The truly impactful thing about Tom, however, is his life.
Though he knows a multitude of people, when you are with him he is all yours. His eyes focus on yours (not wandering around the room to see who else he might talk with), his ears attentive to your words. Then, if you are fortunate, he might speak a prophetic word (of exhortation, comfort, or encouragement) into your life.
Tom is a disciple maker.
At a conference a few years back, I led a discussion, "don't waste your life," on informal intergenerational disciple making. I accepted the invitation to share on this topic because I had once reached a critical juncture in my church planting where I realized that I was making Bible students, but I had not been making disciples.
So at that time, as a veteran missionary with a “successful” church plant under my belt, I had to ask the baby christian question, “What is a disciple?”
D.A. Carson says:
“Disciples are those who hear, understand, and obey Jesus’ teaching…. It is binding on all Jesus’ disciples to make others what they themselves are—disciples of Jesus Christ.”
And I wondered, “How does one make a disciple?”
Günter Krallman, in Mentoring for Mission, writes:
"In his discipling of the Twelve the Master attached eminent importance to association, i.e. companionship, the cultivation of close relational ties. On the basis of such with-ness he (Jesus) generated a dynamic process of life-transference which was meant to foster holistic maturity in his friends…."
So some of my reflections on disciple making are:
- Share my time & life with people (don’t depend on the youth group meeting).
- Share stories and tips with people (don’t depend on the Sunday School curriculum).
- Read the Word with people (don’t depend on the Sunday sermon).
- Pray with people (depend on God to transform them).
I recently heard it said that the current generation is wealth rich and time poor. In an accelerated culture, sharing time with someone may be our costliest sacrifice and most fruitful investment.
Nothing intellectually groundbreaking there. The hard part, of course, is actually incorporating into our praxis the "life-transference" that fosters holistic maturity.
This past year the Grace Brethren Fellowship lost two prominent men who successfully did just that.
Dr. David Plaster was dean of Grace Seminary and Dadjé Samuel was used by God to begin a church planting movement of staggering proportions in the Chad that spread to three other countries.
My son, who had been strongly impacted by both men, wrote me in an email, “Do you think God is trying to say something to the Grace Brethren Fellowship through the deaths of Dadjé and Dr. Plaster?”
After reflection I responded, “Dr. Plaster and Dadjé achieved great things. But what I noticed about them both was that though extremely busy they always took time for me (or whomever they were speaking to). When talking with them it was as though I was the most important person in the world. They poured their lives into the lives of others. Their lives were well invested. They were disciple makers."
