We believe that it is a high privilege for a believer to respond to Christ's challenge to follow Him as a full-time disciple. We also believe that Jesus' call to such full-time service remains essentially unchanged from His invitation to the fishermen on the shores of Galilee long ago: "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19).
It is our conviction from Scripture that the ideal of such discipleship entails a commitment to devote one's life to winning others to Christ, and to teaching and training others to follow Jesus as His disciples. "Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). "By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit [others won to Christ]; so will you be My disciples" (John 15:8).
Full-time discipleship also entails a renouncement and forsaking of the pursuit of material wealth, as well as worldly and materialistic ambitions and endeavors. "No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please Him who enlisted him as a soldier" (2 Timothy 2:4). Christ plainly set forth the rigorous terms of the high standard of discipleship when He said, "So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:33).
- Matthew 6:19-34; Mark 10:21; Hebrews 11:13; Luke 16:13