Disciple Making Pt 1


 (From my letter to my congregation today, 18 March 2026)

Life at Heritage is about truth, worship, and Christian love to equip us in making disciples who will belong and believe with us as we grow in truth, worship, and Christian love. We are rightly concerned about being disciple makers. It goes along with what our Lord told us in Matthew 28:18-20. 

As I said last Sunday, disciple making is not a program or a project, but a person-to-person lifestyle. That’s what Kevin DeYoung tapped into when he wrote, “If you walk with God and walk with people, you’ll reach the next generation” (“The (Not-So-Secret) Secret to Reaching the Next Generation,” pg. 4). Before you complain about another age group, ask yourself, “Am I walking with God and walking with people?” In our present time in history, walking with people, face-to-face and not online or at a distance, as you walk with God is becoming extremely valuable. 

And it’s important to see that Christian parents with children are on the frontline of disciple making. This is what makes family worship and catechism lessons in the home so important. But also, discipline and disciple, instruction and the instructed go hand in glove. This is why instructive discipline (Hebrew: Musar – Proverbs 23:12-14 and 23) is just as valuable. Our disciplining our children can’t be simply because of our momentary annoyance or because our children embarrassed us at the grocery store. Instructive discipline. 

Joel Beeke, in his fine little book, “How to Lead Your Family” (pg.56-60) puts it well:

  • First, discipline your children in love. 
  • Second, discipline your children only after instruction and reproof. 
  • Third, discipline your children in honor. 
  • Fourth, Discipline your children with consistency, judgment, and self-control. 
  • Fifth, discipline your children for repentance. 
  • Sixth, discipline your children in prayerful humility. 

And even as the kids get older – pre-teens and teens and heading toward college or vocational school – we are still cultivating them as disciples. Discipline and disciple making begin to look different. As they move into those older years, there are now more discussions, more giving reasonable rationale, more passing on explanations, more persuasion in place of precise practices and mandates, all of which come increasingly at the adult level. In fact, the areas of cultivation will grow as you guide them in adult faith, adult social skills, adult work habits, adult play, adult relationships and adult integrity. 

Parents, you are on the frontlines of what Jesus gives us: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18b-20). So, kudos and high-5s from me to each and every one of you. Take heart, you’re doing the right things, the good thing. I want you to be encouraged and reinvigorated. And when it gets frustrating, and you come face-to-face with your own inadequacies, remember our resurrected Lord’s promise, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 

Pastor Mike

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