Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

(Matthew 11:28-30)

After forty-four years of pastoring a church (whatever that means), I am all the more convinced that Christians have no idea what it means to follow Christ. Read my text and meditate upon it before you read any further.

Did you read my text? Did it tell you God's plan for you and me? Did you come to him for your salvation? Do you enjoy the "rest" he speaks of? Did you take his yoke upon you?

Are you learning of him? Do you find him " lowly in heart" (gentle and humble)? Is your soul at rest? Did you find serving him easy? Is the service you do through the local church a joy? No? WHY NOT?

Could it be you have no conception of what He means by that simple formula for discipleship? Could you possibly have missed the fundamental basis for being his disciples? The formula is in those three verses. Let's take a look at them in this article.

If a local church is doing the ministry of our Lord, a person beginning in the nursery and going through the adult class will be equipped to do any job the Lord would call that person to, including being a pastor. Evangelist or a teacher.

The Word of God is the tool, the Holy Spirit is the teacher and the local church provides the resources to train them. If every teacher in the Sunday School were Spirit filled, teaching the Word of God with skill, the students will be prepared to complete the will of God for their lives. What more do you need?

I can't find the need for all the programs, meetings, strategies and activities we have established as criteria for the spiritual development of disciples in the bible.

Scripture gives us the picture of believers coming together in the local church to learn about Christ and his plans for us.

In Acts 2:42 we find the plan. Given us by the Apostle Paul, God's man for the maintenance of the local church, is discipline and doctrines.

"And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." (Acts 2:42)

Four things: worship, fellowship, Scripture, and evangelism. Discipleship then is more than the sum total of our religious activities. It is the coming to know Christ and having the completeness of His life worked out in us.

"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power." (Col. 2:9-10)

Isn't that great? We are complete in him. That is a wonderful piece of knowledge. Did we get this way after graduating from a Bible College? Don't get me wrong, I am for Bible College for a young person going out in the Lords service (if I can choose the College).

But it is only because I know the church is not teaching them the word of God under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. That is sad, and I am correcting the situation in our church . . . fast!

Following the principals I have established, maturity is guaranteed, but not automatic. To Focus on one principal and ignore the others will produce, not a mature Christian (disciple) but an unbalanced one.

Worship without fellowship, fellowship without worship, Scripture without evangelism, evangelism without worship, will not produce a disciple. It takes all four, and these carried out in a local church setting.

I cannot stress too much the importance of local church membership. One is not even beginning to grow until he is baptized and fellowshipping in a local church. There is no other kind of church.

Sad to say, but today the local church is ignored by many. Until the beginning of the 20th Century you never heard of any church but a local church. Then came the teaching of the Invisible church by well meaning "scholars" and soon millions were "worshiping" in their homes and other public places, but not the local church.

It has proliferated until today, millions think they can truly worship God and serve him outside his local, scriptural, visible church. You will never be a disciple if not in a scriptural, local church.

Tell me, how does an invisible church share fellowship? What does the pastor of an invisible church look like? Who does he preach to? Who sends missionaries around the world? How do you baptize an invisible Christian? How can an invisible church win souls and how can an invisible church carry out the great commandment of our Lord to go into the entire world and win the lost? Really does not make any sense, does it?

One of the greatest misconceptions about discipleship is that it can be done apart from the local church through individual or small group relationships apart from the dynamic context of a local body of believers.

There is no one person or small group that has all the necessary gifts and strengths to give to any one. This is an impossibility. If there is no local church, then there is no discipleship. This is so because only the local church has all the resources needed for a person's development.

This must come from the broader body of believers, which completes Christ's body (Eph. 1:22-23), functions as His Temple (Eph. 2:19-22) and is empowered by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16).

This does not mean that small groups are not important. It simply means that they are important under the local church, not apart from it. All other discipleship relationships must be viewed as supplemental to the church.

All right, Pastor Wright. You got me convinced I need to be a disciple of our Lord. Now tell me how to do it.

Knowledge does not make you a disciple. You have to know how to take the information you have learned and apply it. We call it "developing your skills."

All of us know intelligent people who have "book sense" but are void of common sense. We wonder how these people can be so smart yet not know how to function well in daily life. That is not what a disciple is supposed to be like. He must not only have the right information, but the skills as well.

Suppose you need open heart surgery. The Doctor comes in, shakes your hand, introduces himself and informs you about your surgical procedures.

Doc, you say. This is a serious thing. How many open-heart surgeries have you done?

You are my first one, he answers.

I am your first surgery? Pull up a chair, Doc, we have to have a serious talk. What makes you think you can do this surgery?

Well, he says, I have four years college and four years medical school. I made all "A's". I know the human body very well, how all the different parts function. I have learned all the surgical instruments by name and I know the layout of the operating room and have a skilled team of assistants. You have nothing to worry about.

You will tell him passing the tests do not make him a heart surgeon. You tell him you want someone that has done this before.

That is why a medical student does an internship. So he can learn alongside a skilled doctor who knows what to do when complications arise and things happen that are not covered by the books.

That is why you cannot be a disciple simply by showing up at church Sunday morning. Worship is an essential component of following Christ. But like knowledge, it's not the whole picture. Discipleship demands someone walking alongside you who knows what he is doing.

We have examples all around us of disciple making right in our own community: the drug pushers. These guys are slick. They will take a young boy or girl and mold them, giving them the information necessary to make a quick dollar, letting them walk beside him as he deals. Then sending them out on their own to do what he did.

See the issue is not whether you are going to be a disciple, but the issue is by whom you will be discipled. Got to have the right person! Right!

All of us have people and influences in our lives that shape who we are and what we do. Follow the Lord and his servants whom he has called and used in the discipleship of souls and you too will become a winner of souls and a teacher of others.

That is why I state you must be in a local church where soul winners allow you to walk alongside them until you become a skilled disciple. Then you begin teaching others. Remember our example in Matthew 28:19-20? Go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them and then teach them all things he has taught us. This can only be done through the local church.

I hope I have created a desire in someone to become a disciple of Christ. If I have, let me know.