Discipleship: Are we missing the point?

Discipleship: Discipleship:

Are we missing the point?

By Murray Averill

When Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world and make disciples, there were no other disciples in the world. So He could not have been telling His disciples to go and make ‘better’ Christians. And yet, this is what discipleship can become. In light of Jesus’ last command, what if we ensure that discipleship is at least as much about disciple-making (i.e. evangelism) as disciple-growing? Let’s take it a step further - what if failing to make disciple-making disciples is why some Christians fail to grow in their faith? My memories of door-to-door and street evangelism are enough to put me in a fetal position. Let’s not go back to some of that. But what if a younger generation, in particular, have been robbed of the thrill of being part of someone else’s salvation story? No, it’s not easy. There is spiritual and cultural opposition to evangelism, especially in a postmodern world in which truth is personal and relative. Evangelism can even find opposition within the church. Recent research by the Barna Institute in the US found 47% of Christian Millennials believe it is wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hope of conversion. Let’s not bag Millennials. Let’s think about a way forward, for them, for the whole church, and for the sake of the millions of Australians who need a relationship with Jesus, even though they currently don’t know it.

Is it time for discipleship in the form of Holy-Spirit empowered evangelism to become a renewed focus in our nation? We could also ask ourselves: • What is the ‘temperature’ of evangelism in my life and my church? • Does our church budget reflect a heart for lost people? • What is our methodology for making disciple-making disciples? • What is the Holy Spirit saying to us regarding evangelism?

When I was a senior pastor, I was doing what I knew to increase the number of people coming to faith. We started a community care program and we thought of unchurched people when planning special events like Christmas and Easter. Yet it wasn’t until we introduced a methodology that made evangelism accessible and enjoyable, for both us and those we sought to reach, that we saw significant people coming to faith. That methodology was Alpha. Because of Alpha, not only were unchurched people brought to faith in Christ but more of our church people found a way to become disciple-makers. It wasn’t perfect. But it was a step towards discipleship the way I think Jesus had in mind. To date almost 600,000 Aussies have explored faith through Alpha. During COVID over 30,000 people have participated in Alpha Online, with many reports of people coming to faith and being filled with the Holy Spirit over Zoom. Alpha isn’t the only means of evangelism, but certainly one that God is using. If you’d like to know more, send a follow-up request to murray.averill@alpha.org.au. The Barna Institute in the USA found 47% of Christian Millennials believe it is wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hope of conversion.