"I Want Names!" - The Final Challenge That Turns a Workshop Into a Movement

Dann Spader’s church ran a series with a provocative title: “I Want Names!” The challenge was simple but penetrating. Three questions, each demanding a specific answer: Who are you praying for? Who are you reaching out to? Who are you challenging to follow Jesus completely? Not “someone.” Not “a few people.” Names. Specific, individual, real names.

When Spader led training in India with over four hundred young leaders, the requirement was that each participant had to have at least four generations of disciples and be able to show their names. Four hundred leaders showed up. Each brought cell phone pictures of their disciples - spiritual children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren. “Their greatest joy and their greatest identity,” Spader writes, “was rooted in their spiritual children and grandchildren.”

The Question Behind the Questions

The three questions of “I Want Names!” cover the full scope of disciple-making. Prayer - who am I lifting to God? Outreach - who am I building a relationship with? Challenge - who am I pushing toward the next step of obedience? Together, they create a life that is oriented outward, upward, and forward.

But behind all three is one deeper question: Where are your disciples? Not “How many people attend your meeting?” Not “How big is your church?” Not “How many programs do you run?” The question is about people you are personally investing in to become disciple-makers. Can you name them? If not, today is the day to start praying for one.

The Framework Is Simple Enough to Reproduce

One of the most important features of Jesus’s pattern is its simplicity. Four challenges. Four chairs. Anyone can learn them. Anyone can teach them. You do not need a seminary degree, a big budget, or a team of staff.

“Come and see” - build relationships with the lost. “Follow me” - nurture new believers. “I will make you fishers of men” - equip workers. “Go and bear fruit” - multiply disciple-makers. That is the framework. It fits on one page. It can be taught in an afternoon. And it can change a village, a region, and a nation.

When you return to your village in Central Java, you will not have the resources of a city church. You may have a small group of believers meeting in a home. You may be the only trained leader for miles. But you have four chairs. You have the four challenges. You have the Holy Spirit. And you have at least one name. That is enough to start a movement.

Four Generations

Paul described the multiplication chain in 2 Timothy 2:2: “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others also.” Four generations: Paul to Timothy, Timothy to reliable people, reliable people to others also. Each link represents one act of investment that multiplies into the next.

Can you trace your own spiritual family tree? Who invested in you? Who are you investing in? Who are they investing in? If the chain stops with you, it is addition. If the chain continues through you, it is multiplication. And multiplication is Jesus’s strategy for reaching the world.

The Pearl of Great Price

Juan Carlos Ortiz tells the story of a merchant who found a pearl of great price and sold everything to buy it. The seller asked, “What do you have?” The merchant offered his money, then his house, his car. “What else?” His wife, his children. “Everything becomes mine. Now you can use all these things, but remember they are mine. When I need any of them, you must give them to me.”

That is the exchanged life. His life for ours. Everything we have is His. Everything we are is His. Disciple-making costs everything - your time, your comfort, your reputation, your pride, maybe even your relationships. But the pearl is worth it. The pearl is a life so invested in God’s purposes that it multiplies into generations of spiritual children.

Go and Bear Fruit

The final words of this workshop are not a suggestion. They are a commissioning. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

You are sent. Not because you are perfect. Not because you have all the answers. Because Jesus has all authority, He has commissioned you, and He goes with you. Start with one name. Pray for them daily. Take one step toward them this week. And trust the God who began a good work in you to carry it on to completion. The harvest is plentiful. The workers are few. But you are a worker. You are sent. Go and bear fruit.