The Pastor as a Disciple Maker

The church has lost momentum and direction, and there are few leaders with an apostolic heart to go and make disciples in all nations. Those who take Christ as a model for their lives are seen as fanatics.

Only one kind of person will influence the world, and the church's failure to produce this kind of person is the mistake that has led it to this crisis. The crisis at the heart of the church is a product crisis. What kind of person does the church produce? The product ordered by Christ is a person called a disciple. Christ commanded His church to "make disciples" (Matthew 28:18-29), because disciples influence their world; He describes a disciple as one who endures all things for Him, who is obedient to Him, who bears fruit, glorifies God, has joy, and loves (John 15:7-17). A disciple reproduces himself, which leads to multiplication, and this is the key to winning the world and fulfilling the Great Commission. The crisis at the heart of the church is that we promote making disciples only in word, but we do not practice it, and we have lost the integrity of our mission. The cardiovascular system of the body will not improve until we change our approaches and prioritize the healthy production and reproduction of men and women who influence their world. When we obey Christ's commission, two good things happen: we create healthy Christians; and a healthy Christian reproduces, and the body grows, then it multiplies, and the world is evangelized.

Not much will change until we take the Great Commission seriously and pastors are willing to start reproducing themselves through others, to prepare Christians who can feed themselves, until congregations allow pastors to invest more of their time in teaching and spiritually training the minority.