Disciple Making, the Core Mission of the Church: Inspiring Purpose
- Disciple making, the core mission of the Church, brings people to Jesus and helps them become fully mature in Christ.
- Scripture shows that the church proclaims Jesus with wisdom so believers are transformed into His image by the Spirit.
- Love drives this mission, because helping someone follow Jesus is the most loving thing we can do.
Why is disciple making the core mission of the church?
The answer is that the church is God’s plan to help everyone come to faith in Christ and become more like Christ, to the glory of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit. There’s a Trinitarian sense to this, but the goal is coming to Jesus and being formed by Jesus.
Colossians 1:28 is a key passage:
“He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”
A lot of people have different ideas about the purpose of the church. Several years ago, Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Church, in which he listed five purposes: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism. Other people will say that the real purpose of the church is to glorify God.
“The church is God’s plan to help everyone come to faith in Christ and become more like Christ, to the glory of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Each of these gets at something important, but we need to get more specific. What does the purpose of the church really boil down to when we sum it all up?
It boils down to bringing people to Jesus and helping them become more and more like Jesus.
Helping People Become Mature in Christ
Colossians 1:27–29 says,
“Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.”
Paul is saying that everything he is and everything he is about is aimed at helping other people look like Jesus, respond like Jesus, act like Jesus, and become fully devoted followers of Jesus. 
We see the same idea in 2 Corinthians 3:18:
“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
“We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Here again, the goal is for us to be transformed and to become more and more like Jesus. It comes down to these two things: helping people come to Jesus and then helping them be transformed into the image of Jesus.
When we start thinking about the church in those terms, we realize that everything we’re about is ultimately about being disciples and helping make disciples.
The Mission of the Church Is to Make Disciples
N. T. Wright puts it this way when talking about the writers of the New Testament: “Each writer talks about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in order to encourage his readers to follow this Jesus wherever he leads.”
That’s really what the church is about: helping everybody become true disciples.
Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, in their book What Is the Mission of the Church?, sum it up this way: “The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit to the glory of God the Father.”
We need to get specific and realize that it’s all about being disciples and making disciples.
“That’s really what the church is about: helping everybody become true disciples.”
The Great Commission and the Great Commandment
In the Great Commission, Jesus tells us to go and make disciples. Then there is the Great Commandment: that we should love one another as he loved us.
What’s the most loving thing you can do for another human being?
At the end of the day, the most loving thing you can do is help somebody come to faith in Jesus and then live out the purpose that Jesus has given for his or her life.
When the Great Commission and the Great Commandment come together, look at what a beautiful thing it is: to love somebody so much that you want that person to look like Jesus, to be formed by Jesus, and then to go out and share Jesus with another generation.
That is why disciple making is the core mission of the church.
This is Question #3 discussed in Disciple Making: The Core Mission of the Church, by Bobby Harrington & Scott Sager.
More on making disciples who make disciples.
