One of my favorite stories to tell when I’m trying to inspire a congregation to engage the work of children is this one. L.R. Scarborough tells a story from the ministry of D.L. Moody:
“Mr. Moody tells of a little street urchin in Chicago who went many, many blocks across the frozen streets of the great city, passing church and Sunday school after church and Sunday school to the church served by Mr. Moody. A Sunday school teacher stopped him one morning and said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘To Mr. Moody’s Sunday school.” He said, “Why, that is many, many blocks away. Come into my class in this Sunday school nearby.’ The boy said, ‘No.’ The teacher persisted and finally asked the boy why he went so far through the cold across the city to Mr. Moody’s Sunday school. He said, ‘Because they love a fellow over there!’
I love the simplicity of this. And it fits well with my philosophy of ministry: love people, preach Jesus. We can have a tendency to over complicate things. Sometimes when we have a languishing discipleship ministry within our church what is needed isn’t a big multi-point plan. Often it’s getting back to simple basic things. To this end I’ve often found Robert Coleman’s Master Plan of Evangelism to be beautifully simple.
Do What Jesus Did
When Jesus called the disciples into a relationship with Him he was also calling them into ministry. It would be through these first disciples that the entire world would be changed. Coleman looks through the New Testament to see the evangelism/discipleship strategy of Jesus—and it is gloriously simple. Coleman lists eight guiding principles which leads to replicating disciples. I will show at the end how I think you can simplify this even further.
- Selection—find those who are faithful, available, and teachable and invite them into a meaningful relationship.
- Association—spend time with them
- Consecration—call for a commitment
- Impartation—give away the Christ in us to them
- Demonstration—show how to follow Jesus
- Delegation—give them a job
- Supervision—watch them do the job
- Reproduction—encourage them to repeat the cycle with someone else.
This is the core of Coleman’s book and it’s incredibly helpful. Imagine what would happen in our churches if only ten people decided to follow this plan with 3 people per year. It doesn’t require seminary training—it simple requires being faithful, available, and teachable and spending time with Jesus with other people.
Here is my simple version of Coleman’s principle. Pick 2-3 people commit to a weekly or semi-weekly meeting and just “talk about Jesus” and live your life together. At the end of the year each person finds 2-3 people to repeat the process.
Overcoming a Significant Barrier
This is an incredibly simple plan but there are a couple barriers. For one, we often shy away from this level of intimacy with other people. But if we get over that hurdle we find another one—once we reach this level of intimacy with another person we are really slow to dissolve the relationship so we can pursue discipleship with others.
I wish I could tell you I know the answer to this, but I do not have one. The truth is, we don’t have a model in the New Testament of Jesus leaving his original twelve and then picking up a new set of disciples. He spent three years with them and then was crucified. But we do know that the Holy Spirit, through persecution, did kind of bust up the original band of twelve. They were spread all throughout the world. But there is no indication that they did not remain at least as close as one could remain when no longer in proximity without cell phones and email.
What I have seen happen is that life (I think you could say the providence of God) has a way of working this issue out. There are those who seem to truly be lifelong companions on a deeper level. But for the most part these types of discipleship groups tend to ebb and flow—often by things as simple as work schedules. And then you find a few new people and start the process over.
What I do know is that this barrier is not significant enough to not start the process. Find 2-3 people who you can begin this with even today. Encourage them to a committed discipleship type of relationship and explore ways to reproduce that group.
What have you found successful in these types of discipleship relationships? How have you worked to overcome the reproduction barrier?
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