DISCIPLE-MAKING AS THE MISSING LINK

This section explains why disciple-making is the most neglected issue in Christian revival movements. Based on the biblical mandate and a mathematical model of church growth, disciple-making is identified as a vital missing link to sustain revivals.
Great Commission vs. Great Omission
The Great Commission issued by the resurrected Christ is simple and clear: Make disciples of all nations by going, baptizing and teaching (Matthew 28: 18-20). Making disciples is the central theme of the Great Commission and the central mission of Christ’s Church. Jesus summons people to come to follow Him, and then he commissions those who follow him to go and make disciples. Between the “come to follow” and “go to make,” there lies the duality of discipleship; first becoming disciples and then making disciples. On an individual level, becoming a disciple is not an end in itself but is for the replication of disciple-making. On a local church institution level, a local body of disciples is never meant to be a holy huddle, but for replication of church growth and church planting.
The foremost mission of a local church is to build up the local body of disciples so that replicating a new body of disciples is as natural as living cell multiplication. Mission ought to be the vital gene of the Church. Unfortunately, this gene seems to be largely recessive, not fully expressed to become a dominant phenotype. More often than not, the Great Commission (go and make disciples) degenerates into Great Omission: go and make converts (Phillips 1981; Stott 1999). Mere converts are baby disciples of Christ and not mature enough to be disciple-makers, thereby breaking the cycle of replication of new disciples. Great Omission is thus the root reason why revivals do not last even after they come once in a long time.
Who is a disciple? According to Jesus, a disciple is someone who renounces or denies oneself and takes up the Cross and follows Him daily (Luke 9:23). Four attributes characterize a true disciple of Christ (Phillips 1981, section II): (1) Obedience; (2) Submission; (3) Love; (4) Prayer. The distinguishing hallmark of a genuine and contagious disciple of Christ is undoubtedly Christlikeness exhibiting the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. Sadly, Christian disciples of such high caliber are a rare find. Nevertheless, the small minority of genuine and contagious Christian disciples have provided the vital catalytic power to occasional renewals and revivals, as demonstrated by the mathematical model below.
Mathematical Model of Disciple-Making
The exponential growth potential with disciple-making as opposed to conversion-minded evangelism has been recognized (Phillips 1981, 15-29). John Hayward applied a dynamic system model of church growth to contemporary revivals (Hayward 2002). This model realistically assumes that only a subclass of church members called enthusiasts are active for a finite period of time in facilitating unbelievers to their conversion. In essence, enthusiasts or active believers are contagious disciples of Christ. The simulations based on this model can help to forecast the latency or pre-revival time, duration and magnitude, and demise of any revivals as if an epidemic development. Foremost among many insightful observations obtained through the simulations is this: Enthusiasts or active believers matter the most to church revival growth. Losing active believers and/or dwindling nonbelievers stalls church revival growth.
Church growth is driven by, and its ultimate size determined by, the quality (the reproduction potential), not quantity, of such enthusiasts or active believers. The reproduction potential is defined as the number of new enthusiasts one enthusiast can potentially make throughout the duration of enthusiasm. The quantity of enthusiasts only affects the latency time: the more, the shorter. Simply put, enthusiasts are disciples made who can in turn make disciples who can furthermore make disciples (2 Timothy 2:2). Furthermore, renewal of existing lukewarm Christians (to become spiritually infectious), not evangelism (to add new converts), speeds up church revival growth. But revival growth (in quantity) is not the same as revival (in quality) which, according to Hayward, is “a work of the Holy Spirit in people, transforming them into the likeness of Christ and bring them into a powerful experience of the presence of God”. Still, a small band of high quality disciples who are enthusiastic, contagious, and self-replicating are the key to sustained church revival growth. Renewal is more effective if a critical mass of enthusiasts is concentrated together in one place (i.e., an institutional local church).
Intentional and Institutionalized Disciple-Making
In one of the seven parables for the Kingdom of God as yeast (Matthew 13:33), Jesus was not only prophetic but mathematically shrewd as well. The key to sustained church growth in revival mode is to start with an inconspicuous brand of genuinely infectious disciples like yeast (or enthusiasts per Hayward). To borrow a military jargon, a local church just needs “a few good soldiers” to get the fire of revival started.
While it is ideal to have as many genuine disciples as possible in any local church, it is realistic and hopeful to strive toward a revival with just a small band of enthusiasts. The most crucial factor is intentional and institutionalized disciple-making. The intentionality concerns a willful determination on the part of church leadership, with the educated understanding that making a small number of good enthusiasts throughout every conversion cycle holds far greater revival potential than merely making a larger number of sterile converts. The intentionality thus sets priority straight for the institutional functions of the church since renewing the existing lukewarm members to bring them to life again is a better option than trying to start from scratch and make the new converts better evangelists. The intentionality also holds back uninformed and unnecessary pessimism since conscious mid-course adjustment can buck and reverse the trend of decline that may be already happening. Finally, the intentionality helps make informed choice of potential disciple-makers. A correspondence with time study with 103 evangelical disciple-makers revealed that those who scored both low on Aggression (not violent) and Harmavoidance (enjoying exciting experience) in a multi-dimensional personality questionnaire remained in the disciple-making program for the longest period (Waller, Benet, and Farney, 1994).
The disciple-making must also be institutionalized. In the ongoing worldview and cultural tension across the Church-Society boundaries, new converts must be systematically brought inside the community of faith, trained by seasoned disciple-makers, and nurtured into Christlike maturity with a passion for the Great Commission. The critical mass requirement suggests a greater impact with a team of enthusiastic disciple-makers than if individually dispersed and isolated. Sending a team of missionaries and church planters is therefore a better approach. A sociological, rather than commonly psychological, analysis of old fashioned revivals using a normative framework affirmed the institutionalized nature of revivals and delineated four orderly developmental steps (Ward, 1980). The four steps are: (1) contact (sinner and revival culture must interact), (2) learning (structural facilities must be available for learning the Christian role), (3) profession of faith (opportunity structures must present themselves to afford the expression of appropriate behaviors that are in accord with pre-established patterns), and (4) sanctification (status passage from salvation to sanctification is an orderly one). Proper institutional structures have to be in place since replicative disciple-making from the outset is a relational process that requires a community of mutually accountable and dedicated believers.

CONCLUSION

The simple yet profound argument in this paper is this: making disciples is the key to sustained revival growth.
The illustration in Appendix visually bears this argument out. Starting with no more than 10 disciples in a least-reached community of 10,000 unbelievers, >70% of this community would become Christians in 30 years, if only 10% of new converts (only two of 20 converts per disciple-maker in just five years of active outreach) become disciple-makers. Increasing the conversion potential to 30 converts in five years per disciple-maker while keeping the discipleship success rate at 10% will convert >95% of the population in 30 years (Zhang 2006). Throughout the years of revival growth, the enthusiasts always remain a small but catalytic minority (see the red solid line marked active believers in the illustration). The dwindling of the unbelievers and/or the active believers stalls revival growth. If the unbelievers’ population is not dwindled, or if the church constantly seeks out those unreached communities for church planting, the revival can last as long as the percentage of the unreached people remains greater than the revival threshold. The revival threshold is the reciprocal of reproduction potential which is the product of conversion potential and disciple-making success rate (Hayward 2002). Thus higher conversion potential and/or higher success rate of disciple-making lowers the revival threshold.
In a time when interest compounding and stock dividend reinvestment yield handsome returns in just 10-30 years, when will the Church awaken to the simple yet profound truth of reproductive disciple-making in fulfilling the Great Commission? It is a wake up call, long over due.

REFERENCES CITED

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Fox, Richard. 2004. Jesus in America. HarperCollins Publishers.

Hayward, John. 2002. A Dynamic Model of Church Growth and Its Application to Contemporary Revivals. Review of Religious Research, 43, 3:218-241. See also http://www.church-growth-modelling.org.uk/ for other online articles including: How Did the Welsh Revival in 1904-5 Start? Tipping the Church into Growth.

Hughes, Selwyn. 2005. Why Revival Waits. Broadman & Holman Publishers.

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Petrie, Alistair P. 2003. Transformed! 10 Principles for Sustaining Genuine Revival. Chosen Books.

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Poloma, Margaret M. 1997. The “Toronto Blessing”: Charisma, Institutionalization, and Revival. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 362 (2): 257-271.

Stott, John. 1999. Make Disciples, Not Just Converts. Christianity Today; Vol. 43 Issue 12.

Tracy, Joseph. 1989. Great Awakening: A History of the Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitefield. Banner of Truth.

Waller, Niel G., Benet, Veronica, and Farney, Darrell L. 1994. Modeling Person Situation Correspondence over Time: A Study of 103 Evangelical Disciple-Makers. Journal of Personality, 62, 2:177-197.

Ward, David A. 1980. Toward a Normative Explanation of “Old Fashioned” Revivals. Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 3(1).

Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Great_Awakening).

Zhang, Rumin. 2006. Excel-Based Simulation Program for Church Revival Growth.

APPENDIX: SIMULATION OF CHURCH REVIVAL GROWTH

(Omitted due to technical problem)