I’m going out on a limb here today. I have spent years working with church leaders to position their churches for effective corporate outreach and evangelism, and I will continue to do so. It’s important for churches to commit to being churches that penetrate into the community with the Gospel, receive newcomers well, and guide people to faith in Jesus Christ and in living disciplined, sacrificial lives.
Nothing has changed about that in my thinking, and my “public” ministry will continue in that vein. However, in recent months I have sensed a personal call to invest myself personally, one-on-one, in making disciples. My travel schedule does present a challenge in this regard, but I sense that God is telling me to go for it and that the scheduling will somehow work itself out.
So – I have put the word out here in Richmond that, like the Marines, I am looking for a few good men, young men who are spiritually curious, spiritually serious, or both. I will invest in these men one-on-one to help them move forward on their spiritual journeys and to train them to help others move forward on their spiritual journeys. In other words, I am determined by the grace of God to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Success, then, will be when the disciple making reaches to the third generation and beyond.
I’ll keep you posted.
