Conversion and Discipleship

For the last 200 years or so, the evangelical church has been primarily concerned with converting souls. When Europe was a Christian civilization, this was expressed through missionaries sent to parts of the world where the western version of the gospel had not been adopted. In the American colonies and then in the United States this took place through first and second great awakenings that produced a slew of denominational churches across the nation. The primary idea that demands this priority of conversion has been that thousands of people live in perilous danger of eternal damnation and it is the church’s task to offer them the good news of salvation from such a terrible end. The goal is mostly achieved once a person puts their faith in Jesus because they are now "saved" from hell. Conversion can be roughly described as the moment when an individual comes to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and puts his or her trust in Him as Lord.

While this primary thrust of evangelism created a nation full of people who call themselves Christians, it has not maintained a church or a society that is Christ centered and Kingdom building. Rather, what we observe is a great quantity of people who have converted to Christianity (or been born to people who converted) that still function in ways in their daily lives that are completely inconsistent with a Christ-like life.

Furthermore, conversion is not the task of the church biblically speaking. The great commission is to “Go and make disciples” not to “convert and save souls”. I challange someone to make a biblical case that our mission as the church is to save the world from eternal damnation. And while “making disciples” certainly includes a conversion of heart and life, such an experience is at best the very beginning of the Christian life.

To elaborate further, let me use the analogy of baseball. For centuries our goal and aim has been to recruit people to be on the right baseball team. We've done all we can to get them in the right dugout and put the right uniform on their backs. But this is not what God commands us to do. God commands us to train and develop persons into hardworking and effective baseball players. In fact, God is more concerned that we play the game well and play it right than that we have the right uniform and are in the right dugout. To put things another way, we have prioritized orthodoxy (right belief) over orthopraxy (right practice). As the church we are charged not only to rescue souls from eternal death but to utterly recast their worldview, behavior, and attitudes so that they may become world-changing agents for the Kingdom of God.

If the modern church is to shift its mission from converting souls to making disciples, we will have to make some major changes in the way we approach worship, Christian formation, youth and children's ministries, and even our outreach to the greater community.