Oaks Without Acorns Pt. 1 of 2

I am surrounded!  There are massive 50-100' tall giants encircling my home and they can get pretty rowdy when the wind kicks up.  They are oak trees and there is a distinct difference between the young and the mature.  Only mature oaks bear acorns.  I mention this because I am struck by a connection between these big fellas and what I consider a giant problem in the church.  First, a little background.

Let's think hypothetically about strategy for our earthly mission.  Jesus has left us on planet earth to make disciples.  Suppose you had 100 devoted followers of Jesus Christ.  They are the real thing.  They are trusting Jesus for their salvation, earnestly listening to Him, submitting to His agenda, and becoming like Him.  Using strategy one ("maximum outreach") they commit themselves to evangelism and each determine to win one person to Jesus EVERY WEEK for the next 20 years.  If successful, there would be over 100,000 people in heaven who would have reason to thank the original 100.

Now suppose we change to a multiplication strategy.  Instead of having each of our 100 bring someone to Christ every week, we ask them to only win one person per year.  But, in addition to helping someone respond to the Gospel, they work for one year with each new convert to duplicate themselves!  This original 100 would seek out the lost, call them to their Savior and Lord, help them grow into His likeness, and equip them to go make disciples using the one-a-year plan.  Here's the stunning product:  If 100 disciple-makers duplicated themselves once every year, in 20 years there would be over 43 MILLION people saved for eternity.  Our original 100 would only have to disciple 20 people apiece in the span of 20 years - doesn't seem too daunting, but the results are stunning.

Let's try the Jesus plan.  He invested in 12 men over a period of 3 years.  One of those 12 bailed before graduation, but the other 11 were ready at the end of three years to duplicate the investment Jesus had made in them by doing likewise for others.  So if our 100 disciple-makers used this plan and each duplicated themselves in 11 others every three years, in 21 years there would be almost 1.7 BILLION people who would be able to say to that original 100, "Thank you!  You are part of the reason why I am here in heaven."  Our original 100 would only have to disciple 77 people apiece in the span of 21 years - very challenging but not impossible.

Now, I realize that this hypothetical case is not reality.  Working in hard soil; crossing cultural barriers; the requirement of "pre-evangelism" for societies where God is unknown - these would be significant impediments.  But despite the limitations of my projection, it is still capable of making this profound point:  If a very small number were committed to following Jesus' disciple-making strategy, they could quickly make a breath-taking, even world changing, difference.

I read that last sentence, compare it to what I know about this real world, and I gasp, "Something is terribly wrong."  There are millions who name the name of Jesus.  If even 1% of those millions were working the Jesus plan, the WORLD WOULD BE CHANGED IN SHORT ORDER!  But I don't see anything like a movement in which over a billion become disciples of Jesus within the span of a generation.  What am I to conclude except that among the masses who name the name of Jesus, we cannot seem to muster a mere 100 people who will devote 21 years to making disciples like Jesus?  What am I to say except, "We have a shockingly serious problem?"

Can this problem be fixed?  Let's talk about it on Monday.  If you would like a down-loadable version of the chart, go to the "pretty good downloads" page for a PDF version you can mount on your wall.

Comments

[Alex Marshall]

I guess we can call this irony, but this is the exact same kinda thinking that was just laid out by the pastor of the church I've been attending here in Birmingham (their website is http://www.brookhills.org) the week before I heard it from you (Thanksgiving weekend). This church in Birmingham is a much larger church (4000 members) and the pastor is really passionate about making disciples of all nations. He actually plaid off of the recent Willow Creek study (another bit of irony? or else you two think very much alike...) and said essentially "all the strategies we've been using (they are part of the Willow Creek Association), which are essentially incremental strategies for making disciples, need to be scrapped. The world's population is growing exponentially, we need to look for exponential strategies of growth."

The plan he has laid out is similar to what you're talking about, but instead of on an individual basis its on a "local church" basis. They want to start branching out and planting "bases" of ministry in various areas. Not only do they want to plant a base every year, but they want to equip the bases to do the same. The other aspect of this that he has emphasized is that these bases are not really "churches" in the sense of having a service on Sunday mornings, but he wants them to work more on the lines of disciple-making bases of operation that can be used to launch things like "community Bible studies" and service projects to open doors and other things that can really fuel disciple making in a local area (probably more along the lines of what you are talking about for individuals). His hope is not to just focus on Birmingham but to do everything with the goal of reaching every part of the world.

So I point this out because I think this might be an awesome opportunity for a bit of ministry partnership. You guys seem to be wanting to go very much in the same direction (and I am all for both of these ideas! Listening to you both has be pumped!!) so it might be of benefit to looking into what you can contribute to each other's thinking and doing.

[Alex Marshall]

Uh... there was an error in my link to the website above (my bad, it apparently included the parenthesis in the link address...). So here it is again:

http://www.brookhills.org/