Each After Its Kind
Why making another disciple is the primary task of every disciple.
A. W. Tozer once reputedly said, “Only a disciple can make another disciple.”
Indeed, it is impossible to rightfully make other disciples, if we ourselves are not true disciples of the One we call Master and Lord.
I am thankful to God to have been deeply shaped by a missionary society that placed disciple-making at the heart of church planting.
People - eternal souls - matter most to Jesus. Not the temporary fame and fate of our institutions, machinery and grand visions.
In the same way that God ordained in creation the producing of creatures after their kind (Genesis 1:24), true disciples begat other disciples.
Therefore, it must matter to all God’s people, but particular those called to lead His flock, that the making of healthy and multiplying discipleship is a first priority, the building block not only on which we seek to plant and grow the family of God’s people after God, but further to transform the communities where we live and where God sends us to
This requires us to take God’s divine orders for global transformation (as Jesus articulated it in Matthew 28:18-20) seriously to heart, letting it inform and shape our vision and practice.Everyday discipleship is faith lived out in the world for all to see. It is therefore often the most frequent interface between who we are (or are being called to) in Christ and the world about us – with all her beliefs, behaviours and practices.
Disciple-making disciples is then the fertile fruit that God the divine gardener desires. But such a process that can only come through our intimate connection to the vine that is Jesus, bearing fruit by abiding in Him (see John 15:1-17, especially verse 7-8).
I can think of 3 immediate outcomes of all this. If we make disciple-making the heart of church-planting and the already established communities we lead, then:
1) It will be all about Jesus. His Word will be constantly and daily at home in us (John 8:31,32). Who He is and what He wants will then take centre stage. Not our churches, organisations, visions, models or strategies. Indeed, “he must increase, I must decrease” – we would cry with the Baptiser (John 3:30).
2) Relationships will be central. As we seek to please and obey Jesus, we will be committed to the community of believers (John 13:34,35); as well as be invested in relationships with non-believers, all as modelled by our Lord (John 20:21). We would seek to disciple a few and help them reach out to others by being and bringing good news to the world where they live, play and work.
3) We will start small. We live in a culture saturated with images and screens and celebrity idols. The picture of success, certainly in America, if not the West (and in countries like mine so influenced) is predominantly the big, the loud, the impressive and the popular. This has infected our standards for success in the church, as Woodward and White in their book The Church As Movement argue.[1]
They point out: ‘Jesus spoke to the crowds, but the engine of his ministry was his purposeful gathering and shaping of the twelve.’[2]
They ask: ‘Why do we focus on the crowds when Jesus focused on the twelve?’[3]
We try to reach many to find the few. Instead, Jesus’ focused on a few in order to reach many.
This was part of Jesus’ deliberate strategy and is reflected in his parable in the Kingdoms. As the late Eugene Peterson opined, ‘The metaphors Jesus used for the life of ministry are frequently images of the single, the small and the quiet, which have effects far in excess of their appearance: salt, leaven and seed.”[4]
Who are you regularly influencing for Christ in your circle of friends? This then should be the regular work of all God’s people.
A PRAYER: “O Lord, use me to make one more disciple for Jesus this year. For Your name’s sake and Your glory. Amen.”
[1] JR Woodward and Dan White Jr., The Church As Movement, Downers Grove: IVP, 2016. They describe it as the ‘Christian-industrial complex’ where survival and success is all about ‘collecting and consolidating more resources, programs, paid staff, property and people in attendance.’ Page 24.
[2] Ibid., page 89.
[3] Ibid., page 90.
[4] Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, Grand Rapids: William B Eerdmans, 1959, page 25.