Up Next On My Kindle: Multiply by Francis Chan

I am getting ready to start a new book that I downloaded a week or so ago. One of the cool features of Kindle books is the ability to preview many of the offerings to see if they sound interesting before you actually make the purchase. I have done this several times but never been compelled to actually buy until I read the foreword to Francis Chan's new book Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples and right out of the gate saw this:

From the start, God’s design has been for every single disciple of Jesus to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples until the gospel spreads to all peoples. Yet we have subtly and tragically taken this costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations and mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and listen in one location. If you were to ask individual Christians today what it means to make disciples, you would likely get jumbled thoughts, ambiguous answers, and probably even some blank stares. In all our activity as Christians and with all our resources in the church, we are in danger of practically ignoring the commission of Christ. We view evangelism as a dreaded topic, we reduce discipleship to a canned program, and so many in the church end up sidelined in a spectator mentality that delegates disciple making to pastors and professionals, ministers and missionaries.

Chan, Francis; Beuving, Mark. Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples (pp. 7-8).  Kindle Edition.

Yes!

Too many of us have been taught, perhaps unintentionally, that coming to saving faith in Christ is the finish line. Whew, now I am not going to hell! That is a relief. Now I can hang out in church on Sunday and live my life for myself the rest of the week while running out the clock until I die or Jesus comes again.

Now you will never hear someone say that of course. We make all sorts of pious noises about serving Christ but often that looks a lot more like running out the clock than it does a vibrant faith being lived out. Study after study shows that Christians by and large really are not engaged in making disciples and furthermore are barely equipped to do so even if they wanted to. I am hoping that books like this will be useful to the church in changing our mindset and getting the church out there.

Anyhoo, I am sure this book will be chock full of good quotes to pass along but more importantly I am hoping it will be full of practical, Biblical information that will equip and engage the church for the work of evangelism. Let the reading begin!