Sending
The most renowned portion of the Great Commission in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 28, rings clearly. Go. Not only are we to go and make disciples, but we are also to train those disciples so that they can go and make more disciples.
Goal of discipleship
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Acts 13:1-3 ESV
Saul, since the time of his defining encounter with Jesus Christ, had been sharing the Gospel of Christ and had learned much from the Christian community at the time. He both discipled others and accepted discipleship from others. Here we see that in God’s timing, Saul was set apart with Barnabas for the work that God had called them to. Our goal in discipling others should be such: to prepare them to do God’s work at a time that God has appointed. When it is time, then, we send those we disciple to make more disciples.
One young man that I have had the amazing opportunity to mentor gave his life to Jesus Christ in the summer of 2011. After he gave his life to Christ, he immediately began to share his faith with others and I was able to disciple him in the faith. As I discipled him, and he became more mature, he began to reach out to his friends within the community. He began to have Bible Studies. I did not have to lay my hands on him and pray before formally sending him out. Our sending out disciples to make more disciples doesn’t always look like that; though it should as we send out foreign missionaries, at least in the respect that we pray for God’s ministry through them corporately and send them out publically.
My point, then, is this. Call to greater ministry is a natural part of discipleship. As we become ready, God reveals to us what He wants us to do. He reveals to those we disciple what He wants them to do. Our encouraging them to do that results in our sending them out, even if it is not formal. Our failure to encourage them in the work that God has for them, or our failure to send them out, results in our violation of discipleship’s natural product. It results in our opposition of the work God wants to do. Our students do not stay students forever, despite our carnal want to always be over them in position and wisdom. Our students become our peers, and serve in a capacity that God already has set aside for them.
Our goal in discipleship is to teach those we disciple everything we know concerning our God. This goal has two definitive angles. The first, and more obvious, is to enhance the relationship that they have with God by imparting our own knowledge and experience on them. The second, and the more natural byproduct of true discipleship, is to prepare them for the work that God has for them. This means that we must also help them to answer the question, “What does God want me to do with my life?”
God called me specifically into youth ministry when I was a senior in high school. I argued at first because I had already made plans for my life. Needless to say, God won the argument. God calls all of His people to ministry in His name, but each person is called to serve in different capacity. It is also true that the capacity in which one person serves may change, if God so wills it, as time progresses. God called me specifically into youth ministry. I remember talking to my mother about the call on my life and the commitment I was thinking about making. Before I even began to tell her, she already knew. Some number of years before, God told her that I was going to be in youth ministry. Even her friend at church was able to conglomerate the story because my mother shared it when God revealed it to her. I can honestly state that, because of God’s revelation to my mother and my mother’s willingness to share that with me when the time was right, I had no doubts about that call initially.
We need to encourage those we disciple in God’s call on their lives. Without that encouragement, or that sending out, I am afraid that people will doubt God’s work more often and, as a result, choose not to fulfill the position that God has for them.
Result of discipleship
When we choose to begin sending out our disciples, or to begin discipling those around us in the first place, we can trust in the fact that God will accomplish the work that He has set out to accomplish. Barnabas and Saul went out from Antioch to proclaim the name of Christ to all nations. During their stay on the island of Paphos, they encountered a false prophet. They overcame the false prophet, and were able to lead the proconsul there into a relationship with Jesus Christ.14 God also used Saul, also known as Paul, to write most of the New Testament and to establish a great number of churches. What if the church in Antioch would have refused to send out Paul and Barnabas? They didn’t, and God knows what He is doing and where He places people. If we want to be used to shake this world for Christ, and if we want those we disciple to carry on the legacy we hope to leave by the power of Christ, then we must commit to sending them out.
Imagine, for a moment, being used by God in ways that we could never dream simply because we choose to make discipleship a lifestyle personally and communally. The elder and wiser people mutually benefit one another in discipleship through Bible study. The younger people and the youth follow that example. The elder people then share what they discover with those who are younger, and the younger share what they discover with the youth. The younger adults and the youth are then able to take what they learn and immerse the community around the church in the knowledge and presence of God.15 All of the sudden, we see incomprehensible church growth: both in the maturity of believers and in the number of attendees. We must reinvent our Christian view of individualism and adopt a voluntary communal lifestyle. Discipleship is necessary if the Church is going to thrive once again, in America and elsewhere.
12.1 Discipleship By Age
Reminder of perpetual discipleship
All of this, however, does not mean that we ever stop discipling those we send. Remember, discipleship is both everlasting and eternal.
…and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples.
Acts 14:26-28 ESV
After being sent out by the Holy Spirit through the members of their church in Antioch, Barnabas and Saul completed the work that God had for them to complete. Then, after completing such a great work, they returned to Antioch and were among the disciples. Discipleship after the sending and the return should be based around two concepts: corporate encouragement and corporate praise.
The first, corporate encouragement, is a continuation of the discipleship that took place before specific disciples were sent to do God’s work. This aspect of discipleship takes place at home, then on the mission field (wherever that mission field might be) and then at home again as those who were sent return. Barnabas and Saul remained no little time with the disciples. In the same way, we are never beyond being discipled: even after we have a ministry through which God will accomplish the work He has set forth to be accomplished.
The second, corporate praise, takes place as we worship God, as a church, for the work that He has accomplished through His disciples who were sent.
My younger brother, who has been called to dedicate his life to foreign missions, went on a trip in the summer of 2011, during which he got to build relationships with people of other faiths and cultures. When he returned from his trip, he shared with his local church everything that God had used him to do and the entire church rejoiced in that and immediately began discipling him and preparing him for his next trip. The entire church was able to rejoice in what God had done because it was willing to send.
When we choose to keep members on our turf in order to keep attendance in our local church high or in order to improve the overall performance of our particular local church, we, as a church, miss out on one of God’s greatest blessings. We miss the opportunity to rejoice in much of the work that God is doing. We miss out on the opportunity to benefit the universal Church of Jesus Christ because we become too preoccupied with the local church. Is not God’s purpose greater than our own? Yes? So, we rejoice, as a church, in the work God does through those we send for His purpose.