Author: Timothy

Books, discussions and conferences on the subject of Discipleship and Making Disciples are trending upward. That is not just my observation, but the observation of many authors I’ve read recently. This is a good thing, something that is Biblical and overdue. But in all these discussions, it seems there is a gaping hole. An important piece is missing.

In order to understand any passage of scripture, you need to look at what it meant to the original audience. And when you apply that to Matthew 28:19, you realize that when Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples, he wasn’t suggesting to them that they should start a once-a-week discipleship small group. Jesus’ disciples would have understood him to be telling them to go and do for others what he did for them. He didn’t give them a class or a once a week small group meeting. He did life with them full time for 3 years. Now I know that a lot of readers are pushing back right now, thinking that such a thing is impossible in 21st century America. Hang with me for a minute and let’s explore this together.

Western, non-participatory discipleship, in other words, is satisfied when a person knows concepts about God, but apprenticeship isn’t satisfied until the person has learned to live the life of God. This is a simple but profound switch in thinking for several reasons.  

                                                              — Hugh Halter

As you read books about discipleship, you will read over and over the Greek word used and it’s definition…. A disciple is a learner. Hmmmm…. Maybe, depending on what kind of learner you are talking about. A seminary student sits in class and learns many things, but that doesn’t make him a disciple. The Hugh Halter says you need to equate disciple with apprentice. I think he has nailed it. An apprentice is a learner, but he learns by doing. I worked my way through College as an EMT in the Emergency Room of a major teaching hospital. There was a saying among the interns and residents that went like this: “Watch One, Do One, Teach One.” They were describing the steep learning curve used in that apprenticeship system of learning medicine. They had learned the fundamentals in the classroom. Now they were learning how to use that knowledge to do things that lead to healing. First year residents were taught by second year residents who had been learning the same things the year before, and second year residents were taught by third year residents. In reality, your instructor on any given procedure might be in the same year of placement as you are, but the difference is that he/she has done one or two of this particular procedure before, and you haven’t. That is apprenticeship, whether it is in carpentry or medicine. And that is what Jesus did with his disciples. And when he told them to “Go and make disciples”, they understood that he was asking them to do the same for others.

I was an Airplane Flight Instructor for four years. I was always amazed at how fast flight students learned. I could take a kid who didn’t know an aileron from an elevator and get him proficient enough to solo the airplane in 10-12 hours of flight time. One student was ready to solo at 7 hours. Some aren’t ready at 20 hours, but most students can solo in 10-12 hours of training. That doesn’t include the ground instruction or personal study, but it is still an amazing feat when you consider how much the student has to learn. He has to learn the controls and indicators, regulations, aerodynamics, how to talk on the radio, how to control the airplane including takeoffs and landings and configuration changes, and he has to be able to handle emergencies such as an engine failure. It was fun to watch a student progress at such a rapid rate. What causes such rapid advance? The short answer is the combination of every sensory input. Learning increases as we use more of our senses, combining hearing, seeing, touch and coordination, balance and vestibular sense, and even smell. You add to that a healthy dose of motivation, and the student learns at an amazing rate.

That may explain how Jesus could prepare 11 men to take over for him and leave the world in less than three years. He didn’t just teach doctrine or spiritual disciplines, but he did ministry with his men, and then sent them out to do ministry on their own and debriefed them when they returned (Luke 10). Small groups teaching spiritual disciplines and holding one another accountable for obedience is certainly a big improvement over a Sunday School class teaching doctrine, but it falls far short of what Jesus did. It will likely bring some life change in terms of personal habits and spiritual disciplines, but will it produce disciples that make more disciples?

 “My friend Dennis has something to share with you”. Dennis said, “No I don’t. I don’t have anything to share.” And he said,“Yes you do!” and took out a piece of paper and told him to share the bridge.

What would this look like in our modern context? I recently ran across an illustration of it on the DVD series of documentaries on missions titled Dispatches from the Front. The DVD on West Africa followed the ministry of an African man named Dennis Aggrey who has started a very effective Church Planting Movement in Liberia and neighboring countries. In the “extras” section of the DVD Tim Keesee interviewed Dennis, and he talked about how he got saved and how he was discipled very briefly. He had been involved in church and even taught Sunday School, but as a teen went to a different Christian High School where a missionary teacher confronted him with the gospel using Ephesians 2:8-9. Then the guy discipled him. He taught him to memorize scripture and have his own quiet time. He trained Dennis how to share the gospel using the bridge diagram. Dennis told about how they were sitting at a table in a restaurant, and his discipler started a conversation with another patron and said, “My friend Dennis has something to share with you“. Dennis said, “No I don’t. I don’t have anything to share.” And he said, “Yes you do!” and took out a piece of paper and told him to share the bridge. Dennis said he was scared to death, but put in a situation where he had no choice, so as Dennis describes it, “with fear and trembling” he proceeded to share the gospel with this man using the bridge diagram. When he finished the guy accepted Christ on the spot. From that point on, he was excited about sharing the gospel and knew that he wanted to give his life to sharing the gospel. That single event was life changing for him.

That is discipleship. That is what Jesus did. But if we think we can do that in a one hour per week small group meeting, we are in dreamland. Obedience to Jesus’ command to Make Disciples may not require us to live with our disciples 24 hours, but it will require far more shared life experience than one meeting per week. This is what is missing from most discipleship books and videos.

6 minute video on the clarity funnel.

This 2 minute video is well worth your time.

“What does all this mean for church leaders? Clearly, we must do much more than simply suggest that our congregants get into their Bibles on a regular basis. We need to teach this as a necessity. Insist on it. Follow up. Challenge our congregations to reflect on the Scriptures week after week.”

from Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth by Greg Hawkins & Cally Parkinson

Simple discipleship that lead to over 1300 churches planted. At 2.5 minutes well worth your time!

Making Disciples – Pastor Ralph Moore from InspireChurch.tv on Vimeo.

In his book Making Disciples: Developing Lifelong Followers of Jesus, Ralph Moore tells the story of how he made the transition from doing the typical program based youth group to becoming a disciple maker of young people. One of the people who influenced him was an unlikely mentor.

I met a guy who would drive the lesson home even further. He was a newly appointed youth pastor working in a gang-ridden neighborhood in East Los Angeles. His group of kids expanded from nothing to more than 200 in just a couple of months. You need to understand that when we met, I was still pretty full of myself and my formal education. You also need to know that this young man had no formal theological training at all. That he wasn’t properly trained only served to make things worse for me. I was offended—actually, you might better say jealous— by his success in spite of no seminary. I remember pressing him for his program. I wanted to know the secret of the rapid growth he enjoyed while I was pastoring just 30 kids after a period of five years. This successful young man seemed kind of confused by my use of the word “program.” It was foreign to his view of the ministry. Finally, he said something to the effect of, “Well, I guess my program is to get the kids praying, reading their Bibles and spending lots of time talking about what they’ve read.”

That single statement got Ralph thinking, and result was a radical change in his ministry in the youth group, and later on a whole network of churches that he founded.

The youth group in our church soon turned into a disciplemaking machine. We were admittedly slow to jettison our fancy programs . But we added hanging out, centered on the Bible and prayer, to everything we were already doing. A very dead 6: 00 AM Tuesday prayer meeting for high-school students suddenly burst into life when we all started sharing “what I got from my Bible this week.” That prayer-and-share meeting soon became the launch pad for an everyday invasion of our high school with humorous Christian literature and outreach in the form of intentional friendships…. That prayer-and-share-the-Bible time was so effective that I recently got a Facebook message from a very godly woman who told me it is the reason she is solid with the Lord today. She is involved in ministry and says the reason for that is because I made her read the Bible every Monday night during high school. She went on to admit that during those days she only read her Bible on Monday nights so she would have something to say on Tuesday mornings . We brought her into the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit caused life to grow in her heart.

This is once again confirmed by the REVEAL study Willow Creek did.  They say:

We find that Reflection on Scripture is much more influential than any other practice by a significant margin. In fact, for the most advanced segments— Close to Christ and Christ-Centered— it’s twice as catalytic as any other factor on the list. This means it has twice the power of any other spiritual practice to accelerate growth in spiritually mature people.

That being the case, simple programs like One to One Bible Reading (covered in yesterday’s post) ought to be the centerpiece of every Church.  Bible Story Telling methodology (covered here and here) is also an easy method to communicate God’s word and encourage reflection upon it.  It takes a little more preparation time than One to One Bible Reading, but it is still a method of communicating God’s Word simply and without any offensiveness in the approach that any follower of Christ can do.

Last week I posted an article on “making disciples” among unbelievers as opposed to the more traditional view of “doing discipleship” with a young believer.  I concluded that both are valid and both are needed, but wondered if it is possible to do both at the same time.  On Friday I discussed the matter of the most basic and simple part of discipleship which is reading and reflecting upon scripture.  It is obvious to believers that every Christ Follower needs a steady diet of scripture, whether or not they are actually doing it.  But could this also be key to “making disciples” among lost people?  Two key verses come to mind.

In the parable of the soils, or the parable of the sower as it is sometimes called, Jesus tells a story about a farmer going out to sow seed, and when he explains the parable, he says this:

“The seed is the word of God.” — Luke 8:11

The seed is NOT good works like feeding the poor or digging wells for people without clean water (good things to do and even things we are commanded to do, but they are not the seed).  The seed is not churches or even testimonies.  The seed is just one thing.   The seed is the Word of God.  Peter says:

love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; — 1 Peter 1:22-23

Peter agrees with Jesus.  The seed that produces new life is the word of God.  If the Word of God is not planted in the soil, the seed hasn’t been planted.  We often hear talk about “living the gospel” and the St. Francis quote about sharing the gospel and if necessary use words.  That is kind of like saying, “Feed the poor, and if necessary use food.”  These passages tell us that words are necessary.  So the Word of God is one of the things that both unbelievers and believers need to either obtain eternal life or grow in they walk with God.  That simplifies the issue of “making disciples” among the lost (Matt 28:19) while at the same time doing “discipleship” of believers.  We can concentrate most of our efforts on this one thing.  But how do we do that?

I recently came across a book by David Helm titled One to One Bible Reading a simple guide for every Christian that addresses this issue clearly. David gives a simple plan to read the Bible together with either another believer or an unbeliever and meet together once a week to discuss answers to some simple questions about the text. He calls the questions COMA questions, for Context, Observation, Meaning and Application. The questions are slightly different for each different Genre of scripture, but all the questions can be printed out on one page. For instance, the four categories of questions for the gospels and Acts consist of 14 questions. This isn’t about selling study guides to each book of the Bible. This is a simple system of reading and writing down answers to a fairly stock set of questions. The questions can be printed out from PDF files or even emailed.

Is this an effective way to do evangelism?  I think it is.  Consider this statistic from Ed Stetzer:

“…We asked a total of 1,000 twenty-something unchurched people; 900 American, 100 Canadian. And we compared them to a sample of 500 older unchurched (30 or above). … And what we found is that yes, there are negative views of the church, two-thirds saying the church is full of hypocrites, people who do one thing and say another. But there was also great openness that’s there. One of the questions that we asked them to agree or disagree with was: “I would be willing to study the Bible if a friend asked me to?” Among twenty-somethings, 61-percent said, “Yes.” Among their older counterparts of 30 and above, 42-percent said, “Yes.” That was a statistically significant difference saying there is something going on, there is an openness that’s there. So we’re seeing that as an opportunity that in the midst of some negative views of the church there is also some openness to the things of God.”  —Ed Stetzer, The Albert Mohler Program, July 30, 2009

Here is what I love about this:

• It is about simply planting the seed of the Word of God.  This is a Biblical form of evangelism.
• Anyone can do this.  You don’t have to have any knowledge.  You are not teaching anything.
• It doesn’t require expensive printed material.  There is no curriculum.
• It is not offensive.  You are not trying to convince anyone of something.  You are just letting the Spirit work through His word.

You don’t need to buy the book to learn how to do this.  Mattias Media has created an excellent web site with an online video course by the author as well as work sheets you can download.  You can learn this for free.

Hands down. No contest. When it comes to spiritual growth, nothing beats the Bible.

from Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth by Greg Hawkins & Cally Parkinson

As I try to develop my own discipleship strategy, I am wrestling with many questions.

• How do I develop a discipleship strategy that works with unbelievers as well as believers?
• I have a limited amount of time. The people I disciple have a limited amount of time. Where is the best investment of time?
• Reproducible discipleship is simple discipleship. If it isn’t simple, it isn’t reproducible. My disciples will learn how to make disciples by how I make disciples. I have to keep it simple. What is both powerful and simple?

Over the past few days I’ve been reading part of the book MOVE which is about the REVEAL study Willow Creek did with their own church and over 1,000 other churches comprising over 250,000 congregants. In the forward to that book Bill Hybels says:

“Here’s one simple yet profound fix that came from this survey. We learned that the most effective strategy for moving people forward in their journey of faith is biblical engagement. Not just getting people into the Bible when they’re in church — which we do quite well — but helping them engage the Bible on their own outside of church.”

In Chapter one as the authors summarize their findings, they say this:

Nothing has a greater impact on spiritual growth than reflection on Scripture. If churches could do only one thing to help people at all levels of spiritual maturity grow in their relationship with Christ, their choice is clear. They would inspire, encourage, and equip their people to read the Bible — specifically, to reflect on Scripture for meaning in their lives. The numbers say most churches are missing the mark — because only one out of five congregants reflects on Scripture every day.

That is a very significant statement. Nothing. “Nothing has greater impact than…” And of course it makes total sense. We knew that didn’t we? So why is it true that few people actually read the Bible? According to a 2013 survey by the Barna Group, only 21% of Americans read the Bible 4 times a week or more, and 61% of Americans say that they wish they read the Bible more.

But there is an important hint there in that quote as well. It is not just about reading the Bible. The thing that has such a huge impact on spiritual growth is reflection on scripture. At one time I was enamored with reading through the Bible in a year programs and later with Neil Cole’s Life Transformation Group (LTG) system that includes reading 30 chapters of scripture a week. My disappointment with those systems is that setting a goal for reading x numbers of chapters a day or a week often results in more reading and less reflection.

Furthermore, there was a surprising endorsement of discipleship from the world’s largest “seeker-sensitive” mega-church.

…we identified one overarching leadership principle that emerged in our interaction with the senior pastors of these top-5 percent churches. These churches are led by individuals consumed with making disciples. Absolutely consumed. Making disciples of Christ was unquestionably their most important aspiration and the deepest desire of their hearts. And that characteristic fueled all four of the practices you will learn more about.

As I read that I couldn’t help but think of Steve Murrell and his book Wikichurch which I just wrote three blog posts about. This exactly describes Steve and the team he has nurtured at Victory Christian Fellowship, which I think is obvious from what I have written.

So the question I’ve been tossing around in my mind is this. How do we get both believers and unbelievers engaged with the Bible, both reading it and reflecting upon it? I’ve come across a couple of great ideas over the past few days that I will write more about on Monday.  Have a great weekend!

There are two conceptions of discipleship floating around in Christian circles, and I want to explore what they are and what the difference is between them.  Here they are:

1. The traditional view of discipleship is that you find a believer who is not as far along the road as you are, and you help them grow spiritually.
2. The second view is that discipleship starts with unbelievers.

Which one is the correct conception of discipleship?  In Matthew 28:19 Jesus says to “go and make disciples”.  I have some questions:

1. How many “Christians” existed in the world when he gave that command?
2. Who did he give that command to, and how would the original hearers have understood that command?
3. Was the command a universal command for all believers, or just those it was originally given to?

In answer to question #1, None.  Not a single one.  Why?  Because the term “Christian” had not been invented.  The term was used for the first time in Antioch when unbelievers started to use the term to describe believers (Acts 11:26).  And in reality, believers didn’t call themselves “believers” either.  They either called themselves “disciples” or “followers of The Way.” (Acts 9:2, 19:9, 24:22)  The term “disciples” appears 268 times in the new Testament and the term Christians appears only 3 times (Acts 11:26, 26:28 and 1 Peter 4:16), and every time it refers to unbelievers making reference to disciples of Jesus.  Therefore he certainly wasn’t saying, “find a Christian who needs to grow and help them develop spiritual disciplines”.   But was he saying, “find another disciple and disciple them”?  That wouldn’t make a lot of sense, would it?  Furthermore, Jesus gave this command to the 11 remaining disciples just before his ascension.   There were certainly other followers of Jesus at the time, as we see them in the upper room in Acts chapter one, but it is generally believed that there were not more than 100 followers of Christ at that time.

In answer to question #2, He obviously gave this command to his 11 disciples.  If he told his 11 disciples to go and make disciples, then they must have understood that to mean that they should do with others what he had done with them.  They may or may not have been religious when he called them.  Matthew (as a tax collector) was considered a traitor an outcast in Israel when Jesus called him.  Tax collectors were viewed by the Pharisees as a special class of sinners.  Simon was a Zealot, certainly belonging to a fringe of Judaism that was focused more on political aims then spiritual aims.  Some have gone so far as to call him a terrorist of his day.  That may be a bit extreme, but without a doubt some zealots did espouse violent means to obtain their nationalistic goals.  Some of the disciples were simply fishermen.  Blue collar job.  Self employed tradesmen.  We know nothing either good or bad of their spiritual aims.  The point is that Jesus called a diverse group of people to follow him, and their calling obviously had nothing to do with their spiritual depth when he called them.  In fact, Jesus did not call any from the religious leadership groups (Pharisees, Saducees, Scribes, Priests, etc).  Therefore, in answer to question #2 it would seem that the people he gave this command to would have understood it to mean that they should approach normal everyday folk of diverse spiritual, vocational, and political backgrounds to invite them to become disciples of Jesus.  Furthermore, the text says to make disciples “of all nations”.  In other words, not just Jews and not just religious types.

In answer to Question #3, we need to look again at the text.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  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,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Mat 28:18-20

If they were to make disciples “of all nations” (greek ethne, all ethnic groups), could this group of 11 men actually be expected to accomplish that?  Obviously not.  Secondly, he tells them to teach them to observe (some translations say “obey”) all that he had commanded them.  Does “all” include this last command?  It would seem to.  And if it does, then this command is for those who come after them as well.

So back to the original question, which one of the two conceptions of discipleship is correct?  I think the evidence is that they are both correct, but the first is more corrent than the second.  The first one is the starting point, but it does not eliminate the second one.  However, too many books about “discipleship” start with the second one instead of starting with the first one.  As I read everything I can get my hands on about discipleship, I am still finding new stuff being written which focuses exclusively on helping believers develop spiritual disciplines.  Very few discipleship books are being written on how to “make disciples” of those who do not currently describe themselves as “Christians” or followers of Jesus.  Jesus called unbelievers to follow him.  But at some point, these ordinary men became “believers” and were saved by faith.   What was that point?   Was it when they left all and followed him?  Maybe.  But they certainly were still lacking in faith in many ways, and their progress in faith was at different rates.  So he lived with them and taught them for three years until they were ready to continue on their own.  Jesus integrated the two, and I think that is what he was commanding us to do.  I wish I saw more (or better) models of an integration of these two aspects of discipleship.  Can you point to any for me?

This is my third post on WikiChurch: Making Discipleship Engaging, Empowering, and Viral

One of the things I love about this book is the emphasis on training others to replace you. Steve Murrell describes himself as an “accidental missionary.” He and his wife went to Manila on a short term mission trip, and ended up staying. But it was the knowledge that they were leaving that necessitated their equipping mindset from the first day.  One of the things I love about this book is the emphasis on training others to replace you.  Steve Murrell describes himself as an “accidental missionary.”  He and his wife went to Manila on a short term mission trip, and ended up staying.  But it was the knowledge that they were leaving that necessitated their equipping mindset from the first day.

I can remember saying to Ferdie Cabiling, “I’m going to train you to do this because we are all going back to the United States in a few weeks.”  Ferdie replied, “But I’ve only been saved three days!” “Yes, but this guy has only been saved three minutes, and to him you’re a spiritual giant. Remember I told you to read the Book of Mark? How far have you read?” Ferdie eagerly replied, “I’ve already finished Mark, and I’m almost finished with Luke.” Then I told him what has become a constantly repeated Victory slogan, “Just stay one chapter ahead. As long as you stay one chapter ahead, you can disciple him, but if he passes you, then he will disciple you.”

That strikes me as a great slogan to be known for.  It encourages people to stay ahead.  But it also encourages them to use what they have without hesitation.  That is the essence of what Wikichurch is all about.  This reminds me of Rolland Allen’s great classic work, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours.  He emphasizes the need for a short ministry and the need to leave and let new believers take over.  He says:

“The question before us is, how he could so train his converts as to be able to leave them after so short a time with any security that they would be able to stand and grow. … The sense of stupefaction and amazement that comes over us when we think of it is the measure of the distance which we have travelled from the apostolic method.”

“Thus St Paul seems to have left his newly-founded churches with a simple system of Gospel teaching, two sacraments, a tradition of the main facts of the death and resurrection, and the Old Testament. … We can hardly believe that a church could be founded on so slight a basis. And yet it is possible that it was precisely the simplicity and brevity of the teaching which constituted its strength.”

“By teaching the simplest elements in the simplest form to the many, and by giving them the means by which they could for themselves gain further knowledge, by leaving them to meditate upon these few fundamental truths, and to teach one another what they could discover, St Paul ensured that his converts should really master the most important things. … A man does not need to know much to lay hold of Christ. St Paul began with simplicity and brevity.”

“In so doing he ran grave risks. It is characteristic of St Paul that he had such faith in Christ and in the Holy Spirit indwelling in the Church that he did not shrink from risks.”

“I think that it is quite possible that the shortness of his stay may have conduced in no small measure to St Paul’s success. … By leaving them quickly St Paul gave the local leaders opportunities to take their proper place, and forced the church to realise that it could not depend upon him, but must depend upon its own resources.”

Another aspect of Murrell’s approach is that it isn’t all about getting people into full time ministry.  Quite the opposite.  He believes in the power of lay people doing most of the ministry.

The fact that we have a lot of young leaders at Victory causes some to conclude that we regularly challenge our people to go into the ministry or that we hold up the idea of full-time ministry as the “high calling.” Actually, it is almost completely the opposite. We do everything we can to equip and empower every person to minister. However, ministering to people and becoming a professional church employee are two very different things.

This resonates deeply with me because I attended a Bible College where it was all about going into “full time ministry”.  Those of us who did not feel called to vocational church work felt it was necessary to have some kind of excuse.

The thing that has led to the exponential growth at Victory (it only accelerates year by year even though Steve is no longer actively pastor there) is the focus on “making disciples”, rather than “doing discipleship”.  In other words, the focus is on reaching the lost.  Steve says:

A church’s training usually follows the church’s objectives. Invert that equation and you get this: an inventory of a church’s training will reveal a lot about the church’s true purpose and intent. Some churches equip endlessly—providing classes, seminars, and online courses on every topic imaginable. All that training is good, except that the majority of a traditional church’s training is geared toward Christian living, not Christian serving or Christian ministry.  In other words, we teach people what to believe, how to confess their faith, how to be reconciled, how to raise their children, how to manage their finances, how to treat their spouses, how to exercise, how to pray, how to eat. The common denominator of those trainings is that every application relates to the believers and their own families. You can practice all that Christianity in the comfort of your own home. If, on the other hand, the church is committed to the Great Commission, to engaging culture, to establishing foundations, and to every member being a minister, it will radically affect the purpose and content of equipping.

I love that emphasis.  But I wish he told us more about how he developed that culture in his church.  There are lots of books on the subject of discipling people, how to help people develop their own spiritual disciplines, etc.  There isn’t much out there on how to turn people outward to the world.  What does it take to make that happen?  I know it is not a program.  But it has to be more than just the subject of sermons.  The average Christian has no idea how to engage the lost.  And the average pastor has no idea how to teach them how to engage the lost, because he is not doing it either.  I would love to know how others have made that transition.

This is a follow up to yesterday’s post on the book WikiChurch: Making Discipleship Engaging, Empowering, and Viral by Steve Murrell.  Here are a few of the things I loved about that book:

• Steve Murrell is humble.  He doesn’t portray himself as some kind of mastermind who came up with this great strategy.  He describes himself as an accidental missionary and details how he really stumbled onto his success in discipleship out of necessity and by accident.
• Steve does not even tell you how Victory does discipleship.  He doesn’t give you a model.  That is not what this book is about.  But he doesn’t do it because he realizes that the model you use for discipleship must fit your individual situation.  He encourages churches in their movement to adapt their own model.  What works in Manila may not work in the provinces and certainly won’t work in Dubai.  He says that some of their pastors have even contextualized what they do for specific sub cultures in Manila.  I’ve read too many “This is what worked for us and you should do what we do” books.  This is not one of them.
• Steve takes a very long view of things.  He is not into quick fix.  He seems to be a plodder.  But he has focused on the single most important thing.

When it comes to making disciples, creating the right culture is much more important than using the right language and material. I wish I could tell you it’s easy, but changing and maintaining a healthy discipleship culture is the most difficult and elusive part of ministry.

One of my typical comments to leaders formulating their own process of making disciples is that the details of their system are not as important as how committed they are to the process. Even if you had the perfect disciple-making process for your community, it would not work automatically without commitment and consistency. We have been updating and adjusting our methods for decades, not because we had nothing better to do, but always because some aspect of our process was not working as well as it should. Even though we have gained momentum through the years with the Victory discipleship process, it does not fuel itself. Focused hard work is required to keep it running. What enables us to keep putting in the effort, fixing the problems, and seeking God about how to do it better? It is that we have committed ourselves to making disciples. We are not committed to getting big or to staying small. We are not committed to reaching politicians, athletes, or actors—rich people, poor people, or smart people. We are not committed to prosperity, political influence, popularity, or fame. We did not set out to formulate and implement a discipleship strategy to see whether it would work. What keeps us at it is not merely a long-term commitment but a lifetime commitment to the Great Commission. We are here to honor God and make disciples. We have no plan B.

Disciple-making churches are fueled by a discipleship culture, not by a magic “silver bullet” method. When the culture is right, almost any method will work. When the culture is toxic, even the best method will fail. Here’s the challenge: changing methods is quick and easy (some leaders change methods monthly), but changing culture is hard work and takes years. Do the hard work and build a discipleship culture; don’t just import a discipleship method.

• The whole point of this book is about the thoroughly Biblical concept of making disciples.  He says,

“Jesus told His followers that He would build His church. Then one of the last things He told them to do was make disciples. It’s that simple. We make disciples, and He builds the church. We do not build the church, and He does not make disciples.”

“Jesus told us to make disciples and that He would build the church. Instead, we try to build the church and continue to neglect making disciples.”

• He rightly emphasizes that “making disciples” is not primarily about leading existing believers to maturity.  It may include that, but when Jesus gave his command in Matthew 28 he was clearly not talking about setting up classes or accountability groups for new believers.  He was talking about making disciples of lost people.  Much that has been written on discipleship (including the current stuff like Robby Gallaty’s Growing Up) misses this.

Discipleship, in our understanding, is not a mentoring program to help encourage Christians to become better Christians. The discipleship process starts with introducing nonbelievers to the gospel and person of Jesus Christ…. When we separate the Siamese twins of evangelism and discipleship, we kill both. The biblical starting point of discipleship is evangelism, and the whole point of evangelism is to make disciples.

• Steve’s approach to numbers is right on target.  He does not glorify bigness, but recognizes that the whole point is to reach lost people, and if lost people are being reached, then there is growth.  He has an extensive discussion about the soil, and how if the soil is not right things won’t grow.  In other words, he is saying that his situation in Manila is an environment where the soil has already been prepared.  He said that success in Manila may mean thousands coming to Christ, but for their church plant in Dhaka Bangladesh it may mean 100.  But he also says,

As long as there is one unsaved person on my campus or in my city, then my church is not big enough.

• However, even though he does not idolize growth and numbers, he recognizes that much growth and effectiveness is sacrificed in order to maintain control.

Growth is not always easy to control. Every church or ministry is either organized for growth or organized for control. At Victory–Manila we gave up on control a long time ago. It has been many years since I could approve or even know about every decision. These days I do not even know the names of many people on our staff, let alone the thousands of discipleship group leaders. To avoid losing control, some pastors decide to stay small. The reverse is more often the reality. When pastors determine to control everything, their ministries remain small as a consequence. We cannot force or require people to make disciples, nor would we even try to do so. Likewise, we cannot control the speed and extent of our growth. We do not control people. However, we work hard to maintain and control the training system and process of making disciples.

• It is that willingness to let go and trust the Holy Spirit that I love about his approach.  You have to be willing to let go and let other people make mistakes, and trust the Holy Spirit to work in them and through them.  Speaking to Church leaders, he said:

“If you’re not experiencing the kind of fruitfulness you desire, it’s not because you are too lazy to minister. Quite the contrary, it might be because you minister too much.” I went on to say that ministering too much will prevent many church planters from getting to the next level of growth or will prevent disciple-makers from seeing their small groups grow and multiply. Next, I posed a question to them, the same query I constantly ask the leaders I work with: “Do you spend more time ministering to people or preparing people to minister? Do you spend more time preparing messages or preparing people?”

OK, enough writing today!  More on this subject tomorrow.

This little 15 minute video is well worth your time. It is actually an intro to a new book out by Tim Keesee titled Dispatches from the Front: Stories of Gospel Advance in the World’s Difficult Places, but it resonated with me on several different levels.
Tim has done 6 videos so far in his series by the same name. I have watched 5 of them and will post more information on them in the future.

Dispatches from the Front: Prologue from Hansen Production Services on Vimeo.