How Disciplemaking Helps Restore Order to the World
The impact of the Fall extends beyond individual people. Our relationships, our communities, our systems, and the very earth we live on suffer from the effects of sin. We may find the brokenness of the world around us getting in the way of our disciplemaking efforts. We can either view this brokenness as a distraction or consider it an opportunity to partner with God in restoring this broken world for his kingdom and glory.
Here are some initial questions to consider:
BASIC NEEDS
Part of our calling as believers is to partner with God in the restoration of the world. James 2:15-16 says, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” We see this reality in the Gospels. People often came to Jesus not for spiritual enrichment but for food, water, and healing. He recognized that their physical needs were just as important as their spiritual needs. And he met both.
As followers of Jesus, we must understand this as well. If you are discipling someone in need of food security, medical attention, or shelter, they may not be able to think about higher- level spiritual needs like a relationship with God. They are just trying to survive!
Disciplemaking may include helping a disciple secure their most basic needs for food and shelter or financial support. It could involve training them how to interview for a job or create a budget for managing their money. Or it could mean connecting them to Social Security resources. By helping meet the basic needs of people who bear God’s image—even the “worldly” ones—we are showing a broken world that God is good and cares about each person he created.
RELATIONAL CONFLICTS
What relationship has not been impacted by the Fall? In our most broken state, we repeat what we know and have experienced. Our best efforts apart from Christ are only marginally better.
As you disciple others, you may find the relational conflicts within their families and support systems a constant struggle and frustration. This may seem like another distraction from the important work of disciplemaking, but it’s actually an opportunity to partner with God in transforming lives. Helping someone learn how to enter into conflict with others and live out new paths in relating to them can be a significant part of their journey in becoming more like Jesus, and in impacting the world for generations to come.
In disciplemaking, the relational issues that inevitably crop up in a person’s life present an opportunity to disciple them in a new way, the way Jesus calls us to disciple: helping them learn to respond with love, self-sacrifice, radical forgiveness, and reconciliation. Just changing this one part of a system has the potential to transform the whole system for the good of generations to come.
I recently sat down with a counselor friend who walked alongside my husband and me in some of our darkest hours as a couple. As I shared some of the new ways we were interacting with each other and the new paths of healing and wholeness God had led us into from that season of counseling, he smiled and said, “For the good of generations to come.” Tears welled up in my eyes. Amen.
Because others devoted time and effort to discipling my husband and me, helping us learn how to walk through relational conflict in a Christ-honoring way, our children get to witness a new way of engaging in conflict. Now my husband and I move toward each other with love and forgiveness and a commitment to the relationship no matter what.
As disciplemakers, we’re called to help others learn to navigate relational conflict for the good of generations to come, and as a witness to the radical and nonsensical love of God.
BROKEN SYSTEMS
Over the past several years, I have been convicted that I have a part to play as a follower of Jesus in righting the broken systems of the world. I’m grateful for the patience and the teaching of my Black, Native, and Hispanic/Latino friends, opening my eyes to the systemic injustices their communities have experienced for generations. I have also been significantly challenged as I grow in my awareness of our sobering Asian American history.
Perhaps God has burdened the heart of someone you are discipling with the brokenness of the systems around us. You might think, This is an irrelevant distraction from establishing and equipping them as a disciple of Jesus! Or you could allow your heart to be burdened with this brokenness as well.
As I grow to love someone, I begin to love the things they love, and my heart breaks for the things that break their heart.
As Christians, we can all too often separate the issues of the world from our spiritual lives. God’s kingdom is not of this world, after all, right? So why should these issues matter if we’re going to heaven anyway, and this old earth will fade away?
Being citizens of the kingdom of heaven, however, doesn’t mean we are no longer citizens of this nation where God has appointed for us to live. By the grace of God, our nation often seeks to right the wrongs of generations that have come before us. Here we have the freedom to worship God and live among a diverse human expression of his kingdom. Yet even among the good things in our nation, some things remain broken (as they are in all nations). We can all agree that racism exists in the hearts of humankind, right? And when the sin of racism infects the hearts of those who hold the power to create legislation, its impact infects systems and structures, benefiting some communities and leading to the detriment and exclusion of others, whether by design or as collateral damage.
Isaiah 58:6-12 helps me understand the role followers of Jesus have to play in helping restore our earthly kingdom as we wait for Jesus’ return and the promise of a new heaven and new earth (see 2 Peter 3:12-13). In this passage from Isaiah, God calls us to partner with him “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” (verse 6). As we play our part in this, we will impact the world around us for the better, and the light of Christ “will break forth like the dawn” and bring healing to our land (verse 8).
In our disciplemaking, for the sake of our witness as followers of Jesus, we must respond to the burdens placed on the hearts of his people and partner with him in restoring the world around us.
Here are some initial questions to consider:
- What is the immediate context of the person you’re discipling?
- Where do they live, work, and play? What socioeconomic bracket do they fall into?
- What communities do they most engage with?
- What is their racial and/or ethnic background?
- How has their community been impacted by the sin and brokenness of the world around them?
- Do they have any immediate tangible needs? Are they experiencing relational conflict in their family or support system?
BASIC NEEDS
Part of our calling as believers is to partner with God in the restoration of the world. James 2:15-16 says, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” We see this reality in the Gospels. People often came to Jesus not for spiritual enrichment but for food, water, and healing. He recognized that their physical needs were just as important as their spiritual needs. And he met both.
As followers of Jesus, we must understand this as well. If you are discipling someone in need of food security, medical attention, or shelter, they may not be able to think about higher- level spiritual needs like a relationship with God. They are just trying to survive!
Disciplemaking may include helping a disciple secure their most basic needs for food and shelter or financial support. It could involve training them how to interview for a job or create a budget for managing their money. Or it could mean connecting them to Social Security resources. By helping meet the basic needs of people who bear God’s image—even the “worldly” ones—we are showing a broken world that God is good and cares about each person he created.
RELATIONAL CONFLICTS
What relationship has not been impacted by the Fall? In our most broken state, we repeat what we know and have experienced. Our best efforts apart from Christ are only marginally better.
As you disciple others, you may find the relational conflicts within their families and support systems a constant struggle and frustration. This may seem like another distraction from the important work of disciplemaking, but it’s actually an opportunity to partner with God in transforming lives. Helping someone learn how to enter into conflict with others and live out new paths in relating to them can be a significant part of their journey in becoming more like Jesus, and in impacting the world for generations to come.
In disciplemaking, the relational issues that inevitably crop up in a person’s life present an opportunity to disciple them in a new way, the way Jesus calls us to disciple: helping them learn to respond with love, self-sacrifice, radical forgiveness, and reconciliation. Just changing this one part of a system has the potential to transform the whole system for the good of generations to come.
I recently sat down with a counselor friend who walked alongside my husband and me in some of our darkest hours as a couple. As I shared some of the new ways we were interacting with each other and the new paths of healing and wholeness God had led us into from that season of counseling, he smiled and said, “For the good of generations to come.” Tears welled up in my eyes. Amen.
Because others devoted time and effort to discipling my husband and me, helping us learn how to walk through relational conflict in a Christ-honoring way, our children get to witness a new way of engaging in conflict. Now my husband and I move toward each other with love and forgiveness and a commitment to the relationship no matter what.
As disciplemakers, we’re called to help others learn to navigate relational conflict for the good of generations to come, and as a witness to the radical and nonsensical love of God.
BROKEN SYSTEMS
Over the past several years, I have been convicted that I have a part to play as a follower of Jesus in righting the broken systems of the world. I’m grateful for the patience and the teaching of my Black, Native, and Hispanic/Latino friends, opening my eyes to the systemic injustices their communities have experienced for generations. I have also been significantly challenged as I grow in my awareness of our sobering Asian American history.
Perhaps God has burdened the heart of someone you are discipling with the brokenness of the systems around us. You might think, This is an irrelevant distraction from establishing and equipping them as a disciple of Jesus! Or you could allow your heart to be burdened with this brokenness as well.
As I grow to love someone, I begin to love the things they love, and my heart breaks for the things that break their heart.
As Christians, we can all too often separate the issues of the world from our spiritual lives. God’s kingdom is not of this world, after all, right? So why should these issues matter if we’re going to heaven anyway, and this old earth will fade away?
Being citizens of the kingdom of heaven, however, doesn’t mean we are no longer citizens of this nation where God has appointed for us to live. By the grace of God, our nation often seeks to right the wrongs of generations that have come before us. Here we have the freedom to worship God and live among a diverse human expression of his kingdom. Yet even among the good things in our nation, some things remain broken (as they are in all nations). We can all agree that racism exists in the hearts of humankind, right? And when the sin of racism infects the hearts of those who hold the power to create legislation, its impact infects systems and structures, benefiting some communities and leading to the detriment and exclusion of others, whether by design or as collateral damage.
Isaiah 58:6-12 helps me understand the role followers of Jesus have to play in helping restore our earthly kingdom as we wait for Jesus’ return and the promise of a new heaven and new earth (see 2 Peter 3:12-13). In this passage from Isaiah, God calls us to partner with him “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” (verse 6). As we play our part in this, we will impact the world around us for the better, and the light of Christ “will break forth like the dawn” and bring healing to our land (verse 8).
In our disciplemaking, for the sake of our witness as followers of Jesus, we must respond to the burdens placed on the hearts of his people and partner with him in restoring the world around us.
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In How to Save the World, Alice Matagora highlights cutting-edge research from The Navigators and Barna Group and invites you to enter Jesus’ plan to save the world wherever you are. She understands your anxieties (because she’s experienced them) and helps you to break down barriers, pointing you to the joy of engaged discipleship: knowing Christ, making him known, and helping others do the same.
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