The Missing Ingredient in American Churches and Groups (Commitment and Small Groups Series #9)

“If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples.” -Mike Breen, “Why the Missional Movement Will Fail”

Breen makes some great points in his post I reference above. Definitely worth a read. I can see church leaders all over the country discussing this in staff meetings. But here’s the thing that keeps coming back to me. I read lots of articles and have been involved in lots of discussions about discipleship vs. mission (as if they are diametrically opposed in a church or small group). The church in America is good at swinging the pendulum from one extreme to the other in this and a variety of other issues.

Here’s another great quote from Breen’s post:

If you’re good at making disciples, you’ll get more leaders than you’ll know what to do with. If you make disciples like Jesus made them, you’ll see people come to faith who didn’t know Him. If you disciple people well, you will always get the missional thing.

Always.

That seems pretty obvious to me … so why are so many churches and small groups not making disciples, not growing, not bearing fruit, not winning the lost, not multiplying?

I believe commitment is the missing ingredient in most American churches and small groups.