Disciplemaking

Following the attractional/evangelical/missional discussion the best that I can in the midst of a busy December schedule, the thing that stands out to me is the emphasis on disciplemaking. You can read my earlier thoughts about this in the post Disciples or Converts. Today I want to share a few related quotes.

From Alan Hirsch at Out of Ur:

Genuine fruitfulness, surely, cannot simply be measured by numbers but by ‘making disciples.’ How does one measure that? By all accounts, current churches are made up largely of admirers of Jesus but few genuine disciples/followers—this is not a biblical idea of fruitfulness!

This quote from a video of Ed Stetzer (ht Blind Beggar):

“We need to help people rediscover the nature of the christian life, that they are disciples sent on mission.

One of the greatest sins in our churches is that we have made it okay to sit and do nothing and call yourself a Christ-follower.”

The fruit of disciplemaking is measured in stories, not rosters or ledgers – stories of encounter, stories of missional engagement, stories of transformation, stories of deliverance, stories of justice, stories of reconciliation. As the gospel results in salvation and the expansion of God’s kingdom on earth, people have not only a single testimony of being born again, but many testimonies of the impact of the Spirit in their life and the lives of others.

This from Nate Woodward in a comment to this post at Out of Ur:

Clarifying the term missional can only happen if we reduce the jargon, not increase it. This is a plea for incarnational explanations: instead of making semantic distinctions, it would be much more helpful to me to enflesh these distinctions with stories of what it looks like to be missional.

And Brother Maynard throws out this teaser:

As well, it has been noted correctly that there is some degree of difficulty in gathering missional stories and accounts, and I can say that something toward this end took a big positive step forward today.

Perhaps we can rediscover the meaning of testimony as we encourage one another with missional stories of hope.