Tag: discipleship

Make Disciples (Sanctification Series #9)

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planting-in-soil

Christ taught that he is the only Master. We are all called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. For this reason many people imagine that they can follow Jesus on their own. But Christ commanded us to “make disciples.” We don’t make them into our disciples in the sense that we are their Masters. But as Paul put it, we must call them to “follow us as we follow Christ.” Christ makes disciples through the Church. A person that has not been discipled through the Body of Christ, has not been discipled by Jesus Christ. A person that insists he will only follow Jesus Christ and not submit to any man, is not following Jesus Christ nor submitted to him. Continue reading “Make Disciples (Sanctification Series #9)” →

A Turkish Testimony (Illustrating Pioneer Missions)

Published on by Christopher C. Chapman4 Comments

In this post I want to share the salvation testimony of a Central Asian Muslim in order to illustrate my last post concerning Unreached People Groups. Due to the sensitive political and religious nature of the country this brother lives in I have changed his name and left his location unspecified for his safety.

 Soon after Esther and I were married I had a chance to take a trip to Central Asia. We were living in China at the time and had met some leaders of a short-term mission organization. They were interested in expanding their ministry into a particular country in that region. Since I had been living in Asia for several years and was familiar with the customs of that region, our new friends asked me to come along and help them get around.
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A Chinese Testimony (Illustrating What Missionaries Are)

Published on by Christopher C. Chapman6 Comments

(In this post I want to share a testimony of one of the disciples that was raised up in our church in Jakarta in order to illustrate the conclusion of my last post “Defining Missions – What is a Missionary?” The brother’s name has been changed in order to protect his family and his labors in China)

A Chinese Testimony

XiaLanfeng grew up in a small village in southern China. Like most children in rural China he was told that if he studied hard he could improve his lot in life. So from childhood this is what he sought to do. After graduating high school he was fortunate to be accepted to a university in the modern city of Guangzhou. While in college he continued to focus on his studies and in this way avoided many of the trappings Guangzhou had to offer.
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Defining Missions – Where is the Mission Field?

Published on by Christopher C. Chapman3 Comments

What is mission work? It seems almost too elementary to ask such a question. But when we really look at it, the answer is not what we would expect to find. I think we would all agree that we want our definition of “mission work” to be a biblical one. So let’s consider the common understanding of this subject in light of its biblical origin and see if it stands the test.

We usually define missions as doing Christian work in a foreign country. This is the common understanding of the word in most Christian circles. According to this definition anyone who buys an international plane ticket and travels to a foreign land to do some sort of Christian outreach is involved in mission work. If we take an outreach team from Dallas to Indonesia, or a team to Mexico from San Diego, that also fits under the category of “missions.” We could also say that if someone from Canada moves to Africa, India or the United States of America to do Gospel work, they are involved in missionary outreach. This common definition is basically correct and all the examples we just mentioned deserve to be called mission work. But according to biblical standards it is too limited.
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Understanding and Overcoming the World – Part 2

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For part one of this topic click here.

Conformed or Transformed

Romans 12:2 instructs “Do not be conformed to the World.” Jesus makes clear to us that we are in the world but not of the World (John 17:11-18). That is, we are living in the midst of this wicked World system, but we are not to be conformed into its image. We are not to accept its values as our own, but are to resist the pressure of the godless society around us. Instead of submitting to this World’s mold, we are supposed to be transformed into the image of Christ by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 8:29 & 12:2).
Continue reading “Understanding and Overcoming the World – Part 2” →