Making New Disciples who Make New Disciples

I'm a numbers guy. Not in the sense that I use them as the only means to measure success or failure, but I just love to play with numbers to make a point. Let me try it on you right now.

If the church were doing its job in making new disciples and training those disciples to make even more new disciples (and so on...), the impact would be astonishing. Consider a group of 20 people in your church who FINALLY got it and realized their main job as a true disciple of Jesus is to make new disciples, then to train those new disciples to make even newer disciples. What do you think would happen?

If that group of 20 made it a mission to successfully disciple 6 new disciples each year AND trained those new disciples to start making 6 new disciples each year after that, how many disciples would be made after 6 years?

I have done the math for you. Over a 10 year period the results would look like this:

Start with 20 Disciples

End of Year 1 = 140 total disciples

End of Year 2 = 980 total disciples

End of Year 3 = 6,860 total disciples

End of Year 4 = 48,020 total disciples

End of Year 5 = 336,140 total disciples

End of Year 6 = 2,352,980 total disciples

End of Year 7 = 16,470,860 total disciples

End of Year 8 = 115,296,020 total disciples

End of Year 9 = 807,072,140 total disciples

End of Year 10 = 5,649,504,980 total disciples

Yes, the math is absolutely correct! Sometime during year 9 the entire population of the United States could be reached. By the end of year 10, most of the entire world's population could be reached.

You might laugh and say, "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" But this is exactly the model Jesus had in mind. He picked 12 guys out and entrusted them with spreading His message to the entire world.

The model has not changed, but the focus and vision of the church certainly has. It isn't all about being a big, attractive church offering to make everybody happy. The job of the church is to TRAIN DISCIPLES TO MAKE NEW DISCIPLES WHO THEN MAKE NEW DISCIPLES. This is done through personal relationships, not big church events. This is done by connecting with people at work and in your neighborhood, not through creative and showy church programs.

When is the church going to realize that it must start functioning like the church in Acts did. We MUST start training people to be disciples making new disciples. The age of being a church service spectator is OVER. The results of this spectator age have been disastrous. Wake up, Church! Our job is to reach the lost, not make each other comfortable and happy!!!