Let me tell you how God has been using your prayers and support to bring new life to young disciple makers in training. 😁

I had just returned from my trip to Africa when Luciana knocked on the school office door.

“Would you baptize me?”

This was huge.

All of her life, she had been in a Christian home.

But deep down inside, she knew that something was missing.

Baptism means a lot of things, but at its core, it’s about one crucial thing for a modern follower of Jesus.

First and foremost, it’s about a willingness to obey all the commandments of Jesus, even the ones that don’t make sense to you or me who live in a materialistic, postmodern culture.

Baptism – The Sign of Surrender

Among evangelical churches, we have a big problem with water baptism.

We’re not baptizing the youth who are growing up in our churches!

It’s one of those things that just slips through the cracks. I see it time and time again.

Young people come to our Bible school. In their application they tell me…

• They’re involved in evangelism,
• They’re involved in youth and children’s ministry,
• They’re on the worship team,
• They’ve gone on mission trips,

BUT…

They’re not baptized in water!! 😱

How is this possible?! It’s literally the first step in the journey. How can we miss it?

Because…

We assume that our young people are surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ when in reality they’re just submitting to the culture of Christianity in our homes and churches.

They’re doing things because that’s what everyone is doing rather than because they have made a personal decision to follow Christ.

The problem with this shows up strongly in the shock that comes when our young ones go to college and suddenly lose their faith.

We’re stupefied, wondering what happened.

What happened is that they had never surrendered to Christ in the first place.

Their activity in the church was not obedience, it was culture.

Discipling tomorrow’s disciple makers means leading them into surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

For Luciana, this meant leading her to the waters of baptism.

In the frigid 15° C / 59° F water, I had the privilege of baptizing Luciana—and her sister!—into the faith.

Together, they finally entered into a fully surrendered relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ and joined all of us in His Church of called out ones.

We are the surrendered ones. We are the disciples of a Master.

He leads; we follow. He speaks, and we listen.

This is where training next-generation disciple-makers begins.