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)

Have you ever watched the olympic sprint races? For the 100 meter dash, the whole race is over in about 10 seconds. But what about the work leading up to that race? How much time went into training for that event? 

In a fast paced world, we are tempted to want to see fast paced church growth as well. Especially when we’re trying to start a disciple making movement. Looking at a high view of disciple making movements globally it looks like they grow overnight! We have a friend heading one and we hear new reports every few months about another 100 or more house churches starting. It’s exciting, we want in, we want to see those numbers of people in our own movement out of Northern Uganda…. Yes! Let’s do it! Go! Go! Go! 

But wait…. Let’s zoom in on some of these movements…. 

Many of the people initially trying to start them spend 7-11 years plodding away trying to train, teach, disciple and encourage with little to no fruit. And then, when they do find someone who gets it those people invest in a few…. For a very long time. And then from the few they invest in some of them gather a group of their own to invest in. And on and on it goes. Everyone begins a new group pretty quickly in the movement and from a birds eye view it looks so sudden, so fast growing, so intense. Though the replication of groups happen quickly, the result is many people committing to disciple the people around them for the long haul. People are not just playing a game of telephone “Did you hear about Jesus? Pass it on.” No! People are committing to go deep into the word together. They are in community with people regularly, walking alongside them as everyone grows in their understanding of the word, and relationship with God. 

Slow growth, investment, commitment, regular, walking together…. Sign us up for that. We want to live amongst a group of people who are going to be in it with us, not for a flash in the pan, but for the long haul. This is community, this is church. 

God gave us the free gift of Jesus. All we have to do is recognize that we need him and  believe that he died for us, then we are welcome into the kingdom. Those are the only steps necessary when people are deemed “Christians” or “Born Again.”  All done. You are a Christian.  The end….

Except that’s not the end. We are called to make disciples not just converts. 

People, in Uganda, are hungry for more of God. They are so hungry that we see them repeatedly attending the many tent meetings, conferences, crusades, evangelism outreaches, and prayer meetings that come through our region. They raise their hands to be counted as a “born again.” Sometimes this is for the first time, but often it's for the 10th time. The result is thousands of coverts to Christianity that can be tallied and marked as a job well done, but there are no disciples of Christ made from these moments.

Making disciples is our goal, knowing that after someone accepts the free gift of Jesus, they will then need help learning how to follow his teachings. We help people work through the Bible in a really simple way by focusing on small, attainable obedience steps that people set for themselves (with the help of Holy Spirit). People take small steps, focusing on getting one foot in front of the other. Each time their community meets to seek God together, they encourage each other to continue that slow but important growth in their faith. 

This is accessible discipleship, small incremental changes leading to lifetime growth. 

Up close it doesn’t look like much, but when you zoom out, you see many people who are growing in their faith as directed by the Holy Spirit. In time, these people will be confident disciples of Christ because He matured them through these small steps, week-by-week, through a simple methods anyone can do and fit into an already busy schedule.  

We are all called to disciple people. We at House to House are simply providing tools to help that happen. 

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