An Ineffective Witness

Yesterday I preached a sermon that stirred a lot of things in me. It was titled "An Ineffective Witness" and was based on Acts 9 after Saul/Paul had been filled with Holy Spirit and begun preaching Jesus as the Christ. In other places in Acts when Jesus was preached, signs and wonders happened and it was recored that the Lord added to the Church. But not so with Paul at this time in his walk with the Lord. He simply confounded the Jews. When he made it to Jerusalem, the Apostles didn't even think he was a disciple. Ah....therein lies the problem.

Becoming a disciple is a process that takes time and daily effort. In fact, until Barnabas stepped in and took the role of a disciple maker, Paul probably would have remained pretty immature in his discipleship a lot longer. In Galatians he tells us it was more than a decade anyway.

How seriously do we take Jesus commission to "make disciples.....teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you?"

While I think I take disciple making pretty seriously, I don't have a plan to follow. It is not a rigid plan with check marks that we need, but we certainly need to define process and know when we are making progress. I'm meeting today to talk with our Eldership about our lack of a process for disciple making. It could be a revolutionary change in the church and turn us from being pretty ineffective to a powerful force for the Lord in our territory.