Who Should We Be Trying To Reach?

The first question a person who wants to obey Christ’s command in the great commission to go and make disciples  is “who to disciple”?

As a disciple maker who should you be trying to reach out to?

At Globe International we are taking important steps to equip our missionaries to personally multiply disciples.

As director of Globe’s DMM (Disciple Multiplication Movements) I have put together a A Guide to Personally Sharing Your Faith which we use to train our missionaries about the importance of making disciples.

Globe’s 3 step process of training, sending and serving is not just for foreign missionaries. It will also help you make disciples right where you live.

I want to share our disciple multiplication guide with you.

In this first step I want to ask you,

 Who should you be trying to reach?

Who is the Hero?

Let’s begin by establishing your role in disciple making. If you want to reach the right people you must put all your trust in Jesus. Let the Holy Spirit be your guide.

When we realize that we are not the main characters in disciple making it takes the pressure to perform away from us and directs our dependency upon the Holy Spirit.

Consider the question of who is the hero as you watch this video from the movie, the Hunger Games, as Katniss volunteers as tribute:

You are not the hero.

Obviously Katniss is portrayed as the hero (type of Christ’s salvation) in this scene. In lesson 3 I’ll share a secret storyline behind this movie and many other motion picture plots.

You are not the hero.  Jesus is the hero, the Holy Spirit is our guide and the people we are helping are the most important characters in God’s plan of salvation.

Always begin in prayer.

As a prerequisite to the strategies I’m about to give you, I want to especially emphasize the importance of prayer and “prayer walking”.

When you begin to share your faith with others you should prayerfully ask these questions:

What do the people who you help want?

Where should you be ministering?

These are the same questions I ask when considering God’s purpose for the World.

Who Globe International targets when disciple making

Here’s some of Globe’s strategies for effectively reaching the right people.

1. Ripe Harvest Fields – This is a key to effective disciple making. I’ve found there are pockets of people who are ready to become Christians. Concentrate on places where many people are making decisions to draw close to Christ and become His disciples. China, for example is wide open to the Gospel, even though the Country is closed to Christian Goer. (See Doug Gehman’s book in “Resources” and read our article on the IDEA harvest field.
2. Persons of Peace wherever you go, pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help you find “Persons of Peace” or the person God has prepared to receive the Gospel for the first time into a community. Often time this person will be a person who has a lot of influence in a community.
3. LRPG (Least Reached People Groups) There are 16,315 people groups. 6,564 of these people have not heard the Gospel.
4. Be open to both rural and urban areas. LRPG may not  be in rural areas, since many of them are in cities. Indeed over half of the world’s population is in cities. Strategies for reaching them there are needed, not just in the bush of Mozambique
5. God is moving in the Global South– The Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America, and in developing parts of Asia including the Middle East.
6. Reverse Missions – Those who received missionaries are now sending to those countries who were sending missionaries before. God is using what was once considered poorer, less developed Nations, such as Latin America, to send out missionaries.  Globe Mexico is now concentrating on sending out Mexican Goer to the World.
7. Focus on the younger generation (predominantly ripe harvest fields) who can be reached through technology and social media.

Who you should be trying to reach

On a personal level you should be on mission right where you live. Here’s how:

1. Ripe Harvest Field– Ask the Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts of the people you will be sharing your faith with or to a an entire community that is ready for harvest.
2. Person of Peace– Ask The Holy Spirit  to lead you to a person whom he has already been preparing to welcome you and listen to the good news of Christ
3. LRPG- Take advantage of unique opportunities to minister to people who have moved to the USA from least reached nations.Many cities have large pockets of immigrants from 10/40 window places that have never heard the Good news.
4. Be open to people both in urban and rural areas. If  you live in a rural area you may consider targeting people in a city, and vise-versa.
5. Go where God is moving Ask God to lead you to specific people groups in your area where he is already moving. It could be poorer people, college students or even a group of people who speak a different language than you do.
6. Reverse missions-  Remember, you were once on the receiving end of the Christ’s good news, now it’s time to  begin training, sending and serving. Be ready to do things differently than you previously did them. For example, just because you were traditionally brought up in a Western style church building doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the best way.  Consider that God may want to reach people His way and not your way.
7. Focus on young people– This is our future and the time is right to minister them. Many young people are ready to make a difference. Perhaps you can mentor or be a spiritual father to a needy young person.

Are you ready to start sharing your faith?

Here’s are 3 practical steps to get started as a disciple maker:

1. Pray- Begin by praying and asking the Holy Spirit to lead you to Ripe Harvest fields and Persons of Peace whom He has prepared to receive the message you will be delivering.
2. Make a list of 100 people you relate to. Include friends, family, coworkers and neighbors. Start praying over this list. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you choose 5 people from the list you can invite to take the next step in their spiritual journey this week.
3. Consider prayer walking in a specific community or area. Prayer Walking is “praying on sight with insight”. How to prayer walk.

Once you have a list of people with whom you can share your faith you are ready for the next step.

Consider what is standing in the way of reaching these people.