Make Disciples: A Strategy for the Local Church

By Daryl R. Stagg

Every local church needs an effective

strategy to make disciples.   

 

Make Disciples seeks to help pastors

and church leaders understand and

develop seven essential components

needed in a discipleship strategy. It

challenges the local chu

• Language: English
• Publisher: DRS Publishing
• Release date: Apr 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987685518

Book preview

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Make Disciples

A Strategy for the Local Church

Daryl R. Stagg

Published by DRS Publishing, Ball, Louisiana.

Printed in the United States of America.

Copyright 2017 Daryl R. Stagg

All right reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations. For information, contact: [e-mail].

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 979-8-9876855-1-8

Dedicated

to the Churches of

Big Creek Baptist Association

in Grant Parish, Louisiana

and

CenLa Baptist Association

in Rapides Parish, Louisiana

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Identity of a Disciple

Chapter 2: The Invitations of a Disciple

Chapter 3: The Investments of a Disciple

Chapter 4: The Involvement of a Disciple

Chapter 5: The Influence of a Disciple

Chapter 6: The Intercession of a Disciple

Chapter 7: The Inspiration of a Disciple

Chapter 8: The Infrastructure to Make Disciples

Chapter 9: Closing Challenge

About the Author

Notes

Introduction

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Make disciples! Jesus commanded it. The Church is to do it.

For eighteen years I believed in the mission to make disciples. As a pastor and church planter, I thought I led local churches to pursue the mission. I believed the churches I served accomplished the mission in some measure. However, in 2005, I received a dose of reality when I transitioned from the pastorate to a district level ministry. As the Associational Mission Strategist for Lake County Baptist Association, I worked with twenty-six churches in Lake County, Illinois. These churches were diverse in age, size, and ethnicity. While assisting these churches and their church leadership, I discovered that most churches did not have a clear strategy to make disciples.

My discovery was reinforced in 2012 when I moved to Sedalia, Missouri, to serve Harmony Baptist Association. Most of the twenty-seven churches in the association did not have a clear strategy to make disciples.

Wikipedia defines strategy as a high-level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty.¹ This definition applies to business, marketing, football, deer hunting, or the military. For example, in 1990 the United States went to war with Iraq. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf was assigned the duty to map out the military strategy. The strategy "was one of the most complex military campaigns ever devised…it rested upon a fundamental principle as old as human conflict—deception. From the opening minutes of the air war to the climactic battle with the Republican Guard, the strategy was to render Iraq’s army deaf and blind. The plan was to deceive it on the allies’ true intentions, and then suddenly—and violently—encircle and annihilate it.²

Did the strategy work? Yes, it did.

Every local church needs an effective strategy to make disciples. This book considers various components of a strategy to make disciples. In chapter one, the identity of a disciple is defined. Chapter two will describe the invitations of a disciple. The third chapter will designate the investments of a disciple. The involvement of a disciple is detailed in chapter four. In chapter five, I will denote the influence of a disciple. The sixth chapter will delineate the intercession of a disciple. In chapter seven the inspiration of a disciple is deduced. The final chapter will develop the infrastructure needed to make disciples. Every church should refine each component of the strategy according to its culture and context.

Chapter One

The Identity of a Disciple

A disciple responds to the invitation of Jesus.

A disciple reflects the image of Jesus.

On April 26, 2006, a Taylor University van carrying nine students and staff members collided with a tractor-trailer. Five people riding in the van died at the scene. The coroner identified one young blonde woman as Whitney Cerak. A similar looking woman, who was unable to communicate, was identified as Laura van Ryn.

The Cerak family grieved and planned a funeral for Whitney, while the van Ryn family spent weeks at a hospital with Laura. After five weeks, the van Ryn family discovered that the girl they were caring for was not their daughter Laura. The Cerak family learned that the young woman they buried was not their daughter Whitney. It was a case of mistaken identity.¹

I do not want to make light of the hurt and pain caused by this tragedy, but a worse disaster exists in churches today. There are scores of people on church membership rolls who profess to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. They claim to be a Christian, but their claim is false. They are not a true follower of Jesus. It is a case of mistaken identity.

Thus, the identity of a disciple must be clarified. Who is a disciple of Jesus Christ? What does a disciple of Jesus look like?

A true disciple of Jesus has two characteristics.

The first characteristic is that a disciple responds to the invitation of Jesus. Mark 1:16-20 says, One day as Jesus was walking along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, fishing with a net, for they were commercial fisherman. Jesus called out to them, ‘Come, be my disciples, and I will show you how to fish for people!’ And they left their nets at once and went with him. A little farther up the shore Jesus saw Zebedee’s sons, James and John, in a boat mending their nets. He called them too, and immediately they left their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired men and went with him.

Jesus called out to Simon, Andrew, James, and John. The phrase called out means to bid or to call forth.² Jesus invited these men to follow him.

The invitation was unique in three ways.

First, the invitation was personal. Jesus focused on Simon, Andrew, James, and John and called them by name. Jesus repeated this pattern in calling Levi, the tax collector (Luke 5:27-28).

Jesus also called