Outreach and discipleship

I've been thinking today about the need for discipleship. We are called as Christians to reach out to people who don't know Christ, and in our church we've started having outreach services once a month on Sundays, and youth outreach service once every few months. The gospel message is preached and people have the opportunity to pray 'the salvation prayer' at the end. In many of these services, we get some people who give their lives to the Lord, or rededicate their lives, or who at least show interest in finding out more about God. Praise the Lord for that! The really frustrating thing is, there never seems to be any lasting fruit. People come closer to God during that service, but we as a church are still working out how to go about growing these infants in Christ, or these seekers, through discipleship. It seems that we are always so busy in our church, with so many things that are intrinsically good: worship conferences, ACC meetings, not to mention our own work and study schedules. But, because of so many things happening, the welcome barbeque that has been planned a few times never seems to happen. Nothing is done with the contact details that we obtain during outreach services. I'm as much at fault here as anyone else. This is something that has been put on my heart today, as we prepare for our next outreach service tonight, that I really need to get involved in follow-up, to see people grow in Christ.

It reminds me of the parable of the sower mentioned in the gospels (Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:1-15). Jesus speaks of four kinds of seeds, which can be likened to four kinds of people who hear the gospel message. The first seed falls on the path, where birds eat it up. Sometimes the evil one snatches the message away before the person can hear it. The second and third seeds grow initially, but don't continue, either because the soil was shallow and the sun caused them to wither, or they were choked by the other plants around them. This is like some people, who can hear the gospel message and want it for their life, but fall away when they get back to living their old life, and do not grow because there was no opportunity. God is completely sovereign and he can work in people's lives in any circumstance. Sometimes people go later to other churches and grow, or sometimes a seed is planted that will grow much later. But, I believe that if we are praying for souls to come to the Lord, and if we are holding outreach services, then we need to be ready for follow-up, to disciple those people who are the answer to our prayers. There is a fourth type of seed mentioned in the parable: that which falls in good soil and produces a crop, a hundred times what was sown. These are the people who hear the word, who accept it and who continue to grow in maturity. I am still growing, and I'm praying that other people can too.