A Go and Make Church

A person is not manufactured. When my son David was made…. I wasn’t thinking about fallopian tubes and the science of fertilized eggs. I wasn’t thinking about ‘making’ a baby. The fruit of the actions taken, though, produced an amazing miracle. Our Son David Leonidas.

So how can we possibly create a program or a thing that makes disciples? Or a church that constantly ‘multiplies’ them. I think it’s helpful when the program is not the point, but still, shuffling people into a room or an appointment to make them like Jesus seems…less than human. In the very least I think it ignores our nature. A thing does not make a follower, a person does.

I would like to propose that it is passion for Jesus and those he died and rose for that makes the “fruit” “disciples”; and the outcome of disciples being made, is the family we call the church. A family, after all is said and done, at its simplest level, is the result of the love of two people. Our passion for Christ, our union with him, should CREATE something, without exception.

SALT Churches, from the very seed of the idea, has been a disciple making church. But how do we do that? How do we do what Jesus so clearly asks us to do? We don’t seek to plant churches, but we very much want to plant churches. In that sense that we do not want to start a “thing”, but to start people that follow Jesus. We want to make disciples, the church will grow up out of the seed of discipleship. Therefore, the fruit will be discipleship.

When you put an apple seed in the ground, it will produce an apple tree if the conditions are correct. If you start making disciples, the form that that “plant” or “church” will take is discipleship. If it’s built on programs (God be with you) then our fruit would be more programs or a focus on programs.

So, we desire to make disciples of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Learners from Jesus. “Doers” of what he taught and did. But you can not manufacture this. We must prepare the soil, cultivate the field, and put the correct seed in the ground. Then, we believe, the church(s) will spring up from the seeds of discipleship. Then the fruit produced would then be discipleship.

So how will we do this? We will attempt to stop looking at discipleship as a task and begin seeing it as a life. We will eat together, pray together, laugh together, party together, cry together, play together, baptize together, proclaim the good news together, study the word together. We will “GO” all day, every day. Not just here and there over coffee. But we aim to make discipleship a life, no matter our profession.

Because, Jesus said, I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH. He does not command us to plant churches. He commands us to make disciples. If we are doing this, a church that tears down the gates of hell is an inevitability. It is a desperate man that tries to build what only Christ can.  You can’t shout at a seed and tell it to make a church. We prepare the soil of people’s hearts, are intentional every day, and we make disciples of Jesus. But by being one and teaching others by action, conversation, and preaching of the gospel, to do the same. There is no true disciple of Jesus that does not make disciples. Period.

People may believe that he is real. They may even have a sneaking suspicion he rose from the dead. But so do demons and the Devil, in a very real and terrifying sense he is a part of their lives. But a learner from Jesus will make other learners. Not because he is forced to, but because that is the fruit of following.

We will be a go and make church. The first and last thing on our mind will be fulfilling the great commission. The standard will be for everyone to be involved at some level in discipleship. This includes reaching those that do not yet know Jesus, and teaching them to live not just as Jesus did, but WITH him in a fully immersive life. We won’t just be a group of Christians that are really excited about community. Community for community’s sake tends toward exclusion, insider language, and a septic culture that breeds drama.

A close-knit group of Christians must exist for the cause, and that is making disciples, which includes reaching the lost for Jesus. Indeed, it may be the primary portion considering the limits of our life span. Confrontation tends to be short and to the point when lives are at stake, and small things are dropped for the sake of simple survival in wartime. I think many churches may be locked in drama because they have forgotten they are at war. The battle waged is not figurative, but real.

There is far more to say here. But when it comes to discipleship like all real things, the best way to apprehend it is to come, and see.