We can never accomplish alone the great things that we can accomplish together

It was once said that TEAM stood for Together Everyone Accomplishes More. I think that most sports figures would agree. Sure there are the Michael Jordans who are gifted individually beyond belief; however, one of Mr. Jordan’s greatest accomplishments was to play as part of a Team. Even, Mike can’t beat a whole team of talented professional ball players who are working together to beat him. As the Community of Christ, we cannot go it alone. As Rick Warren says in “The Purpose Driven Life”, “We are created for fellowship”. John Eldredge agrees by calling the Body of Christ “fellowships of the heart” in his book “Waking the Dead”.

Physically it makes perfect sense to us. None of us would have a baby just to leave it at birth on the street corner to fin for itself. It would be ridiculous to expect an infant to survive in those conditions for even a few days. In the same way, we should consider it just as ridiculous for an infant (baby) Christian to make it in the Christian life of discipleship (follow-ship of Jesus) without help from a fellowship of believers. Yet, we in the American Church focus seemingly only on “getting the lost ones saved” and as soon as they walk an isle and “join” the membership of a local church, we drop them like a hot potato. I do not read the great commission (Matt. 28:19-20) to say that we are to “make converts”; but it says that the mission of the Body of Christ (the Church) is to “make disciples”. If we would stop to think logically about the situation (something I have unfortunately found to be rare in the “church circles”) we could see that being a “soul winner” is much more about discipleship (building relationship with God through Christ’s Body – The Church) than with placing notches in our spiritual “gun-belt” and dropping the “saved” off on someone else to disciple.

It is much easier to make a convert with manipulative words and emotional meetings, than to invest the time into a person who, quiet frankly, you may not even like very much, to make them a disciple of Christ. I personally think that discipleship begins way before a person comes to a saving knowledge of Christ. It begins with the initial connection of a true disciple and a non-believer. It has come full circle when that non-believer is actively involved in making another new disciple. We can’t do alone what we were meant to accomplish together as the living, breathing Body of Jesus Christ! Our connection as a Community is found all throughout scripture, and it cannot be overlooked that even Jesus had a community of brothers around him as a community called the Apostles. They shared life together as they built relationships with each other and with Jesus. They were symbolic of the true community of Israel and the Kingdom of God. They are our example of what we should be doing…making disciples who are making disciples…who are making disciples…and we can’t do it alone! Together Everyone Accomplishes More! GO TEAM!!