Making Disciples in 2010

American Matthew Emmons was only one shot away from Olympic gold at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympic Games. Competing in the Men's 50-Metre Rifle three position finals, Emmons was virtually uncatchable and assured of the gold medal as he took his final shot of the competition. When the scoreboard flashed a score of zero on the shot, puzzled officials thought his rifle had misfired, and were about to award him another shot, when it was discovered that there were two shots registered on a competitor's target in the next lane over. Emmons had made an almost perfect shot... at the wrong target. His mistake cost him the gold, dropping him from first to eighth place.

A perfect shot at the wrong target is not a perfect shot. It is a bad shot - a wasted shot. What is true in Olympic competition is also true when it comes to the Great Commission. A good shot at the wrong target is a bad shot. Churches and missions in N. America and around the world are doing a lot of good things - but are we shooting at the right target?

For decades North American churches and mission organizations have made "church planting" the "bulls-eye" of Christian expansion. "Church planters" and "church planting" have been the center and everything else was peripheral. Missionaries were sent and missions budgets were spent with one primary goal in mind - the establishment of new churches. The gospel was preached, people were reached, believers were taught, buildings were bought, programs were made and pastors were paid all in the name of church-planting.

But is that the right target? To even ask the question seems to border on the "heretical". How dare we question something we've done for so long and spent so much money on! To even appear to move the church, the object of Christ's love, from the center of the target is dangerous indeed, yet we must put at the center what Jesus Himself put at the center, if we are to truly love the church that Christ loved.

What is that center - that "bulls-eye"? Jesus said it was "making disciples of all nations". Not merely evangelism, and not church-planting, but the making of authentic, obedient followers. Neil Cole rightly points out that "There is not a single command in all of the Bible to go and plant a church. The reason that groups and churches multiplied in the New Testament is because the first generation of Christians were obeying a very specific command - to make disciples." It is possible to start a church without making disciples. The West is full of such churches that are characterized by programs and pastors and personalities, but little authentic life. But it is virtually impossible to make disciples without it resulting in authentic church. C.S. Lewis once said: "Put first things first and we get second things thrown in; put second things first and we lose both."

We at CrossWorld are committed to recovering the passion and primacy of doing what we were told to do - reproducing the life of Jesus in people who in turn will reproduce the same authentic life in others. Jesus called it "making disciples". Paul called it "imitating him as he imitated Christ." It's "the bulls-eye, the heart - the first things." And we believe it's the right thing. There are a lot of good things we could be aiming for, but it's better to take a good shot at the right target than a perfect shot at the wrong one.