As you are going...

 Make Disciples. Those were some of the last words recorded before Jesus' ascension. Chuck Davenport led a breakout session called "Become an Everday Missionary." He proposed that if you profess Christ, you are called to live missionally. And yes, "Missionary" is a term that most people reserve for the "super-Christians," who leave their homes and go live in a foreign country spending all their time talking to people about Jesus. But this wasn't the plan that Jesus set into motion. Let's look at the verses Davenport was referring to, shall we?

"Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'" --Mattew 28:16-20

Jesus begins his commission with "All authority has been given to me--> therefore go. It begins with Jesus' authority. He has the power and the right. We go because our leader has all authority and we go in that authority. So why do we go?

Going is one of the basics of our faith--it's a core class, yet so many treat it as an elective. Anyone remember those bracelets that used to be a big thing with the colored beads? The black bead stood for sin, the red one stood for the blood of Christ, the white bead stood for cleansing/forgiveness, the blue was for baptism, the green was for growth and the yellow was for heaven. It was a simple way for people to explain what it meant to be a Christian. Well that green bead in part is making the disciples. Think about what Jesus said to Peter, James, and John when he called them to be disciples. "I will make you fishers of men." 

Alright, but how are we do that exactly? As Davenport put it, by leveraging what you know. Look at the disciples! These guys weren't great scholars. They were tradesmen who hadn't make it far enough in the Jewish schooling system to even think about becoming a disciple to a Rabbi. And yet. 

And where exactly do we go? To Jerusalem--the people you come in contact with every day. To Judea--your physical town/city/area. To Samaria--to the people you don't particularly like. To the ends of the earth--everyone in between. One thing that I loved the Davenport pointed out was that we obviously can't talk to everyone. That would be quite physically impossible. And many of us may never leave the country. But one way we go is by going ourselves. Another way we go is by supporting those who go. I have two dear friends right now who are "fulltime missionaries." One is Honduras and the other in Greece. I don't have the time or vacation hours at work to go and minister physically with them. But I can support them financially and through prayer, and in that sense, I am helping to reach "then ends of the earth." (Caveat--this does NOT mean that I don't attempt to reach my Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria.)

Davenport pointed out that we in America (and especially the South) live in a culture that professes Jesus, but too many of us don't live for Him. We can change this! All we have to do is as we are going... make disciples.