“Every church needs to be able to answer two questions. First, what is our plan for making disciples? And second, does our plan work?”
– Dallas Willard
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”
– Hosea 4:6
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
Matthew 28:19
We moved from Colorado Springs to Arizona in July of 2020 in the middle of summer, when the temps are at their hottest. The Covid chaos was swirling at full speed then. I love to read outside in the sun, which I did often in Colorado. Around a week after moving here to the Valley of the Sun I sat outside and read for around 40 minutes. It was 107 degrees that day.
I started feeling light-headed, dizzy, with a touch of nausea. Downing a bunch of water didn’t help. I went to an Urgent Care facility, one of those small doctor’s offices where you can walk in off the street without an appointment. They told me that in the Arizona summer it’s easy to get dehydrated quickly and to be careful when going outside. I was showing signs of heat exhaustion. If I’d have stayed out too long I would have eventually crossed the line into heat stroke which then becomes a medical emergency with life threatening consequences. In Maricopa county alone, 600 people died last year from heat-related issues. Estimates are that upwards of 1,200 will lose their lives in Arizona from a heat-related illness in 2025, top in the nation. This time of the year there is a stream of news stories where someone from another state came to Arizona, went out on a hike, dehydrated quickly, went into heat stroke, and died. It’s so bad that the city of Phoenix has closed some hiking trails between the hours of 8am and 5pm.
In the desert, what you don’t know can kill you.
It’s the same in the spiritual realm.
In the past year there have been news reports of large-scale baptisms and groups of people coming to Christ. This is wonderful. The big question is, now what? Are they going to be equipped for the fierce battlefield they’ve stepped into, or left with “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” and treated like a notch in some ministry or church’s gun belt?
As soon as a man or woman comes to Christ, they cross the line from running with “the prince of the power of the air,” as the Bible puts it in Ephesians 2:2, to following Christ, putting them in the line of fire from the enemy.
After conversion, will they:
Be told that they must be in God’s word every day for the rest of their life, and that they won’t make it without a working knowledge of the Bible so they can discern the truth from lies, understand how to walk with God, live a life that counts for eternity, fight the spiritual battles, absorb a Biblical perspective on life, and much more?
Be taught how powerful prayer is, and challenged to make prayer a top priority?
Hear that they must not isolate themselves as 80% of modern Christians are doing today, and that they must live connected to a tribe of committed believers on an ongoing basis for support, accountability and prayer?
Be encouraged and challenged to participate in prayer meetings consistently?
Does their church even have one?
Receive effective help for their struggles with sin, especially, sexual sin? With 70% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women viewing porn and masturbating while half of Christians seeing no problem with promiscuity, the chances that many new converts are struggling with sexual sin is high. Will they receive guidance, support, and effective answers in this area?
Learn how to keep their flesh speared, with all of its pride, lust, arrogance, bitterness, rage, envy, and other problems?
Critically, will they be taught about spiritual warfare, the intense battles they will face, and how to overcome? Will they hear about their authority in Christ, how the enemy attacks, and how to shut down them down?
Will they receive help to heal the hurts and wounds of their past, especially if they were abused, neglected, abandoned, molested, or went through some other traumatic event?
Will they be challenged to make God their all, go hard after Him with everything they have, set aside the cheap entertainments and pleasures of this world, and pour their life out until the end? Or will the shallow, passive, lukewarm, entertainment-driven, TV-watching version of Christianity be what’s modeled for them? Will their mentors and spiritual leaders be passionate prayer warriors who walk with God, or doctrine heads who can quote the Bible yet have empty, hard hearts?
Or will they get a little God-hit Sunday mornings and be expected to figure it all out on their own, including spiritual warfare, with no equipping, help, or challenge, which is like stepping into a war zone alone with a bouquet of daisies?
In this environment, it won’t be long before they get shot up. Then the danger is that they get discouraged and check out.
How about you? Where are you in all this? Have you been equipped in these areas? Is your church equipping and consistently challenging you to take your walk with God to another level? Is God your all, the source of your life? Do you love to pray? Or is prayer a ritualistic chore?
As I walked through the equipping questions above I realized that most of what I’ve learned about prayer, spiritual warfare, and overcoming in the sexual realm didn’t come from time in church. I can’t remember if I’ve even participated in a prayer meeting in church (we have prayer meetings going on through the week by zoom). It would have made a huge difference in my life if I was equipped in these areas from the start.
In a time when many have been walking away from the faith, we do well to ask the hard questions. If the numbers entering the church are the same or smaller than those walking away – especially with our youth, who have been leaving the church in droves for 25 years – something is seriously wrong and we need to take a hard look in the mirror. Some celebrate the victories yet go ostrich when confronted or challenged with the losses, especially the big ones. 70% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women viewing porn is just one of those big losses.
Every church should be a holy boot camp with a medical wing where its members can receive healing and are equipped and challenged to pour their lives out for that which counts for eternity until the end.
Never give up. Never retire. Keep going hard after God and living your life in a way that counts for eternity.
