Discipleship can also be defined as the act of helping other Christians, especially new converts, to follow Christ Jesus. It encompasses anything you do to help the new convert to stand in the faith and to lead a life pleasing to the Lord.
Discipleship retains new converts in the church
One characteristic of an evangelical Pentecostal church is going on evangelism and this is what we often do for my church falls into this category. Often we organize crusades, rallies, street evangelisms, etc. intending to proselytize others. And God is so good to us. Many are touched and come forward to give their lives to Christ. We take them through the sinner’s prayer, take their contacts, and then encourage them to come to church on Sundays. These new converts might visit our church once or twice and never again. Why? This is because nobody cares whether they came to church or not; nobody looks for them when they are absent, and so on. Discipleship can solve this problem. When discipleship is working in the church, we would have a situation where mature Christians would befriend the new converts and pay them visits, encourage them, and ensure that they come to church regularly. When discipleship is working, the church will not lose the new converts that it has toiled to win. So discipleship is important for retaining the new converts in the church.
Discipleship leads to the growth of the church’s membership
It is the aim of every church, ministry, or fellowship to grow spiritually and physically. Physical growth has a lot to do with the growth of the membership of the church. Apart from birth, which increases the numerical strength of the church membership, winning souls is one effective way of growing the church. As we have seen earlier, it is possible to lose the members we have toiled to win. But what if we do not lose them? What do you think would happen when most of the new converts that were won into the church are retained? The population of the church will grow. Let’s suppose that after a major crusade, you won fifty people, and all these fifty were properly discipled and retained, this would increase the church membership of say 120 to 170. Even if each week you win just a soul and you put up discipleship measures to retain that soul, guess what, over time, you would grow the number of the church’s membership significantly. Discipleship, when done properly, would lead to retaining all or most of the new converts won into the church, leading to the growth of the church in no small way.
Discipleship provides the avenue to nurture the new convert in biblical teachings
Though Jesus expects us to win souls for him, he is also very interested in nurturing the new convert in the teachings of the Bible so that he would learn to do right. See Matthew 28:19-20. Discipleship is a period after conversion within which the church educates the new convert about the things in the Bible; the dos and don’ts, the doctrines, the Christian lifestyle, etc. For such reasons, some churches have set up lesson time which is popularly called discipleship class or new convert class for the purpose of teaching new converts. In my church for example, on Sunday mornings, after the opening prayer has been said, the church breaks into groups for Bible studies, and new converts have a class of their own where they are taught from a well-prepared syllabus. All this is intended to equip them with Bible teachings that will be a light to guide their steps in life.
Discipleship provides the avenue to acquaint the new convert with the church’s core values, practices, tenets, etc.
Though we are one Christendom, there are slight differences among churches when it comes to church practices, polity, administration, tenets, etc. For example, the way and manner in which Anglicans conduct their service is quite different from how the Baptist Church does theirs. Discipleship – discipleship class – provides the avenue to nurture the new convert in the core values, core practices, and the church tenets which are the beliefs the church firmly endorses. In my church for example, since knowledge of the church’s tenets is a priority, the church has included them in the new convert’s syllabus and the new converts are taught to know them. The Bible says, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so (Amos 3:3 NIV)?” For a new convert to find the comfort or the ease to remain in the church, he must be taught to come to terms with the church’s core values, practices, and tenets. If he is not well acquainted with these things, he would feel like a stranger among other church members and this will make him uncomfortable in the church and it will hamper his chances of staying.
Discipleship produces mature Christians for the church
Knowledge is power, they say. A well-educated and nurtured person stands out and he has a high tendency to become mature and resourceful. One of the spillover benefits of discipleship is that it has a high tendency to produce mature Christians. And you cannot overemphasize the importance of having a church composed of mature believers. Mature Christians become custodians of the core values, core practices, and tenets of the church. Their lifestyle becomes worthy examples for the youth to emulate, making decency and holiness a common way of life in the church. They understand giving, they travail to win souls for the church. But you cannot say the same thing about a church composed of baby Christians. Leaders of such churches have a big problem on their hands, for they often have to go searching, convincing, and pleading with their members who for some trivial reasons are refusing to come to church. Make discipleship for new converts a priority in the church for the sake of raising spiritually mature Christians.