Discipleship at Its Core
Taught by Anazao
the teaching opens the Pastors and Ministers Conference at The Covenant Nation with a teaching that is part exhortation and part lament. He warns the room that the Great Commission is becoming the 'great omission', a generation of pastors making disciples of themselves and of trends instead of disciples of Jesus. From Matthew 28:16–20 he draws out seven things at the core of discipleship: it is a command, a mandate, jurisdiction-less, God's platform for transference, teaching-centered, accompanied by divine presence, and God's strategy for sustaining the church. He then turns the corner with sober statistics on Christianity in Africa and Nigeria, explosive numerical growth alongside a deep discipleship gap, and identifies four real challenges the African church must face: nominal Christianity, leadership and training gaps (especially the neglect of the 6–16 age group), persecution and pressure, and a youth explosion that is hungry but distracted. The session is unusually candid: he tells of a season pastoring in South Africa where the church grew fivefold and follow-up calls revealed people who had given their lives at the altar but had no memory of it, and he confesses his own past pursuit of power without the fellowship of suffering.
This is the opening session the teaching delivers at the Pastors and Ministers Conference hosted by Pastor Poju Oyemade at The Covenant Nation, Lagos, the precursor to the 'Strategic Discipleship' session that follows it. the teaching speaks as someone who has pastored for sixteen years across Nigeria, the United States, and South Africa, and shares deeply personal stories about discovering the gap between numbers and disciples in his own ministry. The session sets the diagnostic frame for the conference: the African church is at the center of global Christianity, but its growth is not yet matched by depth, and that gap is the discipleship gap.
Summary
the teaching opens the Pastors and Ministers Conference at The Covenant Nation with a teaching that is part exhortation and part lament. He warns the room that the Great Commission is becoming the 'great omission', a generation of pastors making disciples of themselves and of trends instead of disciples of Jesus. From Matthew 28:16–20 he draws out seven things at the core of discipleship: it is a command, a mandate, jurisdiction-less, God's platform for transference, teaching-centered, accompanied by divine presence, and God's strategy for sustaining the church. He then turns the corner with sober statistics on Christianity in Africa and Nigeria, explosive numerical growth alongside a deep discipleship gap, and identifies four real challenges the African church must face: nominal Christianity, leadership and training gaps (especially the neglect of the 6–16 age group), persecution and pressure, and a youth explosion that is hungry but distracted. The session is unusually candid: he tells of a season pastoring in South Africa where the church grew fivefold and follow-up calls revealed people who had given their lives at the altar but had no memory of it, and he confesses his own past pursuit of power without the fellowship of suffering.
Key Points
The Great Commission is in danger of becoming the 'great omission.' Discipleship is the architecture Jesus left behind in His last words, you never joke with the last words of any man, especially not the Savior.
Discipleship is not a class. It is long range. Jesus and the Twelve walked together for three and a half years. There is no two-week shortcut.
It takes a disciple to make disciples. Before instructing them to go disciple all nations, Jesus first made the Twelve His disciples.
We are not called to make disciples of ourselves but disciples of Jesus. Crowds who came for food, music, charisma, or trending will leave when those leave, they never met Christ.
Seven things at the core of discipleship: (1) it is a command, (2) a mandate, (3) without jurisdiction or barrier (all nations, all spheres), (4) God's platform for transference between generations, (5) teaching-centered, (6) carries the guarantee of divine presence, (7) God's strategy for sustenance.
Teaching, not preaching, makes disciples. Preaching will not make disciples, 'teaching them to observe.' If scripture and truth are not enough hype for you, you shouldn't be hyped at all.
The Berean Christians (Acts 17:11) are the model: they listened eagerly, but searched the scriptures day after day to test what Paul was saying. A studious member is a gift, not a threat.
Africa now holds over 700 million Christians, projected to reach 1.2 billion by 2050. Yet only about 0.03% of Nigerian evangelicals are missionaries. The church here has 'revival level growth, but not discipleship level depth.'
Four real challenges: nominal Christianity (biblical illiteracy), leadership and training gap (especially the 6–16 age group is being missed, 'when a fish is dried, to undry it is a lot of work'), persecution and pressure (Nigeria remains a hot spot), and the youth explosion that is 'hungry but distracted' by social media and a counterfeit definition of fire.
If we don't disciple the 6–16 age group, the world is discipling them. Read your Bible, pray every day, the old children's church songs already had the script we abandoned.