The premise of this article is that where the glory of Christ is central in the life of a local church, our Lord’s mandate of disciple-making will not require arm-twisting. By glory of Christ, we are not only referring to the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:34-36; Phil 2:9-11), but also to the entirety of Christ’s redemptive work including His glory in the church, His preeminence, majesty and centrality in heaven, His present intercession, and the glorious destiny of His church in His eternal presence (2 Thess 2:13-14).

For Christ to exert His supremacy as Head of the Church, He must have supremacy as Head of the family (1 Cor 11:3). Thus, the ecclesiology of a church ought to demonstrate an understanding of the church’s ‘filial DNA’. Filial means what is befitting of a son or daughter. Our sonship in Christ ought to be mirrored in our spiritual parenting of our children. We ought to ask, ‘is our church made up of Christ-centered families in which fathers are shepherding their families’? Rather than merely, ‘is the church relevant for the family’? Indeed, a church is a family of families. It is a corporate family made up of smaller individual families. Both the church and the family are created to be cohesive units vivified and ruled by Christ.

In terms of belief, a conviction is the mental state of being convinced—the fixed state of belief. To hold a conviction is to ‘be held by’ an unshakeable belief without need of further proof or evidence (see Hebrews 11:1-3). Biblical convictions are the very core and foundation of godly character and virtue.