Adebola had been the follow-up coordinator at his church in Ikorodu for less than a month when the senior pastor asked him to clear out the old store room behind the vestry. The church was converting it into a children’s classroom. Most of what he found was predictable: broken plastic chairs, a drum set missing its skins, rolled-up banners from harvest thanksgivings, boxes of hymn books from before the church started using a projector.
At the bottom of a pile, under a stack of old programmes, was a carton with the words CRUSADE 2021 written on the side in marker. Inside were decision cards. Hundreds of them, held together in bundles with rubber bands that had gone brittle and snapped when he touched them. Each card had a name, a phone number, an area and a ticked box: I have given my life to Jesus Christ today.
He counted them that evening on his dining table. Three hundred and twelve. He remembered that crusade. He remembered the pastor announcing the figure the following Sunday, and the congregation rising to its feet in applause. He remembered the figure appearing again in the annual report. Three hundred and twelve souls.
He went through the cards one by one, looking for any sign of follow-up. A note, a tick, a date. There was nothing. As far as he could tell, nobody had ever called.
So he started calling. Many of the numbers were no longer in service. Some people did not remember the crusade. A few had found their way into other churches and were doing well. Several said, politely, that they had been “very young then” and were not interested now.
On the fourth evening, he dialled a number on a card that said Anuoluwapo, Agric. A young woman answered. When he explained who he was and why he was calling, there was a long silence. Then she said, “Three years. You are the first person from that meeting who has ever spoken to me.”
Births are worth celebrating
Let me say clearly at the start what this article is not saying. It is not saying that decisions do not matter, or that public invitations are wrong, or that crusades should stop. When a person turns to Christ in faith, something real has happened. Jesus spoke of the angels rejoicing “over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10). If heaven celebrates, so should we.
The New Testament records numbers without embarrassment. On the day of Pentecost, “the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41). Luke was not ashamed to count. And the apostles called people to respond clearly. Peter told the crowd, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you” (Acts 2:38). Paul wrote, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). A gospel presentation without an invitation to believe leaves people admiring a message they have never been asked to receive.
So keep inviting. Keep the call clear. Keep rejoicing over every person who turns to Christ.
But a birth is a beginning, not an achievement completed. Every parent knows this. The day a baby arrives is a day of joy and photographs and visitors. The next morning the baby needs feeding, and the morning after that, and every three hours for months. Nobody would celebrate the birth of a child and then leave it in a carton in the store room. Peter uses exactly this picture for new believers: “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2). New life needs nourishment. A response to the gospel begins a life, and that life must be fed.
The difference between making converts and raising disciples is not a difference between two kinds of people. It is the difference between celebrating a birth and raising a child.
Paul went back to Lystra
There is a short passage in Acts that shows how Paul and Barnabas understood their work. On their first missionary journey, they preached in a string of towns in what is now central Turkey. In Lystra, the opposition became violent. Jews from Antioch and Iconium stirred up the crowd, and Paul was stoned and dragged out of the city, left for dead. The believers gathered around him, he got up, and the next day he left for Derbe. Then Luke writes:
And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.
Read the first phrase carefully. “When they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many.” The word behind taught many is the same Greek verb Jesus used in Matthew 28:19, the verb for making disciples. In Derbe, Paul and Barnabas did not just collect responses. They made disciples.
Then comes something remarkable. “They returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch.” From Derbe, the quickest way home to Syrian Antioch lay eastward, through the mountain passes toward Paul’s own home region of Tarsus. Instead they turned back the way they had come, to the very cities where they had been driven out and where Paul had been stoned. Why? Because there were new believers there, and new believers needed to be strengthened.
Look at what they did on that return journey. There are five actions.
They were “Confirming the souls of the disciples.” The word means to strengthen, to make firm, to put a support under something that might otherwise collapse. New believers are not yet steady on their feet.
They were “exhorting them to continue in the faith.” Initial faith was not the end. The call was to keep believing, to remain.
They told them “that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” They were honest about the road ahead.
They “ordained them elders in every church.” They did not leave the believers without ongoing care. They appointed people to shepherd them after the apostles had gone.
And “when they had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.” In the end, they entrusted these young believers to the Lord Himself. They knew they could not hold them up forever. Christ could.
That is what raising disciples looks like. It costs time and travel and risk. It means going back.
A response to the gospel is a birth, and births are worth celebrating. But a birth begins a life, and that life needs feeding, strengthening and patient care until it is established in Christ.
Honest about the road ahead
PunchlineOne of those five actions deserves particular attention, because it is so often missing from modern evangelism. Paul and Barnabas told new believers that they would suffer.
That is not a popular message at a crusade. It is much easier to promise that coming to Jesus will solve your problems, open doors, heal your marriage and settle your finances. God does all of those things at times, and His goodness is real. But if we invite people with promises that Christianity will make life easier, we set them up to fall away the first time it becomes harder.
Jesus described this in His parable of the sower. Some seed fell on stony ground. These, He said, are people who “when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended” (Mark 4:16-17). The initial response was genuine joy. The problem was the lack of root. When difficulty came, there was nothing underneath to hold them.
Roots grow underground, slowly and out of sight, and they need time and care. That is the work of discipleship. It is the patient work of helping a new believer go deep into Christ, so that when the storm comes, they have something to hold them.
Paul did not wait until trouble arrived. He prepared them in advance. A new believer who has been told the truth about tribulation will not conclude, when hardship comes, that God has failed or that the gospel was a lie. He will recognise it as part of the road, and he will know that Christ walks it with him.
A nurse and a father
Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians gives us the most tender description in Scripture of what it means to care for new believers. He had been in Thessalonica only a short time; Luke mentions three sabbaths of synagogue preaching before the opposition drove him out (Acts 17:2). Yet listen to how he describes those weeks:
But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses, and God also , how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe: As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.
“Even as a nurse cherisheth her children.” The word Paul uses describes a nursing mother, a woman feeding and caring for her own infants. Cherisheth means to keep warm, to hold close. Here is the great apostle, the theologian of Romans, describing himself as a mother with a baby at her breast. That is how he saw new believers. Not as numbers. As infants who needed gentle, constant, personal care.
“We were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.” This is the heart of it. Paul gave them the message, and he also gave them himself. His life was open to them. His affection was obvious. They were not projects. They were dear to him.
Then he changes the picture. “As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children.” The mother cherishes. The father exhorts, comforts and charges. In that culture, a father was responsible for training his children for adult life. He encouraged them, he consoled them when they failed, and he set clear expectations. And notice every one of you. Paul’s care was not only general, addressed to the crowd. It was personal. Each believer was known.
Notice too what Paul refused to do. “For labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.” Paul worked with his own hands so that the new believers would not carry the cost of his ministry. He was not against churches supporting their ministers; he defends that right elsewhere. But with young believers in a hostile city, he would not let anyone think he had come for their money. That is a needed word. New converts should never feel that their first lesson in the faith is a list of financial obligations. Feed them before you ask anything of them. Let them see that you want them, not what they can give.
And the goal? “That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.” Paul’s aim was not that they would remain in the meeting. It was that they would live lives worthy of the God who had called them.
Paul’s care did not stop when he left the city. He could not go back himself, so he sent Timothy “to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith” (1 Thessalonians 3:2). And he wrote letters. Two of the letters in our New Testament exist because Paul could not bear to leave young believers without nourishment.
Present every man perfect
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul describes the purpose of his whole ministry in two verses:
Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
Look at the goal: “that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” The word perfect means mature, complete, fully grown. Paul’s aim was not that people would make a decision, nor even that they would attend regularly, but that every one of them would come to maturity in Christ. He pictures himself one day presenting them to the Lord, the way a craftsman presents a finished work.
Notice that Paul says “every man” three times in one verse. Warning every man. Teaching every man. Presenting every man. He was not satisfied with a crowd that was generally healthy. He wanted each person to grow up.
And notice how this happens: “warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom.” Both warning and teaching. Instruction in the truth, and correction when people go astray. Discipleship requires both.
Then Paul tells us where the energy for this work comes from: “Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.” The word striving is agonizomai, from which we get agonise. It is the word for an athlete straining in a contest. Raising disciples is hard work. It takes sweat and sleepless nights. But Paul is clear that the strength is not his own. He labours “according to his working,” the energy of Christ working mightily in him.
NuggetThat is grace at work in ministry. Not lazy, not anxious, but labouring hard in a strength supplied by God.
Paul expresses the same longing in Galatians, with an even more striking image:
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
The Galatians had already been born again. Yet Paul says he is in labour pains for them a second time. Why? Because they were drifting from grace into legalism, and he longed for Christ to be fully formed in them. A spiritual parent does not stop caring after the first birth. He keeps labouring until the likeness of Christ appears in his children.
Put those passages beside a carton of three hundred and twelve unanswered cards, and you see the difference. A convert is someone who has responded. A disciple is someone in whom Christ is being formed, through teaching, warning, care and the patient labour of others who love them.
Barnabas at Antioch
The early church faced the same challenge we face, and Acts records how one church met it well. When the gospel first spread to Gentiles in Antioch, large numbers believed. The church in Jerusalem heard about it and sent someone to help:
Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
Watch what Barnabas did. First, he looked. “When he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad.” He was not suspicious or critical of these new believers. He saw what God was doing and rejoiced.
Second, he exhorted them. “That with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.” Cleave means to stick fast, to hold on. He did not tell them to cleave to Barnabas, or to the Jerusalem church. He told them to cleave to the Lord. That is the aim of every good disciple-maker.
Third, he recognised that the task was bigger than he was. “Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul.” He went to find a teacher. Saul had been living quietly in Tarsus for several years; Barnabas went to the trouble of searching for him and bringing him to Antioch.
Fourth, they gave it time. “A whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people.” A full year of teaching for a young church. And the result: “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” The people of the city looked at this community and gave them a name that meant Christ’s people. Their lives had become recognisably shaped by Christ.
When large numbers respond to the gospel, the right reaction is gladness, followed immediately by the question Barnabas asked: who will teach them, and for how long?
Why the gap opens
Why do so many churches end up with cartons of unanswered cards? It is rarely because anyone intended it. Most of the time, the gap opens quietly, for understandable reasons.
Events are easier to celebrate than people. A crusade has a date, a venue, a budget and a final figure. It produces a testimony for the following Sunday. Discipleship has none of those things. It is slow, private and hard to measure. So churches naturally invest in what can be seen.
Follow-up is treated as an administrative task. The cards go to an office, and someone is supposed to call. But calling is not the same as caring. A phone call from a stranger cannot replace a relationship with a believer who will walk alongside.
New believers are absorbed into large services and left there. A new convert who walks into a congregation of two thousand people can attend for months without anyone knowing his name. He hears sermons, but no one asks him what he understood, or whether he has a Bible, or how his family reacted.
There is sometimes a weakness in our theology too. If we think the decision is the whole of salvation and everything after it is optional extras, we will invest heavily in decisions and lightly in everything else. Jesus did not commission His church to make converts. He commissioned it to make disciples.
And sometimes ordinary believers assume follow-up belongs to the pastor or the evangelism department. It does not. The pastor cannot be a nursing mother to three hundred and twelve people. The whole body must be involved.
None of this is said to condemn faithful evangelists. Many of them weep over the very gap I am describing. The responsibility belongs to the whole church.
Paul’s simple words to Barnabas are a good starting point for any congregation: “Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do” (Acts 15:36). See how they do. That is the question.
Closing the gap in practice
Here are some practical steps that churches and individual believers have found helpful.
Make contact quickly. A new believer should hear from someone within a day or two of responding, and that someone should be a person, not a broadcast message. The first weeks after a decision are often the most fragile.
Give every new believer a name. Not just a department. Assign a mature believer of the same sex who lives nearby or shares a similar season of life, who will meet with them regularly for the first few months. Jesus told Peter, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15). Lambs are fed one at a time.
Cover the foundations. In the early weeks, help the new believer understand the gospel they believed, the assurance of salvation, how to read the Bible and pray, what baptism means, and why the fellowship of a local church matters. Read a Gospel together. Answer their questions honestly. Keep it simple.
Pay attention to their homes. Some new believers come from families that will oppose their faith, sometimes fiercely. A young person from a Muslim or traditional home, or a wife whose husband mocks her decision, may face real pressure. Walk with them wisely. Help them honour their families where they can, avoid needless provocation, and stand firm where they must. And where anyone is in physical danger, help them find safety first.
PunchlinePrepare them for difficulty. Like Paul, tell them the truth about tribulation, and help them understand that hardship is not a sign that God has abandoned them.
Bring them into small groups. Large services are good for worship and teaching, but discipleship happens best where people can be known. A home fellowship, a Bible study, a prayer cell, a table where people eat together.
Be patient. Some new believers grow quickly. Others struggle for months. Some fall away and come back years later. Stay faithful. Commend them to the Lord in prayer, and remember that He is more committed to their growth than you are.
And keep the invitation clear. Do not let concern about follow-up make you hesitate to call people to Christ. The answer to unanswered cards is not fewer cards. It is more people willing to answer them.
Adebola went to see Anuoluwapo the following Saturday. She lived with her aunt in a two-room flat in Agric and sold recharge cards from a small kiosk at the junction. She had kept the copy of John’s Gospel the crusade team had given her three years earlier. It was worn and underlined. She had read it alone, over and over. She had questions she had never been able to ask anyone. She still believed, she said, but she had never been baptised, never joined a church and never prayed with another Christian.
“I thought maybe I did it wrong,” she said. “That nobody came because God did not really receive me.”
Adebola sat with her for two hours. He answered what he could. He prayed with her. The following week, he brought his wife, who began to meet with Anuoluwapo every Thursday evening. Six months later Anuoluwapo was baptised, and her aunt came to watch.
The carton is gone now, but Adebola kept one card. It sits under the glass on his desk at church, where he sees it every day. It reminds him, he says, that every number in a report is a person, and every person who responds to Christ is a newborn who needs feeding.
The church changed its follow-up after that. Every card is now handed to a named believer within forty-eight hours. Every new convert is visited. The crusades continue, and so do the invitations. But nobody counts the cards anymore and then puts them in a store room. They count the people who are still walking with Christ a year later.
That is the difference between making converts and raising disciples.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Who helped you in the early days of your faith? What would have happened to you without them?
- Why do you think Paul and Barnabas risked returning to Lystra rather than taking the easier way home?
- How does the picture of a nursing mother and a father in 1 Thessalonians 2 challenge the way your church cares for new believers?
- What does it mean for you that Paul laboured “according to his working, which worketh in me mightily”?
- Is there someone who responded to the gospel through your church or your witness whom nobody has followed up? What could you do this week?
This Week
Ask your pastor or follow-up team whether there are new believers in your church who have not yet been personally connected with a mature Christian. Offer to walk with one of them for the next three months. Meet weekly, read the Gospel of Mark together a chapter at a time, pray together, and help them take the next steps of baptism and fellowship. If you are a new believer yourself, ask someone mature to walk with you.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You for every person who has turned to You, and thank You for the people who fed and strengthened me when I was young in faith. Forgive us as Your church for celebrating births and then forgetting the newborns. Give me the heart of a nursing mother and a faithful father toward new believers. Help me to labour according to Your working, which works mightily in me, so that Christ may be formed in others. Keep our invitations clear and our care faithful. Feed Your lambs through me. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.