Our churches are lacking a key ingredient - Disciple Makers. Those people who give their lives over to others with the specific intent of helping them come to maturity in the faith. Those people who will live like Jesus lived.

Jesus spent 80% of His time with 12 people. By the end of His ministry he had 120 people waiting in the upper room for His next promise. Yes, He touched the masses but He entrusted the future of the church to 120 people. He could do this because of His leadership style. He was a disciple-making leader.

His great commission to the church was not to gain converts but to make disciples. A disciple is one who has grown to maturity in the faith. They have learned and grown into a person God can use to advance His Kingdom. These true disciples are a rare and valuable commodity in the church.

One can see the genius of Jesus' commission to make disciples when you see the power it has to change the world. If you became a superstar evangelist and led one thousand converts a year to the Lord, at the end of ten years you would have 10,000 converts (if none fell away). Or, if you were to invest in two disciple-making relationships each year, at the end of ten years 59,049 would be added to the church. Go and make disciples.

Everything costs something. There is a price you pay to become a disciple maker. But there is a price to pay if you don't.

If a church will count the cost to become a disciple-making church, it will change the world. Most churches are not willing to pay the price so they become an irrelevant, ineffective, immature gathering of religious people. No wonder the world isn't beating a path to our door.

Disciple making will cost you a higher standard. You cannot lead where you do not go further. It will cost you the rearrangement of time and energy into the eternal minds and hearts of people.

And so I challenge you, hear the the words of Jesus, "Do you love me?" "Then feed my sheep." "Go into all the world and make disciples." The cost is high, but the rewards are eternally worth it!

On their way to teach someone the principles of Christ, even the most modest person may whisper to themselves, "Nothing more important will happen in this town this week than the work I am about to do."

"If we work upon marble it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds, if we imbue them with principles, with just the fear of God and love for our fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten all eternity. - Daniel Webster

The Answer...DML