“I thank all the western missionaries that have brought the gospel to Africa since 1910 and planted churches. Yet, this hasn’t stopped corruption, tribalism and even genocide (Rwanda), promiscuity (HIV/Aids) and other evils. Yes, in one hundred years they made a lot of believers and a lot of Church goers. But they forgot … to make disciples.”
I still remember this speech of a Nigerian church and mission leader during the 2006 Movement of African National Initiatives Continental Consultation on the Great Commission in Nairobi. It made a deep impression on me and highlighted that the Great Commission is not just a call to preach the gospel to all nations, but a call to Discipleship.
I had seen that already in my work as a missionary in western Botswana among one of the least reached and poorest people groups in the world, the San. We started the Lifeschool for the youth and the Disciple School for new believers in the 1990’s. Discipleship thus became the primary focus for the mission work of the Reformed Churches in Botswana: not preaching the gospel – there was actually a lot of preaching in Botswana, a real majority Christian country -, not even Church planting – in our little town of 12,000 inhabitants we had over 60 registered churches -, but discipleship – teaching, coaching, mentoring believers.
It also helped me see, when I came back to the Netherlands, that the deepest cause of the rapid secularisation of Europe in the last 50 years, was nothing less than a lack of Discipleship. The Lord complains in Hosea 4:6: my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Not just head knowledge, but life-knowledge.
Of course, we need to continue proclaiming the Gospel (1st Mark of Mission), but I believe that if we want to turn the tide – and of course, in the end it is God’s work – we have to start focusing more on teaching and nurturing (new) believers, discipleship. Not as a course, but as a life-long, whole life, intergenerational and even intercultural (see Ephesians 3:18) learning curve or ‘discipline’ for all believers.
It was the Cape Town Commitment (2010) by the Lausanne movement that put discipleship on the global missions agenda. Pope Francis followed in 2013 calling for communities of missionary disciples. The Anglican Communion in 2016 with a Season of Discipleship and Intentional Disciple making. The Conference on World Mission and Evangelisation called in 2018 for a Decade of Transforming Discipleship followed again by WEA in 2019 with their ‘Decade of Integral and Intergenerational Discipleship’. Discipleship has become the key issue for the whole church in the 21st century.
My prayer is that this issue of the EEA Newsletter will help us as Evangelical family in Europe to focus on this ‘game changer’ for a secularised and secularising continent, and functions as a starting point for more conversations on best practices, challenges and blessings of participating in the Great Commission the Lord Jesus gave to us.
On the EEA side: we have said goodbye to Emily and Tanja in Bonn and to Arie in Brussels. In Bonn we still have Matthias and for the Brussels Representative we are looking for a new person. See also the post about the vacancy on our website and in the Newsletter. Connie and I are building more regional learning communities in the South and in the Baltic region. A lot of time and energy will of course go to the 4th Global Lausanne Congress in Seoul. Please pray for all the European mission and church leaders that will go there: for safe travels, good conversations and a lot of inspiration.
Yours in His Mission
Jan Wessels
