“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”As a Christ-follower and a pastor, I want 2018 to be marked by my maturing and growing in Christ. I desire to lead our church to also mature and grow in grace as we walk with Him. I can’t really imagine any other reason for existing as a church or living as an individual.
Two of Jesus’ teachings measure our maturity and obedience as His followers: the Great Command and the Great Commission. When asked the greatest commandment, Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” So, all of our activity ought to be governed by our love for God and for others.
Our task in following Christ, however, comes from His great commission; what some have called Jesus’ last marching orders for His followers. He told us to make disciples. That is, we are to make more of what we are. If we are followers of Christ, we are to make other followers of Christ. We are to do this among all the people groups (panta ta ethne) of the world. This multiplication of Christ-followers, then, is to be the task of our lives. I believe this to be the standard each church will be graded on by our King.
So, the question that hounds me all the time as a pastor (and Christ-follower) is “How are we doing in making disciples?” Many ways exist to evaluate our obedience to this commission (scope: all the peoples; quality: observing all of Jesus’ teachings; quantity: baptizing them). The simplest way, however, is to determine if we are even aware that this Disciple-making mandate is the measure of our following Christ? When did I (or you, or we) last make a disciple? When was I last aware of disciple-making as reason for my continued existence?
These questions should dog every follower of Christ. I fear that western Christianity has essentially walked away from this mandate. Our churches are structured in a myriad of ways, but seldom are they streamlined to make disciples. What if we made disciple-making the main thing of our church? What would that look like?
