Global Talk

Last week we were sitting in one of our church planting courses here in Missouri. Our teacher said, “I don’t know who coined the term “world evangelism”, it’s not in the Bible.” Now. . . I had never heard this statement before and thought it a little strange that it was spoken here at the Missionary Training Center. But I was quickly challenged with his emphasis.

We probably have all heard about people coming home from a mission trip talking about all the people that were saved. I recently heard about someone who came home from an Asian country that said that 18,000 people got saved when he was holding evangelistic meetings over a 10 day period.

There used to be a time in my life that I would just accept this and praise the Lord for the new believers. But now I wonder if these people clearly understood the gospel in the first place, and then if they did, who is helping these 18,000 new believers become mature in the Lord.

Now imagine, a woman gives birth to a baby. She and her husband rejoice over the birth of the little one and then turn to the newborn and say, “We’re so glad that you have life, but we have to go make some more babies so be warm and well fed and we’ll see you again in heaven.”

This is a ridiculous scenario, but why is it so commonplace when in the context of people becoming believers? Having little to no follow-up after one gets saved is almost considered the norm in Christian missions these days. Why is this so? Could it be that we struggle with this emphasis in our own lives as the Church? We can tend to focus on “getting people saved” and put very little attention on helping immature believers become mature in their new found relationship with God.

Frankly, I think people are too busy to invest time into a new believer. Maybe we think, “It’s all good, he’s going to heaven now.” Or maybe we fear that we are inadequate in our understanding of the Bible and incompetent to teach others. I believe Satan loves Christians to stay in this place.

Many of the reasons I am the man that I am today is because a few key older men took time out of their busy schedules to invest into me after I got saved. They challenged, encouraged, and told me when I was going astray. They did this for months on end. They understood their role as a believer in Christ, and they walked along side me and helped to guide me.

Paul was all about bringing believers up to maturity. In Colossians 1:28 he says, “Him (Jesus) we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”

Paul also wrote, “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” Colossians 4:12

I want to challenge you, as I’ve been challenged to spend time praying and asking God to reveal to you where you are at in your maturity in Christ. If He reveals a lack of maturity then ask a mature believer in the church to disciple you. If He reveals that you are a mature believer (not perfect) then seek out someone less mature to meet with on a regular basis and ask God to grow both of you through that relationship. He may reveal that you should be doing both. (Getting discipled and discipling others) The goal is that we grow in our maturity in Christ. We should never stagnate as Christians but should continue pressing on and growing in maturity.

So instead of just doing world evangelism, how about we get serious about what God is passionate about: WORLD DISCIPLESHIP!!!