{"id":1796,"date":"2019-04-23T03:17:13","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T03:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.resourcezoneinternational.com\/?p=1796"},"modified":"2019-06-20T04:33:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T04:33:09","slug":"the-starting-point-for-discipleship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/?p=1796","title":{"rendered":"The Starting Point for Discipleship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Leadership-Multiplication-Pathway.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter width=\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Leadership-Multiplication-Pathway.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"778\" height=\"542\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>DISCIPLESHIP was considered an important topic by the writers of the New Testament, as the word \u201cdisciple\u201d can be found over 200 times in their writings. Disciple and discipleship have remained important up till today but even a cursory overview of church history will show that the interpretation and outworking has changed many times and is currently going through another major change in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: -0px;\">With that in mind, we want to un-wrap the basic principles on which our understanding of discipleship, for this time in history, has been built.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">We believe that all followers of Jesus are called both to be disciples and to make disciples.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">We have moved away from the \u201cmaking converts\u201d mindset of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century to the \u201cmaking disciples\u201d mindset of the first few centuries of church history.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">The practice of bringing people to church or to evangelistic outreach meetings is not a necessary part of the discipleship process as we understand it today.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Jesus outlined discipleship on five different occasions with five different emphases and in a specific historical order (John 20:21, Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 24:46-49, and Acts 1:8). For us, Matthew 28:18-20 outlines the foundational methodology upon which we have based our primary ideas on discipleship.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Following the original language structure of Matthew 28:18-20, we believe that \u201cdisciple\u201d or \u201cmake disciples\u201d is the central message of the passage with \u201cgoing\u201d, \u201cbaptizing\u201d and \u201cteaching\u201d used to qualify this main thought.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Within the meaning of \u201cgoing\u201d is the sense that we have already been sent. \u201cAs the Father has sent me, so send I you\u201d, said Jesus. We are all a \u201csent\u201d people who, as we engage in our daily activities, are making disciples.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">As obedient disciples, we go wherever God instructs us at any time. But we are not all sent to other nations as missionaries, evangelists or apostles. Everywhere Paul went, he left behind groups of new disciples who were to make disciples as they went about their day-to-day activities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">We desire to make \u201cdiscipling\u201d a part of the everyday practice of followers of Jesus as the Holy Spirit guides them to those whose hearts are prepared. It is not our desire to make them feel this is impossible by placing all kinds of obstacles in their way e.g. an expectation that they knock on the doors of strangers, preach on street corners or learn ways to gain a response. We simply want to see the Holy Spirit guide people into a meaningful relationship with Jesus.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Following the release of our first book \u2018As you go\u2026make disciples\u2019, we have been encouraged that many ordinary followers of Jesus have begun to turn outward again and have been motivated as they see the Holy Spirit at work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Invitation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you are interested in looking at how best to engage potential disciples in our current cultural context you might find our blog site helpful. Just go to the URL below and register to receive regular blog notices via email (click on Blog Subscription).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/disciplingasyougo.com\/\">https:\/\/disciplingasyougo.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If the blog spikes your interest, we would also encourage you to pass the URL on to friends who are also looking at how best to engage potential disciples in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Discipleship-Colin-3-e1550472329946.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1734 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Discipleship-Colin-3-e1550472329946.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"132\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Colin is the Director of ResourceZone. He has 30 years of ministry experience as a pastor, college lecturer and consultant\/coach to consultants, denominational leaders and local church pastors.\u00a0 He can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:info.blog@resourcezone.com.au\">info.blog@resourcezone.com.au<\/a> or<a href=\"colin@disciplingasyougo.com\"> colin@disciplingasyougo.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: -0px;\">\n<strong>Related Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"list list0\">\n<li style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resourcezone.com.au\/discipleshipresources\">Discipleship (Hard Copy)<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resourcezone.com.au\/discipleship_catalogue\">Discipleship (Downloadable PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DISCIPLESHIP was considered an important topic by the writers of the New Testament, as the word \u201cdisciple\u201d can be found over 200 times in their writings. Disciple and discipleship have remained important up till today but even a cursory overview of church history will show that the interpretation and outworking has changed many times and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discipleship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2350,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions\/2350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}