There were 120 followers that had gathered or were left following Christ at his death and just before Peter preached and 3,000 were baptized. I wonder how many thousands if not millions of people heard Christ speak or witnessed miracles.
Once upon a time I believed in the great commission and in fact the congregation I went to when I was in college had a dream of worldwide evangelism..... the ICOC (International Church of Christ).....to make disciples.....and it grew fast.....very fast.....
The dream was for each disciple to make at least one disciple a year(some could do much more than that)....that way it is like a doubling each time and in about 33 years you will have over 8 billion. This did beat the fact that a preacher or a machine making priest or pastor or whatever title we gave could make one a day if doing all the work 365 a year....so each christian was a disciple having responsibility.
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8198, 16,396, 32,792, 65,584, 131,168, 262,336, 524,672, 1,049,344, 2,098,688, 4,197,376, 8,394,752, 16,789,504, 33,579,088, 67,158,016, 134,316,000, 268,632,000, 537,726,000,1,074,528,000, 2,149,056,000, 4,298,112,000, 8,596,225,000, 17,192,451,000 (at this point surely the world will be converted!)
Exponentially one can see that this plan is better then one super converter! For instance if the leader or the Evangelist could make one 'christian' a day 365x33 is only 12,045 and he would be very very tired! 2 to the 33rd power is is 33 years and if this simple plan would be followed. Sure sounded good on paper. I have to ask myself.....why then only making one disciple a year has this never been done as a goal since Christ died and left 2000+ years ago? Why in about a generations time after Jesus left the Earth did not the great commission fill up with 'christians'? By the way.....I did baptize a few in water myself (a few women that were in a group I led of bible talk leader I was at that time)....but none that I personally met or studied and converted with my own life. I was what they called a dried up tree....bearing no fruit! Boy was I spiritually dead! This certainly must have been an indication of my heart....and shown that I was certainly not being blessed. My first 3 years nothing! So I left and attempted suicide....when that failed.....4 years of major clinical depression later I came back!!!! LOL talk about building ones house on the sand!
Again no converts but a letter had circulated among all the members world wide that we were too hard lined and people (TIME magazine had an in-depth study of our movement and we were according to their words at the time "unbesmerched with sexual or financial scandals") soon after in the years to follow were abusing power, and money, as well as divorces and or sex issues. It was at this time that my spiritual house fell with a great crash. Not only that but my physical home foreclosed, and my car was repossessed. I lost both jobs I had. Suddenly I was in debt and went 18 months without work. The church did not help me. In fact they did pay for one of my rent payments after I lost everything, while I was living in a small apartment, but the hoops I had to jump through to get even one months rent, were scrutinizing, humiliating, and I was let know that this better not happen again! All my years of tithing, and giving my time, and skills, and this was my return?
I sat in on a financial meeting of the church and found out that the benevolence fund was the smallest in the church!!!! That was next to the singles ministry which had absolutely nothing. So the Evangelist and his wife made 80k a year. Others who worked for or were on church staff did decent too. I began to see some things wrong.....I thought the biggest funds should be the poor ministry for sure. I told myself if I win the lottery I would fire them all and give the money away to those in need.....including the members that struggled.....and their were many single moms and those disabled or just in need.
I knew of those needs, because I spent most of my time serving and giving rides, watching kids.....running errands for single parents. I offered myself to do this full time. Was told no. I did all this with no job by the way. Yes that is right. NO INCOME. I had a car and 2 roomates. I was receiving 450 disability from the government. I seldom had gas money and or food but these things never lacked in my life. I was told once by one of the leaders that I needed a job.....because I was dating, and if I was going to raise a family and blah blah blah I needed to be bound to a job. This ruined my life once I got a job...the girlfriend left me....I began to take on debt and lost time to help those in the church! But I digress.....
This plan seemed the best I had heard. Make one disciple a year that is all each one would need to do to make this goal. Within 30-35 years the world would be won for Christ. The Great Commission. Needless to say. I never converted one. I knew many who also had not. But I did know of a few that were dunking converts like donuts. They were so spiritual!
This part I added a few hours later after finding more info......I will call this my dung statements as if anyone cares:
Some of the stats from what I once was a part of.....but I was very 'bad' at it! 1990-93 (94-97 wilderness time if you will....Major Clinical Depression) 1997-2000 2001-2007
Unique to the Boston Movement, not only did disciples make disciples, but churches planted churches. The Boston Church planted each of the “pillar churches,” which planted other churches, which planted still others. By 2001, at the time of his sabbatical (Kip Mckean), there were almost 400 churches in 171 nations and a combined Sunday morning attendance of about 200,000. 42 churches had more than 1,000 in attendance and 15 churches had more than 3,000 in attendance. The largest international congregation was the Manila Church at 6,000 in attendance. These numbers were staggering when compared with the Mainline Churches of Christ or any denominational group. Never in history has any church growth movement ever spread as quickly and to so many nations.
Bible preaching, allowed the Spirit to take the gospel from one small dying church in Boston to become almost 400 churches in 171 of the 196 nations of the world by the year 2000! Then as this noble effort was being tragically decimated in 2002 and 2003, This upheaval embraced a reactionary “new and better vision” of congregations that were “so mature” that they no longer needed overseeing evangelists. Most also embraced consensus leadership in the local congregation with no “Lead Evangelist” – as the term “lead evangelist” is not found in the New Testament. At this time, a movement to eliminate a structured outreach (Bible Talks) and structured discipling (Discipleship Partners) arose. “Kip’s vision” of the evangelization of the nations in a generation was called “a good idea” yet “impossible.” Some began to label him as a “false teacher” for this dream, believing that the pressure on the churches to evangelize the world in a generation was the primary source of bitterness in many leaders and in many churches.
The ultimate demise of what was then known and revered as the International Church of Christ came in February 2003, when Henry Kriete, a hurting and former Mainline Church of Christ evangelist in London, released his letter entitled, Honest To God. In his letter, Kriete advocated “a time for anger and the overthrowing of temples: I believe the time is now.” The rebellion of some of the World Sector Leaders and all of the Kingdom Elders and Kingdom Teachers was consequently passed on to all the members. Thousands left God confused and angry. Other disciples quietly “walked away” to try to find “the same church elsewhere,” which proved to be in vain.
Still 3-4 years later before my house fell and crashed with the foundation on the sand.....so the internet and a man named L. Ray Smith helped me to see myself standing on the sand of the seashore.....it was here I began to build on the foundation of Christ. My dead spirit brought to life.....brought out of the missional movement to make disciples and ultimately following what seemed to be the truth. My eyes opened....my ears hearing. Father what is next my spirit cries out now. Amen