In his book "Master Plan of Evangelism," Dr. Robert Coleman describes the ministry strategy of Jesus as He discipled the men who would change the world. Dr. Coleman highlights the fact that Jesus would often withdraw from the "superficial, popular support of the multitudes" in order to embrace the rather obscure narrow focus on a few men. This seems counterproductive, especially with the things we know about Jesus. We know from any reading of the gospels that Jesus could easily gather massive crowds of people and had the skills to win them with his teaching. (Mark 1:22) We also know that Jesus cared for the crowds and desired that the entire world be saved. (Matthew 9:35-36) So the question now becomes, if Jesus wanted to reach the world, why didn't he just gather as many people as he possibly could and preach to see them converted? Dr. Coleman shares this profound insight to the strategy.
"Jesus knew that before the world could ever permanently be helped, people would have to be raised up who could lead the multitudes in the things of God."
In other words Jesus knew he personally could not be everything that the crowds needed. They needed someone to shepherd them and lead them with personal attention, nurturing, and care. Even the Son of God was humble enough to say, "I can't do that for everyone." SO, He did it for some, giving them the vision and the tools to do it for the crowds. This is a very important principle of disciple making, and it's one that takes some humility and maybe even obscurity to accomplish. If we are honest, many of us desire being made much of. Many of us would have loved the mass following that Jesus was able to stir up. Spend a few minutes on social media and you will see all kinds of Christian leaders lobbying for recognition and a following. Sometimes I think we can hinder the movement of the gospel because we want to be the one who is acknowledged for its movement. Now I'm not saying it's wrong to want to reach a lot of people. It should be our desire, as was the Lord's that the world be reached for the gospel. But we must realize that we don't have the gifts, nor the capacity to reach the world by ourselves. We also must believe that it's actually more effective to empower others to do more than we can do. In reality, the disciples saw more converts in ministry than Jesus did. The disciples planted more churches and took the gospel to more far-reaching places than Jesus did. If Jesus would have attempted to be everything to the crowds, He wouldn't have been much for the disciples. Which in the short term would impress, but in the long term fail to impact.
John the Baptist says this in John 3:30 speaking of his relationship with the Lord, "he must increase, but I must decrease." This should be our attitude towards Jesus, but it should also be our attitude about the people we disciple. If the world is going to be reached, we must be ok with not having the major platform. We must be ok with putting others in position to lead. We must be ok with not being recognized by the crowds, and focus on a few people who will one day have vision and tools to reach further than we can. The question of the disciple maker shouldn't be how much can I do, but how much can those I invest in do? What are their gifts? What opportunities are available to them? Are there things that I am doing in the church that I could empower them to do instead? In disciple making, we are bigger the smaller we get!
Art of Discipleship Session 4
Here is the next session from our fall Art of Discipleship training. We discuss a method for teaching others how to read and obey God's word.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV0PEjdjdYQ