I don’t know that we should balance evangelism and discipleship. Unless you are talking about discipleship in the way it is generally understood today in most churches. By this we would mean classes, Sunday school, volunteering to do church work, and any other activities that tend to support the care and feeding of the church organization, while perhaps doing little to teach people how to live out Jesus’ teachings as they go to work, as they live in their neighborhoods, and as they interact in the community.

Now back to Satan. Those who grow in discipleship will be ever cautious of trying to pick a fight with Satan. We begin to understand more and more by spending time with the Word how subtle Satan can be and why we should leave his defeat to God. BCoop’s bold talk would perhaps not be so bold in the future as he grows more in the faith.

As for me, though not a perfect man by any stretch, I did learn the idea of not messing with Satan early on in Sunday School.

Nice comments. It brings up a vital question for all churches: How do we balance evangelism and discipleship.

On a personal level, most of my life I’ve spent in churches where the focus was almost entirely on discipleship– to the point that people very rarely ever came to Christ through the ministries of those churches (which proves they really weren’t discipling, were they?).

Part of the problem with people’s perceptions of NewSpring is that because the Sunday services are so intense and powerful, and because it is not uncommon for literally hundreds of people to come to faith in Christ on any given Sunday, outsiders assume that there is no discipleship going on.

Here is what they don’t see:
Weekly small groups
New believers classes
Marital, financial, and other types of counseling
Membership classes
Scores of ministry opportunities

Yes, Perry Noble tells the church to bring their friends so that they will hear the gospel. But in no way is that ever presented as the sole duty of a Christian.

And the last comment I’ll make in these rambling remarks– We cannot make disciples if we don’t first share the gospel with them.

Been away for awhile, so I apolgize for being late in responding. Back to your response to an earlier comment I made, I have only been to NS a few times, and I defer to you on how people are motivated to sign up, volunteer, or otherwise get involved. My observations are just that, observations based on limited experiences. I do draw general concerns from these experiences, and my biggest concern still is the cathcy phrases, the sloganeering or anything else that does not engage people fully in heart, mind, soul and strength. I am making a distinction between a person’s response, and how this decision, or commitment ultimately impacts that person’s life. It is my hope that the people who raise their hands in commitment today, would be fully engaged in the christian life in the future. I was simply asking, what are churches in general, and NS in particular, doing to make disciples, fully engaged in heart, mind, soul and strength? And because they seem to place importance on numbers, are they more concerned about the numbers that respond for salvation, when they should be more concerned about the numbers of people who grow as disciples?

What I am questioning is the large-scale counting of “decisions” as a defense for any error or action tangentially related to the ministry that witnessed those decisions.

I rejoice for the sinners who were saved by Christ. I’m less impressed with the evangelist bashing me over the head with those new converts.

Doug Wilson in a book I was just reading, says we should take all men at their word when it comes to their salvation until they prove otherwise. He gets this from the idea of the our innability to discern who is in the visible and invisible church. God doesn’t distinguish that for us. In other words, we can peek into the hearts of man and judge their salvation. God hasn’t given us that ability.

When a man professes faith you believe him until he stops repenting for his sins and then through excommmunication you (the elders) treat him as a non-believer (not judge their heart, but TREAT him that way) If he comes back and repents then you continue to treat him as a believer. Once someone is baptized we treat them as a brother in Christ until they are excommunicated from the church for lack of repentence.

This idea allows us to love our brother without judging his heart or ever saying “there is no way he is a believer because…” Now this also means that the elders must practice church discipline well, but if done right it keeps us from trying to issue a verdict based off of our assumption of what we think they “get” or “don’t get” about scripture.

If these guys have professed faith and are baptized I think we should believe them until they prove otherwise. It’s a very dangerous road you are walking down when you question someones salvation. Be careful that you don’t hold a standard up that will be held up to you one day. Just trying to help you out brother.

I agree! God is working! The fact of the matter is that we should all be able to rejoice over one soul won to Christ, not to mention 65. That’s great, and I will continue to pray for their growth in Christ.

I am sorry, too, that your opening comment opened up a pretty pointless discussion. This is a great example of the stupidity of the “scoreboard” retort that PN uses. When you answer criticism by pointing to a number, you have to expect that people might question that number.

When Acts counts the 3,000 in Acts, who was counting? God.

When we try to do the same thing, we’re counting stuff that we just don’t know.

Using such numbers as a defense for truth is just foolish (not that that’s what you were doing, Jim, but it is what PN seems to be doing more and more).

No, I was not in attendance. I did ask my grandson some of these questions and his answer was, yes, repentance was the most discussed point. He did not know the reason for my question so I take him at his word.

With the types of numbers of salvations that New Spring has reported in recent years I think it would be safe to say that there would be a percentage of attendees that did not understand the decision they were professing. Even if one half of these reported salvations fell into that category that would still mean that close to 40 young people gave their life to Christ. That is worth celebrating and discussing no matter the forum. If it were only 40 kids, that would be 4% of those in attendance. If 4% of a small church congregation of 200 (8 people) accepted Christ in a particular Sunday most Southern Baptist churches would declare revival. Perhaps revival has started at New Spring?