This forth word was one I missed. Even as a pastor I served forgetting to live it out. I was living out being a disciple, discipleship and discipling, but I was missing the most impactful piece.
Here’s the great opportunity. If we live it out, it opens a door for exponential growth and
Multiplying our lives in another is truly satisfying. There is a way to go beyond multiplication for exponential growth. The Lord can help you live this way. That’s what this forth word is about!
multiplication.
Let’s talk about this forth word.
I was finishing up a men’s small group at our usual restaurant. I really liked these guys. We had good connections with each other, sharing our challenges and victories. Back at the church I had an interesting conversation with an old friend that jarred me.
He was sharing about generational discipleship. He said that was the end game. I knew he was right! I was working hard discipling guys, but not empowering them to do the same.
I was simply discipling when I could be thinking big, really big. Funny thing I even knew verses that highlight this kind of discipleship.
Disciplemaking is our forth word. It carries with it a generational sense discipleship. There should spiritual generations much like we have families with grand parents, parents, children, grand children, great grand children. This is the holy grail of discipleship. Sadly, so few disciples ever have a vision, much less live it out.
Ps 78:5-6 in the NIV speaks to this powerful vision for disciplemaking.
He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.
How exciting to teach not only children, but a generation yet unborn! This is a big vision. This is God’s vision. My mistake was to only look at the guys sitting around the table. What I should have been doing is empowering them to help the others who weren’t at the table.
Jesus models disciplemaking in Mark 3. Starting in verse seven we see Jesus preaching to the large crowds. Yet this crowd wasn’t his end game. We see immediately after preaching to these folks he picks his disciples. They were to carry out his ministry. Jesus was not just thinking about the crowd. He was considering people the disciples would reach. That’s a disciplemaking act.
So how can we see disciplemaking occur?
- Like Jesus have a vision for others doing the job. We must remember the forth word in discipleship and to have the bigger vision of disciplemaking.
- Run your meetings so that others can lead it too. Often we enjoy helping others learn and grow. We enjoy it so much that we always put ourselves in the leader role. We probably are proficient at leading too. Jesus modeled something different by including the disciples in the ministry. Think of how he had the disciples pass out the food in John 6.
- Get the Lord involved in the process. Pray for more laborers for God’s harvest as Matthew 9:38 encourages.
The four words we have spoken about in this series cover discipleship from the start to the finish. It is about: disciple, discipleship, discipling & disciplemaking. May the Lord empower each of us to live out these four words. 