FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS
volume 23, number 11, March 14, 2024
Brethren join in following my example, Phil.3:17. . . Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ, 1 Cor.11:1.
Perhaps you are a pastor or church officer in an existing church and you now realize you are not “getting it done.” You know there is very little actual discipleship going on in your church. What do I mean by discipleship? I mean doing what Jesus commands us to do—to confess Him before men, to love Him more than one’s family, to obey and follow Him, to deny one’s self (Mt.10:32-39). In other words, to get serious about being a Christian and seeing others become Christians and live out the same thing you are learning from the Scriptures.
Or maybe you are a “regular” church member and have walked with the Lord for many years. Earlier in your Christian life you led small groups of believers and saw many of them really grow in their faith and reach out to others as well. Now, however, later in life, perhaps somewhat due to the fact that your church has more of an “attraction model” of ministry where the “experts and professionals” do all the heavy lifting of teaching, you have observed that you are more into a posture of sitting, soaking, and souring in the church pew. You have determined that you are going to get back at it.
Or perhaps you are a man who believes God is leading him to plant a new church in town. You don’t have an extra $300,000 or $400,000 laying around which you can use to get the church going, as is usually the pattern for many church plants in the 21st century. You have a regular job. You want to plant a church but your time obviously is limited by your work week, not to mention your wife and young children who need your fatherly care and instruction. So, what can you do to plant a Biblical church?
Allow me to remind you that the Apostle Paul was a tentmaker most of the time. He had a clear mission from Jesus (Acts 9:15,16). He was compelled to fulfill it (Rom.1:14-16, 2 Cor. 5:14,15) and within about ten years (48 to 58 A.D.) God enabled Paul to produce church planting movements in four Roman provinces (Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia Minor). And sometime after his first imprisonment (around 64 A.D.) he planted churches on the island of Crete as well as in Illyricum (modern day Croatia) and Nicopolis (northern Macedonia). He may have also planted churches in Spain. All of this happened within twenty years before his martyrdom at the hands of Nero in Rome around 68 A.D. How did he do it? Well, he told both the Philippians and Corinthians to follow his example, to imitate him as he imitated Jesus.
Okay then, pastor or church officer, church member, or potential church planter, let’s do what Jesus and Paul did. Let’s imitate them. They began small so that they could later go big. They started slowly so that they could eventually go quickly. They went deeply so that they could soar to great heights. Jesus began with twelve and He lost one of them. Even within the twelve He focused a great deal more of His attention on three of them—Peter, James, and John. And it appears that Jesus was really close to one of the three, John. Paul began with Barnabas but that kind of went south so he continued working with Silas. Luke saw a great deal of what was “going down” at the time and he reports it to us in his gospel and Acts. Paul also worked closely with Timothy, Titus, Mark, Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Ephahras, Onesiphorus, and many others (Rom.16). And while Jesus and Paul clearly gave out important information in the form of teaching, their disciples also learned from their example. In fact Paul’s instruction to Timothy was more about Christian character than developing ministry skill such as teaching (see 2 Tim. 3:10-17 where the bulk of the exhortations deal with developing godly character). If you spend the majority of the ministry hours available to you each week in working with two or three or four people who are FATR (faithful, available, teachable, and reproducible), reminding them every time you are with them to be ready to multiply, then in due time you will see your work “go viral” which of course means it will multiply. This is God’s way of planting a church. Begin small. Be patient, Build a few disciples at a time and urge them to do the same.
So practically speaking, here’s what I am suggesting. Purpose in your mind and heart to get serious with making disciples. This means you may have to discard some extraneous ministry responsibilities or other things which suck up your time. I am not referring to your family and work concerns. These are always there, of course. But all of us have extra time we fritter away in front of the television, reading blogs, watching podcasts which may be entertaining but they waste the valuable time we have left after all our other responsibilities.
Then ask God to give you at least one (men with men and women with women) who you think may be faithful (they do what they say they will do, they follow through), available (not argumentative, but humble, willing to give the time), teachable (willing to learn, not prideful, willing to put into practice what they are learning, not doctrinaire), and reproducible (a burden for souls and a desire to see others grow in grace). Begin meeting with this one person weekly in a formal discipling type of class. There are many excellent tools you can use but I have taught and used my Basic Discipleship Training Manual which you can use if you wish. Make sure you and your disciple have one very specific and practical thing you will do in light of each time you are together. And then ask him the next week how he did in following through with what he said he would do. You also need some time with him away from a formal class setting. Go to a few of his children’s ball games and just hang out with him. Have him over to watch a sporting event or to eat dinner. He needs to see how you live, how you get on with your spouse and children, how you handle adversity, etc.
Do you remember my example of how one can choose to disciple by addition or multiplication? A church planter, over thirty years, may seek to plant a church each year with 10,000 people and after thirty years he has 300,000 believers. Or he can disciple one person per year who in turn disciples one person per year, repeated by everyone over thirty year and at the end of that time there will be 1.1 billion disciples. Multiplication is the key. Addition is not sustainable.
Then, within a couple of months you need to put into practice MAWL. You need to “MAWL” disciples.
M— you model for your disciples how to teach, how to live, how to pray. Live in such a way that they can join in following your example. Luke writes of all that Jesus began to do and teach (Acts 1:1). The order is significant. We teach what we know but we reproduce who we are.
A— you are to assist your disciple. He is to be FATR (faithful, available, teachable, and reproducible). Over a period of time you may have several men who give evidence of a burden for souls and a desire to help people grow in grace. Begin to spend more time with them with a specific goal in mind. You want to develop them into leaders. Teach them how to teach, how to study the Bible, how to evangelize, how to answer hard questions, how to shepherd people going through difficult times. You are to assist them, not only by helping them gain ministry skills, but also by modeling godly behavior, integrity, love for their wife, etc.
W— you watch them engage in ministry. Give them the opportunity of teaching a Bible class you have. Then afterwards get with them and give them feedback—what they did well, what they need to improve on. This may take a while. They may need to gain confidence in their skill development. Take them out to share the gospel with you. Let them share part of the gospel presentation and then give them feedback. Get them to the place where they eventually are confident in being able to present the gospel fully.
L— you launch them into their own group. Urge them to go to their friends, family members, neighbors, or work associates for whom they have been praying for many months. They can tell these people their “stories” of how they came to faith and ask these people to share their own story. From there they can invite them to a small group they will be leading where they will read the Bible and they can learn what God says about life issues.
Think of it like this. Maybe you have been asked at some point in your career to train a young man just hired by your company. What did you do? You probably had him “shadow” you a bit. You took him with you on sales presentations. You had him watch what you do and then you discussed it with him. After a while you gave him more attention and “coached” him on how to do the job. At some point you asked him to take part of the next sales presentation, and afterwards you pointed out the good and the bad and gave him constructive criticism. And eventually, after you knew he knew what he was doing, you turned him loose to reach his own clients. So you modeled, assisted, watched, and then launched him into his new role. That’s how we multiply disciples.
As people come to faith for the first time or are renewed in their faith they will have an excitement about following Jesus. They will then have a desire to make him known to others. From there groups can multiply. The existing church with its pastor and church officers will have more new ministry and new members than they can imagine. The church member who was languishing in lethargy will be renewed with a sense of mission and purpose. And the church planter will have a core group after a year or two of perhaps fifty or more fully committed disciples who are actually engaged in evangelizing daily, speaking the truth daily, and showing mercy daily. The church will have a solid foundation on which to build a powerful, Biblical ministry where people are discovering and using their spiritual gifts for the building up and expansion of Christ’s kingdom, the rule and reign of Christ in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS 
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