I want to invite you to our 2019 Leadership Day! This year our focus is discipleship.
The idea of discipleship is at the very core of the commission Jesus gave to that first little group of followers: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….” (Matthew 28:19-20). A disciple is someone who like an apprentice who watches and imitates the teacher so as to adopt their behaviour and practice. Disciples became like their teachers. Disciples do not simply accumulate information about Jesus but show transformation to be more like Jesus.
One of the common things you tend to hear from those who have studied the western church is: “We haven’t done discipleship that well for many years...”
I remember some years ago talking to a wonderful couple whose young adult daughter was a youth leader at their church. The daughter was mentoring a group of 12-year-old girls. She was in an intercessory prayer group. She practiced a daily devotional time. She was part of a simple but effective outreach programme at the local high school. As we talked, the mum who was a ‘born and bred’ Christian herself said: “I could never do all that! She knows more than me about faith and all. I wouldn’t know how to read the bible like that or share my faith like that... I’m not actually sure what my testimony would be…”.
Mike Breen says something profound: “What is the engine of the church? Discipleship. I’ve said it many times: If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples. If you’re good at making disciples, you’ll get more leaders than you’ll know what to do with. If you make disciples like Jesus made them, you’ll see people come to faith who didn’t know Him. If you disciple people well, you will always get the missional thing. Always.”
Here’s what Alan Hirsch says: “Evangelism can’t be our focus! We must not stop sharing the good news, but here’s the deal, here’s the wonderful thing, it gets done along the way as you do discipleship….”
We need to invest in discipleship if we are going to be effective and fruitful in reaching our culture.
A thriving discipleship culture is central to the health and mission of each of our three churches. We will be hearing stories of discipleship focussed churches and learning core principles from experienced teachers. It will also be an awesome time to get to know each other and share about how we see God leading us. We’d really like you to join us.
Friday 8 Feb 6:30pm - 9:00pm & Sat Feb 9 8:30am — 4:00pm.
- Cost: No charge, we really would like our leaders to join us!
- We’ll be meeting at Diamond Valley Baptist Church
- RSVP to your church office by 01 Feb 2019
Grace and Peace,
Martin Boutros
NB: DVBC leaders contact Rosemary 9435 9377 or office@dvbc.net
