Why Discipleship is so Important.

Why Discipleship is So Important

For years, I believe many churches missed one of the most important things they were to be doing: discipleship. Growing up and working in ministry our goal was to see people saved. It is great that we lead people to Christ but many times that is where it stopped. We brought them to Christ and then expected them to figure out everything else on their own!

The sad truth is because of the lack of discipleship, many people who were new to the faith did not know how to live as a Christian and ended up frustrated and out of church because they felt like they could not measure up. What was missing was discipleship! There was no process of taking someone from unsaved to a mature reproducing Christian! I am excited though, as more recently many churches have had a major emphasis on discipleship and training others!

Discipleship is what the church has been called to do. Christ told us in Matthew 28 to go teach, baptize and teach them to observe all things that He had commanded! This is us taking them the Gospel and then teaching them the things of the Bible and helping them to become a mature, reproducing Christian! We must be discipling others! If we fail in discipling then people will not ever mature and become strong Christians that are able to go and teach others and see fruit.

The sad reality is in many churches all around the world, there are believers who have been in church their whole lives and are still immature Christians. They are like the Corinthian church who Paul said should have been able to have meat but he still had to give them milk! They do not know who they are in Christ. They do not know how to share the Gospel with others. They do not know how to disciple another Christian. They do not know how to feed themselves from the word of God. They only rely on what they hear from their pastor each week and that is not sufficient enough to help them be effective and mature Christians!

We must make discipleship a vital part of our churches! We must make it the mission of our churches. The mission of our churches needs to be the mission that Christ left for us to do! He left us the Great Commission. He left us a job to do. To go and preach the Gospel and disciple Christians to maturity to where they in turn are able to disciple others! So why is discipleship so important?

1. We are commanded to do it! (Matthew 28:19-20) Christ commanded us to not only teach the Gospel to people but to teach them to observe what He had commanded and what the Scripture has to say!
2. It is vital for Church growth! II Timothy 2:2 says “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” As we disciple people, they begin to mature in Christ they become more faithful in church. They get more involved in the church and they bring others to Christ! We disciple others and in the end they go and teach others. Through that the church will grow!
3. It is how we can reach the world with the Gospel! As one reaches one it continues to grow and if discipleship is done how it is supposed to be done the end result is world evangelism!

So now the question is what is your church doing about discipleship? What are you doing about discipleship? If you are involved and have a program going in your church then great! Keep going and look at how you can get more people involved in discipleship. If you are not involved in discipleship,  now is as good a time as any to start! Over the next few articles we will discuss how you can start a discipleship program, what discipleship is, and how you can get involved in it! I want to challenge all of us to be involved in discipleship and see God reach the world in our generation!