The danger of making a celebrity out of a new convert

Just as there is a temptation for a once-barren woman to pamper her child to waywardness because of how long she waited for that child, a church planter can over-indulge his long-awaited converts. 

A church planter who has sown the incorruptible seed of God’s word in the hearts of a target people and has watered daily with prayer without seeing any result or had previous fruitless trials in his efforts, has known more barrenness than fruitfulness. Such a man is tempted to make a celebrity out of his early converts when he finally experiences a breakthrough.

He is tempted to spread the news of his breakthrough rather than to hide the newborn babe in prayers in the everlasting arms of God for nurturing. He may want to expose the spiritual babe to the coldness of the world, which is an untimely exposure that can kill his growth. He may be tempted not to scream at errors that others can find in the new babe in Christ, or he is tempted not to insist on foundational teachings which the soul needs to grow into what God desires. Sometimes, he is tempted to give the newborn babe an unnecessary preaching engagement or assign him leadership roles as some sort of encouragement, forgetting that he is still a babe. Conversely, releasing the babe to evangelism is necessary to his growth and testimony, but a preaching engagement can make him feel he has arrived.

It is also possible that the church planter is tempted to become his “Lord and Saviour” in providing anything the disciple asks, without considering whether he is spoiling this new born babe in Christ by not allowing him to know hardship. He whisks him out of situations at the slightest persecution, as part of “care”, forgetting that persecution is part of the experience to make him strong in faith.

Am I speaking against intensive care of a new Muslim convert? No! Rather, I am speaking of the danger of making a celebrity out of him.

In Nigeria, in the 1990’s and early 2000’s we saw many people working in Islamic settings bring out their new converts to give testimonies in churches about their conversion.  It was a shocking thing to the Church that Muslims were being saved, because of the few efforts that were put towards reaching the Unreached in those days.  Some speakers used such means to raise funds in churches. It’s pathetic to see how we were exposing people whom the Lord considers babes, but we made them into fund-raisers. Many of those new converts mistook this approach and felt their new faith was for making money. Some remained with shallow roots, while others subsequently returned to Islam because of failed discipleship.

In this digital era, a new temptation has arisen as some have quickly jumped on social media to fly their new MBB disciples as trophies instead of hiding like a new mother hides her face from the public after childbirth.

The quality of the disciples we produce lies strongly on the kind of nurturing that they have received from us.

While the scriptures tells us about the great and eternal joy that is in heaven when a sinner is saved, our joy on earth is temporal because we have a duty to perform: the discipleship of the new convert. The church planting team or disciple makers have been entrusted with a new babe to take care of and this heavenly task we must do with utmost care. The new convert is the Lord’s babe to be nurtured, not a trophy to be displayed for fame and our ego. Although church planting and disciple making can be difficult, and we sometimes sow in hard ground, while our eyes have cried for the souls of men and our hands have suffered blisters by reasons of our labour, we must also be careful when God sends the showers and gives us bumper harvest of souls.

To every Church planter labouring in sincerity, let me encourage you to trust God for a breakthrough.

Moses Okon 

CAPRO Nigeria 

Diaspora field

contact the author at desire4ch@gmail.com