Do you have a factory vision of discipleship?

Many "successful" churches today take their management models from business. What most have forgotten is that these management models and techniques were originally developed to run factories. They are great for processing and production of goods. But they can never produce life. God is a gardener and farmer, and we are supposed to be His labourers.

Today, we try to run our churches more effectively and create better programmes for anything in a mistaken assumption that it can create life when all God is asking us to do is to facilitate and protect the seed of life—the seed of the Kingdom—in others. In our effort to process life we end up killing it.

Many ministers complain today that there aren't enough disciples—but that's only as they have a factory vision of discipleship— that is, Christians working effectively around a production line. But true discipleship will never look like that, as it is a farmer's job, following the seasons of growth in nature.

Because of this processing mentality we are able to produce amazing programmes—but they have no life in them, as we have processed life out of them in our effort to come up with the perfect product. The result is a powerless Church.

And because of the factory mindset a deception has crept into the Church—what we call discipleship is often in fact lifelessness, as we have compressed life out of it through our search for uniformity. Hence some of the best sheep of Jesus are often perceived as goats or black sheep by leaders, as rather than following them they follow Christ.

Prophetically, the true body of Christ is heading toward a paradigm shift from processing life to cultivating and tending it. As a result, life will once more return to the body—but no man or leader will be able to control the shape of it.

If you are a Christian leader, you must learn to become the Gardener's assistant—not THE gardener, as that will just bring your processing mentality back into it—if you want to be relevant in this organic and uncontrollable move of God!