By Joel Comiskey, Empowered to Pastor
On May 30, 1792, at the Northampton Baptist Association meeting in Nottingham, England, William Carey, the father of modern missions, preached a sermon titled “Attempt great things for God; Expect Great things from God” from Isaiah 54:2. The verse says, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.” His challenge led to the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society and began a new era of global missionary activity.
What great things are you attempting for God and expecting from him in 2025?
Many people start a new year with great expectations and then quickly abandon them. One study found that about 80% of people abandon their resolutions by the second week of February, and only 9%—12 % achieve their goals.
Some of the key reasons for failure are:
- unrealistic goals
- loss of motivation
- lack of tracking
When raising the goal level for 2025 to God-sized disciple-making goals, my hope is that we will be motivated to set realistic, God-honoring goals. After all, Kingdom business is eternal and has life-and-death consequences. We also have the privilege of doing them for his glory, the highest motivation in the universe.
After the motivation to give glory to God, the church’s objective must be disciple-making. I am convinced that small group-based churches do a better, more biblical job of disciple-making than any other strategy. Cell-based churches make disciples through:
- Cell (community, priesthood of all believers, evangelism, and multiplication)
- Celebration (worship, preaching, ministries)
- Equipping (one-equipping various methods to make it happen)
- Coaching (making sure the leaders are healthy)
- Prayer/missions (the oxygen of the cell church)
When coaching pastors, I try to discern where the church is weakest and then work toward filling those gaps.
We at Lyngate Vida (Lynwood, California), where I serve as part of the pastoral team, believe God will help us multiply groups in 2025. Many of our cell groups have grown in community, the priesthood of all believers, and even evangelism, but we’d like to make a concerted effort to multiply more groups.
Since COVID-19, many pastors have recalibrated their cell ministry and launched new goals. What about you? How can you make disciples more effectively in 2025? What are your goals?
Click here if you’d like to receive these daily blogs in your email. For January, we’ll cover:
- January 12-18: God’s renewal and desire for revival. We know that Jesus wants to make more and better disciples in 2025. What areas would you like to see God change in 2025, and what is the biblical basis for those changes?
- January 19-25: how will those changes make more and better disciples in 2025? Training? Coaching? Multiplication?
- January 26 to February 01: What steps must you take to make those changes in 2025? How does your church plan on taking those steps?