In the movie Ratatouille Chef Gusteau believed that “anyone can cook!” I believe Jesus would say “anyone can make disciples!”
For the sake of the advancement of the kingdom of God, it is essential to insure multiplication on the most basic level. The primary level of disciple making is the family. It is in the home that each father and mother is responsible to disciple their own children. However, Christianity has relegated disciple making to the professional clergy and church staff. Although the church would insist that the parents are responsible for the spiritual life of their children, it contradicts this teaching by:
- Not discipling the mother or father,
- Not instructing parents on how to disciple their children,
- And, having children and youth ministries which do not include the parents.
Our multiplying approach in Chicago is to train each child of God to make other disciples of Jesus. My prayer is that this multiplication will begin in the home of each man and woman in our community as they disciple their own sons and daughters. Once a person is able to make disciples, then the Holy Spirit can place him anywhere in the world, and he will not only make disciples but also form these disciples into churches.
One can only imagine the expansion of the kingdom of God if our children were not only discipled by their parents but also trained to make disciples of others.
I bet no other article on discipleship opens with a quote from a digitally-animated comedy.
Oh hey, I just found out you have another offspring beginning to make disciples at the U of A.
By the way, have you ever made a map of all your spiritual children? It would be cool if you could post that sometime so people could have a visual of the global statement you’ve made in recent posts.
Somebody in L.A. county loves you!