Trough Discipleship we will make Disciples

p RESEARCH

THROUGH DISCIPLESHIP WE MAKE DISCIPLES YOUR NAME

5 /24 /2008

THROUGH DISCIPLESHIP WE MAKE DISCIPLES

INTRODUCTION

This has been an interesting subject to many Christian churches for centuries of which the members follow the great commission by Jesus Christ which the disciples were told to make disciples , baptize and teach . A disciples is usually defined a person who has accepted Jesus Christ as savior , committed himself / herself to the growing relationship with God through guidance of the Holy Spirit . According to Gordon Allport he stated , Intrinsic

, or mature , religion regards faith as a supreme value in its own right . It is oriented toward a unification of being , takes seriously the commandment of brotherhood , and strives to transcend all self-centered needs . A religious sentiment of this sort floods the whole life with motivation and meaning . Religion is no longer limited to single segments of self-interest . Without any doubt we could say that this is aim of many churches and pastors , however the church is faced with many challenges . These challenges not only have effects on church faith development and how to transmit it but also on church growth in terms of members in general . The problem that we are trying to address in this is how and which way we can help process of faith development and maturing in our churches especially in this century

Each church needs its members to be disciples who are responsible and consistent participation in and out of the church activities so as to impact the local community to join the church especially with the young members . In this century , where the church is heavenly influenced by material benefits , modern technology ,education ,the church is slowly losing its young members to the `outside world .Hence ,its become important for the church to focus on faith transmission and growth among the youths . Through introduction of discipleship the church , is able to impact on the growth and maturity of the faith , hence the members grow and feel the need to evangelize and capture the outside world with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit

According to (Bertram Melbourne , 2007 ) there are two different levels of discipleship which are

The first disciples of Jesus

The subsequent followers of Jesus after the accession i .e . the church members

Statement of the problem

The research will help to answer the question of how the church will recruit , teach and maintain both old and new disciples in the church since the main focus of Christianity is to make disciples . In all the major churches , they have been experiencing a slow growth because they are unable evangelize expeditiously to recruit more church members in the younger generation . The youths especially have stopped attending church because they feel the church programmes to be boring and out-of-touch . The church members i .e . the older generations have been strict about the youth services , hence the youth number is dropping this is especially the age group of 13-25 years . The youths that...