Making Disciples

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Why Discipleship Works

Disciple-making offers the church the best opportunity to extend itself beyond its resources and geographic limitations for the following reasons:

  1. It is easily reproducible, requiring no formal training or education. It is not dependent on resources or literature, and can be done by anyone. Jesus reproduced His ministry six-fold by sending out teams of disciples. They went with no money, weapons, advertising, or formal education. Jesus gave them some brief instructions, prayed for them, and sent them out.
  2. Discipleship produces more effective evangelism because it produces more trained and motivated evangelists. Most believers are trained to do evangelism in a class or seminar. Disciples, however, receive "on-the-job" training, learning as they evangelize. They sharpen the skills needed to lead someone to Christ and are mentored through the process. Thus, they evangelize naturally and spontaneously, and do not rely on formulas or programs.
  3. Evangelism adds to the Church, discipleship multiplies the Church (Acts 2:47; Acts 6:1). There are over six billion people in this generation. How can we reach them? The chart below shows us the mathematical potential of multiplication.

How Disciple-Making Gets the Job Done

Evangelist                             Disciple-Maker

YEAR   1 soul/day                  1 disciple/year

    1                365                                2

    2                730                                4

    3              1095                                8

    4              1460                                16

    5              1825                                32

    6              2190                                64

    7              2555                                128

    8              2920                                256

    9              3285                                512

  10              3650                                1024

  11              4015                                2048

  12              4380                                4096

  13              4745                                8192

  14              5110                                16,384

  15              5475                                32,768

  16              5840                                65,536

  17              6205                                131,072

  18              6570                                262,144

  19              6935                                524,288

  20              7300                                1,048,576

  21              7665                                2,097,152

  22              8030                                4,194,304

  23              8395                                8,388,608

  24              8760                                16,777,216

  25              9125                                33,554,432

  26              9490                                67,108,864

  27              9855                                134,217,728

  28           10,220                                268,435,456

  29           10,585                                536,870,912

  30           10,950                                1,073,741,824

  31           11,315                                2,147,483,648

  32           11,680                                4,294,967,296

  33        12,045                         8,589,924,592

Note: the evangelist wins one soul to Christ each day. The discipler makes one disciple a year. The above chart shows the potential power of multiplication.

The evangelist wins others to Christ, but he essentially works alone. The discipler increases the number of workers by teaching his disciples to make their own disciples. Let us see in practical terms what this means.

1. If an exceptionally gifted evangelistic ministry averaged winning 1,000 souls to Christ every day, it would take that ministry 16,438.36 years to win the world to Christ if there were no additional babies born and no deaths (there are over 200,000 more births than deaths each day).

2. If you were a gifted, powerful and famous evangelist, and you filled a stadium every day with 50,000 unbelievers, and they all received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior as a result of your preaching, it would take you over 356 years to win the whole world to Christ (and that would be only if no new babies were born during that time)!

Numbers do not lie. The above numbers accurately reflect the evangelistic potential of disciple making. If we will commit ourselves to the simple, inexpensive, reproducible, and Biblical calling to make disciples, we will have the potential to fulfill the Great Commission in our generation.

Jesus also commanded the Church to make disciples because everything God is seeking to do in the establishment of His kingdom is fulfilled either directly or indirectly only as the Church makes disciples. Consider the following truths:

Evangelism is most effective when there are more trained workers in a designated area. This is accomplished best through discipleship.

Worship is most pleasing to God when it flows from the heart and lips of one who has followed Christ to the Cross. It is through discipleship that we are led to the Cross.

Prayer is most powerful when offered corporately from hearts that have been united with Christ and with one another. Disciples experience a unity of spirit and purpose together as they follow the Master, focusing completely on Him.

Giving from a heart that has left all to follow Christ cannot be measured in any earthly currency, and is most precious to God.

Fellowship (koinonia) among those who live only for Christ is the most powerful force on earth. It is only the cross which can produce such life!

 

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