How Not to Make Spiritual Orphans
It’s June in Uganda, which means that it’s short term team season. There are a lot of visitors in Uganda, especially into northern Uganda coming into northern cities to evangelize and preach the gospel. As someone who participated in several short term teams in my life, I understand the compassion, motivation and excitement for sharing the gospel in a new place. However, Uganda does not need more evangelists.
Uganda needs disciples and disciple makers. In order to be a disciple maker you need to be committed to the person that you are discipling and be a support on their faith journey as they continue to grow with God. Unfortunately, a two week visit into Northern Uganda with brief encounters with people will not make true disciples of Jesus.
In an effort to become more like Jesus we need to constantly be connecting with Him and to be in a community who asks about our connection with Him and cares about our relationship with Jesus.
The point in which somebody receives salvation or a “soul is saved” is simply a starting point of a, hopefully, lifelong journey of continuously growing with God. If we stopped growing here we would miss out on all that God has for us. As disciples, we are ever changing to become more like Jesus and aligning ourselves with Him and the things that He believes and the way that He thinks. This takes time and community support.
I recently read ‘Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms’ by Dr. Jim Wilder and he called this type of thinking, “Thinking with God” instead of just thinking about God. It’s a subtle but profound shift away from trying to obey God’s rules, to thinking the way God thinks. They both have the same initial appearance, but aligning our mind with God’s has transformational impact. When our attention shifts to some other aspect of spiritual life, those learned behaviors won’t stick unless we’ve learned to think God’s thoughts and been changed on the inside.
Thinking with God is difficult, and not commonly taught, but it is an important to do so that we can move forward in our relationship with Him. We need to understand HOW He thinks and HOW He operates. Then once we have aligned our thought’s with God we have become His mature disciples and we can say, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” like Paul did in 1 Corinthians 11:1.
Also on this journey to become mature disciples of Christ, we need to have the support of a community with other like-minded people who are also trying to align themselves and their relationship with God. This group helps reinforce the things God is speaking to us. By being in this community, we are encouraged to press into Christ more and more. Our community can also call us back to Him when it’s difficult for us to remember why we even started this journey in the first place.
Uganda needs more disciples, not more evangelists. More people committed to walking day in and day out with those around them furthering them in their faith. Myself and our team have seen it time and time again, that people are evangelized to, make a decision to follow Christ and are left to fend for themselves.
Evangelism without discipleship is making spiritual orphans.
It is our belief at House To House, that the best people to both share and walk alongside Ugandans who want to align themselves with Jesus are other Uganda’s who are already doing the same thing. Ugandan believers who have experienced the same culture, the same setbacks, AND have also chosen to follow God and to continuously ask for Him in their lives.
If you are Ugandan reading this, then I hope that you will be inspired to gather your friends or family together to begin to align your thoughts with His thoughts and deepening your relationship with a God who loves you.
And if you’re a foreigner who is planning your trip to Uganda, I ask that you would pray about using your time to support the ministry work that is happening here through the Ugandan disciple makers that live in and love this country and it’s people. You may not be the one to save souls here, but your encouragement of and solidarity with other believers here is like a cup of cold water on a hot day. (Also, you should totally go on a safari. It’s worth it)