Linkage: Decisions or Discipleship

I appreciate Scot McKnight's thoughts in this article: Decisions or Discipleship?.  A quick survey of the Church in the United States shows that something isn't quite right.  That problem is that while we can help people make a "decision" for Jesus, but no real life change happens in their lives.  While people do need to make a choice to follow Jesus there is also the important task of making disciples.

It was 1971. I was a 17-year-old high school senior fresh into a brand new experience of faith. I was also full of zeal for evangelism but clueless about how to evangelize other than just telling my friends about what I was so passionate about—God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation and the rapture. 

My church had an evangelism program; I had attended all the sessions for Evangelism Explosion and was paired with a leading deacon in our Baptist church for our first night of calling on people so we could present the gospel to them. The deacon and I knocked on the first door. Behind this door was a man whose name we had been given because he had visited our church and innocently filled out a visitor's card. The man came to the door and greeted us, but it was obvious from traces of food on his face and the napkin in his hand that he and his family were eating dinner and watching TV.

Continue Reading...