Making Disciples; Making a Difference
Three Keys to Making Disciples, part 4
Acts 2:42-47
To have a successful road trip you need a driver, a vehicle to move you, and a map to show you your destination. Unless you have all three you cannot make a rad trip, you will not get anywhere. The same is true with making disciples, we need a driver to lead others, intentional leaders, you need a vehicle, or a relational environment to move us forward in making disciples, and you need a map or a re-product able process that directs us to our destination. So today we want to look at those three keys to making disciples – an intentional leader, a relational environment, and a predictable process. But lets review what we have covered already. We started the series considering what is a win for the church, what is success? Thankfully Jesus defined the win for us – to make disciples who make disciples. Next we look at what is a disciple, we need to kn ow what are we making, right? We said that a disciple is someone who knows and follows Christ; a disciple is being changed by Christ, and a disciple is committed to the mission of Christ. Then last week we looked at the stage of growth for a disciple – the spiritually dead or searching, the spiritual infant, the spiritual child, the spiritual young adult, and the spiritual parent. That brings us to today the three keys to making disciples.
In Acts you see these three keys lived out in the early church. In 2:42-47 you see the apostles are intentional leaders, you see evidence of relational environment as the church met in homes, and the reproductable process (although not as clear) as the church met daily around the apostles teaching, eating, and praying together, and meeting the needs of one another.
Lets's look at the first key, an intentional leader.
1. Key #1 – An Intentional Leader
The intentional leader drives the discipleship process toward the goal of making disciples. Don't let the term leader scare you, all of us are leaders in some relationship, the basic characteristic of a leadership or leading is influence. All of us have influence in some relationship - it may be as a parent, in a job, with yourself, or even with an animal. It is helpful if you have done it before but it is not necessary. Intentional leaders are purposeful in their relationships.
Jesus was an intentional leader:
• Jesus sent out a team that had to trust his instructions (Luk 22:7-13)
• Jesus challenged his disciples to test their faith (John 6:5-6)
• Jesus allowed his disciples to fail to teach them about faith (Mat 14:28-31)
Jesus was the master disciple maker. He was not just a highly relational guy that hung out with the twelve because he loved them. That is true but his life was guided by a large purpose and palm so he was intentional. He moved slowly and chose wisely and he imparted his DNA to the twelve. DNA is important. If you want to better understand how to make disciples, read through the gospels with an eye of seeing Jesus as a disciple maker and you will see him in a new light. Intentional leaders have a plan - to bring disciples to maturity.
Not only do you need and intentional leader, but you also need a relational environment.
2. Key # 2 – A Relational Environment
A driver must have a vehicle to get to their destination and in the disciple making process, the vehicle that moves us to our destination of making disciples is a relational environment. Without a relational environment, it may be informative but not trans formative. In making disciples we are not just looking to transmit information but bring about transformation. Is there a relationship environment in your Life Group. Relational environments are the vehicle God uses to bring real change, transformation not just information. What is a relational environment?
• people are friendly
• people are open and honest
• people care about you beyond the meeting/interaction
• People notice when others are gone
• People protect others in the group
• people provide for others
• people are safe to share with
In order for a Life Group to be highly relational it must be small. That is why we keep groups under about twelve people. When groups get bigger than that, they lose the ability to have a relational environment. No everyone can share and it gets to large for the group to care for each other. Relationships take time as people get to know one another. We have a driver to leads us on our road trip, we have a vehicle to move us but we also need a map or GPS for directions. The map in the disciple making process is a reproducible process.
• Key # 3 - A Reproducible Process
The process needs to be reproducible otherwise making disciples will be unintentional. You need a map so know where you are and where you and where you are going. Jesus discipuled the twelve so they could reproduce disciples. When he gave them the command to make disciples, they did not need to go to a class, or get training, they knew how to do it; they just did hat he did with them! He invited the twelve into relationship, as they grew he gave them input and responsibilities, he answered their questions. He had them minister alongside him, he coached them, encouraged them when they failed, and then he released them to do the same. He shared with them, her connected them, he taught them to minister, and then disciple others.
• Share/win
Intentional disciple makers share with those who are spiritual dead, who are searching and maybe seeking, and then shares with them when they become spiritual infants. With those who have not come to faith in Christ and those to have just come to Christ the intentional leader or disciple maker are sharing spiritual truth. That is what they need the most. When people come to faith in Christ they are spiritual infants and need milk, lots of it. They are vulnerable, they need protection and be spoon fed. They need encouragement to develop habits that will become rhythms. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1Pe 2:2-3)
• Connect/train
As spiritual infants grow they become spiritual children, who have high relational needs and need to connect with a spiritual family. They need more than an extended family (ie Sundays) but need an immediate family, such as a Life Group. Everyone of us needs this and that is why we believe everyone needs to be in a Life Group. The early church was built on home churches not big meetings. Spiritual children need to move beyond a primary relationship with a spiritual parent to a spiritual family and a Life Group meets that need. The disciple maker moves from being the primary and dependent relationship to being one of many who help the spiritual child.
• Minister/train
As spiritual children grow they become spiritual young adults and are more God centered and other centered. They begin to want to serve so we begin to give them opportunities to serve. The spiritual parent or spiritual family needs to mentor and coach them as they begin to relate more to the larger body. When spiritual children don’t want to take responsibility and reach out, the spiritual parent must intentionally challenge and encourage them. It is essential that they grow past themselves to see life is serving others otherwise they will never mature. When they make mistakes, failures, the disciple maker and the family sees these struggles as opportunities for growing.
• Disciple/train
In this part of the process the disciple makers work with their disciple to help them become intentional disciple makers themselves.
You see these three keys in Jesus’ ministry with the twelve disciples and in the early church, with Paul and his team. He gave them a reproductable process so when he told them to disciples the nations they did it.
Takeaways . . .
• Does it excite me or scare me to be an intentional leader?
• Are my relationships purposeful with a desire to influence?
• How do I need to grow to be more effective at influencing others?
• Are there things in my life group that hinder it being more relational?
