<\/p>\n

We are already half way through the first month of 2017. This year is going to fly by even faster than last.  Maybe it’s time to focus on what I really want to do in 2017. Sure I want to lose weight, get more fit, learn a new language, write a book, and, oh yes, change the world. I suspect I’m not going to really do all that.<\/p>\n

What I should really want to do is what Jesus told me to do. “Make disciples.” It may not mean losing weight, getting fit, learning a new language or writing a book, but it may actually change the world. Jesus didn’t tell us to “make disciples” for no reason. He came and died to change things, to make a difference,  and this is how it will happen. <\/p>\n

In the first couple of weeks of 2017, I have stumbled across something that may help me do that “make disciples” thing. For some time I have got emails from the Verge Network<\/a>. They described themselves as champions and advocates for movements of Missional Communities. Some of my favorite Christian teachers are involved: Francis Chan and David Platt. They talk a lot about being “missional” which, I have learned, means focusing on making disciples. <\/p>\n

It seems that the church even when it performs “outreach” limits itself to evangelism. We want to bring people to a decision to follow Jesus. We call that evangelism. I believe God calls us to that, but He calls us to more. He calls us to “make disciples” which means bringing them to Jesus AND teaching them to follow. That’s what being missional is all about.<\/p>\n

I am going to focus on that in the next few days as I try to become more missional and more effective in “making disciples.” I hope you will follow along. You might start off by checking out Verge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More coming up. It will involve watching three videos and responding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are already half way through the first month of 2017. This year is going to fly by even faster than last.  Maybe it’s time to focus on what I really want to do in 2017. Sure I want to lose weight, get more fit, learn a new language, write a book, and, oh yes, change the world. I suspect I’m not going to really do all that. What I should really want to do is what Jesus told me to do. “Make disciples.” It may not mean losing weight, getting fit, learning a new language or writing a book, but it may actually change the world. Jesus didn’t tell us to “make disciples” for no reason. He came and died to change things, to make a difference,  and this is how it will happen.  In the first couple of weeks of 2017, I have stumbled across something that may help me do that “make disciples” thing. For some time I have got emails from the Verge Network. They described themselves as champions and advocates for movements of Missional Communities. Some of my favorite Christian teachers are involved: Francis Chan and David Platt. They talk a lot about being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"chat","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-chat","hentry","category-the-spiritual","post_format-post-format-chat"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9312,"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311\/revisions\/9312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicksigur.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}