photo by Kószó JózsefLike dandelion seeds…you can’t stop them from spreading!
“When I worked in Liberia, I had the chance to disciple a Christian named Nelson Cyrus. After Liberia’s civil war started in 1989, Cyrus evacuated to Ghana. I didn’t see him again until 1999, when our family traveled to Ghana and visited the local Liberian refugee camp. Cyrus was still there, busy pastoring one of the refugee churches and discipling many Liberians in the camp. Those Liberians discipled others, and the effects spread beyond Cyrus’s church, beyond the refugee camp, and into the surrounding area. That’s how discipleship should work.”
Randy Wildman, SIM missionary now living in Jos, Nigeria, and working in the ECWA discipleship ministry, continues. “Imagine you disciple a man named Timothy for a year. At the end of the year, there are two of you. If you and Timothy each disciple another person the next year, there will be four. If the four of you each disciple one person then there will be eight of you… After 33 years, over eight and a half billion people will have been discipled… except that the world population is less than seven billion!
“What most people tell me is, not everyone will be faithful, so this plan won’t work. That’s true; you’re probably right. But I’m not responsible for everyone. God will hold me accountable for discipling my people.”
“Most of our time is spent training people,” Rev. Akila Adamu, Randy’s Nigerian coworker in the discipleship ministry, comments. “We disciple people one-on-one or in groups of two or three. We take them through a set of books called Equipping the Saints, which teaches Christian growth and multiplication of Christ’s life in others.” The discipleship ministry encourages people to finish all the Equipping the Saints books, but to begin discipling others as soon as they are able, even before they complete the entire program. Thus, the seeds start spreading.
 Rev. Sam Akeju, coordinator of the ECWA discipleship ministry, says, “We equip people to labor as God calls them. God opens doors for people to go to other African countries like Botswana and Ghana. I remember one time I was very discouraged. As I begged God to show me I was doing something worthwhile, my cell phone rang—it was a man I’d discipled in Lagos. He called to say he’d been through the first book with ten people, some of whom were now discipling others, and could I please send him the next book?”
Aside from individual, home-based discipleship, the discipleship ministry conducts seminars in churches all over Nigeria, training pastors and laypeople, going wherever it is invited. A recent visit made was to an Anglican church in Lokoja. Randy remembers, “There were eight or ten churches represented. Attendees were mostly church leaders, pastors, and fathers. We took them through the first book and explained the whole approach. Then we split them into groups so they could go through the book in detail, and we told them to pray about whom they would like to disciple. Each person will start teaching someone in the church. After that we’re willing to continue the training. We don’t do it all at once because we want to prepare them to disciple, not just soak up the material. Not everyone follows through, but the faithful people make it worthwhile.”
Dan Achi works with an outreach called Gidan Bege, ministering to street people. After going through the discipleship materials, he began discipling street boys and teaching his co-workers to use the materials. One of Dan Achi’s coworkers is ready to start a discipleship class with orphans and widows.
Two conferences were held in the cities of Kaduna and Abuja (Nigeria’s capital), in October 2007. “Between the two conferences, we had about 1,200 people,” commented discipleship coworker Chuck Brod. “Besides a special speaker, the conferences included workshops which taught the basics of Christian life: prayer, Bible study methods, evangelism, Scripture memorization, and daily quiet time. Our goal is to see the discipleship team multiply as people throughout Nigeria catch the vision to make disciples. Second Timothy 2:2, shows the progression of faith from discipler to disciple, and this is what we’re about.”
Akila meets weekly with 15 people. He comments, “People often say, ‘We didn’t know we were supposed to be involved in ministry work; we thought that was just for pastors and theologians.” But the phrase, ‘priesthood of every believer’ means we are all supposed to minister in our workplaces, and that’s what we equip people to do! What gives us joy is when we see them ‘reproducing themselves’ by teaching others. That shows that our work is not in vain. I discipled a pastor from a town an hour outside of Jos. Now he buys the materials for others, takes them through the program, and then tells them to keep multiplying the seeds. I see him periodically when he comes to buy more books.”
Some years ago, Chuck Brod, SIM missionary and founder of the ECWA discipleship ministry, discipled the present General Secretary of ECWA. The General Secretary is passionate about advancing discipleship, and his leadership is much valued. ECWA recently released a Strategic Plan for the next ten years, which includes goals for discipling the Nigerian Church. Sam says that by 2015, an elder will not be elected unless he is intentionally discipling others. The goal is to help every pastor spread discipleship in his church.
Sam predicts that discipleship will play a key role in the Nigerian Church’s future growth. “God opened doors for ministry, not just in ECWA churches, but also in many different denominations. What makes me excited is that you can’t quantify your effects in this kind of ministry—the people you reach are reaching others, who are reaching others!”
This dandelion seed effect reflects Paul’s sentiments for the Thessalonian believers. “For now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord...and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you” (First Thessalonians 3:8, 12). |
