Not My Words

These are not my words but I share them because I love them and I believe them and most importantly I want my life to reflect what they say. Enjoy.

Why Disciple-Making International by David Platt

I want to be a part of the accomplishment of the Great Commission.

That’s the short answer I would give if someone asked me, “Why DMI?” God desires for His gospel to be known and His glory to be praised in all nations. And Christ has commanded us to fulfill this God-exalting purpose among every people group on the planet. How? We make disciples. No matter the sacrifice. We go to them, baptize them, and teach them to obey everything He has commanded. And we keep doing this until the gospel has been proclaimed to all nations. Then the end will come.

For any and every follower of Christ, that’s a purpose worth giving our lives to. We were created for something so much greater, so much deeper, and so much more fulfilling than having a nice job (not that jobs are bad), raising a decent family (not that this is bad, either), and attending a good church (as a pastor, I definitely wouldn’t say that’s a bad idea). But there’s more. There’s so much more. God has given every follower of Christ gifts, skills, passions, resources, and most importantly His very presence so that we might be a part of the advancement of a kingdom on earth in anticipation of a King from heaven.

Yet, we are subtly and dangerously tempted to settle for less than this. We have taken the costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations, and morphed it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and listen in one location. As a result, if you ask individual Christians today what it means to make disciples, you will likely get jumbled thoughts, ambiguous answers, and probably even some blank stares.

That’s where I was once—and to some extent where I am still. The more I read the Gospels, the more I marvel at the simple genius of how Jesus lived and what Jesus did. With the task of taking the gospel to the world, He walked through the streets and byways of Israel looking for a few men. Don’t misunderstand me—Jesus was anything but casual about His mission. He was initiating a revolution, but His revolution would not revolve around the masses or the multitudes. It would not revolve around garnering a certain position. Instead, it would revolve around a few chosen people. He would intentionally shun titles, labels, plaudits, and popularity in His plan to turn the course of history upside down. All He wanted were a few men who would think as He did, love as He did, see as He did, teach as He did, and serve as He did. All He needed was to revolutionize the hearts of a few, and empowering them by His Spirit, they would impact the world.

Jesus lived, died, and was raised for the glory of God and for the sake of all men. But during His earthly ministry, Scripture indicates that Christ spent more time with this small group of people than with anyone else on the planet. This is astonishing when you really think about it. At the end of the Son of God’s time on earth, He had staked everything on His relationships with twelve men—eleven when you consider Judas’ role. These eleven guys were the small group responsible for carrying on everything Jesus had begun. Before ascending into heaven, He gathered them around Himself and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). After intentionally spending His life on earth with these eleven men, Jesus told them, “Now you go out and do the same with others.” The mega-strategy of Jesus: make disciples.

And this is now the command that God intends to govern every follower of Christ. Every disciple is created, crafted, blessed, and intended by God to be a disciple-maker. No Christian is excluded from this mission (as if we would want to be!). You don’t need to have inordinate skill or unusual abilities to make disciples. You don’t need to be a successful pastor or a charismatic leader to make disciples. You don’t need to be a great communicator or an innovative thinker to make disciples. All you need is Christ, His Word, His Spirit, and His people.

Which brings us back to where we began. Why Disciple-Making International? I am firmly convinced that Jesus’ charge to make disciples is intended to be at the heart of the local church. I want to pastor a local church that is radically abandoned to this commission, and I want to serve other local bodies of believers who are committed to this command as well. I want to be a part of providing free resources that are biblically faithful, theologically sound, practically beneficial, easily accessible, multi-lingual, and cross-cultural. I hope and pray that these resources fuel disciple-making relationships through churches around the world. The whole purpose of DMI is to encourage and to equip Christians in the contexts of local churches to make disciples who will make disciples who will make disciples who will make disciples…until every people group has heard the gospel and our all-satisfying, grave-conquering King receives the praise that He is due.

Change

Change isn’t always easy. Even when it is necessary, even when it is for the good, it can be hard.Sometimes change is a really good thing, like a new job or a new home. But even then there are hard parts that you can’t avoid.

24 months ago I had never been to Africa. I had never been to Uganda. To say that I’ve gone through a bit of change in the last two years would be quite the understatement. When I think about it, everything has changed. Two years ago I was living in Chicago with a good, stable job staying in a fabulous apartment with an even more fabulous friend. My church was wonderful, my friends and family nearby and I had nothing to complain about (other than the weather J.But anybody who knows me knows that my heart was not content, so when God brought about the opportunity to visit and then move to Uganda, I took a step of faith – maybe more of a leap.

I arrived in a new country, a new continent to be exact with a new language, extremely different culture, new home, new environment, few friends and a lot to learn. And God was so good because most of the change was not too bad; in fact a lot of it was great. However, I say all of this because it was a more recent change that caused me more stress and hardship than the one when I moved here.

It’s amazing how relational we are. It’s amazing how quickly we adapt to our surroundings and how usually, the most important thing about our surroundings are the people, not the stuff.After living here for one year I was absolutely in love with my community. I loved my little room, my noisy neighbors, the kids that would come by after school and on weekends and I loved walking around the neighborhood knowing many families. However, throughout the year there were signs that I would have to move and I was not happy about it and a part of me wanted to be very stubborn and not go anywhere. But there came a point in December where it was clear I needed to move. It made sense why it had to happen, I was absolutely prepared for it and yet I was not happy about it at all. So reluctantly I went, I found a fabulous new place, much bigger, in a great quiet community closer to Kampala.

But it didn’t matter, I wasn’t near my community and the kids I had fallen in love with. At one point a friend told me not to worry that I’d find other kids to love and spend time with, but the truth was that I didn’t want new kids to love or serve, I wanted my kids. I knew there was thousands of children I could love and spend time with and I knew there orphans, children without homes, kids that didn’t know Jesus all over Uganda but it didn’t matter. I was not ready to move on.

But thankfully it didn’t stay like that forever and a couple months after the move my heart was already in love with a new group of children. God worked in my heart to allow for a bit of healing so I would have the capacity to love these boys that live on the streets. I still miss my kids but I am blessed to be working with the boys. The past few months have been filled with lots of joy and blessing.

A few weeks ago I was reminded that it is our privilege and duty to disciple these children and teach them about Jesus. We do daily sharing time with the kids but with a group of 50 + boys it is often short and few kids pay attention. However, I knew there were many kids that would listen and potentially welcome true discipleship from the leaders if we could get them away from the big group and pour into them. So, two weeks ago a friend of mine who leads the kids, David, started a club. He invites 6 kids to his house on Thursdays and 6 different kids on Fridays. We handpicked the kids and personally invited them to the group. David cooks a lot of food for them and does Bible study with them for 2 hours each time. I don’t go to the meetings but let David run them since he can relate to them at a much deeper level than me. I am confident the kids feel extremely special to be getting such personal attention from David and a home cooked meal from his house. David tells me that the kids are wonderful and some of the most unlikely kids ask the most questions. He said they all participate, they all listen and they all welcome his love and attention.

I am super excited about the group because I know how stinkin’ cool these kids are and I want them to know that as well. I hope they begin to see themselves as we see them and how God sees them. David says they are really learning how to pray and I’m so joyful that we serve a God that hears those prayers.

I hope to get a picture of the two groups soon and post them but as of now, they don’t know I know about their special club and for the moment I’d like to leave it that way. The kids in the Thursday group are: Simon, Peter, Tom, Bwanika, Joel and Isma. The kids in the Friday group are: Peter, Richard, Nathan, Gabriele, Matthew and Derrick. Please pray for them. Pray for David.

Below are a few pictures I have of some of the kids. Enjoy!

Peter and Richard

Isma

Simon

Bwanika (in orange)

Matthew

Gabriele

Not Your Typical School Musical

I am tired but feel like I have to share how I feel. I feel so blessed. It would be easy to say that tonight was good or tonight was fun but when I really think about it, it was so much more than that. Tonight was a blessing and truly the work of God.

Tonight was the school musical at the international school where a few of my friends teach. On the surface it was a typical school musical, kids singing, parents with cameras and lots of jazz hands. But it wasn’t typical. It was wonderful. Children from all around the Kampala area put on the musical, not just kids from the school. Some kids came from the school, some from a local church, others from an orphanage and a few from the national rehabilitation center (government orphanage). Some kids came from wealthy parents, others from missionary parents, some had no parents while others had been abandoned by their parents. But tonight you couldn’t tell, all you could see were a group of kids singing about three heroes from the Bible; Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego and they were awesome.

The other special part of tonight was the audience. Of course there were plenty of parents, relatives and friends in attendance but that was not all. A friend of mine works with an orphanage and as a special treat all the children were able to come tonight. In my experience with kids that live at orphanages is that anytime they get to leave is a treat. So occasions like this; a trip to Kampala (they are from a village) to see a special performance, is a big deal!

Also, I had intended to bring a few of my friends that work with the street kids to the performance. We typically meet on Saturday nights to hang out and I thought attending the musical would be fun. However, what started out as a group of 8 soon turned into a group of 18. The 8 leaders as planned and an additional blessing of 10 of our kids joined in. The kids loved it and while I’m not sure they understood all the words, they were clearly entertained. Anytime we get to take a few of them out of their environment and give them special attention is always a good time. The kids were dressed in their best, far better behaved than the leaders and were a pure joy.

Maybe it doesn’t seem like such a special night but in my eyes I saw parents, orphans, kids that call the streets their home, friends and other people, all enjoying, supporting and cheering as a group of kids from all different backgrounds told the wonderful story of 3 young men and their rock solid faith in God. Not your everyday school musical at all.