Dear Discipleship-first Friends, The past twelve months have revealed to us the true state of the church and the lives of many disciples of Jesus in North America. We have learned: We are too dependent on Sundays We are not focused enough on making disciples We are too enmeshed in politics Far too many are…
In my previous post on this topic, I introduced the concept of the stages by which Jesus made disciple makers. I summarize the five stages or phases in the following way: The “Come and See” Phase – John 1:39–4:46 The “Come and Follow Me” Phase – Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:16–18 The “Come and Be with…
Dear Discipleship-first Friends, You need solid, practical resources to help you be as God-honoring and effective at disciple making as possible. From when we started in 2016, Discipleship.org has sought to provide resources to you through various means, including print books. We have partnered with publishers to release eleven different books and we’ve released twenty…
There is a lot happening under the surface in our culture. “I do not understand what is happening in our world . . . I do not know what to think . . . or who to trust?” I have heard those words repeated to me in private conversations too many times to count. Who…
Disciples of Jesus are facing a subtle but pervasive challenge in North America right now. Left unchecked, this challenge erodes the convictions of everyday disciples, leaders, and even entire churches. This challenge comes in the form of a mindset characterized by the following: Be tolerant Be accepting Be non-judgmental Be loving (sensitively compassionate) Be inclusive…
I am a senior pastor; I have been one for more than 30 years. So, I know the subtle pressure that can sneak in: to produce, provide and program for those who show up each week. It often comes from a good place—we want to draw people into our church and keep them so we…
Words matter. Definitions matter, especially with regard to words and concepts we find in Scripture. A particular word may carry different definitions and meanings, depending on one’s perspective, and this is true for discipleship language. That means we can use the same language about discipleship as someone else, and each of us be talking about…
A Level 5 disciple making church epitomizes our highest aspirations for churches in North America and beyond. These disciple making churches emphasize the ministry, priesthood, and disciple making mandate of every believer. They are not dependent on preachers, programs, and praise and worship gatherings as is the case with popular North American churches, although there…
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” That statement, attributed to the most influential management guru of our time, Peter Drucker, describes a reality church leaders must face in the pursuit of creating disciple making churches. A disciple making church culture is what your church actually does in disciple making; strategy is your plans on paper. Unfortunately,…
I am working with my team at Discipleship·org and the team at Exponential (church planting Network) on a new framework for disciple-making churches to measure what it means for a church to effectively make increasing numbers of disciples. What happens when a church gets sold out to making disciples who make disciples? Now, this framework…
Defining a church and a disciple making church are big challenges. We brought a small group of disciple making leaders together last month to help us define these two key terms that are crucial for disciple-making leaders to thrive. I wanted to share the challenge and our working solutions with all our readers, and that’s…
This is part of a two-part blog series. If you haven’t yet read Part 1, which contains trends 1-5, read it by clicking here. As I mentioned at the open of the last blog — the first five trends in Part 1 — we’ve seen some great, encouraging, and inspiring trends over the last year among…
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