Matt do you have any thoughts on Whit's comparison between churches and schools?
I would agree completely with Tony on that quote. I had a conversation with a young man earlier this week about this topic actually. He was disappointed that the "chruch" (Central in this case) didnt preach EVERYTHING that was in the bible from the Sunday pulpit. He felt that it was "taking away" from the scripture (Revelations).
As a Christian, our purpose is to follow the great commission set by Jesus, to disciple others. If Central was to a 10 week series on say Leviticus, that the non-christian (and many christians) would not gain anything from such a sermon because until they have a foundation in Christ and the redeemption of the cross, the words would be meaningless to them.
However, once God opened their heart to Him, their would be a wanting in their soul for more of Christ and that they were to start studying independantly and communaly to further their own walk so that they too could help disciple others.
The baptism event last weekend was amazing… absolutely amazing. The Next Step is for US as Christians to open up our homes and our lives to accept others in for their growth as well as our own.
Dave – I agree wholeheartedly; however if these "new"(er) Christians do not see what to do next modeled by those of us whom are already Christ followers I think we will have done something very detrimental in their spiritual growth process. We must model the discipleship process by opening up our lives and homes to others for one on one mentoring; or at the very least one one twelve.
Agreed whole heartedly. It is key that we open up our own lives to reach out towards others seeking more in their own walks. However, we must also ourselves be on the same path of learning. If anyone who "teaches" is not also learning themselves, they run the risk of stagnation and poor witness.
I just realized how many spelling and grammatical errors I just made in that post… ouch!
Good stuff Benji. I have to say that I completely agree with the fact that a person's Baptism is merely the beginning of the journey. We often times fall into the trap of thinking it's the goal. So, we put all of our efforts into "getting someone saved/converted". We completely forget about the last words of Christ before He left the earth, "Go and make disciples". He didn't just say get them saved and Baptize them. But, make disciples. He spent THREE years with the 12 He discipled; He focused mainly on them.
I have to say that if we are referring to "the church" as the institution/organization/etc. then NO it is NOT "the church's" job to disciple. However, if we are agreeing that WE, the people of God, the BODY of CHRIST are THE CHURCH then it is most definitely THE CHURCH'S job to make disciples. Of course, this is mere semantics because that inherently means that it is each individual DISCIPLE of Christ's job to MAKE DISCIPLES. Good stuff man!
I totally comprehend the idea that Jesus spent 3 years with the 12. He also spent the first 30 years of his life getting ready to spend those 3 years with the disciples. So how do we take the model of Jesus and apply it to today?
I definitely think that Tony was referring to the church as a building, not as the body of Christ. I was challenged by this post by Shawn Lovejoy on what an actual disciple is – http://shawnlovejoy.typepad.com/shawn_lovejoy/200…