It's Been A Whole Year...

It’s been a whole year…

Over twelve months ago I arrived in Chicago after spending four years in Phoenix, Arizona. My entire life, mindset and spiritual outlook was completely different. I wanted to do ministry and help people, but I also had my own ambitions I was tending to. I had so many opinions, ideologies, presumptions and perspectives of myself and how God viewed me. Some of them weren’t entirely wrong. For example, I loved to share the gospel and dance for Gods glory. However, the way I exemplified this wasn’t exactly the healthiest.

I thought I was doing someone a favor by telling them about the love of Jesus then politely sending them on their way. I figured they had now received the gift of salvation and if I pray hard enough “someone” will take it upon themselves to disciple them. One thing that I missed and realized is that according to the scriptures, if I proclaim the Gospel and the redeeming power of Jesus Christ AND they decide to Follow Christ, they are now “my” disciples just as Paul exclaims to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:12-14. The funny thing is I graduated and helped start a discipleship program, yet I failed to grasp the blatant concept of Matthew 28:19-20. Over the next twelve months little by little my eyes were opened to the simple truth: Discipleship and Evangelism go hand in hand.

You can’t effectively evangelize without making disciples and you can’t make effective disciples without continued evangelism. I would challenge all Christians who are proclaiming the good news to not just throw an Easter outreach say a prayer then move on to the next lost soul, but MAKE disciples!

Mike Avery
Club 2-5-2 Director
D3 Movement Founder