I just got back from a 10 day short term mission trip to Zimbabwe, Africa. It was life changing in more ways than I can describe. We served along side a native church called Melrose Baptist led by pastor Moses. This church was planted just 5 months ago, and when we arrived on April 3rd, it had just 20 members. Moses organized our team into smaller groups, and we did "hut to hut" evangelism for 4 days. His desire was to reach every home in the four villages near the church. Through translators of the native tongue of Shona, we shared the gospel of Christ with many people. God moved in incredible ways, and we saw 22 professions of faith and 12 baptisms. In fact, we got to see the very first men baptized into the very young congregation. It was remarkable.
I was walking back to the baptism pond with pastor Moses discussing his thoughts on the week. He shared with me some of the joys and burdens he now had from the work that was done. He rejoiced over the responses, but one burden was that he now had a congregation of 32 brand new Christians who needed to grow in Christ. They needed constant nurturing and training to learn how to follow Jesus in their context. Not only did they need to grow in fighting sin and becoming new creations, they also needed sound doctrine. This proved vitally important because while we were there we encountered 3 variations of false gospels that these new Christians would most certainly be susceptible to. Pastor Moses felt the weight of meeting the needs of all of these baby Christians, and knew he needed some of the longer standing members to step up and help him shepherd. He also shared that there had been some response from people who lived in villages over 3.5 miles from the church. This would prove challenging long term because there are no vehicles for them to travel. If they came they would have to walk. God was already giving him a vision of planting a church closer to where they live so that they wouldn't have to walk so far to gather with the body. But where would a new pastor come from?
The rest of our conversation was about the importance of discipleship. Melrose Baptist does not have the luxury of putting out a job description at the local seminary to attract gifted leaders. They don't have a budget to hire more staff. There's one pastor who, by the way, doesn't get a salary himself. They don't have the resources to produce new believers curriculum and Bible doctrine books. Baby Christians will have to be grounded and Leaders will have to be raised through the slow organic process of discipleship through the word. Pastor Moses will have to give all of himself to a few of the people and teach them how to be ministers and co-laborers with him. In his own words he said to me, "I need to find a Timothy, as soon as yesterday." (2 Timothy 2:2 ) The men who were just baptized last weekend will have to learn their spiritual gifts and be given a position to play in the game. There is too much at stake and too much to be done for any of them to remain spectators for a long period of time. Discipleship is the only solution for pastor Moses and Melrose. All they have is God's word, God's Spirit, God's people and a vision for discipleship. Thankfully that has always been God's plan for the movement of the gospel, so Moses is in good shape.
As I come back home, I am more committed to developing and strengthening a culture of discipleship at Highview. We may have more resources than Melrose, but if our hope is in resources, it's in the wrong place. Just like them, we have many brand new Christians who need hands on attention and nurturing. Just like them, we have a need for trained men and women to lead new gospel communities. Just like them, we need co-laborers and we have no time for life long spectators. It will take the Spirit of God and a commitment to the process of life-on-life discipleship. As you lead d-groups, keep this vision before you. Minister in such a way that ensures more laborers in this all important work called the great commission.
Growing disciples who serve the community
Brian Dye leads a network of house churches in Chicago and other major cities around the US. In this session from the MLK50 celebration, he shares some principles for raising up disciples who can lead in the urban context.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/conference_media/city-growing-disciples-serve-community/