And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Matthew 4:19
What was Jesus’ plan to reach the world? Did he build a mega-church? Did he design any church buildings? Did he outline a multi-site strategy? Did he provide a curriculum or program for the apostles to implement? There is nothing wrong with any of these things, but Jesus’ plan was far simpler and far more powerful.
“His concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes but with men whom the multitudes would follow… He literally staked his whole ministry on them.”
Robert Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, p. 27, 31
Jesus’ strategy was built entirely around twelve men and a handful of women. By the end of his three years of ministry only 120 faithful followers huddled together in that upper room in Jerusalem – not a mega-church even by the standards of the first century. Had Jesus failed? Of course not! Everything was exactly in place as He had planned it. His followers were not perfect, but with the Holy Spirit, they were enabled to accomplish the mission He had given them – to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth.
How did they do this? They MULTIPLIED.
“Jesus intended for the disciples to produce his likeness in and through the church being gathered out of the world. Thus his ministry in the Spirit would be duplicated manyfold by his ministry in the lives of his disciples. Through them and others like them it would continue to expand in an ever-enlarging circumference until the multitudes might know in a similar way the opportunity which they had known with the Master. By this strategy the conquest of the world was only a matter of time and their faithfulness to his plan.”
Robert Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, p. 97
This is the nature of the kingdom of God.
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
John 12:24, NIV
Only when you die to yourself and surrender completely to Jesus can you become a fruitful kingdom worker. The whole Christian life is one of giving yourself away – pouring your life into others. That is what Jesus modeled for us, and what He expects of His followers.
“His was a life of giving – giving away what the Father had given him… Love is like that. It is always giving itself away. When it is self-contained, it is not love… And for the Son, in incarnating that love, it meant renouncing his own right of living and giving his life for the world.”
Robert Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, pp. 61-62
Click here to read more from Coleman and to be reminded of the power of the unstoppable church!
Click here to see the disciplemaking signposts that are guiding our leadership team.
Click here for a visual overview of the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (and back).