Featured Making disciples

Before I answer your question, I will say it may appear that people are judging you and maybe they are, I don't know. But if they do ask you about your results or discipling of others it is because you appear to present the case that your way is the only way and maybe they are attacking that mindset and not attacking you personally.

One thing that I did last year was to start a community wide Bible study. A local community center had a grand opening and God impressed upon me that "someone" should hold Bible classes there. I kept silent about it to everyone and just told God that he would have to open that door if it were for me to do. *I* wanted to really badly, but it's not about me or what I want.

I saw the two main managers of the community center one day in town and was told out of the blue that "our new community center was going to host a Bible study, but the person leading it had to back down." We weren't even talking about the community center .... they just blurted that out!!

I took that as my cue. I offered to host it and .... the rest is history.

We have about 25 people coming in all with an average attendance of about 16.

I told them from the first day that:

• Bible study is not church. It is not to take the place of church. It is in addition to your church attendance.
• You do not have to belong to the same church/denomination that I do to come.
• If you are unchurched, please consider some of the churches represented at Bible study.
• We are not trying to compete to see who holds the most "knowledge" cards about the Bible. We are just a group of people who want to study God's Word and to allow him to change us in whatever way he sees fit.

Peoples lives are changing - including my own.

One young couple came to Jesus and they were baptized into a local church. And they have received a burden from the Lord for the lost in our area and have started a door-to-door evangelistic movement. They have begun with single people and couples their age who are lost and/or unchurched.

And if you knew how painfully shy both this young husband and his wife - you would understand how God is moving in their lives.

There are lots of ways to disciple people. That's just where I am right now in addition to teaching Sunday School and children's choir at my own home church.

Oh, and after we studied parts of the gospels, I asked, "What would you all like to study next?"

They all said, "Let's do the beginning." I said, "OK, you all want to do Genesis next?"

They said, "No, we want to do the WHOLE Bible starting with Genesis."

I said ..... "Well, alright! You DO know that's going to take a while!" LOL!!!! We are currently at Exodus 17.

 

Well, I couldn't be doing this if I were still working. I am only able to do so now because I am retired. I would say pray intensely about it and wait patiently.

Now that's a "do as I say and not as I do" statement because I am notorious for NOT being patient.

While you are waiting and praying, maybe you could find someone at your church whose discipleship abilities you admire and ask them to be a mentor to you and help guide you into the best ways for you to disciple others.

The hardest thing to do sometimes is to wait and pray, but it's always the right way to go about any decision making.

 

Nobody on this board has judged you. We have tried and tried to help you. You call yourself "evangelist" but you have not won a soul to Christ in 8 long years.

You read about evangelism, but you remain fruitless.

You talk about evangelism, but you remain fruitless.

You make excuses for why you are fruitless, but you remain fruitless.

You criticize those whose evangelism efforts bear fruit, much fruit, and fruit that remains, but you remain fruitless.

We explain to you that discipling new coverts starts with a new convert, which you have never had.

You claim you are fruitless because your church doesn't support you, but fail to see the problem is not your church's, it is yours.

You claim you can't do evangelism the bible way because you work 60 hours per week, but you have plenty of time to read books on evangelism, to come on here and talk about evangelism, but you never make the time to actually do any biblical evangelism.

And when confronted with all of the above, you blame God for not having elected any of the people you have "preached" to on the street.

Some years ago I was on an airplane flying from my home in San Diego to a Missions Conference in South Dakota where I was to be the keynote speaker and happened to be seated beside another pastor. We got to talking about our respective ministries and he said his church had not grown at all in the 9 years he had been pastor. He asked about our church growth.

I told him I had been pastor there for about 20 years and in that time we had a growth rate of over 50% (the average evangelical church grows at a rate of around 8%). In that time we had sent out groups of people to plant 4 other churches in the San Diego metro area.

He asked how we accomplished that, especially in a military town where people were reassigned every 3 or 4 years.

I explained our evangelism/church growth plan to him. He said, "I don't like your plan." I said, "Fine, tell me about your plan." He said, "I don't have one." To which I replied, "I like mine better than yours!"

You have criticized everyone on this board for their plan for evangelism, and insisted your way was the best way, but failed to notice your way just doesn't work.

My way may be flawed. I have only brought several hundred souls to Christ in the past 25 years, but I have to say, my way may be flawed but it is a whole lot better than your way that has remained fruitless!

Now, if you will lay aside your stubborn pride and listen to what we have to say in our attempts to help you, I will do my best to do exactly that.

But if you keep making excuses, criticizing us and our methodology, and insisting you have all the answers even though you remain fruitless, then all of this will be a waste of time and band width and I will ignore everything you say.

It is up to you. Do you want to learn, or do you want to remain fruitless?

 

I laughed when I read that. I can so identify with your statement. I was forced into retirement in 2010 due to my poor health.

My wife and I moved to a retirement community in the far south of Texas. There were about 600 people here, all retired, all senior citizens. I saw an opportunity and talked to my new pastor here in Texas about holding an extension service in the main Event Hall of the retirement community.

We started holding services with only about 10 people in attendance. After about 5 months that number was up around 150 in attendance on Sunday Morning and about 30 in our Mid Week Bible Study on Wednesday mornings. We had an excellent choir of about 18 people, a new piano and 3 pianists, an organ with 2 organists, and a group of about 10 people organized to do hospital and shut-in calls, and a hymn-sing and prayer meeting every Sunday afternoon.

I mentioned to my wife how well things were going and she looked at me and said, "You don't have a clue what "retired" means, do you?"

Nope. I'd rather burn out than rust out!

 

Evan - Even with working 60 hours a week, you can still disciple someone. 30 minutes over a cup of coffee once a week and then texts and phone calls the rest of the time go really far.

 

Many years ago we had a well known evangelist preach a series of messages in our church. During one sermon he said, "Only about 1 in 10 people will be willing to listen to you when you tell them about Jesus." There was a little boy in the front row, about 7 or 8, one of the deacon's kids, who shouted out so everybody could hear, "Then just tell 10 times as many!"

Out of the mouths of babes!

 

<Sigh> You don't "find" a person to disciple. You MAKE them. Matthw 28:19 "Go and make disciples . . . "

 

You just don't seem to get it. Effective evangelism/discipleship has nothing to do with reading books or stamping tracts. It has to do with loving God, loving the Gospel, loving the lost, and being filled with Holy Spirit Power to enable you to effectively proclaim the gospel to the lost. Remember the old saying, "They won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."

 

Thats like saying having a Buck Private instructing a General in military tactics.

Evan, I really believe you are sincere in wanting to do the right thing.
As stated before - Humble yourself - take some of the excellent advice

 

Where to find someone to witness to:

Who you live with: Family members.
Who you learn with: School mates, college, traffic school, training seminars.
Who you play with: sports teams, bowling teams, gym buddies.
Who you work with: people at the job or those you meet on the job.