“Quoting a passage about making disciples isn’t the same as having a plan for making disciples.” --G.F.
Clarity Leads to Intentionality
Your congregation’s culture is perfectly calibrated for the results you are currently getting in mission, discipleship, and multiplication. Your way for your results. Jesus’ way for Jesus’ results. The way Jesus disciples His trainees in the gospels results in love and redemption breaking out wherever they went. Are you seeing those kinds of discipling results wherever your people go today?
There’s a reason why. Leaders lack clarity (and simplicity) about what the mission actually is and how to prepare people to participate in accomplishing it. Without clarity from leaders, people don’t know what to do and are unprepared to do it. No wonder there is a lack of results.
So, how much clarity do you have as a leader?
Let’s find out. Take a few moments to work through the questions below.
What is our congregation’s current mission statement?
Are we accomplishing this mission? Why or why not?
What is our congregation’s current discipleship process? Draw an illustration below.
Does our current discipleship process prepare people to participate in accomplishing the mission? Why or why not? If not, what does it prepare our people to do?
If someone comes to our church for a year, what will he/she become better at?
Are we confusing scholarship for discipleship?
Are we confusing activity for accomplishment?
Are we substituting missional programs for a missional lifestyle? (Is joining Jesus a program or a lifestyle? What is the difference between a program and a lifestyle?)
Jesus gave the Great Commission to 11 followers (Matthew 28:16). If the people of our congregation were the first Jesus-followers on the face of the earth, what would be our plan for discipling the world?
“If at first you don’t succeed, try doing what Jesus told you to do in the first place.”
Following Jesus, and joining Him on His mission, is a life to be lived and an adventure to be engaged, not simply contemplated. Congregational leaders are responsible for helping their people pivot from the cognitive to the adventure. If this exercise revealed a lack of clarity regarding mission and discipleship in your congregation, I can help fix that. Together, we can layout a clear, simple, biblical plan for your people.