Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21).
Our God is a missional God. He is a sending God, and we are a sent people!
What are we sent to do? Christ gave his church a commission to make disciples. We are commanded to love all people, but we are sent to make and train disciples. We do this by sharing the gospel in word and demonstrating it in deed. Disciples are made when we share the gospel from the Word of God, the Holy Spirit opens the eyes to understand the Word, and submission takes place through faith and repentance.
The Great Commission has the goal of disciple making. As we love people in word and deed, we become relationally connected. We begin to learn together, work together, and create together. Physical, emotional, and relational needs are met, and we begin to see individuals, families, and entire communities flourish. Followers of Christ who seek to live by the power of the Holy Spirit, albeit often in clumsy and broken ways, are kingdom disciples.
When we live with kingdom intentionality, we live with the missional openness and expectation of a sent people. When I look at people in my life who God has used to make disciples, they embody these five common characteristics.
Five Characteristics of Kingdom Disciples:
1. A Vibrant Relationship with the Lord
An intimate relationship with Jesus is vital, and the key to developing intimacy is spending time with him. Jesus himself, the Son of God, needed time alone to be with the Father and to hear from him. Jesus longs for us to come to him, walk with him, and learn from him (Matthew 11:28-30). Reading and meditating on his Word, praying to him, and practicing other spiritual disciplines develop intimacy.
If we walk by the Spirit and are led by the Spirit then we will experience the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16,18, 22). As we spend time alone with him, the work he is doing within us will become evident. We have this confidence because “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). As he leads and guides us, he is working to make us more like him! This is intimacy with an intentional purpose.
2. A Missional Awakening
God’s heart is missional. He has compassion for people and wants to see us flourish. As we spend time with him, our hearts grow more like his. His grace and love for us compel us to also have a heart for others.
A missional awakening, or an “aha” moment, is really an invitation by the Holy Spirit to step into a purpose much bigger than ourselves. How can we recognize when an “aha” moment has come? Our hearts may be stirred to action as we are reading Scripture. It might be during a time of duress or suffering and our hearts are tender to the plight of others. Job loss or even retirement may cause us to ask, “What now?”
The woman at the well had an encounter with Jesus that moved her to go back to her town and tell people about him. “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word.” (John 4:39-41)
It is not unusual to find our “aha” moment in situations where we have extended ourselves outside of our comfort zones. Regardless of how it may come, when we look back and see a specific time when the Lord gave us a greater passion to love in word and deed and make disciples, we will be encouraged to know that the Lord is working in and through us.
3. A Vital Relationship with the Local Church
Another key characteristic of those living with kingdom intentionality is a strong commitment to and a vital relationship with the local church, the bride of Christ. The local church is often overlooked as a place to find renewal and recharging for effective engagement with those whom the Lord has placed in our circle of influence. It is in the that church discipleship, community, and equipping to live as kingdom disciples have the greatest opportunity for success. Christians were never meant to live in isolation. We need each other to walk consistently with the Lord and to live missionally.
At Perimeter Church, the primary way we train disciples is through Life on Life Missional Discipleship, which is lived out through a discipleship group. These are small groups of people with a leader, who form an intentional commitment to one another and spur one another on towards walking with Christ and living missionally.
Life on Life Missional Discipleship has the strong components of truth, equipping, accountability, and prayer that lead to living with a kingdom intentionality. When we are on mission together, we are much more likely to have a lifestyle of mission and kingdom intentionality. It is important to be part of a community of people where we can be refreshed, refueled, encouraged, equipped, and sent together.
4. A Purposeful Intentionality
To go through life passively, allowing the gentle flow of a current to move us idly from one location to another, is to miss out on the satisfaction that comes from having a grand purpose in life. Those who have a deep desire to live as kingdom disciples where they live, work, and go will be recognized for their intentionality.
It takes intentionality to build relationships. If we want to have an impact in people’s lives then we must build authentic friendships with them. To build friendships, we must spend time with them! To have time, we must build margin into our own lives and make it a priority. It begins with the ability to “see” the people who are already in our lives. The command to engage with and love others is not just for extroverts; no one is excluded from this invitation.
Where do we spend much of our time? Though it will be different for everyone, it is often at home, work, with our kids’ sports teams, the gym, our favorite restaurants, and the grocery store. Pray to the Lord for the people we interact with in our daily lives. We have a saying at Perimeter: “Greet, Befriend, and Invite”. Introduce yourself (greet), build a friendship (befriend), and invite them into your life where they can hear and experience the gospel in word and deed.
When we begin to discuss mission, we often visualize some grand expedition. But it could be something as simple as praying for another person. The Holy Spirit opens our hearts to the needs of someone, and we pray. We may send them a text to let them know we are praying for them or call them to see how they are doing. The key is to be sensitive to the Spirit’s prompting and to act on it.
5. An Impactful Mentorship
When you look back over your life, was your life impacted by a coach, an older friend, or someone who took an interest in your personal development? Many of us stand on the shoulders of those who precede us, men and women investing their lives in others with kingdom intentionality. Their lives are models of kingdom purpose as they share insights, wisdom, and guidance with us.
Our mentors may have been with us in a work or ministry context, but they also could have been a neighbor, a parent, or a relative. We gain practical ideas for engagement and often deeper understanding when we spend time with others who have gone before us. When we have experienced an impactful mentorship, it gives a strong incentive to do the same with others. This is the model that Jesus set up for us: “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).
Conclusion
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38). There are people all around us who are lonely, anxious, depressed, lacking purpose, and lost. They are looking in all the wrong places to fill the void that only the Lord can fill. They desire to be seen and to be known. As God’s people, we are the laborers God sends into the harvest field around us.
As we seek to be kingdom disciples, we do not carry the weight of changing hearts and lives; only the Lord can do this. We are simply called to abide and be faithful. The Lord takes care of the fruitfulness.
Chip Sweney serves as executive director of Greater Atlanta and Global Transformation, and Bill Wood is director of Life on Life Ministries at Perimeter Church.