What Jesus did with His 3 years of ministry was invest in a few, entrusting the message to 12 men. There was no Plan B to his master plan for world evangelization. There was only 1 plan: Disciplemaking.
"You can't be what you don't see. We get discipleship, but how many of us have seen it last more than one generation? Will we let people imitate our lives? Do I have a life worth imitating?"
"The biggest mistake I made was I told people to go be Jesus to people. None of you can be Jesus to people - only Jesus can be Jesus to people." - Jeff Vanderstelt
"We need to adopt a posture of listening to the neighborhood, or community, or city to which we have been sent. And it is one of the least practiced skills."
Here's how I know you're not really on mission... You're not walking in the rhythms of the life of the people who are there. If you only see them once in a while you're not on mission with them.
Every culture, every neighborhood, every pocket of people has its own celebrations - your job as a Christian is to engage in the celebration with those people.
We have an extremely individualistic view of evangelism and discipleship - we see people as an isolated individual. This leads to impotent forms of evangelism and discipleship.
As leaders, we change as we grow, but we also change in bad ways as well. Francis Chan talks about how he began to rethink his own leadership in light of greater expectations as a leader.
