"Feature: New Disciples: Born, but Also Made"
by Gary Olsby, minister of Christian education. West Valley Christian Church, Canoga Park, California
It has become fashionable these days for churches to preach "disciple making." Everyone is for it. Everyone claims it as a priority. The words, however, often exceed the reality. A tragic personal experience made the need for disciple making a passion with me. Several of my relatives attend the same church and had been trying for years to get my aunt involved. After much patient influence, she and her husband finally agreed to attend. Following a couple of visits, the church leaders began sending people to their home each week on evangelistic visits. My aunt and her husband were impressed with people's concern; eventually they made decisions to follow Christ and to become church members. The tragedy: never again did anyone from the church contact them about spiritual things. As a result, they dropped out within a couple of years because they felt ignored. From their perspective, the church was concerned only with adding two more names to the membership rolls. Churches cannot assume the job is done once someone makes a "decision" for Christ. We must fully incorporate each individual into the life of the church. And that job never ends. In fact, author Lyie Schaller goes so far as to say, "It is un-Christian for a congregation to seek new members unless it is also willing and able to accept them into that called-out community." Most Christians would agree with the need to help people grow into spiritual maturity. The question is how? At West Valley Christian Church, we discovered an approach that has been amazingly effective, an approach that uses as its launching point an unlikely method: a study of Bible history. Of course, the subject ...
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