What Jesus Said About Making DisciplesНамуна

We don't need a "better or different model"

Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world (John 17-17-18).

We do not need a different strategy, clever methods, or exotic teachings. We simply need to implement the disciplemaking model that Jesus used. When Jesus came to earth, He did not plan to lose. He gave us a strategy that would change the world and was effective enough to reach the world in a very short time. Wherever and whenever people used this model, there was breakthrough after breakthrough.

Therefore, Satan attacked this plan or model with all violence from hell. For the largest part of the last 2000 years since the ascension of Jesus, he succeeded in stopping the church from simply keeping its focus on making disciples and disciplemakers. And this is why the church is weak and making slow progress in reaching the nations with the gospel.

Where the church returns to aggressive disciplemaking, vibrant churches are born, and great advances are made.

Addition vs multiplication

Evangelism is important. Irreplaceably important. We need more evangelists, and we need more evangelism. This must be a non-negotiable in our minds. A problem arises when we keep evangelizing and not just as fast discipling new converts into disciples and disciplemakers. Evangelism is a process of addition. It usually sounds like this: "Three weeks ago, we had an outreach with 27 converts. Two Sundays ago, there was a strong salvation message, and 52 people committed their lives to Christ. This past Sunday, we had a guest preacher, and 31 people made a commitment." All the numbers are wonderful: 27 + 52 + 31, etc.

If you take one evangelist who will lead one person to the Lord daily for one year, he will have 365 converts. If he continues to do it for ten years, he will have 3650 converts after ten years and 7300 after twenty years. This is addition.

But take one disciplemaker, and he multiplies himself in year one by leading one person to the Lord and making him also a disciplemaker – and in year two, the two disciplemakers multiply themselves again and continue to do it for ten years. There will be 1024 disciplemakers after ten years.

The astonishing thing is that after 16 years, the evangelist will have 5840 converts, and the multiplying disciplemaker will have 65,536 disciplemakers. After 20 years, it will be 1,048,756 disciplemakers.