Creating Disciple Making Leaders
The Bonhoeffer Project is leading a track called “Creating Disciple Making Leaders,” which emphasizes the importance of understanding the gospel for making disciples.
The vision of The Bonhoeffer Project is a worldwide revolution through local disciple making movements. Through small cohorts which meet for one year and tribe gatherings, we support aspiring and seasoned disciple makers to make Christ-like disciples. We believe the renewal of the Church is underway, if followers of Jesus who are committed to making disciples will courageously walk into the discipleship renaissance, which is now at hand.
Learn with Bill Hull (author of this blog) and his team at the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum.
This is one of the largest gatherings of disciple makers in North America with 65+ workshops, 30+ speakers, and 10+ tracks. Join us to learn practical ways to make disciples of Jesus this November 9-10. Register for the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum here.
Starting with the discipleship gospel
We founded The Bonhoeffer Project to help Christian leaders become thriving disciple makers, inspired by Bonhoeffer’s vision of “a new monasticism nothing like the old.” We recognize that most disciple making movements fail because they start mid-stream, rather than upstream. That is, they don’t start upstream to address the fundamental problem in so many churches: a gospel that doesn’t demand discipleship. Since we can’t get a Christ-like disciple from a non-discipleship gospel, this is a major problem. Until Christian leaders re-claim and start with the discipleship gospel, discipleship efforts tend to spin their wheels. But when we start with the true gospel—the gospel that demands discipleship—following Jesus ceases to be optional. Indeed, we believe all who are called to Jesus are called to discipleship—no excuses, no exceptions. We help leaders create a disciple making context by re-building and re-languaging the gospel.
High context
We also believe that discipleship movements must be highly contextual, the opposite of a silver-bullet programing or a “plug and play” mentality. It starts with courageous leaders who are willing to stand against Christianity-as-usual and for a movement of transformation. This means addressing what is needed in a specific context to birth a movement of discipleship. We stand with and coach leaders, knowing that creating a thriving disciple making culture requires determination, character, and commitment. Through our cohorts, we help them craft a plan for creating a disciple making culture in their local ministry context that is far from one-size-fits-all. The result is the possibility of all things being made new as a manifestation of obedience to Jesus’ ways and means of doing the work.
Our track at the Forum
Our track at this year’s Forum starts upstream by focusing, in the first three sessions, on defining and rebuilding the discipleship gospel—the why. We move mid-stream to what, defining a disciple and the environment and principles needed to make one. Finally, we move downstream and into how, focusing on some specifics for creating a disciple making culture through Sunday gatherings, culminating with the glorious reality that anyone who follows Jesus can become a disciple maker. We hope you will join us for a trip down the river, from the headwaters (the gospel) to the rapids of every day disciple making wherever you live, work, and play.
Leading this track is Bill Hull with Brandon Cook, who cofounded The Bonhoeffer Project. Bill’s passion is to help the Church return to its disciple making roots. He considers himself a discipleship evangelist. This God-given desire has manifested itself in 20 years of pastoring and writing many books. Two of his more important books Jesus Christ Disciple Maker and The Disciple Making Pastor have both celebrated 20 years in print. Add a third in the popular trilogy—The Disciple Making Church—and you have a new paradigm for disciple making.
