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Disciples Making Disciples
by Steve Stinnette — Palau, Micronesia — Jan 1, 2020
A youth group from Palau, Micronesia wears their shirts emblazoned with "Christ Lives in Me." One girl found hers to be a powerful tool for spreading the gospel - even an ocean away from home.
Jesus’ commanded strategy for reaching the world with the gospel is revealed in Matthew 28:19-20, known as the Great Commission passage. “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, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The main command in Matthew 28:19-20, “make disciples,” includes both a goal and the method for reaching that goal.
The goal given by Jesus is to reach the world by sharing the message of the gospel to every person on the planet.
The method given by Jesus to accomplish this goal is by “making disciples,” not just stopping at the evangelism task – the “making converts” part. Making disciples is more than just bringing believers into maturity in Christ. It must also include equipping them for ministry. If we just focus on bringing believers into spiritual maturity without equipping them for ministry, “spiritual stagnation” occurs. Both tasks must be completed together.
Three years ago, Anne and I began discipling several Palau Evangelical Church (PEC) youth leaders. We had no idea what the results would be but had every confidence in both the goal and the method: “Make disciples who make disciples!”
As these youth leaders began growing spiritually as disciples of Jesus, we also began equipping them to do ministry. They, in turn, began making disciples among the various youth in the church youth groups they led, and also began equipping them to do ministry.
God seemed to move powerfully in one youth group in particular – the one in Ngaremlengui, a village halfway up the west coast on the island of Babeldaob. The lives of the youth leaders there, Pors, Kosh, and Idedchei, began changing radically as they began discipling various youth in their youth group, and equipping them to do ministry as well.
Last year I wrote about the revival-like atmosphere that seemed to typify the lives of the youth group there as they caught fire in sharing their faith with other youth. Several of the youth group members, Sesngel, Shellie, and Watermelon, started an evangelism and discipleship ministry in Palau’s only public high school, Palau High (which continues to this day).
Her letter begins as follows:
Alii [a word of greeting] Steve!
It works! Disciples make disciples! The experience of making the truth of the gospel known to others, and then taking the time to duplicate these truths into someone else’s life, one life after another after another, is amazing, exciting, and motivating. Praise the Lord!
Okay, here’s what happened to our ministry after you and Anne relocated to Guam last year. As you know, Sesngel [introduced as ‘Sessy’ last year] was one of the first youth members we started working with on discipleship. She was growing and maturing enough to start sharing her faith. After she shared her faith with that one boy from our village, the Lord built her confidence and boldness to the point that she started sharing her faith with many other youths her age, and even to others much older than her.
But sadly, last August, we had to say goodbye to Sesngel as she left Palau to go to school in California. As she left, Pors and I began questioning what God was doing by allowing her to leave us when she was just beginning to grow and learn. Our plan was that we would disciple her to make disciples among the other youth. Little did we know that God had a greater plan for her life.
One day a few weeks later, I received a message from Sesngel that she had decided to wear our youth group uniform to class (with the lettering “Christ Lives in Me” boldly emblazoned across the front). She told me, “Kosh, when I got into my class, my classmates were staring at me,” Later that day, one of her classmates approached her, stating she was bold to wear that t-shirt to school. Sesngel took the opportunity to share her faith with her, and they became friends. Days later, she messaged me stating that her friend has received Christ, and asked, “Now that my friend has received the Lord as her Savior, what do I do with her?” I told her to start using the follow-up Bible studies with her that we had trained her to use. I reminded her that her goal was to “make another Sesngel” (meaning, make her into a disciple just like her!). So, she did, and as time passed, the two of them became three as another girlfriend of hers received the Lord. Sesngel just continued to follow them up with the Bible studies she had been trained to use, and just making them into disciples.
After a few more weeks, Sesngel called me again. She was very excited to tell me of another encounter she had with a 76-year-old man from Chuuk while attending a church service. Her two friends were with her. As she was reading her Bible, this old man approached her, and the Holy Spirit led her in a conversation with him while the Pastor was still preaching. In Sesngel’s own words, “I don’t remember most of what I said; I just remembered that I shared my faith with that old man. As I shared, the Lord opened his heart. As I began to lead him in prayer to receive Christ, he started to cry so uncontrollably that the Pastor stopped preaching and he and the whole congregation began staring at us. So, this old man received the Lord as his Savior. After our prayer, while the people were staring, this old man stood up, went to the front and shared his testimony.” She said she went out crying, not really remembering what exactly she had said or how it had happened.
Steve, what is remarkable is that her two friends, Giana and Chey, were sitting there with her the entire time, witnessing the whole thing. When Sesngel told me this, I responded, “Ses! Now is the time for you to encourage your two friends to start sharing their faith! They have observed you doing it in front of them.” So, she did. She challenged them to begin sharing their faith. They started by sharing with their families because their families weren’t believers.
Sesngel continued, “We did our Bible study in one of my friend’s house, while we were studying, her brother would come around and look at us in the room and then leave. Little did we know he was sitting just outside the door listening to us.” The brother was a drug addict and sometimes forced his parents to buy him drugs because if they didn’t, he would steal some of their stuff and sell it to buy drugs himself.
Giana and Chey shared their faith with him and he received the Lord as his Savior. The girls were overflowing with joy when he received the Lord and they told Sesngel, “Now we know the inexplicable feeling you described that one gets when you share your faith!”
Moreover, right after that boy received the Lord, he went home and apologized to his parents for all his wrongdoing towards them. He even volunteered to drive them to church the next time they went. I told Sesngel, “Now you have to teach them to do the follow-up Bible studies with that brother.”
Remember that the old man from Chuuk that Sesngel led to the Lord during the church service? He left California to go back to Chuuk two days after they met. They stayed in touch. He told Sesngel that his wife was not a Christian; he also shared that he had narrated his conversion to his wife, and she was amazed that one so young had the boldness to share her faith with someone older than her! Sesngel challenged the old man to share with his wife what she has shared with him.
Steve, last week Sesngel messaged me saying the wife has received the Lord as her Savior. They even video chatted together over Facebook Messenger and prayed together.
My response to all this was, “Ollekeang [a word expressing surprise]! Sesngel, now we know why the Lord took you to California.” Recently, Sesngel was invited to share her testimony in one of the Palauan Youth Group Bible studies there. I spoke with her yesterday and she said, “Kosh, they asked me to lead our next Bible study!” When I asked her what she was going to do, she said, “I will do it!” I was shocked, surprised, and amazed.
Steve, in one of my recent conversations with Sesngel, she told me, “Now that I’m experiencing all of this, I remember how you and Pors would share with me all the encouragement you guys felt in making disciples. Now I know too.” And then she exclaimed, “Kosh, I think I’m Kosh #2!”
It was then that your words hit me Steve! Making disciples is the duplication of your life in the life of someone else.
And I realized that this is what you were talking about. Making disciples who make disciples is the only effective way to reach the world!
–Amelia Franz
Steve Stinnette is the Leadership Development Coordinator for the churches in Micronesia. Born and raised in Virginia, he moved to Micronesia in 1979, and he and his wife Anne now minister from the island of Guam.
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