Last week, myself and a team from Global Harvest Church were in the Ugandan capital, Kampala for two awesome conferences. The first one was hosted by The New Thing Movement. Our engagement with them began by my encounter with their Global Operations director, Matt Millar who I met about two years ago at Raddison Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos. Our lunch meeting was focused on how ‘New Thing’ is focused on developing discipleship in local churches, so as to result in raising disciples who are making disciples and planting churches who in turn plant churches. Heading a church named ‘Global Harvest’, you can tell the vision is one of world evangelization and I immediately felt the heart of ‘New Thing’ and Global Harvest were beating with the same rhythm and this must be a partnership made in heaven.

 

My connection with Matt Millar has led to two training programs hosted by our ministry at our headquarters church in Ibadan. To add icing to the cake, ‘New Thing’ added Apostle Moses Mukisa of Worship Harvest, Kampala to the faculty. His church had applied what we were being taught to their church life and the result has been phenomenal. Nothing could have blessed us better than being mentored by someone who was practically applying biblical principles of discipleship and church planting. The couple of visits of ‘New Thing’ to us has been complimented by two visits by our team to Kampala in April 2022 and 2023 respectively. While I missed the trip last year, making it this year was so enriching for me. I will recommend an engagement with ‘New Thing’ to every pastor reading this. They are organizing a church planting conference in Lagos from Monday to Wednesday, June 12-14 2023. This will be followed by visits to Redemption camp and Canaan land on June 14. You can also follow Worship Harvest, Kampala on YouTube and see the incredible work they are doing in the expansion of God’s kingdom through them. The principal thing about our engagements with the two organizations is a return of our attention to the ‘discipling’ culture that characterized the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the early church.

 

The mandate the Lord Jesus gave us was to ‘make disciples’ not converts (Matthew 28:19). Yes, the Bible records that believers were added to the church on the day of Pentecost. This development repeated itself after the persecution of Peter and John in Acts 5:14. From Acts 6:1, we read that ‘the number of the disciples multiplied’. This trend continued throughout Acts of the Apostles. While it is curious that the terminology was not employed throughout the epistles, it is apparent that it had been recognized by the ministry of Paul, the Apostle as chronicled by Luke the physician in Acts of the Apostles. The term disciples was not newly employed by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Pharisees who were teachers of the Law had their disciples. They were disciplined learners, strict adherents who through a master-servant dynamic and a master-apprentice model were immersed into both the teachings and the lifestyles of their masters through an informal life-on-life relationship system that made the disciples imitators of their Rabbis. You will remember Paul admonishing the Corinthians to be imitators of him as he was of Christ Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:1). He also mandated Timothy to commit the things heard from him to faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2). This is discipleship.

 

The introduction of corporate management principles into church life without a balance of other biblical considerations has led to a shift in the focus from the multiplication of disciples to Sunday morning attendance, financial strength and societal influence regardless of what percentage of the crowd is truly saved and following Jesus Christ. Growth is inevitable where there is true discipleship, but it is beyond numbers. True discipleship ensures transformation. The one discipling another as a spiritual parent, lives an exemplary life before him or her and holds the disciple accountable for his lifestyle. He must ensure his disciple loves being with Jesus, is loving other disciples like Jesus and is committed to going out to evangelize like Jesus. He also ensures he is living a life that reflects the life of Christ to the world and shows adherence to the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ particularly to love as He loves us (John 13:34) and to disciple others. If this model will be found in our churches, the aloofness of pastors will give way to accessibility, distance to vulnerability and excessive protocols to simplicity.

 

Having developed a culture that was short of this biblical standard of discipleship, our ministry is still on the journey to this fundamental of our faith. To transform a culture of many years takes a lot of hard work. It cannot be attained overnight and so we are giving ourselves time to get there. The beginning of the journey is admitting we have been wrong and to become intentional about transformation. The leaders will then have to identify the practices that make for discipleship and start exemplifying them. With time, it will begin to transfer from them to others, who in turn will transfer them to others in a culture that will produce an endless chain of disciples multiplying disciples and churches multiplying churches.

 

As we journeyed back to Entebbe from Kampala last Sunday, I was a bit more awake to observe the rich landscape, lustrous greenery and amazing beauty of the rich nation than when I had arrived a week before. I engaged my kind driver again and again about the land of the Nile, lakes and rivers. The land of rainfalls, waterfalls and and mists. The land of rich and humous soil, mountains, hills and wild life. The land of gold and crude oil. The land of a vibrant population with youthful energy. I wondered at why the nation could not feed Africa. Could it be the same cultural issues weakening the effectiveness of the 21st century church that is plaguing the nation? Could it be that lack of character in leadership is traceable to systemic weaknesses to how they are being developed? What exactly is the problem of Africa, that in spite of her vast natural endowments she is still the poorest continent per GDP? May we all find our way to the wisdom of the best leader who ever lived. He left the earth 2,000 years ago and still commands the largest following on earth. His Spirit continues to live among us and His name remains the name above all names. For 33½ years, he poured Himself into 12 men without reservation. He opened up His heart to them and taught them beyond their capacity to comprehend. He taught them things the Holy Spirit would later remind them of and explain to them. He impacted their lives with His and on to others who passed them to others and continued till they reached you and I. Will we live it out and pass it on?