GO Make Disciples: The Call of Every Believer
Chad Burchett | September 15, 2023
At Southeastern Seminary and The College at Southeastern, we believe making disciples is the mission of the Church and the call of every believer. Because we exist to serve the Church, our mission is to train disciples to be faithful disciple makers. That means we biblically and theologically equip every student to serve the Church and its mission and to fulfill the Great Commission in North America and around the world.
As a Great Commission seminary, we are convinced that theological education is best done from a Great Commission perspective because it keeps the main thing the main thing: Jesus’s glory among the nations. Jesus’s disciple-making mandate orients our curriculum; it grounds our community; and it motivates our students, staff, and faculty to steward this season and this place of training for the mission on Jesus’s heart.
As a Great Commission seminary, we are convinced that theological education is best done from a Great Commission perspective.
In Matthew 28:20 — one of his last teaching moments with his disciples — Jesus tells them that the mission of making disciples includes the task of teaching others to observe all that he has commanded. That means properly interpreting, proclaiming, and applying the word of God is essential to the work of making disciples — essential to the work of the Great Commission. Theological education targets those essentials and seeks to equip students as interpreters and practitioners — students who not only can properly handle and apply God’s word but also have been deeply shaped by it.
Our students and alumni are vibrant examples of what it means to be transformed by God’s word and to teach it so that others might learn to walk with Jesus. They are serving local churches and fulfilling the Great Commission in all walks of life by making disciples among their neighbors and the nations. Their stories of faithfulness testify to God’s presence with his people, and they encourage our community to continue in this task.
Their stories of faithfulness testify to God’s presence with his people, and they encourage our community to continue in this task.
Over the next few months, we will highlight some of these stories, narrating how God is using our students, staff, faculty, and alumni to make disciples in rural towns, urban centers, and hard to reach places all around the world. Join us in praying for these disciple makers as they obey God’s call to go, and consider how God may be calling you to pursue theological education for the mission field where he has called you to go make disciples.