I have been focusing a lot of reading and thought about how to help Creekside develop disciples. It’s not enough to just gather a crowd. Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples, not just have a lot of people around.
Why is making disciples so important? Because part of being a disciple is that you will make more disciples. Discipleship is not just for the individual.
So what was the model that Jesus gave us?
Be with – Jesus called disciples to follow him and spend time with him.
Do with – the disciples did ministry with Jesus. They were there when he healed people, when he fed the 5,000, when he taught the multitudes. They saw Jesus do ministry and then worked along side him.
Go and do likewise – Jesus sent his disciples out to do ministry and they came back and reviewed what happened. But when Jesus ascended to the Father he commissioned his disciples to go and do like wise.
When thinking about discipleship today, those same principles still apply. The problem that I think I (and probably many church leaders) fall into is trying to do more than be with, do with and do likewise. We want to get everyone to do our thing, we want to have all these steps and programs and initiatives for our discipleship plan. We want to give everyone a binder that they can keep their notes in. We want so much, and instead of creating space to be with, do with and go do likewise, we create a bunch of busy people who feel like they can’t keep up with all the work of discipleship and they don’t want to bring other people into this. And they just give up.
Be with.
Do with.
Do likewise.
It’s so simple, and yet so difficult.
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