Making Disciples vs. Finding Disciples

At the last Protege Huddle of the 2009-2010 class, I shared some final thoughts on leadership. One of the things I talked about was the difference between finding disciples and making disciples.

The last command Jesus gave his disciples was "go make disciples." There are many things we focus on in church leadership- vision, communication, relevance, preaching, programming, etc. But if there is anything we must get right, it's discipleship. The problem is that it's often easier to focus on other things because discipleship is so stinking hard.

Someone stumbled upon my blog once by running a google search on "how to shorten the discipleship process." Which prompted a response from me. If your goal is to discover a way to shorten the discipleship process, you are probably in the wrong business. Or need to at least rethink the business.

We often look for disciples. We look for a potential leader. We hope to find someone with maturity and gifts that we can raise up. We forget that Jesus told us to go make them. Not find them. If you can't find a potential leader in your group, in your ministry, or on your team, it's not their fault. Don't blame them for being immature or needing to grow. It's your fault. It's my fault. We are supposed to make disciples. And making disciples is long, hard work.