planting churches by making disciples – day 11

We began our day with the powerful words of Isaiah from Isaiah 51:1-3.  Think about this in light of God’s purposes through multigenerational discipleship.

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,
         Who seek the LORD:
         Look to the rock from which you were hewn
         And to the quarry from which you were dug.
    2“Look to Abraham your father
         And to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain;
         When he was but one I called him,
         Then I blessed him and multiplied him.”
    3Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion;
         He will comfort all her waste places
         And her wilderness He will make like Eden,
         And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
         Joy and gladness will be found in her,
         Thanksgiving and sound of a melody.

The rest of the day we looked at the prevailing method of evangelism and church growth throughout the world: church planting. A simple Google search reveals almost a million sites on church planting. What’s ironic is that many of these sites give statistics regarding the decline in American church attendance and then claim the solution is more churches!  They cite the Great Commission as the mandate to plant churches, though Jesus never mentions anything of the sort.  He actually says that he will build the church. We make disciples.

The fundamental difference is that we plant churches by making disciples rather than planting churches in order to make disciples.

Here are some quotes from the discussion on launching discipleship movements:

In a movement, people are not connected organizationally, but rather they are connected through passion and vision.

Stay focused on the vision and not the management of the vision.

Movements are greater and bigger than we are.  We cannot own it, control it, program it, schedule it, finance it, or stop it.

Churches birthed by discipleship movements …

• … are smaller in size.
• … utilize available resources.
• … are not identified by a single meeting location.
• … have less governing structure.
• … are more mobile in outreach.
• … are not limited by buildings or staff.

As long as there is a heaven above to which we can stretch our hands and earth below on which we can kneel, there will be worship of Jesus Christ in this country.