A God-sized vision forces us to struggle with how we’re going to accomplish it. It demands the whole community—each individual participate because the task is so great. God’s called us to reach the nations from right here. So, how do you reach the nations from the neighborhood? It’s a question that God intends for us to struggle with because He’s designed the answer to fit us like a glove.

As an adolescent, I struggled with the futility of life. Go to school, get a job, work for 50 years, retire, and die. And for what? In a hundred years, no one will even know my name. I longed to be famous, just so people would know I was here! Like me, God’s placed eternity in your heart. Whether you’re aware of it or not, God’s designed us to hunger for some of the same things. It’s a short list, but all of us deeply desire to be loved, to be wanted, to be needed to accomplish something important, and to be part of something that will outlast our lives.

To satisfy these hungers, God invites us into His work; the work of making disciples in all nations. There’s nothing on earth that fulfills those desires as completely as making disciples.

The vision of disciple making began to grow in my heart with a well-placed question. I was twenty-one when my discipler said: “Most things on the earth will eventually pass away, but not everything. What can you see on the earth that will also be in eternity?” The answer? People and the Word of God. Like a growing thirst on a hot summer day, that question grew from an a thought to a yearning. I wanted to give myself to something that would outlast my life, something that had eternal ramifications. Investing my life into others is the obvious and Biblical way to do it.

Secondly, a disciple making culture has a vision that’s passed primarily from person to person and heart to heart. Don’t get me wrong, the vision should still be heard in large group settings, both large and small, but it’s felt in one on one and one on two settings. A God-sized vision that completely fills our human needs can be felt through the whole of our being. Not only are emotions stirred, so to, is the intellect, the will, and the Spirit within.

When a person really sees the God-sized vision, and their role in it, the response is passionate.