 T-NET International • Discipling Disciplemakers • December 2002 |
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Bob Gilliam, President When I was a teenager, I was lucky enough to land a job as lifeguard at the Palestine Texas Country Club. In the mornings this grueling job of watching beach babes, and listening to the Beatles, Turtles and other strange creatures, was periodically interrupted by my responsibility to teach swimming lessons. That’s when I discovered there’s a “Catch– In some ways what I now do has quite a bit of the lifeguard in it (but my focus has changed, I hasten to add). And in coaching disciplemakers, who are trying to get into the swim of things, I have found a very similar “Catch–22.” Immature Christians are often afraid even to “dip their feet” into evangelism and outreach activities, but you can’t really be a disciple without getting wet. Evangelism and outreach
activities Notice when Jesus called His own disciples, He
said, “Follow Me, and I will make you become ‘fishers of men,’” Mark
No evangelism — no discipleship! The “Follow Me” phase of Jesus’ training was all about Jesus using the same process I described for swimming instructions to teach His disciples to overcome their fears, to share the Gospel and to minister to others. First, they watched Jesus, then got their feet wet supporting His efforts and, finally, began doing it themselves with Jesus’ coaching. They were never far from the water following Jesus. One of the most surprising lessons I learned as a swim instructor was that the most difficult students were not young children, but older adults. Not all that surprising, I guess, when you think about it. When you have excused and accommodated your fear of water for so long, it can grow into a deep-seated phobia. Of course, you know where I'm going with this. The most difficult disciples are the older, yet still immature Christians, who have allowed their fears to become acceptable excuses to disobey Christ’s will for them to become “Fishers of men.” The sadness in this is that such individuals (and churches who have institutionalized these fears) cannot experience much of what God has for them. What should T-NET do for these churches and individuals — some of whom are leaders and pastors? The
lifeguard in me says we can’t leave them to sink, And we have one of the most painless ways imaginable. For several years, T-NET alumni pastors and lay leaders have been starting T-NET training centers in numerous countries overseas — Zambia, the Philippines, India and elsewhere. Persons trained in these centers are winning literally thousands of others to Christ and into their churches every year. One of the most effective ways you can learn to lead people to overcome personal or corporate fears and ineffectiveness in evangelism is to accompany a trainer on one or more of these trips. You can watch as they evangelize and minister to others. You can be coached in the shallow water of a short-term mission experience. Your church can even start a center and be mentored by a T-NET staff member or alumni pastor. Let us ensure your success. No church has started such a center and seen less than What would it do to your confidence level, and for the attitude of your congregation, to see this kind of fruit? If you, someone you know, or even your church as a whole, feel a need to move to a higher level of evangelism and outreach, T-NET now offers an exciting and exceptionally effective solution! To grow as a disciple, or as a disciplemaking church, we must find a way to overcome our fears and become effective in evangelism. It’s a “sink or swim” issue. If this is an area where your church still has room for improvement, why don’t you make a call to an old swimming instructor and — “Come on in, the water’s fine!”
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