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Where to Begin?

Do you every look at an enormous building or structure and wonder what the person in charge thought about his or her first day on the job?  I often imagine a funny scenario where the person walks onto the bare job site, takes out his or her tape measure, takes a measurement, and immediately tells someone to, “start digging here!”  Of course the reality is that it’s months and sometimes years before digging begins (I was a civil engineer major for one semester after all!)  Construction begins only after the end result has been planned.

As I begin the task of “planting a church,” I’ve been thinking a lot about the end.  While the construction of a church would seemingly be the goal, I’ve concluded that God is not calling me to build a church at all.  Rather, He is calling me join in His process of building disciples.  No where in the Bible do I find a command for believers to build churches or even to go out and start church services.  What I do find is a call to make disciples:

Matthew 28

18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

When it comes to building the Church, It seems that God is actually the One who plans on doing that:

Matthew 16:

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Where to begin?  For me it is here:  Our focus is to be on making disciples.  God builds the church.   Certainly there are many questions about how to actually make disciples (we will look at some of those here in the coming weeks).   However, I do know that if I’m not deliberate about being a disciple maker, I probably will not be one.  In fact, it dawned on me several years ago that while my calendar was filled with many Christian events each week, I really couldn’t point to anything intentional that I was doing to make disciples (“baptizing” others and “teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded”).  So I started taking some small steps toward this goal of being a disciple maker.  That journey that has led me to this very place and it is the desire to truly fulfill this “Great Commission” that has me excited about this new adventure.  Perhaps you would like to come along?

More to come…

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1 thought on “Where to Begin?”

  1. Excellent stuff! Love the emphasis on discipleship which necessitates that the disciple must start with a Lord/lord and know clearly who his Lord/lord is! Jesus addressed the finality of this in Matt. 7:21 – 23 when he said many would come to Him on the last day using “church’ language, calling Him, “Lord, Lord” and stating all the things they’d actually done in His name (much ‘greater’ than the service projects and programs in most of our churches today). His answer, in light of much of today’s church(es) is very sobering, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” How sad that many in today’s churches are truly not disciples of Christ (i.e., Christ is not their Lord) but think because of all the emotional worship experiences and projects/programs they are busy doing that they’ve got it made when it comes to the free salvation gift and Christ says not so!

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