Discipleship and faithfulness

BULLETIN ARTICLE – 27 August 2017

A Christian disciple is one who loves God with everything s/he has. Discipleship is gained by God’s grace as we become more Christlike in living a life of faith and obedience. “Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission, has forfeited its right to exist.” (Oswald J, Smith, 1889-1986). 

In AD 100 for every believer, there are 360 non-believers. By 2010 for every believer, there is only 7 non-believers. The Church as a whole has done much outreach over the past centuries.

In the mid-1980s, 24% of world’s population (1.8 billion) had little or no Gospel access. That figure has risen to 29% (2.1 billion). Sadly, only about 3% of global missionaries serve this 29%.

Jesus launched a movement in three years, which registered clear numerical growth of disciples in that period: Twelve, 72 others (Luke 10), 500 (1 Cor 15:6), more than 3,000 at Pentecost, over 5,000 (Acts 4:4). God still uses people to start movements today, which He has promised that they would do greater things (John 14:12-14).

A MOVEMENT IS DEFINED AS WHEN A NUMBER OF THE INITIAL CHURCHES EACH REPRODUCE TO FOURTH GENERATION CHURCHES.

Churches must reproduce faithful churches more quickly than the traditional routes. This is the only way to exceed population growth by giving everyone the chance to hear the gospel. Taking five years for a church to reproduce, requires 30 years for one church to form 64 churches. But should each church start another church every year, 32,000 churches can be formed within 15 years!

Money wise there’s enough funds to reach the world, if we want to reach out! We tip our waitress 15% but we can’t even give God 10%? On average, American church members give just 2.58% of their income with 25% giving nothing at all. Do we really care for Missions? (David Joannes).