There should be no separation between evangelism/outreach and discipleship. The purpose of evangelism is to make disciples.

John Stott wrote, "The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict half-built towers. The ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to follow Him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so called nominal Christianity. In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent but thin veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism."

I believe that people make a distinction between evangelism and discipleship because they want to develop a theology and methodology that disposes of the hard sayings of Jesus.

Jesus says of discipleship in Luke 9:57-62, "As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

The word disciple (Greek mathetes) is used 262 times in the New Testament. The word means one who shares a close and intimate relationship with a person, a learner, student, a disciple.

The only message Jesus ever proclaimed was the message of discipleship. His call is to follow Him, to surrender and submit to Him as Lord AND Master – it is a call to obedience. It is a costly commitment.

In John 8:31, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples." In John 15:8, Jesus says, "This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." We see this throughout Scripture and in the context of Matthew 10, 13, Luke 14, John 8, 15 – Jesus calls us to a life of discipleship.

Can you be a follower of Jesus and not be a real Christian? Could someone follow without having a changed heart and life and say, "Lord, Lord," and not expect Jesus to say, "I never knew you?" This is echoed in John 6:66-67 where we read, "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve."

In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus commands us to “Therefore go...” Go therefore and do what? The answer is to make disciples. So how do you make a disciple? Jesus gives us the answer, "Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." We are commanded to make disciples.

If we agree that the mission of the church is to make disciples, to bring people into an intimate relationship with God through faith in Christ Jesus, then, our churches should be filled with disciples who believe the gospel, who have turned from their sin to embrace the forgiveness of God, whose lives are being transformed so that they are motivated to obey what Jesus has commanded. If not, perhaps we should remember that the only way to the Crown is through the Cross.
Grow in grace and truth,

Doug Morrell

CORE Notes From Doug