Hard ground in Europe?
I have the advantage of having been away from Europe for almost a year. I realize something now of which I was previously unaware - here in Europe when things don’t seem to be working as quickly and as easily as we think they should (leading people to Jesus, making disciples, starting simple churches, initiating church planting movements) we start an endless debate on a range of topics to do with the gospel and the church in an attempt to solve our difficulties and magically provide a silver bullet answer.

In Africa we are engaged in leading people to Jesus, baptising new believers, gathering them in small communities (churches), making obedient disciples and training potential leaders to do the same. Our dream is to see a disciple making, simple church planting movement spreading up through Africa. It is hard work and challenging; nothing happens easily or quickly. In one of the communities we work in, after nearly 2 years of effort we find ourselves with little visible fruit and having to start again from scratch. In another M-slim community a couple have been working for more than 10 years and have only seen one person begin to follow Jesus. In other places we find people (black and white) in need and open, they are good soil.

None of this happens without a lot of prayer, hard work, fierce intentionality and passionate commitment. We make mistakes; we experiment; we fail; we try again; we don’t stop just because we don’t see immediate fruit. We pray, sometimes for months before we find these people. It doesn’t come quickly or easily. There is a cost involved to obey Jesus’ command to make disciples; but there are no short cuts. We have to pour out our lives on behalf of others, we have to be willing to leave our own comfort to go to the places, socially and physically, which we would not choose to find these people. This is what it means to obey Jesus.

Let’s face up to this truth; let’s get real; let’s find people who are willing to pay this price. Jesus gave us very simple instructions, ‘Go and make disciples’, just because this is costly and difficult doesn’t mean we should replace it with something more immediately satisfying. In some places it will cost you your life; in fact in ALL places this will cost you your life, but what a reward.

Let's quit talking round in circles about secondary issues and get stuck into simple obedience to Jesus' instructions. Who are you discipling to Jesus today?

posted by alexander @ 1:28 PM    1 comments

1 Comments:

thanks for the honesty about the difficulties of working in Europe. Reality and challenges can be as inspiring to other people as the stories of 10,000 poeple showing up to your first service...your story is real - thanks!

i linked it to http://www.newchurchreport.com to share it with others...thanks!

By  Scott in Vegas, at 4:44 PM  

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