Before Jesus ascended into Heaven, He gave His disciples the command to “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,” (Matthew 28:19).
The Great Commission is a cycle that repeats over and over again: go and make disciples, who then go and make disciples, and so on. While this may look like a pretty simple directive, there are actually two separate steps to fulfilling the Great Commission.
The “go” part is easy enough to understand, although it can be difficult to practice. Going out to all nations is something we are each called to do, whether we go to the far ends of the earth or to our neighbor next door.
However, the second step in the Great Commission is often misunderstood. While going is essential to spreading the Gospel, making disciples is what makes the other possible. Without creating true, devoted disciples, we won’t have anyone willing to go to the next generation of believers.
And this is where people tend to get confused with the Great Commission. We forget that there is a difference between converting new believers and making disciples. A convert is someone who has accepted Jesus but isn’t bearing fruit yet, while a disciple is defined as someone who is a personal follower of Jesus Christ who has been changed by Him and is committed to His mission.
Converts become disciples, but too often, we allow converts to stay at the starting line of their spiritual journeys rather than equipping them to run the race.
Churches unintentionally prioritize conversion over the spiritual growth that should occur after someone puts their faith in Jesus.
So how do we create a culture geared toward disciple-making in our churches?
Step 1: Properly Prioritize Discipleship
In order to build a church culture committed to discipleship, your leadership and congregation must see it as a priority.
You’ll have a difficult time finding a church that says making disciples isn’t a priority. However, many churches fall victim to prioritizing the wrong things. They are focused on the quantifiable areas of the church but fail to look critically at the spiritual growth of their congregants.
They seek to get people involved, encourage members to serve, and emphasize the importance of regular attendance. They spend a significant amount of time and resources on the “go” portion of the Great Commission while unintentionally neglecting the hearts of the disciples they’re supposed to be building at home.
Engagement, volunteering, giving, and attendance are all great things, but if you’re missing the heart of your congregants, you’ve missed the most important step in the Great Commission. Those things should all flow from hearts truly changed by God and people seeking to be more like Jesus in every area of their lives.
Discipleship must come first so that everything else becomes a result of genuine followers of Christ rather than just boxes to check.
Making disciples should be the top priority as your church sets ministry goals, creates outreach programs and events, and connects with people. Everything else your church hopes to accomplish will become easier when you have true disciples fervently seeking God.
Step 2: Develop a Discipleship Program
Saying you want to make disciples is a good start, but without a solid method for training them and tracking their progress, it’ll be difficult.
If you already have a program in place for spiritual development, take the time to reevaluate it critically to make sure that you’re actually seeing growth in your congregants.
If you don’t have a specific and intentional process for making disciples, the first thing you should do is make sure you understand the spiritual ages of disciples. Every convert, regardless of physical age, starts as a spiritual child. As a person grows in their faith and begins producing fruit, they grow into a spiritual young adult before becoming a spiritually mature adult.
Understanding how disciples grow will help you develop goals and journeys to help each member of your congregation become devoted followers of Christ. These goals should start with the basic tenets of faith: spending time in the Word, developing a healthy prayer life, and fellowshipping regularly with other believers.
As each congregant grows in their faith, their spiritual goals should reflect that growth, such as serving regularly, giving joyfully, and investing in the lives of other believers.
These journeys could include special discipleship classes, accountability groups or partners to help encourage growth, or opportunities to live faith out through missions or volunteering.
Once you have your goals and pathways set, create a spiritual growth assessment to evaluate where your members are in their faith journeys.
As you develop your assessment, tailor your evaluation around these three questions:
- What are the regular habits that a growing disciple should demonstrate?
- What are the personal characteristics you expect a growing Christian to show?
- What should growing Christians do?
These assessments will help you place each member in the appropriate spot on the journeys you’ve created. For example, someone whose assessment marks them as a mature disciple probably doesn’t need to be invited to a special class on how to develop a healthy prayer life.
Once you have your members in place and an effective way to evaluate their spiritual journeys and put them on the right path for growth, you can begin walking with each of your members toward spiritual maturity.
Step 3: Equip Disciples to Make Disciples
Jesus tells us that the world will know we are disciples if we love one another (John 13:34-35). The best way to love others is to point them to the Author of love, the one who gave His Son to die for them.
The Great Commission is a cycle repeated with each new generation of believers. The process of building someone into an avid and devoted disciple of Jesus triggers the cycle to begin again.
Just as you wouldn’t send a preschooler off to college, new believers aren’t prepared to “go” on their own. However, once disciples have matured into spiritual adults, they are ready to make more disciples.
Whether you’re readying disciples to go into the mission field or to support the ministry of your church, part of your discipleship training should include preparing them how to share their faith.
Show them how to communicate what they believe with their family, friends, and anyone else God puts in their path. Give them tools, like the Romans Road, tracts, or other faith-sharing methods, to help them share Jesus with the people around them. Utilize your church’s mobile app to share resources and reminders as they start to go out and communicate with others.
Remind the disciples in your congregation why sharing their faith is important to their personal fulfillment of the Great Commission and as a true show of love to others.
Give disciples ways to practice sharing the Gospel through local outreach and serving in the local church. Provide opportunities for short-term mission trips and offer training and resources for those called to the mission field.
Then send them out. Once a disciple has matured in their faith and understands how and why to share that faith with others, they’re ready to start the cycle again.
Every Christian should aim to go and make disciples. By keeping the cycle moving, we are one step closer to reaching the nations for Jesus!
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