Does “Make Disciples” Really Mean “Plant Churches”? Yes

9Marks has long maintained that the New Testament calls churches to plant churches. A friend recently pushed back: “But doesn’t the Bible tell us to ‘make disciples,’ not plant churches?”

He was referring to Matthew 28, where Jesus commands his disciples, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (v. 19). Jesus doesn’t say, “Go plant churches.” So why interpret this as a call to church planting?

Here’s a concise answer, offered by the North American Mission Board:

The Great Commission is essentially a call to plant new churches. . . . Baptizing, teaching and making disciples are exactly what churches are commanded to do throughout the rest of the New Testament! The . . . men who originally heard Jesus spent the rest of their lives planting new churches.

This is the answer I’d offer if had 30 seconds on an elevator. If I had three minutes, I’d explain it in five steps:

1. Making Disciples Involves Baptizing and Teaching

Jesus doesn’t just say “make disciples” vaguely—he specifies how: “baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20).

These aren’t one-off actions. Baptism marks a new identity, and teaching “all” Jesus commanded is a lifelong process. Making disciples, then, is an ongoing relational work that happens in community.

In other words, the New Testament doesn’t envision his disciples traveling to the nations, making converts, and then leaving them isolated. They’re to place them in new communities that we call churches.

2. Baptizing and Teaching Are the Work of Churches

Yes, individuals can baptize—Philip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. But can one person teach everything Jesus commanded? That takes years. It requires a gathered community where the Word is preached week after week.

The consistent pattern of the New Testament is that churches, not individuals, take responsibility for baptizing and teaching. These aren’t random acts—they’re church functions. When the church in Acts 2 baptized 3,000 people, they were “added” to the Jerusalem church (v. 41). Baptism marked entrance into a community.

3. Baptism Is a Naming Ceremony into Community

Baptism is often misunderstood as a purely personal declaration. But in Scripture, it’s also a communal act of naming. It identifies someone publicly with Christ—and with his people. The baptized say, “I’m with Jesus,” and the church responds, “We affirm that.” It’s a way of putting on the team jersey.

As Tim Keller notes, the Great Commission isn’t a call to naked conversions. It calls people to be baptized—“which means incorporation into a worshiping community with boundaries.”

Yes, a lone missionary might baptize someone on the frontier. But that’s the exception. Normally, baptism is an authoritative act of recognition performed by the gathered church. It’s not something we should fight to do alone any more than we should insist on celebrating our birthday in private. The point is to be publicly welcomed into God’s family.

4. Churches Possess the Authority to Baptize and Teach

Naming someone as a Christian isn’t a trivial act. It requires authority. In the Old Testament, priests had that authority. In the New Testament, Jesus gives it to the church.

In Matthew 16 and 18, Jesus gives the “keys of the kingdom” to the gathered church. They have authority to “bind and loose”—to affirm or deny gospel belief and Christian identity. Then in Matthew 28, Jesus tells the same disciples to go make more disciples—through baptism and teaching—on the basis of his ultimate authority.

Christians often read Matthew 28 in isolation, but they should read it in the context of Matthew 16 and 18. Notice how Matthew connects chapters 16, 18, and 28:

• Churches have the authority to bind and loose on earth what’s bound and loosed in heaven (chs. 16, 18) because they’ve been authorized by the one with all authority in heaven and on earth (ch. 28).
• Churches have the authority to “baptize into the name” (ch. 28) because they’re who “gathers in the name” (ch. 18).
• Jesus promises to be “with them always” (Matt. 28) as they carry out his commission—just as he promised to be “among them” when they gather (Matt. 18).

Jesus isn’t promising mystical presence. He’s granting authority. Churches have the delegated authority to baptize (identify) and teach (disciple).

In other words, Matthew 28 is a church text. We miss this because we read it in isolation.

5. The Apostles Obeyed by Planting Churches

What did the apostles do with Jesus’s command? They planted churches.

In Acts 13, the church at Antioch sends out Paul and Barnabas. They preach the gospel in multiple cities. The text doesn’t immediately say they planted churches—but Acts 14:23 tells us they returned and “appointed elders in every church.” The implication is clear: churches had been formed during their first visits.

Why the delay in saying so? Because it was assumed. The apostles didn’t imagine isolated Christians. Throughout the New Testament, believers gather in churches.

Christianity is church-shaped. Making disciples involves more than evangelism. It means baptizing believers and teaching them to follow Jesus over a lifetime—which happens in local churches.

A Final Analogy

Suppose your boss assigned you the task of starting a football league in some nation where no one played football. And your boss gave the assignment this way: “Go and make football players, recruiting them and teaching them everything about football.” Then you say to your friend, “Well, looks like I need to go and start a number of football teams.” Your friend replies, “Your boss didn’t tell you to start football teams. He just said to make players.”

I trust you see the problem with that. You can’t play football without a team. The command to “make a player” necessitates a team, which means starting one where there is none. Now, if your boss told you to make players in Texas, well, maybe then you wouldn’t have start teams. You could rely on the teams already there.

Yet when Jesus said, “make disciples,” there was no Texas. That’s what we mean when we say, the New Testament calls churches to plant churches. That’s how the Great Commission gets fulfilled. No, not every Christian will plant a church. Maybe not every church will have the opportunity to plant a church. But that’s always the goal. That’s the larger project we must all participate in with whatever resources God gives us.