Elsewhere we’ve made a case that missions mobilization is actually more than recruitment. There’s nothing wrong with recruitment, it’s like picking fruit, right? You’ve got people who are ready to pray, and give, and go, and you help them step into those opportunities. That’s great! I hope you have a whole lot more of that. And yet, missions mobilization actually, in the long run, has much more in common with discipleship and disciple-making than you might think.

As followers of Jesus, we should be disciples of Jesus and a disciple of Jesus, is one who obeys the commands of Christ, right? John the Beloved made it very clear in multiple ways. Those who say they love Jesus, they’re gonna to show it by obeying the commands of Christ. Those who obey the commands of Christ, those are the ones who love Jesus. He just makes that absolutely clear. And so as a disciple maker I need to be helping my disciples grow in their capacity and obedience to what Jesus taught. And of course one of those commands very clearly is, “go make disciples of all nations”. Now, am I going to turn every disciple of mine into a cross-cultural missionary? No, we are not saying that. Not every believer is called to cross-cultural missions. But every disciple obeys the commands of Christ and one of those is “Go make disciples of all nations”.

So every disciple has a role in the Great Commission and that’s missions mobilization! A component of discipleship must be… IS, helping those disciples find their role in the Great Commission that’s mission mobilization. So actually missions mobilization is kind of just another word for discipleship. There’s… everybody is in this journey of understanding who Jesus is, who they are, and what they are called to be and do in the Great Commission, in the kingdom of God. And so we as disciple-makers are helping them in that process. From the very first week of their journey they should be understanding “Oh, this is not just for me. I have freely, freely received and now freely, freely call to give and not just to my neighbors locally but even cross-culturally to the uttermost parts of the earth. I have a role to play”. We can build this into the DNA of our disciples from the beginning. That’s where mission mobilization and discipleship really overlap if we understand things correctly.