Ministers and church leaders cannot effectively make disciples without first learning to surrender, Rev. Gideon Buernor Puplampu, the Guest Speaker at the 22nd National Evangelism and Church Growth Consultation has said, urging the church to cultivate a lifestyle of total submission to Christ.
He said church leaders and members must embrace a lifestyle of total surrender to Christ, describing it as the essential foundation for effective discipleship and obedience.
Speaking at the consultation at the Ramseyer Training Centre, Abetifi, the Dangme-Tongu Presbytery Chairperson said many of the challenges confronting the Church’s disciple-making efforts stem from an unwillingness among believers to fully submit themselves and their resources to God’s purposes.
The consultation, being held from November 9 to 13, 2026, has assembled all 21 Presbytery Chairpersons, Presbytery Clerks and Directors of Mission and Evangelism. Also attending are the Moderator of the General Assembly, Rt. Rev. Dr. Abraham Nana Opare Kwakye, the Clerk of the General Assembly, Rev. David Aboagye Danquah, and representatives of various ministries and groups within the Church.
Drawing lessons from Jesus’ encounter with Peter and the first disciples in Luke 5, Rev. Puplampu explained that surrender was the first and most important step in becoming a genuine disciple of Christ.
“A disciple freely surrenders to the Lord for the Lord’s use,” he stated. He described surrender as willingly yielding oneself to God’s authority, moving away from uncertainty, rebellion and self-dependence into humility, clarity and obedience.
“Surrender means to give your head, as in one’s life, to one person,” he said. “One translation of surrender that I found in the Bible, in the book of James chapter 4, is: give yourself over into the hands of another.” Rev. Puplampu observed that before Peter became a disciple, he first surrendered his boat for Jesus’ use and later surrendered his entire life to follow Him.
“To be able to make true disciples, we should be able to grasp this concept of surrender and teach and nurture people in the discipline of surrendering to Christ, total surrender,” he said. “For it is in total surrender that proper obedience emerges.”
According to him, the Church’s difficulty in fully obeying Christ’s command to make disciples is closely linked to a lack of complete surrender. “The lack of obedience in us and in our congregations to the command to make disciples can also be traced to the lack of proper surrender,” he noted.
Rev. Puplampu further explained that throughout Scripture, God chooses to accomplish His purposes through resources He has already placed in the hands of His people. “The Lord Jesus says, lend me your boat,” he remarked, adding that God continues to ask believers today to make their gifts, talents, possessions and influence available for His work.
Sharing a moving personal testimony, he recounted an encounter with a woman living with HIV who had not experienced a simple embrace in four years because of the stigma surrounding her condition. Reflecting on the experience, he said God impressed upon his heart that discipleship often begins with surrendering ordinary aspects of life for divine use.
“All Jesus was requesting of me was, Gideon, lend me your embrace. Lend me your embrace; I want to use it for something,” he recalled. The guest speaker urged church groups, ministries and congregations to see themselves not as owners of their programmes and activities but as stewards of resources entrusted to them by God for His mission.
“We cannot live as disciples while withholding what we have in our own life from the Lord for His service,” he stressed.
Rev. Puplampu also challenged the Church to rethink how its various groups, including the Boys’ Brigade, Girls’ Brigade, Ministers’ Conference, Ministers’ Spouses Conference and Catechists’ Conference, could become intentional platforms for evangelism and disciple-making rather than merely maintaining traditions and activities.
Emphasising the need for a culture of submission to God’s purposes, he urged leaders and members to make surrender a defining characteristic of church life. “But for this to happen, we must be cultured in surrender,” he stated. “Surrendering what we have to the Lord, at every meeting, with the goal of the meetings.”
He concluded by reminding participants that no one could become a true disciple without first surrendering fully to Christ. “The point I am trying to make is the importance of this primary step of a surrendered life, for no one can be a true disciple without surrender,” he said.
By Jerome Otchere
