Continued from: Foundations of missions: Our Calling (part 5)

...Go and make disciples...
(Matthew 28:19)

We are commanded to make disciples. But we know disciple-making takes time.

After a week's digression on the subject of receiving a specific call from the Lord, we return to the subject of the biblical foundations for missions. Today we look at the verse that is referred to as the "Great Commission." And specifically, the part that says, "make disciples."

Somehow, many Americans, particularly some Southern Baptists, have interpreted this verse to mean "make converts." Jesus didn't charge his disciples with the job of getting people to say the "sinners' prayer" or to pass out tracts or to transfer their letter of membership.

His disciples understood that they were to do the same thing for others that Jesus had done with them. That is, invest something on the order of 15,000 hours waking up people from life in the kingdom of darkness to life in the kingdom of light. It's a huge investment. It takes patience. It takes vulnerability. It takes a laying down of rights.

I've written a lot on disciple making elsewhere in this blog. I define it as "waking up people to their identity and role in the kingdom of God." It's a paradigm shift. People wake up slowly. They have to change mindsets and change habits.

You can't follow a call to missions until you've learned to be a disciple maker. Many people feel called to the romantic, adventurous aspects of missions; but at the end of the day, if you don't have the patience to make disciples, you're better off staying home and practicing on those whose language and culture you understand. If you're successful there, then perhaps you're a candidate to go overseas.

Continued in: Foundations of missions: Power Evangelism