A few days before His crucifixion, Jesus told His Father, \u201cI have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work You have given Me to do\u201d (Jn. 17:4). But which work was Jesus referring to? He was talking about calling and developing disciples who were able to reproduce. After His resurrection and before ascending to glory, Jesus told His then followers and those who would accept his call to \u201ccome and follow me\u201d throughout the ages to go and make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28: 19-20).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This instruction, referred to as the Great Commission, can only be fulfilled in a meaningful way if disciple-making is the central focus of the local church. Bonhoeffer understood this truth and taught that Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Bill Hull rightly asserts, the discipling church is the normal church, and disciple-making is for everyone and every church. Jesus instructed the church to lead that process, and He modeled it. The New Testament disciples applied in a way that expanded Christianity during the three first centuries to levels never attained again in the church history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The secret of the first church\u2019s discipleship success greatly resided in the early Christians\u2019 top priority to win the lost and develop them to their full potential for Christ and His mission. Unfortunately, this flame has not kept burning steadily throughout the church ages. Today, many local churches\u2019 condition is that of churches in profound crisis, the crisis of failing to uphold God\u2019s mandate to make disciples of all nations. I concur with Hull\u2019s assertion that the nature of that crisis is a crisis of product: the church\u2019s inability to produce the kind of disciples who reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God\u2019s mission for the church has not changed. Instead, He is calling all of us, every church and every Christian, to a 180-degree shift: the shift from making converts and baptizing them into church membership without discipling them to using His all-encompassing power and authority to winning, equipping, and deploying them into the harvest field until Jesus comes back. So let\u2019s unite around this endeavor of paramount importance for our God, and let\u2019s steer all our minds, resources, and energy toward achieving this mission and be gratified by our Lord when He comes back with these words: \u201cfaithful servants\u201d!
Pastor Sylvestre Bea
Senior Pastor, ECDM.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few days before His crucifixion, Jesus told His Father, \u201cI have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work You have given Me to do\u201d (Jn. 17:4). But which work was Jesus referring to? He was talking about calling and developing disciples who were able to reproduce. After His resurrection and before ascending to glory, Jesus told His then followers and those who would accept his call to \u201ccome and follow me\u201d throughout the ages to go and make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28: 19-20). This instruction, referred to as the Great Commission, can only be\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":4}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3335,"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions\/3335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endtime.razlightprod.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}