SPRINGFIELD – While the unifying theme for this year’s two-session CORE conference was Making Disciples, the takeaway inspired messengers to share the gospel more. Organized by Matt Kearns, Leadership Development Team Leader for the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC), the CORE conference took place Oct. 27 in the Springfield Expo Center as part of the 181st annual meeting of the MBC.
“While the gospel will change others as we share it, it should be changing us,” said Alvin Reid, professor of evangelism and student ministry at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. “We are commanded to make disciples. But if you want to build a ship, don’t just summon the wood distributor, divide the work, and give orders. Instead teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean. Making disciples should have this basic biblical motivation: we do it because we’re supposed to and we do it because it’s beautiful.”
Reid insisted that disciple making must shift from a behavior modification focus to an emphasis on knowing, living and sharing the gospel.
“It’s not clean up your life, it’s trust Jesus and watch Him do a work of grace in your life,” he said. “The Bible is less a book of morality than it is a book of reality about all of creation and its love relationship with God, the hero of the story. That’s something to get excited about.”
But Reid said in order to do that, the church must remove its one-size-fits all disciple-making mentality and equip self-feeders who will live for Christ in their own context. That starts with a Christian leader’s personal walk with Christ.
“There is something incredibly attractive about a person who humbly lives their life on purpose in relationship, diet, physical health, mental health and spiritual growth as they follow Jesus,” he said. “We are to avoid the evil in the world but not avoid the world. Our lives should induce the lost to want what we have.”
During the evening session of the CORE conference, Greg Stier, Christian author and speaker and Founder of Dare 2 Share Ministries, took the discipleship through means of evangelism message a step further.
“When people begin to share their faith, they begin to own their faith,” he said. “By encouraging people to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, you are encouraging them to solidify what they believe and why they believe what they believe as a result. In other words, they become a disciple.”
He introduced the Gospel Advancing Ministry movement and the related mobile app loaded with resources to both advance the gospel and develop passionate, life-long disciples of Christ who can go out and make other disciples.
The Gospel Advancing movement includes seven ministry values that build on each other. Stier described these values as intercessory prayer, relational evangelism, leadership modeling, discipleship multiplication, bold vision creation, biblical outcome measurement and program integration. Though Gospel Advancing is promoted primarily as a student ministry, the same values apply to all ministries.
“If you change from a ministry of only education to a ministry of practice you will ignite people in their walk with Christ,” he said. “Evangelism accelerates the discipleship process advancing the gospel not just externally, but advancing it internally. They will own their faith long-term.” For more information on Gospel Advancing Ministry visit dare2share.org.