Evangelism verses Discipleship

For many generations we have had a strange way of looking at the issue of discipleship and evangelism. I have been exposed to church my whole life. My father and mother helped establish a mission church in south east Louisiana, we went to church and had vacation bible school. We really had the "bones" of church. I believe that a lot of churches have the same bones. But is that it? Are we to have the appearance of church and expect somehow that will be enough? Can a body survive with just a carcass? I was on a mission trip in South Dakota one summer and I be-friended a local. He took me to show me the cattle farm he worked on. One of the most profound things he told me that day was that when they would look to buy cattle they would not look at the health as much as the bones. Wait, I know that is huge, here is what he continued to say; "if we have good bones we can make a good cow." As a young man intensifying my journey with Christ I could not help but recognize the spiritual truth in that moment. Good bones are a must. It means you have something to work with. Not all the cattle had good bones, some just had bones. But those who showed good signs, they would buy and invest in them.
So, let me recap, having bones and having good bones are two different things.
If we were to survey the lot, what would we see if we were looking for good bones in local churches?
The very first thing would be vision. Not to fault my parents, but we had many preachers that never had a vision for the mission. Where there is no vision the people perish. I think what I learned from my years in that mission church was, leadership, strong leadership, is a must in the body of Christ. Leadership that has vision and can pursue it. What does that have to do with evangelism and discipleship? It is vital for both.
One of the battles facing the church is retention of spiritual leaders. Dr. Chuck Kelly, in a study of church health, said, "The length of a pastor's tenure, though, was found to have a direct correlation on the health of a church. A church's likelihood to be healthy was much greater when the pastor had served there between five and 20 years." (This does in no way imply because a pastor has a tenure of over five years that they have vision.) Now, according to a 2006 study the average tenure was 18 months. If vision is the first thing to look for as far as good bones go, how can our churches honestly, implement a vision for reaching a community in 18 months? That is unfair to the leader, to the body, and most importantly to the community that needs Christ. If we are trading in pastors every 18 months, we are always starting over. What this has done has created churches that have been conditioned to believe they can never be affective, it is the "as good as it gets" mentality. From the very beginning when God called out His people He placed an under-shepherd with them. When we study these under-shepherds, we find two things. They were called for longer than 18 months and God used them to share His vision and direction to His people. As crazy as it sounds, He is still doing that today. A good leader can see good bones and begin to feed that body with vision.
Vision: An ideal or a goal toward which one aspires. Church vision: An ideal or a goal toward which one aspires to do the will of God. What is the will of God for every church? To reach the community in which He has planted that church. Now, how? Enter under-shepherd stage left. God still relays His vision through those He has placed to lead and instruct. If a church has "good bones" it must first have a leader that has a vision of the “what” and the “how,” and is willing to see both to completion.

Secondly, a church with good bones, identifies (even if on a small scale) how they will accomplish the task at hand. Do we evangelize or disciple? This is interesting because somewhere and somehow we have begun to see these words as separate processes. We have evangelism directors and discipleship directors, we have crusades and revivals. We say things like, "let’s go and evangelize this community." By doing so we are saying, "let’s go get them to say a prayer and get them baptized!" Then we put a number next to their name and move to the next number. We are so pressured for baptismal numbers that we measure our success by how many we dunk. When that takes place we have separated evangelism from discipleship.
But is that biblical? When we look at the great commission in Matthew 28: 18-20, we see a divine process by which Jesus instructs the future church to accomplish the task at hand. Listen to what He says: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you." (HCSB)
Here is Jesus' process for the church, disciple, baptize, teach. Now, when we look at that we see no distinction between evangelism and discipleship. If we were to see what the measure for success was according to Jesus, it would be how many disciples we make. Biblically, discipleship is evangelism. Biblically, it is discipleship before baptism.
When we look outside the United States, the process of evangelism is identical to the process of discipleship. On our last trip to Yucatan, I witnessed this first hand. Pastors who pray over a village/ community, then go in and begin to teach the word of God. They are consumed with making disciples. Here is what I found, God is blessing their work. Their churches are growing in biblical numbers. Why, because in discipleship people have faces.
So why has discipleship suffered in the face of evangelism? That is easy, discipleship takes time. Discipleship does not show the quick results, it does not happen overnight. It requires investment, both physically and financially. In discipleship the church does not see immediate gratification. Discipleship is labor intensive, dirty, and sometimes costly. Because pastors and churches are pressured to see baptisms we have been very reactive. We speed up the process and get that person who made a decision to accept Christ baptized ASAP. What I find is the longer it has been since a church has witnessed a baptism the quicker the process.
So why is that a "bad" thing. I would not call it bad, but I do know that it has negative side effects. When we rush someone who has just surrendered their life to Christ through the baptismal process, we unwittingly tie their salvation to their baptism. Just think back to your salvational experience. Did you really know what you just did? Did you understand justification, sanctification, or glorification? Did you even know it what meant to be saved? Neither do they, so unless we disciple them, they make incorrect assumptions.
The other negative side effect is that the church doesn't really know if the decision this person made was because of conversation or conviction. Far too long we have rushed past the disciple process and reactively baptized individuals that were simply moved by conviction not conversation. And then, ironically, we get frustrated when we never see them again or they return right back to what they did before, yet say they are a member of our churches. At that moment the integrity of the bride is at stake. If we are honest, we blame them. But how can we blame them when we are the ones that should be protecting the integrity of our churches?
How do we combat this? We stop! We stop and begin to use the process that Jesus Himself has designed for His church. We begin to see that evangelism and discipleship are one and the same. It would be insane to do the same thing over and over and then expect different results.
Discipleship is hard and it is costly, but it is very rewarding. It provides a much needed dynamic to pastoring and the body. Not only do we see people make decisions for Christ, but then we have the added bonus of watching them grow day after day and year after year. We have the reward of seeing them then know what is it to be a Christian and know how to reach someone else. When we allow evangelism and discipleship to kiss it is a beautiful thing. Churches move from just simply being carcasses to being healthy and profitable. I have yet to see that as a bad thing, but it does mean that we need to be honest and willing to explore something that does work.
The task God has called His church to is too big for her, but not impossible. God is not looking at buildings, plans, personnel, or programs; God is looking for good bones. God's idea of success and ours are usually not the same, but the only one that matters.