I remember one of my first support raising meetings when, after I had laid out how we wanted to partner with God on OU’s campus by making disciples who make disciples, I was asked “But when do you push people to get baptized and go to church?”
 
I had a hard time answering that.
 
And I had a hard time with the fact that I had a hard time answering that.
 
Admittedly, this evangelistic focus was the holy cow for me as a young Christian in a Bible Belt church. This was never questioned. The purpose of evangelism was to dunk people and fill pews.
 
And this method of evangelism hit a high point in the mid-late 20th century with church leaders like Billy Graham. Much of our current church demographic in the US came to faith under the teaching and worldview that pushing people to make a one-time decision to take on Christ and hoping that it would stick for the rest of their lives is the calling of the church.
 
But is this style of evangelism really effective in helping people open themselves to the redemption and renewal of the Holy Spirit and live faithfully as the Kingdom of Priests God desires?
 
Meanwhile, when we think of which generation needs to be reached or pulled back into a faith community we might think of Gen Z or Millenials. But studiesshow that Boomers are just as likely to walk away from church as younger generations.
 
Something isn’t sticking.
 
The way I see it (and I reserve the right to be wrong), our conversion model of evangelism has left many Jesus-followers completely ill-equipped to follow Jesus.
 
The call of Jesus in Matthew 28 is to make disciples. This is rooted in the rabbinical tradition of Jewish rabbis gathering students who are committed to faithfully living out Torah. The goal of a disciple then, similar to an apprentice, is to watch their teacher, live life alongside their teacher, and do what their teacher did so that they could become just like their teacher in every way. Or as John Mark Comer puts it: Be With Jesus, Become Like Jesus, Do What Jesus Did.
 
For us today, this means we need teachers (not lecturers) who are committed to gathering people committed to learning how to walk faithfully in the ways of the Kingdom.
 
This biblical model of discipleship is so much of what organizations like Reflect Campus Missions work to embody. It’s so much of what many campus ministries are devoting themselves to. It’s what we need in our churches at large. And our campus ministries can be a beacon to guide and embody what it could look like for the People of God to be disciples who make disciples.
 
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Prayer List for new campus missions:

• James and Allie Goodpasture - Harding - P.O.D. Missionaries
• Shane and Bekah Standerfer - Univ of Oklahoma - P.O.D. Missionaries
• Dean and Jasmine Thompson - Univ of North Carolina Charlotte - Plant
• Pray for Reflect as we help equip and guide them.