Have you ever read the book of Acts and marveled at the response to Peter’s speech? He stood up to the crowd and pointed his finger straight at them and told them they killed the Son of God. And here was their response:
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Did you read that last line that I put in bold? In the span of a few minutes, the early church went from a handful of people to three thousand people. How would you like to see those numbers next Sunday? Can you imagine trying to get them all in small groups? 🙂
I wonder what that would be like. How would we as a church handle 3,000 new believers? How would we handle 300? 30? Even if we think small, it’s hard for me to imagine that the staff could handle the important task of growing and maturing that many people.
Which is why discipleship needs to be everyone’s job. We all need to be able to take people from non-belief to maturing Christian. All of us should be able to simply explain, using the Bible, the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. We should all be able to talk about our own story of how we started to follow Jesus.
So how are you doing with that? Could you take someone from not knowing Jesus to following Him? If not, what steps do you need to take to get to that point?
Easter is coming. Who can you ask to join us on Sunday and start their walk with Jesus?