Jesus' Disciple Making Strategy - Step 1
Jesus, the Master Disciple Maker, was showing those who followed Him a “way to do things” just as much as He was teaching them about a “way to live.” This was the way disciple-making worked. The disciples were with their Rabbi constantly and learned as they experienced life together.
Learning in this sort of relationship took many shapes and forms, and part of that was the discovery of how the Rabbi went about living life: how they did things, what they did and didn’t do. All of it mattered. And Jesus’ followers caught it. The strategies Jesus used with them ended up becoming the strategy we find being put into play as the Early Church began to take shape. They did what Jesus did.
One of the strategies Jesus passed onto His followers (including us) was a way for reproducing through discipleship. It is the primary responsibility He gives to everyone who follows Him, and He had a defined way to go about it.
Let’s take a look at Step 1 in Jesus’ Disciple-Making Strategy
Step 1: Pray
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9: 37-38 & Luke 10: 2
The first step is always to pray. Any other approach is to try and do it in our strength and wisdom, which generally fall short. We start with praying; it is His way.
But here is the catch … Jesus didn’t even instruct us to pray for those who are lost or for the harvest to be ready. He told us the harvest was white and ripe …. it was ready to be gathered while it could be brought in. There isn’t a harvest problem … the problem is laborers to gather the harvest. And this is what He told to pray for … we need harvesters to get up out of their seats and get busy making disciples.
Prayer is the starting point of any disciple-making movement, any church wanting to be effective in disciple-making, and anyone who genuinely wants to follow in the way of Jesus.
We need to be praying for the people and places we are looking to reach. It doesn’t seem that it is bad or not needed; it’s just that we also need to pray for harvesters. We need to step into the gap and take the authority Jesus gave to us, and we need to ask God for laborers to go into these places and share the Good News