When Jesus said to go into all nations and make disciples, He meant it. Maybe He also meant that when we go into all nations proclaiming the gospel, we become disciples ourselves.
My mentor and life-long mission “mobilizer,” Seth Barnes, once told me that he didn’t get involved in missions because of some great calling to evangelize the world in five years or because he came from a family of traveling revivalists. He got involved in missions because he heard the call of Jesus to make disciples, so he responded. As he grew to know the Lord more, he found himself loving discipleship more and settled on a way that worked—missions.
Discipleship isn’t a word I heard growing up. I was caught off guard when I started to read the Bible for myself and found something that looked a lot different than what I had experienced in church. I kept seeing a single word: Go. God told Abram to leave his country and Moses to lead his countrymen out of Egypt and Nehemiah to leave his position as the king’s cupbearer to restore Jerusalem. God’s people move. They go.
Take a Risk
Most ministry leaders (especially youth workers) would agree that in a culture that promotes individualism to an extreme, discipleship is hard to pull off. It’s challenging enough to get people to schedule regular times of worship into their busy routines much less in-depth spiritual formation. The best most of us can muster is a weekly one-on-one meeting over coffee with a mentor or a group Bible study.
Yet, we see so little of these methods in the gospels. With respect to discipleship in North America, something crucial isn’t present. What’s missing, exactly? Risk. Adventure. Faith. Sacrifice.
“Follow Me.” When Jesus spoke those two words to His early followers, He was proclaiming what it means to be a disciple for all generations. He neither was starting a club for armchair theologians nor waxing philosophical and throwing another school of thought into the mix of ideologies. He was introducing a new way of living, and He was declaring that He actually embodied that new way.
Jesus doesn’t segment theology from practice as we do. In
“Follow Me,” He says, “and I will make you fishers of men.” The early disciples chose to do this, and we have the very same choice before us today.
Truly a Sacrifice
Let’s face it: In our culture today, there aren’t many opportunities to introduce young people to what it really means to follow Jesus. The closest thing to biblical discipleship in many churches is entertainment.
While fun certainly has its place in a youth group, let’s be honest with ourselves about what we’re achieving with some of these “ministry tactics.” While there’s nothing wrong with a little entertainment, can we please stop calling lock-ins, retreats and conferences discipleship?
Discipleship might happen in those contexts, but do we really believe a concert or all-night Wii tournament is discipleship? It’s not, and you know it’s not. That’s the point—you know when you’re discipling a student and when you’re just pandering to their narcissism.
Young people need their hearts broken. They need to see the relevance of God in the midst of a world of pain. If you’ve been paying much attention to this generation of youth, you know its worldview is being expanded. They’re more aware of social and political issues and more in tune with how the world works, thanks to an endless supply of media and technology. More than anything, you should notice they really need to experience something in order for it to be real to them.
Call it postmodernism or emergent theology, but this is really true for all of us. Once we have an experience with an abstract idea, it becomes more meaningful to us. In a sense, it becomes reality to us when before it was just an idea. Consider the abstract truths you know and think about what you believe about those things. Most likely, there is an experience tied to the belief.
Take love, for example: While it’s one thing to read about and even believe in love, it’s something entirely different to be in love. The same can be said for following Jesus. Young people (in fact, all of us) need to know Christianity still matters, that redemption is still a reality, that it can be tasted, touched and felt. The only way we can know this is through experiencing it—observing it and joining it.
Just as in the first century, discipleship for us begins with a journey. Taking your students on a trip that breaks their hearts and tests their faith in God may be one of the best ways to turn them into disciples. Call it a mission trip, a justice journey or your afternoon outreach; but this needs to happen, and it needs to happen now.
Time for Adventure
If you’re at an impasse in getting through to your students, it may be time to take them on a radical, faith-stretching adventure on which they are forced to depend on God. This is more than a Wild at Heart weekend for the guys (although, those bonding experiences are certainly necessary for young men and women, as well). This involves exposing your group to poverty and showing your students there is more to faith than cozy church pews and stuffy services.
If you’re a parent, please send your child on one of these trips. You may be worried that they’re not ready. Trust me: They’re not. That’s the reason they’re going on this trip in the first place—to be initiated, to tap into something revolutionary inside themselves, to inherit the same spirit that turned the world right side up 2,000 years ago.
I’ve argued that sending young people on mission trips is one of the best ways to disciple them. It is, in fact, the only way. While the journey may look different, depending on the people involved this idea of leaving and going is essential and universal. You see it throughout all of Scripture and evidenced in the lives of all spiritual heroes.
If you’re struggling with this, spend some time reading
“Follow Me.” I hope those words reverberate throughout your spirit. Jesus is waiting. The world is waiting. As you go into the world to make disciples, you may discover that you are becoming one.
