6 Reasons Why Pastors Refuse to Make Disciples
Tricking ourselves of engaging in discipleship by simply talking about it has forsaken the mission and purpose as a church.
The personal site of Jonathan Hayashi
Tricking ourselves of engaging in discipleship by simply talking about it has forsaken the mission and purpose as a church.
Choosing the right system for the right type of leadership is crucial.
Ministry is not easy, and I don’t think it will ever be easy.
Jesus didn’t take these men and immediately throw them into leadership. Jesus instead walked with them, prayed with them, and disciple them. In order to make disciples as Jesus did takes hard work, it requires grip, nurturing time, requires emotional intelligence, capacity, and fortitude.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer even said it well, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
They say it takes a village to raise a child. The Bible shows us it takes a church to grow a Christian.
Discipleship is not simply staffed by elite paid clergy by the few for the few. Instead, it is God’s call for all the saints (priesthood of believers) to biblically counsel and disciple all.
The word “toxic” comes from the German “toxikon” which means “arrow poison”. In a literal sense, the term in its original form thus means to kill (poison) in a targeted way (arrow).
Discipleship is simply this; Disciples are called to know Christ, grow with Christ, and go for Christ.
Huffington Post writes, “Porn sites has more regular traffics compared to Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined all together each month.”
This is a shocking reality. These are not angry fundamentalist conservative Christians but secular culture coming up with these statistics.
The leaders of the first century church did NOT ask each other, “how many came to church last week?” That’s not how God measures success.
My time in seminary was perhaps one of my sweetest moments yet a hardest time of my life. But seminary didn’t teach me everything. It certainly didn’t fully prepare me for ministry.
What if we brought this 1st century principle into the 21st century of living in honest transparent lifestyle as Jesus did?
“Just because a church is large doesn’t mean it’s healthy. It could be swollen.” – Charles. H. Spurgeon
We want to do church, but we don’t want to live Christ. We can only change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.
Does your church have an intentional development plan to disciple and deploy believers to live out the Great Commission?
I was recently looking back at some of my journals, and to be honest, there are/were times in my life’s journey I have struggled to know if God was calling me to pastoral ministry. Every follower of Jesus is called to be a minister. Not a single disciple of Jesus is exempt from the task of disciple making (Discipleship.) However, …
“I love Jesus but I don’t like the church. I will never leave Jesus but I’m done with the church” people who make such a statement are walking away from Jesus.
“Men will never be great in theology until they are great in suffering.” – Charles H. Spurgeon
Easter Is A Big Deal Two thousand years ago, in the Middle East, an event occurred that permanently changed the world. Because of that event, history was split. Jesus rose from the dead. Nobody else has ever done that. And Jesus’ resurrection has changed the world. It has changed history. It has changed me, and millions of others. Easter is the …
“We have the most wonderful pastor! He really preaches the Word. He preaches against sin and even calls sin by its name,” the member said. The my friend asked about the doctrinal content of the sermons (“Does he preach on doctrines like regeneration, justification, redemption, sanctification and so forth?”), the emphasis response was, “No! He doesn’t preach on those kinds …
Why are so many people not growing deeper in their relationship with God? There was a recent study done by Eric Geiger and Ed Stetzer for writing the book Transformational Groups, a study that oversee 2,300 churches sponsored by 15 denominations. Less than half of those churches said they had any plan in place for discipling people, and only 60 …