GPBC Blog

I just returned from the Philippines at the beginning of the month where I had the opportunity to preach several times. The first time was planned, and the second time was the same day that was not planned at all. In case you’re not aware, this is very typical mission trip behavior. Preach once and then be asked to travel an hour away and preach for a completely different audience and, "Oh, by the way, can you change it a little bit because they don’t know as much about Jesus."

The first place that I got the opportunity to preach was at an affluent church for the area. It was in a suburb with business casual dress in new building with lots of air conditioning. The second place that I was asked to preach – let’s be honest, "voluntold" – was at a church that was meeting in a chapel which had been a former fish cracker factory in a medium sized town that was not affluent, but surrounded on one side by 300, 12x12' government built concrete homes with up to 10 people living in each of them. On the other side were homes built by squatters on land that was not their own.

The two groups of people that were hearing me preach that day were far apart in terms of their perceived status in life. And the funny thing was, that they look at Americans as being even more important still. The message that I had decided to preach – out of lack of any other ideas – was one that I had preached many times before from John 18 and John 21 about Peter denying Christ three times and then Jesus restoring Peter through three questions.

The point of my message that morning was that we all have doubts about our abilities to do things, including serving Jesus in the way that he asks us to, but that Jesus is the one who restores us and asks to us to serve with all that we have because of our love for him, even if we think it's not enough. So apparently, when an American who is seen as so important by the audience comes and talks about his doubts about being the hands and feet of Jesus because all the mistakes and denials that he’s made, it resonated enough to hear it twice.

This experience has wormed its way into my head in the context of discipleship (long introduction to end up at discipleship, thanks for sticking with me). I truly believe that one of the primary roles – if not THE primary role – of the church is to make disciples. Not just to make disciples, but to make disciples who can make disciples. I believe this based on the great commission, commands about obedience, how amazing the love of Jesus is, and Jesus’ own example.

For a working, not all-inclusive, definition of disciple think of someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and who is on mission with Jesus. Ideally, I think that everyone in the church has a responsibility to make disciples. Everyone. That’s why Jesus gives us the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us and all the amazing things that He can do through us.

One of the best descriptions of this idea was in a book that I read recently called Church is a Team Sport by Jim Putman. In it he asks the question, "What if church was a team sport? Who would the pastor be? Who would the staff be? Who would the congregation be?" So many times, congregants – me included – treat the pastor as the star player on the team, with the church staff as the supporting players and the congregation as the spectators. His argument is that if church were a team sport, the pastor should be the head coach, with the staff as supporting coaches and the congregation as players.

Now certainly this is not a hard and fast rule, and it doesn’t apply to all churches equally, but the numbers showing the decline of the church in America supports the idea that were not all playing the game the same way. And this is where the connection between the two different groups in the Philippines and the idea of making disciples who can make disciples connects: If we are all called to make disciples who can make disciples, then we all must lay our fears, worries and doubts about our perceived value, status and usefulness at Jesus feet.

It's only when we realize that it is Jesus’ sacrifice and subsequent gift of the Holy Spirit living in us that we can have any hope of the huge task that lies before all of us Jesus followers – to make disciples. And it doesn’t matter if we’re some big American (literally) from GPBC, a Filipino from an affluent suburban church, or a squatter who meets Jesus in a former cracker factory, we are sons and daughters of the kingdom of God who are gifted by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives to be disciple making machines.