I received my invitation-the call of God on my life in eighth grade and again in my junior year of high school. Both times were at a youth conference, but at two different locations in Alaska. Those moments were so life-changing that I still remember them vividly to this day! I even remember the song the worship team was singing during the invitation. One of the main lyrics was, “let Your glory fall in this room, let it go forth here to the nations.”

During this song, the speaker felt the Holy Spirit lead him to shout out an invitation from the Lord. He said: “I believe there are some in the room that have a call of missions on their life!” and God is asking, “who will go for Me? Who will go to the nations? Whom shall I send?” I clearly remember a strong conviction washing over me and found myself shouting: “send me!”

Jesus moved me in such a profound and deep way. From then until this very day this feeling continued to burn like a fire in me. It took 20 years before God opened the door for me to move fully into that call over my life. With every passing year, my heart burned for more of God; all because of that invitation. I was only eight years old, sitting at my dinner table listening to my Dad read through the book of Revelation when I first felt the Spirit of God beckoning me to salvation through His Son.

It was as clear as day that I was His alone and that I needed to commit my whole heart to knowing Him. Shortly after I wholeheartedly committed to Him, I was baptized in Lake Perris near Temecula, California. It wasn’t until my first encounter at the age of 14, in Alaska, that I realized He was saying: “come, follow Me. Follow Me as far as your faith will allow!”

Some of the church’s discipleship programs and many believers miss this principle; that discipleship begins with an invitation. The invitation begins with responsibility towards the disciple-maker. Jesus assumes the responsibility of not only picking who He will invest in but also extending them the opportunity to come and participate in His life.

It isn’t simply inviting someone to a church service, a Christian concert, or even a community group. It is so much more. Jesus didn’t say: “hey, come on out to the sermon on the mount.” No, He did so much more than that. The disciples already accepted His invitation and followed Him there. Jesus invited them to sit next to Him as He ministered. We must be willing to ask others to come and follow Him.

We have to see the end in mind. Will it take personal time and sacrifice? Oh, yes! The invitations proposed in the Gospel are not convenient at all. On the contrary, we see Jesus lead the fishermen out of the comfort of their fishing boats into a sea of people. Later, we see Jesus getting into their fishing boat, but not for the purpose of catching fish. He uses their boat as a stage to reach people. Matthew has to get up from the comfort of his business and head into certain obscurity. Simon the Zealot would have been looking for a war and instead had to follow peace!

Here, in Africa, where I live, the culture is mainly lived outdoors, probably very similar to the time of Jesus in Israel. I often meet people in the village who really want to visit my house out of pure curiosity. However, they actually want me to visit their house! Now, it would be more comfortable and even convenient for me just to do all my discipleship things at my house.

My house is my safe place where I can retreat if something goes wrong. But, I rarely do this. Instead, I tell a new disciple to come and follow us to a new location or someone’s house. The houses rotate from week to week. Many times, especially if it is still early in the process, we invite ourselves into their house! Let me share a real story with you of a time when I actually did invite someone into our home and why it worked.

This is a story about a young man named Vida. For the first two years we lived in Mozambique, his mom, Maria, worked alongside my family at our base. Unfortunately, she had recently lost her husband. My boys were very fond of her! Vida was a Muslim and his mom was raised Catholic. During the first year, my wife attended to her healthcare and this sweet woman came to trust us. After many days of discussion about her past beliefs, we gave her an audio Bible.

After a year and a half, Maria was already growing in her faith and showed evidence of following Jesus. One day she came to us, very concerned, with a question. She said her oldest son had been listening to the Bible weekly with her and asked her a difficult question, comparing his Islamic faith and hers in Jesus. Because Vida’s father had passed away, Maria wanted a man to answer this question for her son.

I realized that this was an opportunity not to be missed. I asked her what they were planning for Saturday. She didn’t work during weekends, so she was free. I invited her and all her kids to our house to share a meal. Let me pause here and answer why I chose my house in this case.

Firstly, Maria had been working with us for over a year and had re-founded her faith with our family. She followed the disciples of Jesus, Andrew and Nathaniel’s example by extending an invitation to someone else—her own son. In essence, she was saying to her son, “come and hear about the answer to your questions in the place where I found them.” Vida needed to leave his comfort zone and search for the answers he desired.

Secondly, I wanted him to come where others were already walking in faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. By seeing how other believers live and have their being, he might just have a “taste and see that the Lord is good!” ((English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Psalm 34:8).

Finally, it takes a lot of commitment from a Muslin to accept an invitation to eat in a Christian home. By inviting him to share a meal with us, we were honoring this man whom we have never met. The first two reasons were inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the third reason had to do with cultural awareness.

That Saturday Vida showed up with his mom and little brothers. His baby brother was sick at the time. He was coughing and had a fever. We could clearly see that his little lungs were fatigued as he had a croupy cough. While we ate the meal, Vida sat quietly. We could feel the tension of the question he wanted to ask us filling the room as we ate together.

I just want to pause for a minute to explain what happened in the year leading up to this moment. I am sharing this because this specific moment with Vida was the catalyst for me pressing into discipleship in such a different and simplified way than I have been doing for the past two decades. This also opened the door for the Lord to challenge us to go even further away from our comfort zone as well as move more than 500 miles North to a new group of people.

At this point, we had barely been in Mozambique for a year and a half. One year leading up to this moment with Vida, I had grown disheartened with all the different resources and people talking with authority in Christian circles. It felt like the voice of man had become loud, noisy, and unloving in my life. Maybe you can relate.

I decided to put away all the books on leadership and ministry and close my ears to the voice of man. Instead, I accepted the Bible as the only reliable resource and focused all my attention on the words of Jesus. Most of the year I studied the first chapter of the gospel of John alone! It was like fresh bread every day. During that time, I found joy, peace, and life-changing keys to the simplicity of what many of us would call ministry.

I believe those months of spending time praying, focusing on the words of Jesus alone in the Gospels, and being quiet before Father God prepared me for this moment with Vida. Sometimes when we are feeling discontent, God is actually leading us where we have been asking Him to take us.

After the meal, Maria stood up and announced that her son had a question. Being very confident, this 18-year-old asked, “who is the final great prophet? Jesus or Mohamed?” I chuckled a bit and mentioned to the others in the room that this young man was throwing us into the deep end. In that moment, I heard the Lord whisper that I should ask him a question back. Naturally, I wanted to be obedient and waited for Jesus to tell me what I should reply.

I remembered a certain passage in the Bible and asked, “Vida, who do you say Jesus is?” He answered, “sitting in your house with my mom, I want to say that Jesus is above Mohamed.” Again I heard that familiar, soft voice of the Lord telling me to share the Gospel story but in the form of questions. I asked, “Vida, do you know who Peter, John, and James were in the Bible?” He said that he knew they were some of Jesus’ disciples.

I replied, “Did you know that they asked a similar question to what you are asking now?” I could tell that he was listening intently. Next, I explained that Jesus asked the disciples one day, “who do the people say I am?” The disciples repeated the people’s many different answers. Then, Jesus asked them who they, the disciples, thought He was.

I asked Vida if he knew what Peter’s answer was. Vida answered that Peter believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. I continued by asking Vida if he knew what Jesus’ response to Peter’s question was. He didn’t know, so I replied with Jesus’ own words: “flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but rather my father in heaven” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Matt. 16:17). I encouraged Vida by telling him that even the disciples who were part of Jesus’ inner circle needed the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus’ true identity, so his question was completely normal and valid.

After this statement, I felt that he should stand outside and I asked him who he thought was greater. With a look of confusion on his face, he paused and replied: “I want to say, Mohamed.” I took him back into the house and asked him the same question again. He stood there for what seemed like ages—shocked then replied, “standing here I am sure Jesus is the Savior!”

I knew this would work because I was obedient to God’s voice. I knew with everything in me that Father God would reveal the truth to him. The joy of the Lord came over him and we all started laughing with him. Someone mentioned we should pray for his sick baby brother. I suggested that Vida would pray for his baby brother and we would agree with him. After all, he believed in Jesus now! Just then and there, without having any knowledge or experience of how to pray, Vida started praying for his baby brother. In the name of Jesus!

**Next week we will explore the topic a bit further and see what happened when Vida prayed. Until then go in courage.

For more miraculous stories like this one-check out Ian’s new book – ‘Making Disciples and Leading Others to Make Them’