What are we striving to achieve?

Some have focused on “faith development,” “spiritual growth,” or some other terminology, but I like the central idea of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20), which is “make disciples.” Actually even that is somewhat distorted by our English translations, where a single Greek verb is turned into a verb “make” and a direct object “disciples.” If we will understand “disciple” as a verb, then we can grasp a more complete view of our central task in the church. The idea certainly involves teaching; but it also carries an underlying theme of transforming a person into a learner, a pupil, an apprentice, an adherent, and ultimately into a witness (the Greek word for the latter is the word from which we derive “martyr”). To me, that gives a better focus to what we are striving to achieve in our churches.