By Rev. J. Talmadge Gardner, Executive Director of Church Education Ministries

God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, The Message)

Jesus summarized the meaning of discipleship when He told the Twelve, “Everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40)1

For we have been charged with the call “to equip the people of God for the works of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:12, 13)

The Greek word for disciple – mathetes – means learner, pupil, someone who learns by following. The word implies an intellectual process that directly affects the lifestyle of a person.

There appears to be a growing awareness in the church of what Dr. Gary Moon calls the “incredible invitation God has extended to us to enter into relationship with Him.”2 This awareness has led those who yearn for intimacy to understand and believe that the Great Commission has as much to do with depth (spiritual formation) as strategy. It also appears that those who understand this acknowledge that we have become victims to strategies which have yielded short-term, temporary growth/success as opposed to spiritually formed disciples, which takes time. In short, we have accepted addition instead of multiplication. So we tend to surge ahead and then fall back.

Before He departed from His disciples at the ascension, Jesus gave them the practical directives for the church – the Great Commission. Essentially, Jesus was asking His followers to spread the word of salvation to the whole world. But it is interesting that the action of the text here does not center on going. The verbs going, baptizing, and teaching are all subordinate to the action of the main verb in this passage – the command to disciple, or (from the Greek) make disciples. God’s primary plan for the church is for disciples of Jesus to develop other men and women into disciples.

To follow Jesus is to be a disciple-maker. Following and listening to Jesus are essential elements to effective ministry.

• PDF Training Guides. [DOWNLOAD NOW ] This file is a PDF version of the training guide This file contains only the chapter relevant to this presentation. Download, print and distribute to each participant in the training session.

• Word format Manuscripts [DOWNLOAD NOW ] This file contains the text of the Training Guide, but without all of the special formatting and images. Use this file to create your own teaching guide. This file contains ALL of the manuscripts for all seven presentations.

• Full color PowerPoint presentation file [DOWNLOAD NOW] This PPT file is the full color slide presentation used in the training video. Includes slides for this presentation only. To use this file for training requires MS PowerPoint application and a video projector.

• Greyscale PowerPoint presentation file [DOWNLOAD NOW] This PPT file is the greyscale (B/W) slide presentation used in the training video. Includes slides for this presentation only. Designed to be printed on blank acetate overheads in a laser or inkjet printer. To use this file for training requires MS PowerPoint application and a standard overhead projector.

• Greyscale PDF presentation file [DOWNLOAD NOW] This PDF file contains the greyscale slides used in the training video. Includes slides for this presentation only. Designed to be printed on blank acetate overheads in a laser or inkjet printer. To use this file for training requires only a standard overhead projector.

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