The more I chat to Jesus followers, the more I hear this longing emerge from their hearts. Many suppress it – they feel too inadequate, too defeated, too sinful to believe that the answer will be anything other than depressing. But what if the answer is more doable than any of us can quite believe? What if changing the world starts right where you are, in your relationships with your family, on your street, in your office?

Let’s be honest, if our usefulness to God depended entirely on us, then our worst-case-scenario thinking would be right: God wouldn’t be able to... But what if it doesn’t all depend on us?

What’s amazing is that Jesus invites us to join him in the task of making his followers (Matthew 28:18-20). ‘Making disciples’ can sound very grand, even beyond us. Who am I to join God in this? I’m not qualified – the doubts creep in again. But the reality is that we are already influencing people.

Relationships are inherently formational. Be it with our parents, close friends or colleagues, relationships have the greatest influence over our lives, for good or ill. We are involved in the formation of others all the time through our character, words and love.

Here’s why this matters: When Jesus said ‘make disciples’ he was inviting us to be intentional about the formational influence we naturally have on people – to help ‘form’ people according to the best and most beautiful reality in the universe, Jesus Christ.

Let me show you a phenomenal scripture to encourage you in this journey of seeing God use YOU to help form others. In Isaiah 61 God describes the people his ‘servant’ (Jesus) will create, through whom he will change the world. Take some time to read Isaiah 61 (you could start a couple of verses earlier at Isaiah 60:21) and realise that it is speaking about YOU.

First, Jesus forms a people: binding your broken heart, covering your shame and then calling you ‘a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour’. And here is the thing: it is all God’s work. Isaiah 61 is a promise – a promise that rests entirely on God’s shoulders. Our job is to receive this promise in our hearts through trust (faith).

Isaiah 61 shows the principle behind the transformation Jesus brings. It is as we receive transformation in our inner lives (grace, forgiveness and mercy – the roots –covering shame, despair and disgrace) that we will then overflow into the world as people of grace, who share this wonderful news and want to help form others according to the most beautiful and powerful person, Jesus. These people will then naturally rebuild, restore and renew others and represent God as priests in this broken world – the branches – because they know how much he has done for them.

This is why we call disciple makers ‘alongsiders’ – it is to emphasise that it is all God’s work, as Isaiah 61 tells us. As we get alongside people, we are pointing them to the one source and agent of change: God. He is the one who alone can heal the broken-hearted and when we partner with God in this way, then all the resources and power of God will be at work. Of this we can be sure because Isaiah 61 promises it to us.