For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” Acts 13:47.
This is not new information. We know that there’s churches closing all the time.
All of this knowledge is living in a Christian’s mind. It’s not really translating to their hearts and then to their hands.
I think the urgency and the gap that needs filled is the lack of people within the church discipling.
Seven years ago, we launched the A13 Experience. Various churches from our region joined in on that with us, and we started with 10 dudes.
Mark Ngoga, Steel City Fellowship Elder
It’s such a funny story. I was playing a game of table tennis with a close friend of mine, and Seth, as a freshman, was kind of watching us, and he asked to play the next game. He asked to play winner. Bear in mind, at this point, I’m a firm believer. I know the Lord. But here comes an opportunity with a freshman who then asks me to play the next game, and I essentially shrug him off. As I was walking away from him and I was walking upstairs to my dorm room, I remember I was in A13 at this point, and we were obviously talking about who you’re talking to about Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I do go back downstairs. I interact with this freshman that I just met. As the years went on, discipled him for a few years, and he just kept climbing.
And now Seth is one of the main leaders, pastors, future elders, at Steel City Fellowship. Who knew that seven years later, there’d be over 120 people that saw people differently as someone who needs to be discipled or shared Christ with?
Shane Cannon, Pastor, Mesa Christian Fellowship
After A13, some of those people will and have become pastors. We’ve seen that happen already. But that’s a small portion. That’s not the goal of A13 at all. I think we fill those other two gaps of a lack of leadership and a lack of the average person sitting in the pew making disciples.
Nate Templin, Pastor, Steel City Fellowship & Regional Director of Royal Gorge Baptist Association
My concern for the church in North America is that we would continue to push programs and count numbers. The dream for what God would do in the church is that He would raise up a generation that says, “I can’t sit and be discipled only. I must make disciples as the call of God.” If we’re going to see a movement of God in the West, it’s not going to come through paid professionals. It’s going to come through the everyday Jesus follower sitting in the pew saying, “I can’t not do something. I must see people. I must get to people. I must help them know Jesus. But it is my responsibility, not the church’s responsibility specifically, to disciple them.”
