Page 29 - Contact Summer 2017

1. From an Extra Thing to the Key Thing –
We can get so caught up in the various aspects
of church life that we forget where our
priority lies. If one of Jesus’ last commands to
His church was to ‘make disciples’ then we need
to make this our priority and not just an item
on the agenda. Everything we do as a church
must be aimed towards the outcome of making
disciples.

2. From Distance and Education to Proximity
and Lifestyle – As a church we believe in the
faithful preaching and teaching of God’s word
and will continue to maintain this as central to
what we do. However, quite often this can be
an excuse for people to act as passive pupils
rather than engaged disciples. Jesus taught His
disciples but he also lived with them (proximity) As mentioned above, this is only a flavour of
and modelled the true life of a disciple while some of the excellent teaching and helpful
with them (lifestyle). Paul not only taught the conversations we engaged in at the Disciple
churches that he planted but also called them Makers Network. In the months and years
to ‘imitate me, as I also imitate Christ.’ ahead it will be our aim to make more of this
(1 Corinthians 11:1 - HCSB) teaching available to the whole congregation so

that we can be a church of ‘disciples who make
3. From an Inward Process to Outward Focus disciples.’
– As Rick says, “If discipleship doesn’t have an
outward movement then it will merely become Keith McIlroy
self-serving. Rather than creating cosy clubs,
the emphasis for disciples should always be
towards mission, and while the context of
disciple making might begin by gathering in
groups, it should always lead to action in the
world.”

4. From Gathered Saints to Scattered Servants
– We no longer live in a ‘Christian influenced
culture’ so we can’t just expect those outside
the church to simply turn up to our weekly
gatherings. Like the first disciples we gather so
that we might be scattered into the world in
order to make more disciples along the way.

5. From Getting Bigger to Growing
Deeper – Unfortunately for some people the
sign of a ‘healthy’ church is having a large
number of people in the pews on a Sunday
morning. However, what is much more
important is the depth of the disciples rather
than the number of them. We don’t want to be
a mile wide and an inch deep. Too often our
focus can be on getting bigger rather than
growing deeper, but we must never lose our
focus on developing character and maturing in
holiness.