My long-time friend Ray Bandi, now a pastor-coach, former pastor, former Navigator staff member, graduate of a leading seminary, and graduate of the Air Force Academy, class of 1972, spoke to a group of over 50 pastors and church leaders in Manchester, NH, last week. (Ray and I served together in the Air Force.)

The purpose of the meeting was to think about how they could develop “missionary disciples.” Here’s what Ray said (shared with his permission):

Good morning.  My name is Ray Bandi.  Dick asked me to speak for five minutes about personal, intentional disciple-making.

During the past 45 years, I’ve ministered in churches in four different regions of the country…. the last 29 years in New England. …  During that time, I’ve observed three consistent characteristics of the disciple-making of American churches.  

• First, our disciple-making tends to be impersonal.  Typically in the American church, when we gather as the church, what we do when we gather, rarely helps people to go deep relationally with each other.  People in the church are usually polite and friendly, but the vast majority don’t really know each other below a surface level.  And as a result, our disciple-making and our discipleship tends to be impersonal.

• Secondly, our understanding of disciple-making tends to be very vague and incomplete.  In 2018, the Barna organization did a survey asking the question, “Churchgoers: Have You Heard of the Great Commission.”  Over eighty percent of the respondents said that they either had never heard of the Great Commission or if they had, they didn’t know what the term meant.  So, as a result of our vague and incomplete understanding of the Great Commission, our understanding of disciple-making and discipleship is vague and incomplete.

• Thirdly, our disciple-making in America is typically optional.  Obviously, all church leaders want their people to be obedient followers of Jesus.  But the way we train people in our churches, regardless of what we say, the message people take away is that “disciple-making and discipleship are optional.”  So, if we don’t train people in a way that supports personal responsibility and accountability, then our disciple-making and discipleship will continue to be optional.

Now, we all know that the three things I just pointed out, were not characteristics of the way Jesus made His disciples.  Jesus was always personal and intentional in the way he trained His Disciples. 

So, what does this contrast teach us? …  One thing it teaches me is that we have created a different kind of disciple-making, and a different kind of discipleship, from the kind that Jesus did with His disciples.

So, here are two questions for us to discuss around our tables:

1. How did Jesus train His disciples, both personally, and intentionally?
2. What are some practical ways that we can make disciples just like Jesus did?

If you’re a regular reader of The Ewellogy, you’ve heard this message before although not articulated as clearly and completely as Ray has done here.

And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4.19, ESV) Jesus was Intentional and Relational, and his goal was Transformation and Generations (GRIT).