Disciple-Making vs. Church-Building

“If you make disciples, you will always get the Church.  But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples” (Mike… Read more Disciple-Making vs. Church-Building

“ If you make disciples, you will always get the Church.  But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples ” (Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture ).

Do you agree with this statement?  I think it’s a question of focus.  Is our focus to build our reputation or a successful organization with lots of members, wide-spread influence in the community, and national recognition, or are we interested in doing what Jesus asked us to do: make disciples.  How far we’ve come from those first Jesus-followers when they received the mission directive from Jesus Himself.  “ Go and MAKE DISCIPLES of all nations ” (Matthew 28:19).  This was the only thing Jesus wanted us to be focused on.

Somehow most of us have lost sight of this and instead began redefining success the way our culture defines success: numbers, money, fame, power, achievement, novelty, big, bigger, biggest!  Some churches aren’t that much different from Wal-Mart.  On Sunday morning you drive into the massive church campus where you can get an oil change and your tires rotated while you shop around inside for some spiritual groceries to get you through the week and sip on a Starbucks latte.  Today’s ministry leaders mean well and even say things like “we just want to make disciples,” but the reality is all our time gets sucked up by the pressures of keeping the organization running smoothly and all the needs of the customers met.  At the end of the day, there just isn’t time for discipleship.

What if we took a hard look at our churches and ministries and made the commitment not only to do WHAT Jesus is doing but to do it the WAY Jesus did it.  Jesus did not start a church, publish a book, or build an empire.  He did what the Father told Him to do and He invited people to follow Him as He did it.  He spent a disproportionate amount of time with 12 guys who weren’t exactly the cream of the crop (one of whom would actually betray him), ministered for 3 years in a dusty, insignificant corner of the Roman Empire, was put to death, came back to life, and then left.  Granted, the “coming back to life” part is pretty spectacular, but as for the rest, I doubt any church growth experts would have advised Jesus to follow this strategy.  Apparently though, that’s all it took to empower His disciples to ignite a revolution that would change the world and still is changing this world.

Why were they so successful?  Perhaps it’s because they understood that Jesus asked them to make disciples.  That was their job.  His job was to build the Church.  Jesus told Peter, “ You are the Rock on which I will build my church ” (Matthew 16:18).  So just to be clear, Jesus builds the Church; we make disciples.  It’s seems so simple and yet we often prefer to be clever and come up with new ways of doing things instead of following Jesus’ simple ways.  Would we be willing to invest 3 years giving the same 12 people full access to our life and showing them the Way, Truth, and Life of Jesus as lived out through us?  Perhaps if we were, we’d start to see the kind of life-changing, world-transforming results that Jesus got.  If we make disciples, healthy churches will be built to equip and encourage the disciples to keep making disciples.  Let’s not get our priorities out of whack.  Stay focused.  Make disciples.