The Question That Defines Us

“Go and make disciples…” Jesus said. Anybody here ever make a disciple?

Making disciples is our main job as Christians — not simply to have faith, pray, and worship. Those are good and necessary things, but they find their fullest meaning when they serve this central calling. If you’ve ever tried to make a disciple, you know it takes a whole lot of faith and prayer. And when you’ve made one, you really have something to worship God for.

That little group of Jesus-followers who stuck around after Easter Sunday were probably just as perplexed as we are. The Great Commission — the final marching orders Jesus gave his followers — is both simple and staggering: “Go and make disciples…” The fact that Jesus didn’t hang around to explain exactly how made it all the more bewildering.

How in the world do you make a disciple?

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What Is a Disciple, Really?

Most of us would say a disciple is a student — a follower of a teacher, a servant to a master. Peter, James, John, and the Twelve are the original disciples. So if our job is to make disciples, we ought to take a close look at what Jesus actually said to them. Listen to John 15, beginning at verse 9:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love… My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you… I no longer call you servants, but friends, for a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father I made known to you.”

Strip away the theological complexity, and you hear the Great Commission in a very simple, human way:

“Go and make… FRIENDS!”

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A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

My First “Disciple-Making” Disaster

My first attempt at disciple-making was a disaster — and I now know why. I tried to make a disciple of someone who was already my friend.

I was in college and had just experienced one of my many dramatic religious conversion experiences. Fired up for God and ready to save the world, I started with my best boyhood friend, Dennis. One night on the front steps of our house, I told him everything: how I’d been born again, received a calling to ministry, found answers to all of life’s questions, overcome my sins, and was becoming more righteous by the minute. I invited him to kneel down and…

He didn’t respond the way I expected. I expected tears and contrition. Sackcloth and ashes. What I got was hysterical laughter.

“You? You’ve got religion? YOU’RE going to be a minister? HA!”

And then Dennis spoke a truth I didn’t appreciate then but have treasured ever since: “Butch — I know what you’re REALLY like, and I’m going to follow you everywhere you preach and tell the people that you’re not who you’re pretending to be!”

That was a bitter pill. But it was one of the most truthful sermons ever preached to me — not from a pulpit, but from the mouth of a friend. While I was trying to force a friend to become a disciple, he was helping this disciple get back to being a friend.

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Three Simple Things Jesus Asked For

1. Go and Make Friends

Jesus places the responsibility on us to take the initiative. “Go… and make…” This is an active, intentional, spiritual practice. It means reaching out — not just to newcomers, but to the person you’ve sat next to for ten years and still don’t know by name.

A newer couple in our church told me they almost didn’t stick around — they came several Sundays and no one noticed. Not one person spoke to them. Our job is to notice, to go, to make. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. A handshake and “You know, my memory isn’t what it used to be — remind me of your name?” goes a long way.

2. Help People Belong

The earliest meaning of baptism wasn’t about washing away sin — that came much later. The original understanding was acceptance into the family of God. Baptism said: “Now you belong to us.”

I think of a little boy named Paul who once sat on the steps of my first church with his dog. I invited him in, and he ended up opening the old colonial shutters on the windows every week. The congregation called him “Paul, the blind man” — a delightful echo of the healing stories in Scripture — and they competed to sit with him each Sunday.

When Paul stopped coming because his parents objected, people asked, “Where’s Paul? Where’s the blind man?” He was missed. That’s the point. People experience belonging not just when they are welcomed, but when they are known by name, trusted with something important, and missed when they’re gone.

3. Practice Love

“And teach them my commands.” There are only two: love God and love your neighbor. Christianity is much simpler than we sometimes make it. Make friends. Help people belong. Practice love.

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The Promise Fulfilled

Not long ago, one of our church members died unexpectedly. When I went to the family’s home, they were surrounded by friends — good friends, dear friends, each one bringing some ministry of presence and care.

As we sat together and told stories, something struck me: in our new community most of them had come from someplace else. They had left behind family and support networks to begin a new chapter of life. Not that long ago, they were all strangers.

But that night, they were friends.

In the going to make friends — in the helping to belong — in the practice of love — the promise came true:

“Lo, I am with you always, to the end of time.”

So starting today, on this second Sunday after Pentecost — will you do it?

Dear friends: Go… and make friends.