Terry Virgo’s Blog

I have just returned from a memorable visit to Yalta in the Crimea, famously used by Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt for their historic 2nd world war meeting.

Together with a UK team headed up by David Devenish, I had the privilege of addressing pastors from churches who had gathered from such places as the Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and even Russian-speakers from Israel. It was an extraordinary time. God’s presence was very real and I found it very thrilling to teach these hungry, godly men and women. I gave three talks from Paul’s letters to Timothy, which seemed greatly appreciated. It was also thrilling to see a real breakout of powerful healings while we were together.

Surprise developments
Perhaps what will be one of the most memorable aspects of this visit was the sudden shock that my wife, Wendy, was in serious pain as a result of which she was rushed into hospital and at about 2.30am on 24th April she had her appendix removed. As you can imagine, this was a very unexpected turn of events. Wendy had not been conscious of having appendix trouble prior to the sudden crisis but doctors had no doubt that there was need for immediate surgery.

Wendy and I have been overwhelmed by the expressions of love that have poured in to us. We are so grateful for the prayers of many, and although the hospital was somewhat different to hospitals that you would find in the West, the surgery was very efficient and our travel insurance made it possible for Wendy and me to stay on in a nearby hotel as the team returned to the UK.

Though the weather was disappointing, we were very near to the sea and there was a very pleasant, flat promenade where Wendy could venture forth for short walks prior to our return journey.

While she was resting, I also stepped out along the prom, enjoying the benefits of my IPod and drinking in more John Piper ministry. I had been so stirred and blessed by hearing him at the recent New Word Alive, so felt a real appetite to feast on more of his phenomenal teaching, so spent a few hours walking up and down the prom with John Piper! It was a very great blessing.

I have been encouraged by e-mails expressing a very warm response to my own contribution to New Word Alive and look forward to the probability of speaking there again next year.

News from the USA
Meanwhile, news from my son Joel, who is currently attending a conference in New York hosted by Tim Keller, tells me he has enjoyed excellent fellowship with Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll and that CJ Mahaney, who spoke at the first session, was the best he’d ever heard him – which is saying a great deal! I look forward to seeing him on his return, but that will have to await my return from Bordeaux, where I am travelling tomorrow to address the elders and wives of the Newfrontiers churches in France, together with a team of UK guys who will also be present.

I must confess that, having just enjoyed an excellent time with the Russian-speaking leaders, I look forward to this opportunity also. At least I can understand the occasional French word!

Maggie Parker’s healing
I mentioned in my post dated 17th April about Maggie’s healing when I was in Cardiff. Here is an excerpt from her e-mail dated 21 April.

‘It has been a very strange fortnight to say the least. I have never had so many opportunities to witness handed to me on a plate. I have many Christian and non-Christian friends all over the world. I am just overwhelmed by the joy He has given to so many people: the hairdresser, an exercise class I attend, the road tax man. The list goes on and on. I haven’t heard from the Council, or the DVLC or the Dept. of Works and Pensions whom I have told I do not want their money anymore! All the letters contain a short testimony to the effect that I am a practicing Christian and believe that Jesus died for me to forgive my sins, is risen and that He is still healing today - wow! I would love to have seen their faces on opening such a letter.

‘People are not looking quite so small now as I am adjusting to seeing the world from standing upright. I have been up an escalator and of course walked where I have not been able to before. My friend in North Wales already has my favourite walks earmarked and of course this includes the miners’ track of Snowdon. My muscles and ligaments are complaining because I do not seem to be able to gauge a “slow build up of exercise”! I’ll get to a more sensible stage I expect.’

Maybe I still can’t pronounce it properly, but I really enjoyed my visit to the North Wales seaside town of Pwllheli where I spoke at the New Word Alive conference.

Travelling across Wales from Cardiff (where I had spent the weekend preaching at Rhiwbina Baptist Church) through intermittent sunshine and snow showers was a delight in itself. The views were magnificent, with crowds of daffodils and freshly born lambs evident on all sides against the backdrop of splendid snow-capped mountains.

Not many wise
Scripture tells us that God doesn’t choose many wise but mostly foolish (see Study 40 on Bible Insight on this website), but when brilliant minds do get saved and are humbly yielded to God what a phenomenal privilege it is to be on the receiving end of their teaching! Don Carson (expounding John’s first epistle) and John Piper (on Romans 8 ) were both at their best (if that was not their best, goodness knows what is!). Every sermon was preached twice as first approximately 2,000 adults gathered followed by the similar sized UCCF’s student group. I guess that, with children, about 5,000 attended.

In addition to taking my two opening evening sessions in the main tent, I was also drawn into Wallace Benn’s late evening session with pastors. Meeting Wallace (Anglican Bishop of Lewes) and hearing his brief devotional morning talks to the speakers’ team and evening with leaders was also a memorable highlight for me.

I enjoyed renewing fellowship with Richard Cunningham of UCCF. He is always fun to be around. It was also good to meet Hugh Palmer from All Souls Langham Place, and Mike Ovey from Oak Hill Theological College. An unexpected surprise was renewing contact with former student friends from my years at London Bible College.

Worship
I was proud of Stuart Townend and Lou Fellingham with Phatfish from my home church CCK in Brighton as they led worship, and, although worship times were not as exuberant as we would be used to, they served us brilliantly.

I wish I could have had longer with Don Carson but I was glad to have time with John Piper and took opportunity to chat with him about his superb teaching on Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ view of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which I had downloaded from his Desiring God website.

It was fascinating to be a charismatic among (I guess predominantly) cessationists, and to enjoy their zeal and passion for God and to celebrate together the great things that we have in common, not to mention be humbled by the devotion to Scripture that was so evident.

Other excitement
While at Rhiwbina I had the joy of praying for Maggie Parker, who had been wheelchair-bound for 23 years. She stood, walked unaided to the front and testified to an astonished and tearful congregation how Jesus had completely healed her, and then expressed her surprise that everybody seemed so short! That was pretty exciting too!

This week I am speaking at New Word Alive in Pwllheli. If you want to keep up to date, please look at Adrian Warnock’s blog as he is blogging live from here adrianwarnock.com/2008

Five or six years ago we were wondering, as our morning congregation was filling our building, whether it was time to plant out a congregation across the town. As we pondered this very seriously, Peter Brooks, who was the lead elder, felt that God was beginning to impress upon him that, instead of planting out a congregation in another location, it would be right to start an evening congregation.

We were praying about it very seriously and discussing it but had not finally made up our minds, when I had a day of prayer and fasting in my home with about twenty friends from churches around the south-east of the UK. Towards the end of our day together, John Groves, the pastor of the Newfrontiers church at Winchester who was with us, looked at Peter and said, ‘I don’t know why I have to say this to you Pete but I know that God is telling me to say to you, “Two sevens are fourteen.”’ Pete and I looked at one another, immediately aware of the significance of this strange word: namely that it was time for us to go for an evening congregation and believe that God would bring us to 1400 people in our two meetings.

It’s been a tremendous joy lately to record that on two recent Sundays we have topped the 1300 mark and are pressing on towards 1400, as God promised we would. (I love days of prayer and fasting and the wonderful gift of prophecy!)

Two weeks ago, at the end of gospel presentations morning and evening, over 30 people responded. We have been thrilled to see people being saved on a weekly basis and our weekly prayer meetings have been enjoying growing faith and the sense of God’s presence.

This last Sunday here in Brighton, we saw twenty people respond to the gospel as I continued preaching a series on Elijah. I have been very stirred by the fact that Elijah lived in what might be called a ‘post-Christian era’ and that within 58 years of Solomon’s glorious reign, and after seven disastrous kings, Ahab now ruled over a nation that had thoroughly lost its way, outlawed the worship of Yahweh and made Baal the official god.

Elijah, another Abraham
Against a background of paganism, Elijah was like another Abraham, setting out on a journey of faith, encountering King Ahab but with no exit strategy, and finding God taking care of him and granting him extraordinary experiences of His faithfulness. Against a backdrop of unbelief and paganism, Elijah was not called to challenge his contemporaries with a fresh encounter with law but a fresh call to faith. Coming to a widow at Zarephath, who had no god, no bread and no hope for the future, he invited her to an adventure of faith, an encounter with the living God.

May God help us, like Elijah, to stay strong in faith when all looks bleak and to stretch out our hand of faith to an unbelieving generation, calling them into personal commitment and awareness of a God who can provide every need and give hope and real answers for the real world.

(Free downloads of the Elijah series can be found on the CCK website http://www.cck.org.uk/group/group.aspx?id=68819)

I really enjoyed preaching the gospel at Jubilee Church, Worthing on Sunday and was so excited to see people responding. I was also delighted to hear that on Sunday morning at Church of Christ the King here in Brighton the crowds surpassed anything we have seen on a Sunday morning for a long time.

But perhaps the most exciting Easter news I have heard can be found on
http://voxpopnetwork.com/vision/2008/03/24/bath-tisms-and-other-good-news/
Evidently God came in power at Mark Driscoll’s church on Easter Day.

I am sure you realise that bookings for the Together on a Mission conference where Mark will be speaking are coming in thick and fast and I am sure this news from Seattle will not slow down the rush.

Personally, I am looking forward also to speaking at Word Alive in a few weeks time. I count it a great privilege to stand alongside DA Carson and John Piper, and look forward very much to the fellowship I trust we shall enjoy together. I also am booked up for a number of interviews there, so look forward very much to being in a completely new context together with my dear friends Stuart Townend and Phatfish, who are involved in the worship there.

Our staff prayer meeting here at Church of Christ the King yesterday morning was full of the presence of God. About two dozen attend each Tuesday morning and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s so great to be before God, receive His encouragements and pour out your heart to Him praying that God would visit our nation and our city.

We are delighted to hear that HTB might well be taking over the virtually redundant St Peters Church in the heart of Brighton. This massive building, Brighton’s parish church, was once considered to be the potential cathedral for Brighton when Brighton and Hove received city status.

Praise God that maybe it will become another gospel church here in Brighton in the not too distant future.

I am looking forward to preaching at Hove’s Holland Road Baptist Church next month, and we do praise God for growing fellowship across the town amongst the evangelical churches here.

Let’s keep praying and believing that God will glorify His Son in our generation in our nation.

I have recently returned from visiting the USA, where I had the privilege of addressing our annual Newfrontiers leaders and wives conference entitled Equipped for Mission.

Apart from heavy snow at St Louis, resulting in my having to stay overnight at Cincinnati on the way out, it was a very enjoyable experience. I always love being with so many of my dear friends in the presence of God. It was also good to meet a number of new faces, brothers looking in to Newfrontiers and trying to get a feel of who we are and where we are going.

One very enjoyable and unexpected development was that, after my first session in which I restated some of our key values, I was asked if I would teach on helping people to receive the Holy Spirit.

Although we looked at many Scriptures, I was particularly drawn to Galatians 3:2-5, where I am fascinated to see how the English Standard Version has retained the RSV translation of that passage, saying in verse 5, ‘Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?’ while the NIV introduces the word ‘God’ for ‘he’ which does not appear in the Greek text.

Interestingly, Galatians 3:5 is actually ambiguous, stating ‘he’ (not ‘God’) while the NASB goes for ‘He’. Of course, it could well be that Paul is referring to ‘God’.

In Romans 1:11, Paul simply states, ‘I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,’ and Acts 19:6 says, ‘When Paul had laid his hands upon them the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.’

Arguably, even if it was Paul’s hands, the fact is that it is God who gives.

Hearing with faith
What was particularly encouraging to me was that, following my Biblical exposition, a number of people who were ‘hearing with faith’ as I spoke ‘received the Spirit’ and spoke with tongues.

On the following day I spoke about the Lord Jesus as a healer and some wonderful things happened as again the Scripture was fulfilled as people were healed and miracles were worked amongst us, once again ‘not by works of the law but by hearing with faith’ (Gal. 3:5). It is interesting to note in Acts 14:9, ‘This man was listening to Paul as he spoke, who, when he had fixed his gaze upon him, and had seen that he had faith to be made well, said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet,” and he leapt up and began to walk’ (NASB).

Acts 14:7 says that Paul was ‘preaching the gospel’. One wonders what Paul’s gospel message was that inspired this man to ‘have faith to be made well’. Do we preach the same gospel message as Paul? - I wonder!

It thrills me to declare truth and watch what happens when people ‘hear with faith’.

(This is the final part of our interview with Mark, which will appear in the above magazine, due out in the next couple of weeks. For previous magazines featuring, for example, an interview with Wayne Grudem, see the Newfrontiers website (www.newfrontiers.xtn.org). Newfrontiers magazine is also available on subscription from magazine@newfrontiers.xtn.org.)

JV: Is Bible preaching making a comeback in the West?

MD: In our church planting network our men preach an hour of exposition as a general rule and they are doing a great job. Our experience is, the longer and harder you preach the younger and more secular the crowd you draw, providing you keep it all about Jesus.

JV: What are some of the things no one is saying but you wish would get said?

MD: I wish we had a functional definition of a false teacher so that some of the wingnuts, nutjobs, oddballs and wolves writing and speaking on behalf of evangelicalism could be taken out back and shot.

JV: You guys in Acts 29 have chosen to state your commitment to distinct male/female roles in family and church as a non-negotiable value (not unlike ourselves). Could you tell us what has influenced that decision?

MD: A deep love for God’s Word. The Bible is clear that men are to lovingly head their homes, and elders are to be the best men whom God calls to do the same in the church. We are routinely criticised for this belief. But, our men and their wives and the fruit of their ministry speaks for itself and is the best apologetic for the truth because the truth simply works.

JV: What would be your aspirations for Mars Hill and Acts 29?

My goal for Mars Hill is to be a church of people who live new lives out of regenerated hearts with Jesus. Numerically, we are currently pushing 7,000 a Sunday and opening our 6th campus. I preach live at one, and we simulcast via video to five others. Going forward I can see dozens of campuses around the world and I can see at least 30,000 people in our church if God wills.

As far as Acts 29, I want to stress that I cannot take credit for the church planting that occurs. Our network churches plant churches and I am honoured to be among those men, but they are doing most of the heavy lifting. That being said, I am praying for 1,000 churches planted in the US running an average of 250 people for a movement of 250,000 people in the US plus overseas plants in addition. By God’s grace, we’re working on our second 100 church plants and 1,000 seems attainable before I am really even that old.

JV: Acts 29 have clearly combined a successful emphasis on church planting with a good deal of remarkable church growth in many US cities. How can we plant thousands of churches while growing churches of thousands?

MD: We feel like the little boy who gave his lunch to Jesus.

JV: You seem to keep connected with some creative missional thinkers as well as conservative reformed theologians. Not all reformed leaders would want to learn from the church growth movement. Does that create a tension?

MD: When you only listen to your team, you are being proud and defensive. The key is to have the humility to learn from people unlike you, and the discernment to know what to adopt and what to reject.

JV: You’ve achieved an unusual writing and teaching output, while leading Mars Hill and Acts 29 – how? You must have a remarkable crowd of leaders around you. How does that work?

MD: We recently rewrote the bylaws of our church and reorganised everything. I resigned as the legal president of the church, head of the elder board and lead pastor. Much of my power is now entrusted to other godly men with a good structure to ensure health and growth simultaneously. I feel very relieved at the outcome, encouraged for our future, and have deep trust with our elders. They are doing a good job and do love Jesus and our church very deeply.

Furthermore, they are building great systems and training great leaders. This allows me to focus on vision, writing, preaching, teaching and studying along with some travel. This year I will preach some 40-42 weeks at Mars Hill five times a Sunday, travel and also publish six books and do a lot of media interviews and conference preaching. I do feel the time is ripe, I am young, my health is good, my church is maturing, and so I am doing all I can to do what I can by God’s grace.

JV: Do you ever envisage your non-USA role expanding?

MD: Yes, and it already is. One of the reasons I am coming to the Newfrontiers conference and then heading to Australia in August is to see what God is doing and find more opportunities to expand the kingdom and plant churches. I have a global heart and vision and am seeking opportunities to find out what that means practically.

JV: Thank you! We very much look forward to having you among us in July.

JV: Having heard your preaching online and read your books, one sees the influence of great reformed men in your theology. How about the areas of leadership and missiology? Have you any stand-out mentors and role models when it comes to these aspects of your calling?

MD: Insofar as my theology is concerned I glean a lot from Augustine (especially on predestination), Calvin (especially on city transformation), Luther (especially on the gospel), along with the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards and, my favourite person outside of Scripture, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. More contemporary influences in missiology include Lesslie Newbigin along with Tim Keller and Ed Stetzer, and influences in theology include JI Packer, Francis Schaeffer, John Stott, Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware, DA Carson, John Piper, David Wells and my writing partner Gerry Breshears.

Personally, I have also gotten a lot of good systems training from Larry Osborne, personal growth from CJ Mahaney, and learned a lot on Biblical Counselling from men such as David Powlison, Tim Lane and Paul Tripp. To be honest, God has allowed me to meet and learn from some of the most helpful people in the world for what I am doing, and they have kindly extended a hand of friendship and been wonderfully supportive.

JV: Some would regard you as a rare combination: reformed and charismatic (or ‘charismatic with a seatbelt’ – as you put it …). Do you observe this becoming more common in our generation?

MD: The September 2006 issue of Christianity Today declared that the two hot theologies for young pastors was Emergent (eg Brian McLaren, Rob Bell etc) and the New Reformed. The New Reformed was marked as being missional, urban, church planting focused, complementarian and charismatic. I am gladly in that stream of conviction. As reformed theology walks away from some of the goofy legalisms of fundamentalism, returns to a more robust Biblical theology ala Geerhardus Vos or Calvin that is not tied to all of the philosophical speculation that plagues modernistic academic reformed theology, and seeks cultural renewal in cities through church planting, it will become more and more attractive. The key will be: as it succeeds can it remain humble? If so, it could win the day for the current generation of pastors rising up.

JV: Do you have a theology of revival? I guess many would see the rapid growth at Mars Hill (and some of the Acts 29 work) as taking on revival proportions. Is this how you would see it, or are you looking for something further (or do you even see revival as a helpful category)?

MD: I do. I have read both Jonathan Edwards and Iain Murray on this, for example. I have also studied many church movements such as the Methodists and Jesus Movement. I do believe that revival is akin to Nehemiah stacking the old stones that had lain unused for many generations. My city (Seattle) is still pre-Christian so technically I would say that we are more of a missions movement than a revival movement. But, as we spread through our campuses and church plants around the nation and world, I guess that is possible.

By God’s grace, we are multi-denominational and having what seems to be a positive and helpful influence on many churches, denominations and networks for which we praise God. In the end, we’ll see what God does. We’re off to an encouraging start but the game is far from over and maybe one day when I’m dead someone can write the report of what happened and see if it qualifies as something akin to a revival. For now, I’m just trying to follow Jesus, love my wife, enjoy my kids, pastor my church, preach my Bible, confess my sins, write my books and have my fun.

JV: Given your vantage point, what would you predict for the development of evangelicalism in the West over the coming 20 years?

MD: I would hope to see a robust gospel, love of church planting, and call for dudes to act dudely.

JV: What are some of the weaknesses of the Western church scene?

MD: There are so many that it is hard to whittle down. First, there is a theological weakness that makes many churches and Christians prone to false teaching of every sort from prosperity to feminism, and even homosexuality and paganism. Second, there is a focus on results (eg growth) over cause (eg Spirit-enabled gospel power). Third, the old line fundamentalists are becoming more vocal, more vicious, more uninformed and more embarrassing when it appears they speak on behalf of all Christians. Fourth, there is a growing disdain by some for any form of authority such as parental, pastoral and preaching. The result will be (and in some cases already is) the proliferation of cults under the guise of new small church forms.

JV: And what are some of the things which encourage you?

MD: I am honoured to see a generation of young men rising up with amazing gifts and a willingness to learn from godly older men. I am encouraged by the returning zeal for church planting. I am also excited by the opportunities technology affords us to get the gospel and gospel training out to the world cheaply and instantly. Lastly, I am personally encouraged at the huge sales of my books such as Vintage Jesus*, a growing online audience to my sermons and teaching, and just glad to be of any help to anyone for Jesus.

*Available to pre-order from tomorrow from Newfrontiers Resources - recommended by JI Packer and Wayne Grudem (www.newfrontiers.xtn.org/resources)

(To be concluded tomorrow…)

See my review of this book, which Driscoll contributes to, on the Resources page of this website.

I am delighted that not only have we got Mark Driscoll coming to our conference in Brighton this summer (and be quick if you want to get in because bookings are coming in so very fast - over 3,000 booked already!) but also we have been able to interview him in advance.

My son Joel was able to be in touch and I am pleased to share the results of that interview with you over the next few days. It will soon be published in our Newfrontiers magazine but why don’t you enjoy a foretaste of what I feel is an outstanding insight into our guest speaker at this year’s Leadership Conference.

Mark Driscoll leads Mars Hill Church in Seattle, USA.

JV: Mark, it’s a privilege to be in touch with you in advance of your anticipated visit here in July. We so look forward to hosting you at the Together on a Mission conference.
We understand you ordinarily limit your time outside the States strictly. So why did you feel it would be good to prioritise a UK trip this year?

MD: I pray a lot over the trips I take. With a growing church (www.MarsHillChurch.org), church planting network, five young children, book deadlines, and most of all a wife I really enjoy, time away comes at a great cost for me. But, on this trip I anticipate both serving and being served. What I mean is that Newfrontiers has been faithfully planting churches for a long time with great success. And I anticipate that I will learn a great deal about ministry and church planting while making some great friendships and kingdom partnerships.

JV: Could you tell us some of your story? You were raised in a Catholic home, but got saved at college. Is that right? How did you meet your wife?

MD: Yes, I was born October 11, 1970. My parents were young and went on to have a total of five children (three boys and two girls). I grew up in a hard-working Irish Catholic family where my dad was a construction worker and my mom stayed home with the kids. I attended Catholic church growing up and attended Catholic school for a few years and served as an altar boy. In my teen years I grew bored with church and essentially stopped going. At the age of seventeen, I met a young lady in school who I was drawn to in every way. She bought me a Bible and I was saved while reading Romans at the age of nineteen while at college.

I was shortly thereafter called by God into ministry as He literally spoke to me telling me to marry the lady (Grace), plant churches, train men and preach the Bible. At the time I was in a wonderful church with a brilliant, humble and godly pastor who loved me and taught me the Scriptures faithfully. Grace and I married at the age of 21 and graduated at the age of 22. We moved back to Seattle and did ministry, and worked for a few years before starting the church.

As an encouraging aside, I know that some Catholics do love Jesus and are Christians, like my mom was when I was growing up. But, many of us Catholics did not know or love Jesus and I have seen many members of my immediate and extended Catholic family become Christians, including my dad who attends our church with my mom.

JV: Could you tell us a little about how you integrate family life with your calling to lead churches and preach?

MD: When we first started the church, things were very small and Grace and I had no children in our early to mid-twenties. She was very involved but has pulled back since the church has grown over the years and our family now includes five children. My goal for my lovely wife and our children is to simply be mature active church members. My wife and children love our church and do serve, but I am very careful not to put pressure on them to conform to a role that the Scriptures do not define.

There is no office such as pastor’s wife or pastor’s children and I work very hard to ensure that our family remains our top priority over the church. Too many pastors put their ministry above their family and their wives and children get active in the church just so they can be close to their husband/daddy which is tragic. We have a normal fun family life and by God’s grace my wife and kids love Jesus, me and our church.

(To be continued tomorrow…)

When you know that God has initiated a relationship, you can also expect His help. You do not have to make the disciple over-dependent on you. You become a fellow labourer with God in producing another disciple of the Lord Jesus.

Working with God
‘Who do people say the Son of man is?’ Jesus asked his disciples (Matt. 16:13). Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (Matt. 16:16). On hearing this, Jesus said to Peter, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven’ (Matt. 16:17). Jesus was the discipler but Peter found out something that Jesus had never told him. He received a revelation from God. Similarly, when your disciple finds out things you did not tell him, don’t become offended but rejoice that God is working alongside you. Ultimately your goal is to help the new believer hear and obey God for himself. You want to present him as one who has become mature, no longer dependent on you.

God wants discipleship training to be an integral part of the life of every healthy church. Just as Jesus hand-picked and trained the men he wanted for discipling others, so disciplers should be trained and commissioned by the church before they are released to train others.

Not everyone should be encouraged to disciple others. The apostle Paul warned the Ephesian elders, ‘After I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them’ (Acts 20:29,30). Beware of lone disciplers who seek a personal following.

What’s the goal?
God told Elijah that Elisha would succeed him as prophet (1 Kings 19:16). To Elijah, this was not just a nice idea. It was his commission. Right from the word go, he knew exactly what he had to produce, and that goal would set the pattern for the training. After three years, Elijah could review his disciple’s progress and ask himself, ‘Is Elisha more like a prophet now than when I found him?’

Discipleship must have an objective. If a discipler doesn’t know what he’s trying to produce, how can he test his disciple’s progress? Your goal is not to place someone in permanent subordination but to prepare him for usefulness.

Elijah knew exactly what he was trying to make: a prophet to take his place. That knowledge gave both him and Elisha a firm foundation for the time they spent together. God told Moses, ‘Commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land’ (Deut. 3:28).

‘I charge you,’ said David to Solomon (1 Chron. 28:8). He then gave his sons the plans for the work on the temple, and continued, ‘Be strong and courageous, and do the work’ (1 Chron. 28:20). David left Solomon with no doubts about what he was meant to accomplish. Then he encouraged him to do it.

Commission and encourage
Paul said to Timothy, ‘I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction … discharge all the duties of your ministry’ (2 Tim. 4:1,2,5). Timothy knew what he was meant to be doing before he received the encouragement, ‘The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you’ (2 Tim. 4:22).

When Jesus sent out the Twelve, he first gave them specific instructions about what they should and should not do. ‘Do not go to the Gentiles or to the Samaritans but to the Israelites,’ he said. ‘Tell them that the kingdom of heaven is near. Heal people, raise the dead, and drive out demons. Take this, don’t take that. Beware of men. Keep going …’ (Matt. 10:1-28).

Then, having given them a definite goal, he continued, ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows’ (Matt. 10:29-31). First Jesus commissioned his disciples, then he offered words to encourage them.

(to be continued)