We are disciples that make disciples!

"...and make disciples..."

What does it take to make a disciple?

Well without getting too long winded I would like to suggest that a good place to start is by being a disciple yourself. You cannot impart to another a thing which you do not have yourself, and those people who Christ commanded to "make disciples," were themselves disciples of Christ.

So this command in many ways not only calls us to an action, but also to a state of being--we are to be disciples, so that we can make disciples!

So the question above really begs the additional question, "what does it mean to be a disciple?"

The concept of disciple can have many connotations, the most basic of which is simply a student. Now when defined in this way we, in 2010, draw up images of what we know of students. The unruly 8th grader, or the care free college student, or any other stereo type, but most likely we do not imagine the heart of what this word disciple connoted for those at the time that Christ spoke those words.

Christ was speaking to his disciples, men and women whom he had been living with for three years. They had been through many amazing things with Him, spending nearly every moment at His side. They had eaten many meals with him; laid down beside Him on the ground to sleep on countless nights. They had sat at His feet as He taught about His fathers Kingdom, and stood with Him as He demonstrated that Kingdom in action. I am sure that they had laughed raucously together, and also cried together. They were as close as any family.

And in this context the word disciple was understood. Community. Relationship.

Christ's command to make disciples was about teaching, training, doing... but it was also about living life together. That is how He made disciples, by offering himself to man kind first in relationship.

So in order to make disciples, we need to be disciples. That means so many things, but one thing it means is to be in authentic genuine and, yes, even vulnerable relationship. It is here that disciples can form and be made.

This is part of of our vision at the Vineyard Church BCS, to be disciples that make disciples!

The Mission of The Vineyard Church BCS

"What does it mean to be a church?"

This is the question that kept me up almost every night a year ago. Erin and I had moved to Bryan, certain that God had asked us to begin a Church here. And if we were supposed to start a church, I wanted to know what that REALLY meant.

I was not asking about the Church Universal--the Body and Bride of Christ, which has stretched throughout time and spread across the globe--but the Church Local, the particular instantiations of The Church.

What did it look like for the Church Universal to live in Bryan/College Station.

We prayed and waited and eventually God was faithful to lead us to some answers. Not all the answers--what this church needs to look like is an ever growing vision--but a foundation out of which we can build.

God brought us to Matthew chapter 28. Here Christ is at the very end of His physical ministry on earth, he is about to be lifted off the ground and brought back to The Father. The people around Him at this moment are ALL those who believe in Him, so in a real sense it is as if the whole church is standing around Him. The bottom line is, this is a very important moment... and He says these things:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

As we sought God and asked Him to show us what His vision was for the particular church He wanted us to start, He began taking these words and showing us what these general commands might look like in the specific surroundings we found ourselves in.

I would like to spend the next few blog post which I write on this passage. The basic commands are simple, and the passage is finite, but its content is complex and its applications are infinite.

I hope you are as excited as I am to see what living these commands might look like in Bryan/College Station!