“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20.
Our Vision at Oak Grove Church:
“Every person is to be a disciple-maker as an outworking of being a follower of Jesus.”
Every person is called to be a follower of Jesus. The priority of the gospel is that all humanity is under the judgement of God. The only provision God has made is the sacrifice of His only Son, (Jesus) to satisfy His wrath against us. To escape this wrath, we need to surrender to God by placing all our confidence in the person of Christ, and the sacrifice He made to redeem us from our sin. Christ calls us out of the world into relationship with Him; this call is to follow Him (Luke 9:23-26).
Every follower of Jesus is to be a disciple of Jesus. When Jesus said, “follow me,” He did not mean on Facebook. He meant that we need to deny self, take up our cross daily, and follow Him (Luke 9:23-26). Follow does not mean He is a celebrity or person of interest. He is Lord and Savior. Jesus calls us to surrender our own beliefs, values, and priorities in order to embrace his beliefs, values, and priorities to order our life. The Scriptures are our constant source of spiritual truth and wisdom to keep aligning our life with His righteousness. A disciple simply means, “learner”. We are to be in a constant and ongoing posture of learning from Jesus how we ought to live.
Every disciple is to become a spiritual parent, caring for someone in their journey. The Great commandment was made to His own disciples to go and make disciples. Ultimately this meant to be witnesses of Christ to such an extent that others would respond to the gospel and surrender to God through faith in Christ. They were to baptize those who, by faith, received Christ as Savior; this is the best scenario of becoming a spiritual parent. The responsibility of a disciple was to help others become a follower of Jesus, teach them Christ’s beliefs, values, and priorities so they became a disciple, and finally would be able to become spiritual parents too.
Every spiritual parent is to be reproducing new spiritual infants through the gospel. Blackaby in his study on “Experiencing God” made this great statement: “You cannot be in relationship with Jesus and not be on mission.” (Blackaby, Experiencing God, pg. 226). An immature believer does not understand their relationship with Jesus and will not live on mission. Sometimes we run into the person who uses the idea of being a disciple as an excuse to not invest in others. There are always reasons they cannot invest in others. They claim to be “not ready” because they have not learned enough to know how to disciple someone else. Sometimes that is a leadership problem when we do a poor job of equipping others to be on mission. That being said, only those who understand relationship with Jesus will be on mission. Most people come to Christ because someone took the risk to share Christ with them. The compulsion (motivation) of Christ’s love no longer allows a person to live for themselves but for Him who died and rose on their behalf (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
Our vision is every person becomes a disciple-maker. Each one follows the pathway that results in becoming a spiritual parent, caring for others in a personal way to help them on their journey of following Jesus and learning from Him. We are taking bold new steps to equip every person to keep spiritual movement and growth in their life. Our concept of disciple-making is not that I have something to give to you, that I know you don’t know. The concept is that we will gain mutual benefit from sharing life together as we discover truth from God’s word, discuss it and learn how to apply our lives to that truth.
In His grace, Pastor Brad
