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Mega-city Churches 3: how does disciple-making happen?

May20, 2007

How does disciple-making happen? Mysteriously I suppose, but essentially through talking. You can see the pattern in Jesus’ ministry – he was always talking. Even his miracles of healing involved discussion, explanation, rebuke.

Jesus taught his disciples to talk, to proclaim, to announce a great event. He gave them the words for it, he spoke about the Kingdom of God being on their doorstep. He taught them how to make sense of the promises in the Old Testament. He taught them what the key ideas were, and what was the basis of their life as disciples.

And he left them to it – to talk about him. And talk they did, and write. And as they spoke many who heard them believed what they had to say. And they turned to Jesus in repentance and trusted his death for their forgiveness. And then they joined the disciples and learnt how to be disciples themselves.

Even a highly educated and eloquent man like Apollos was discipled by Priscilla and Aquila so that he understood better what to talk about. And then he really spoke. Arguing and debating and proving from the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

The pattern of Jesus and his disciples is very clear. Discipleship begins by hearing. Making disciples begins by talking. Most of us are quite good at talking, although we usually talk more easily about some things than others. So obviously the kind of talking we are talking about here involves talking about Jesus. And about the scriptures.

And in the face of severe censorship. One of the minor trends in world Christianity is the increase in secret believers. These people are generally identified as former members of other religions whose lives would be in danger if their community knew they were Christians. So they live secret lives in which maybe only one or two others know they are Christians.

But there appear to be many secret believers in western countries where there is no threat at all to their life.  What there is is hostile antagonism, intimidation and ridicule so that Christians are frightened to talk about Jesus. It is as though to talk about him is to commit a huge social sin: to bring into public what should be kept as a private matter.

But that is exactly what being a disciple involves. Bringing into the public sphere the wonderful story about Jesus. It involves shining a bright and disturbing light into the dark world that prefers lies and fantasies to truth.

But it is not done by disciples on their own. They are not left to their own strength and devices. They get help – or are they the help? More next time.

Dale

Comments

It is right that we have to be brave to talk about Jesus, as it written in Romans 10:13-17.
One thing that I want to remind you that we have to talk about Jesus not just by mouth but also with our behaviour. I met some Christians who always talk about Jesus but they keep doing sins.
Some people refuse to receive Jesus Christ to be their Saviour because of the hypocrite Christians who always talk about Jesus and curse the others through the same lips. So, let us talk about Jesus through our lips and action.

Posted by Lidia on Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 07:23:56

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