Kathy Hillman: Go and Go Now – Evangelism and discipleship

This summer, Texas Baptists will send 280 collegiate missionaries to locations around Texas, throughout the United States and across the world. Scores of others will join these Go Now Missions men and women from Baptist Student Ministry in a summer of “accepting the challenge of the Great Commission.” They will dig water wells, hold sports camps, work with victims of human trafficking, pour coffee, assist in medical clinics, perform in concerts and dramas, lead Vacation Bible Schools and witness in a myriad of ways. 

Kathy HillmanAs Collegiate Ministry Director Bruce McGowan and Go Now Missions Consultant Brenda Sanders spoke at the May Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board meeting, my thoughts turned to more than 9,000 Texas BSM and Baptist Student Union collegians who have served since 1946 and my own experience as a Texas Baptist summer missionary. For eight weeks, a teammate and I led Vacation Bible Schools in our state. 

Shortly after completing my freshman year at Baylor University, I headed to Fort Worth for orientation and to meet my partner, a student at Grayson College. A cadre of experts taught us as much about Vacation Bible School as they could cram in our brains and provided as many supplies as we could stuff in our suitcases. By August, Vicki and I had done 11 Vacation Bible Schools and a day camp, led several workshops, and watched the first artificial turf installed on Kyle Field. We crisscrossed Texas 538 miles east/west and 462 miles north/south. We lived in empty parsonages, an Assembly of God church, a cabin and homes—five different houses one week. 

Go Now Missions Consultant Brenda Sanders speaking at the May Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board meeting. (Photo: Kathy Hillman)And I filled a 32-cent spiral notebook reflecting my realization the Great Commission intertwines evangelism and discipleship. So I was excited when BGCT Executive Director David Hardage announced how Texas Baptists’ new organizational structure creates a Great Commission team that marries evangelism and discipleship. 

In a recent sermon on Jude, Pastor Matt Snowden of First Baptist Church of Waco mentioned what it might have been like growing up in Mary and Joseph’s family. I wondered about Jesus between the ages of 12 and 30 and how he “grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” We know he learned carpentry and presumably to “measure twice and cut once,” but what about discipleship? He surely read the Torah, learned psalms and studied the prophets. Instruction must have come from his parents and synagogue leaders. He obviously spent time with his heavenly Father. He was discipled, and then he evangelized and discipled others.

Vacation Bible School activities at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco. (Photo: Kathy Hillman)As I listened, an equation took shape. Since we disciple preschoolers and children before they make professions of faith, the explanation begins with discipleship, although it could just as easily start with evangelism. In the formula, relationship is with God and with others, guiding the individual in spiritual disciplines. Through those relationships, the disciple first learns to follow and then to lead in evangelism and discipleship. Here’s the formula:

Evangelism always equals a relationship with God and usually with those who help bring the individual to salvation. Combining the two creates a formula that, as in a spreadsheet, replicates across rows and down columns as we evangelize and disciple others and they in turn evangelize and disciple others until only God knows the sums. Here is that formula:

Vacation Bible School assembly at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco. VBS combines both the evangelism and discipleship parts of the “spiritual equation” shown above. (Photo: Kathy Hillman)Several years ago, Woman’s Missionary Union asked me to interview a missionary couple nearing retirement. As the program closed, God led to a final question, “Looking back, is there anything you would do differently?” Without hesitation, they answered. “We would focus more on discipleship.” They served in six countries but had to flee three of them with little warning. Their hearts broke when they left the evangelized new Christians without discipleship tools to grow and replicate themselves.

Because of that long-ago summer, I understood. This summer, Go Now student missionaries have accepted the challenge of the Great Commission in its entirety. Pray for them, and pray for ourselves. We, too, must “Go and Go Now,” baptizing and teaching. Evangelism and discipleship—both/and. Either/or isn’t an option.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Kathy Hillman is president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. She also is director of Baptist collections, library advancement and the Keston Center for Religion, Politics and Society at Baylor University.