March 25, 2015

______________________

Bible Reference

Matthew 28:18-20:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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.”

______________________

Making disciples or disciple-makers

I respect Francis Chan. He seems pretty open and transparent about his “success as a Christian pastor/speaker/leader”. Does he have all the answers? Is he the only pastor I listen to? Do I view myself as a disciple of Francis (or Paul or Apollos for that matter)? All overarching NO’s. But I like the dude and I think his approach to making disciple-makers is a good one.

I know this is a 30-minute sermon, but maybe start at about 12 minutes where he asks the question:

What is THE GOAL as a Christian and as a leader?

He sums it up simply:

We reach the unreached and train them to make disciple-makers.

It’s not, “hey get in a group and just disciple each other.” It has to be “get out and reach the unreached.”

It’s a topic that should hit close to home for lots of us in the shred culture. Lots of times we as shred kids just like to get together with the same group of friends we’ve been hanging out with for years and take some time to just have fun shredding together. We build a clique and we shred in it. That’s our comfort zone and that’s our view of DOING SHREDDING THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. Our default behavior as shred kids is a very self-seeking sort of behavior, and clearly Jesus Himself challenged us to LIVE BETTER by living MORE SLEFLESSLY; dedicating our lives to this NEW MISSION to make disciple-makers from the unreached people we meet.

And as I challenged a friend the other day, “Do we take our current, comfortable, pleasurable way of life and weigh it against the Bible in an attempt to justify our lifestyle…OR rather, do we take the truth of the Bible and THEN reformulate our current way of life SUBMIT TO IT?” It’s a hard question that we need to ask.

Francis asks and concludes:

Am I producing disciple-makers from unreached people?

This is how we measure success.

At 21:30 he talks about interning and raising up disciples of Jesus (as opposed to friends to follow us) who will be able to go out AND STAND ON THEIR OWN TWO FEET…sometimes starting with things as simple as stacking chairs.

But if you’re busy and you don’t listen to anything else, you should at least start at 26:22 and listen to what he says about doing real discipleship and DOING LIFE WITH PEOPLE. He talks about raising up disciple-makers and then the painful process of sending out these new leaders, these new best friends, new family members to GO and do it themselves.

One of the biggest churches in Korea says, ‘guys, you’re only allowed to be here at church five or six years, and then you’re going out to do it.’

He then concludes:

I think the future is going to be tent-makers figuring out how to shepherd, reaching the unreached and training them to be disciple makers.

_____________________

What are we making with our lives

Earlier I posed the question:

“Do we take our current, comfortable, pleasurable way of life and weigh it against the Bible in an attempt to justify our lifestyle…OR rather, do we take the truth of the Bible and THEN reformulate our current way of life SUBMIT TO IT?”

Consider that and pray about these:

1.) Are we just making more friends to follow US or are we teaching them to become disciple-makers for Jesus?

2.) How can my SFC crew/friends and I better fulfill the Great Commission to reach the unreached and make disciple-makers this season?