Why Disciples Making Disciples for Bethany Church?

Why Disciples Making Disciples for Bethany Church?

It's a very fair question to ask.  Why would we land on this idea of "Disciples Making Disciples" as the key phrase that will define Bethany Church as we move into the future?

The response is relatively simple, but we will expound on it a bit in this post.  The short answer is this: Jesus commanded us to be about disciples making disciples.

Within the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 18-20), Jesus tells His disciples (His students/followers) that they are to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them into the name of the trinitarian God and teaching them to obey everything He had commanded them.  So bottom-line: Jesus commands it and we therefore do it.

Some might offer, "Well, I love God, but I'm not overly interested in making disciples."
Fair enough on the second part, but no dice on the first part.  You can't say you love God and not want to (even if you struggle at it) make disciples.  1 John 5:3 reminds us that "This is love for God: to follow His commands."  We can't say we love God and not do what He says.  As my friend Jason likes to say, "Obedience is the love language of God."

So we make disciples because it is commanded by God.

Why is it commanded by God?  For at least two reasons.

Reason 1: Disciples glorify God, and God desires to see His name glorified.  Isaiah 48:9-11, Ephesians 1:4-6, Isaiah 49:3, 2 Kings 19:34, and the list goes on.  God desires to be glorified and disciples are people who glorify Him as they share the Gospel and as they are personally conformed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

Reason 2: God wants us to make disciples because He wants to experience joy.  John 15:11 - Jesus says, "I tell you this that My joy may be in you...".  What is the 'this'?  To be obedient to His commands.  What does soon-there-after command?  "Go make disciples".

Lastly, why disciples making disciples?  Why not just 'make disciples'?  The notion of replication seemed to be assumed by Jesus and the New Testament writers, but that is not always the case with modern-day church folk. Disciples Making Disciples is just that - a disciple being raised up so that he or she can go out and replicate, to make more disciples...who make disciples.  

In our next post, we will talk about what a disciple is.

- tC