by Bobby Harrington:

Discipleship-first friends,

One of the things we champion at Discipleship.org is an emphasis on disciple making. We value the use of the expression “discipleship”—enough to name our whole ministry after it!—but we also appreciate the clarity that comes from a focus on disciple-making.

With permission, I am republishing a short article on this point by Sonlife’s Josh Yates that makes a good point about the expression “disciple making” … I hope you find it helpful:

You’ve probably seen one of these humorous grammatical sayings:

Let’s eat grandma!
Let’s eat, grandma!

Punctuation saves lives! These are two different meanings separated by the proper use of grammar.

A small comma can make a significant difference—a distinction that changes everything. As it is with discipleship and disciple making. One is a root word, disciple, with significant differences and outcomes. This is where the road divides—your definition on these two drastically different words will change the trajectory of your church. We don’t want to split hairs on issues that are not mission critical—but this one is.

How would you define the term “discipleship”? Try it out with some friends. Ask them to define discipleship and find a common theme. Here’s what has commonly been communicated to us from friends and colleagues about the word “discipleship.” It means to them:

The growth and maturity of the Christian to follow Jesus
A deeper study and growth group
It is a process of becoming equipped to overcome trials or temptations
Daily pursuit of spiritual disciplines
Assisting and helping others grow in their walk with God
Helping learn and implement tools for evangelism

What about disciple making? How would you define this term? Does it matter?

The definition of “disciple making” is rooted in a verb found in the New Testament Greek: mathetuo, which means to make disciples. Acts 14:21, “When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.” In this verse, making disciples is connected to evangelism.

Matthew 28:19-20 defines making disciples as the whole process of conversion, baptism, and obeying the commandments of Jesus. Matthew 28 holds a command to “make disciples who can make disciples.” The process is intended to be repeated and ongoing. It is a lifetime of followership to the ways of Jesus, mimicking his pattern and priorities to make disciples in ordinary rhythms of life. “Disciple” becomes an action, a way of life.

What is interesting is that the word “discipleship” isn’t used in the Bible. I don’t blame people for using the term. It is a concept that I readily used, until recently. I have close friends and trusted ministry leaders who use the word discipleship as a holistic process from evangelism to maturity, but they are the few. Discipleship has largely become a term related solely to our growth as believers.

Jesus didn’t command us just to go deeper and have a “discipleship study” to mature. He asks us to make a disciple and teach them to follow Jesus. Many of us (myself included) often get stuck in traditional discipleship methodologies without actually first making disciples. Disciple making encompasses both evangelism and teaching to obey. Like two wings on the plane, both of these are equally important. Growth comes through reproduction … reproduction that continues to multiply.

Pause and think about the values and definitions used in your ministry.

Steps to embrace a disciple making culture in your church:

Use the language. Who is your disciple? Name them and pray for them.
Ask several key ministry friends to define “discipleship” and listen to what they say.
Check your heart, attitude, and actions toward making disciples.
Start equipping your people to reproduce … not just to “grow” but to “make.”

Click Here for more from Josh Yates

For King Jesus,

Bobby Harrington, Lead Servant, Discipleship.org

Save now by registering at the current price through February 28th

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Source: Discipleship vs. Disciple Making

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by Bobby Harrington: We want you to meet Justin Gravitt, who leads Navigators Church Ministries.

We want to help you find the best disciple-making guides, and that’s why we’re continuing to introduce these partners to you.

Here’s what Justin said about his ministry in our interview with him:

Tell us about the name of your ministry.

Navigators Church Ministries is a mission of The Navigators, which began as a ministry to the Navy in 1933. For the past fifty years, we’ve intentionally helped pastors and church leaders with disciple-making.

What is your unique disciple-making emphasis?

In early church times, “the disciples were increasing in numbers by leaps and bounds” (Acts 6:1, MSG). It’s still happening today—through Navigators Church Ministries (among others).

We come alongside pastors, church leaders, and everyday disciple makers to develop generations of disciples in everyday life—where they live, work, study, or worship.

In a nutshell, we’re a national team of several hundred people who serve as “boots on the ground.” We come alongside pastors, church leaders, and passionate disciple makers to accomplish our vision: Growing disciple makers and disciple-making cultures through churches everywhere to impact neighborhoods, communities, and all nations. We do this through three essential ministry thrusts, all in the context of life-to-life resourcing:

Picking up from the email . . . 

Growing Intentional Disciple-Making Cultures — We help pastors and church leaders move from a ministry of the few to the heart of a church’s culture.
Life & Leadership Coaching — Certified Coaches help leaders and laborers focus on the “Core 4” of a Life Plan, Ministry Vision, Ministry Plan, and Priority Management.
Everyday Disciple Makers — In the spirit of Jesus’ compassionate call to pray for “laborers in the harvest,” we help equip and launch everyday people for exponential Kingdom impact.

How do you help everyday disciples who aspire to be disciple makers?

Walking alongside everyday men and women is part of our DNA. Our founder was an everyday disciple maker who went out and made disciples in the natural movement of his life. Since then we’ve been passing on to others what has been entrusted to us. We are disciples who make disciples. But it wasn’t our idea, this is clearly evident in Paul’s disciple-making, as he reflects to his young protege Timothy: “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).

Navigators Church Ministries will be at the National Disciple Making Forum this November. Learn from them in person and get your leaders’ tickets here.

We help everyday disciple makers make disciples, one-to-one, one-to-two, or one-to-three. We invest in churches, helping them grow disciple-making cultures that don’t stay within church walls. We help churches send everyday disciple makers into their neighborhoods, workplaces, and families to advance the gospel for Jesus’ sake.

We have developed proven resources for use in those contexts such as the 2:7 Series and the more recently published The Ways of the Alongsider.

We also have a free assessment that helps you see where you in becoming a disciple maker. This assessment helps you understand five critical characteristics of disciple makers and what your best next steps are for growth and reproduction.

Who are the key Leaders in your Network?

Dane Allphin, national director for Navigators Church Ministries. A pastor for over 30 years. His leadership has grown our work in both depth and breadth.

Justin Gravitt, a former overseas missionary, has developed disciple-making cultures for twenty years. He has led the way in networking local disciple-making churches toward a movement.

Bill Mowry, author of The Ways of the Alongsider, and resident “questioner-in-chief”. His perspective drives us forward in fresh and relevant disciple-making.

How can people Connect with you?

Visit our website www.navigatorchurchministries.com to connect to staff in your area and to disciple-making resources aimed at pastors and church leaders.

For King Jesus,

Bobby Harrington, Point Leader, Discipleship.org

Join us at our National Disciple Making Forum!

November 7th- 8th in Nashville, TN

Sign up Today!

New Blogs

“The Dung Beetle and Discipleship”

by Sonlife

READ THE BLOG

“Mentoring Emerging Leaders – Part 3”

by Replicate Ministries

READ THE BLOG

“Satellites and Discipleship”

by Sonlife

READ THE BLOG

New Podcast Episodes

LISTEN NOW

S6 Episode 42: Get Real & Go Deep by Freeing People Instead of Sidelining Them (Justin Gravitt)

S6 Episode 41: Get Real & Go Deep by Healing Relational Pain Instead of Hiding It (Lou Damiani and Patti Damiani)

S6 Episode 40: Get Real & Go Deep by Nurturing People Instead of Programs (Bill Mowry and Alex Mata)

The post Learn from Navigators Church Ministries appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: Learn from Navigators Church Ministries

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by Bobby Harrington: We hope you’ve enjoyed meeting some of our disciple-making partners. We want to help you find the best disciple-making guides, and that’s why we’re continuing to introduce these partners to you.

Meet Dave Buehring, leader of Lionshare.

Here’s what Dave said about his ministry in our interview with him:

Tell us about the name of your ministry “Lionshare.”

Because our mission is aimed at discipling lives and leaders throughout society, we chose a name that relates to a broad audience and references Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

What is your unique disciple-making emphasis?

Lionshare’s focus revolves around what we refer to as our Disciple-Making Cornerstones:

Foundational Disciple Making – Grounding new followers of Jesus who are rooted in his character, ways and mission.
Formational Disciple Making – Growing disciples of Jesus who reproduce God’s character, ways, and mission in others.
Vocational Disciple Making – Developing disciples who reflect God’s character, ways, and mission in and through their vocation.
Leadership Disciple Making – Shaping leaders who reference God’s character, ways, and mission in their lives and leadership.

Our target is reproducing disciple makers:

Generationally – those under the age of 40, including next generation leaders
Vocationally – those serving within the Dozen Domains of society: Family, Church, Government/Law/Nation Security, Education, Media, Arts/Entertainment/Sports, Business, Science & Technology, Health/Medicine/Wholeness, Environment/Agriculture/Zoology, Nonprofit & Service Organizations, Peoples (people groups linked by language and culture)
Internationally – various people groups, local and global

We practically engage in disciple making through relationships, our resources, and hosting various kinds of convening events (retreats, intensives, conferences, etc.).

Pick up from email . . .

How do you help everyday disciples who aspire to be disciple makers?

For the last fifteen years, we have effectively used a one-year disciple-making resource around the globe called A Discipleship Journey (ADJ). It covers 12 key disciple-making staples – one month at a time – via weekly 12-15 minute videos accessed on one’s phone, tablet or computer; an accompanying manual that takes truths from the Scriptures deeper; and participation in a small group that focuses on real life application. We equip ADJ group leaders via videos on our website (Lionshare.org) and through personal coaching.

We facilitate two-day gatherings, called d4, in regions throughout the country to ignite and equip individuals, churches and societal leaders in disciple making.

We also host, January to June, each year A Leadership Journey (ALJ). This provides us with the opportunity to more personally disciple church and societal leaders in the ways of God related to their own spiritual health, relationships, leadership and callings.

We are currently developing two new tools. The first is a kid’s version of A Discipleship Journey (ADJ) for families and churches to effectively disciple 6-12-year olds. The second are resources that will allow disciples of Jesus to develop other disciples to advance God’s Kingdom and benefit and bless people through their vocations.

Who are the key leaders in your network?

We have men and women, aged in their 20’s-70’s, representing various nationalities and expressions of vocational experience within the Dozen Domains that make up our network.

They include people like Darren and Sonya Bearson, (formerly in government and media, now providing day-to-day leadership of Lionshare), Kent Chevalier, Sean Holland, Heather Zempel (pastors) and George Kehoe (business).

How can people connect with you?

The easiest way to connect to us is via our website at www.Lionshare.org.

For King Jesus,

Bobby Harrington, Point Leader, Discipleship.org

Join us at our National Disciple Making Forum!

November 7th- 8th in Nashville, TN

Sign up Today!

New Blogs

“Learning from Disciple Making Leaders: Renew Network”

by Bobby Harrington

READ THE BLOG

“Mentoring Emerging Leaders – Part 1”

by Replicate Ministries

READ THE BLOG

“Identity or Theology?”

by Radical Mentoring

READ THE BLOG

New Podcast Episodes

LISTEN NOW

S6 Episode 38: Leaders of a Disciple Making Church (Ken Adams, Glenn Underhill, and Mike Keaton)

S6 Episode 37: The Environment of a Disciple Making Church (Ken Adams and Mike Keaton)

S6 Episode 36: The Strategy of a Disciple Making Church (Ken Adams, Glenn Underhill, and Mike Keaton)

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Source: Learn about Disciple-Making “Cornerstones” by Meeting Lionshare

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by Bobby Harrington:

“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, while we have good intentions to make disciples, our strategy and church culture do not always line up.

What Drucker meant by “culture eats strategy for breakfast” was that lasting change in an organization comes only when the culture of an organization changes. Applying this to church, if you do not change the culture of a church, the church will not change. Many leaders fail to account for this reality.

This gets at the root of why our disciple making plans can so easily fail. We try great strategies—preaching on the disciple making, small groups, D-Groups, etc. But our churches will not change—indeed cannot change—because “culture” easily defeats the strategies we adopt.

That is why Louis Gerstner the former CEO of IBM went one step further: “Organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner …”

But there is hope …

At Discipleship·org, our team has been working with national and international leaders on the key elements of creating a disciple making culture. We are working to better understand how to create disciple making cultures. We believe that will not see truly revolutionary disciple making movements within churches in North America until we create disciple making cultures. So we are excited to pursue help from those with national and international experience.

What is “Culture”?

The Harvard Business Review describes it this way: “The values, beliefs and behaviors practiced in an organization formed over time because they are rewarded or punished (i.e. by formal or informal rules, rituals, and behaviors.”

The Mckinsey Institute put it more simply: “culture is how we do things around here …”

In the book Spark: Igniting a Culture of Multiplication, Todd Wilson and Brian Zehr present a framework for understanding church culture. It is a free ebook that you can download by clicking here. I am utilizing their work in what follows (including further conversations with Todd) and I have created a similar but slightly different graphic that summarizes the material.

It is helpful to understand a culture by looking through the lens of three elements: values, behaviors, and narrative.

Values and Beliefs– the things that are truly important to us. They are what we really value and really believe about disciple making.The values are the hills we have been seriously wounded defending (or the hills that our people have died upon). The beliefs are both theological and philosophical. They define our identity and motives.
Behaviors– These are specific practices that embed the beliefs and values. These typically emerge first out of discipline. The discipline of specific practices then leads to habits. These habits, applied time and time again, become lifestyles. Our lifestyle in turn are defined as our behaviors, which reflect what we really believe and value. They are reflected by our rules (often informal and unspoken), rituals, and behaviors.
Narrative– the stories we tell and the language we use. These are they sayings that we repeat which explain and give meaning to our behaviors and disciplines. The things we regularly say and celebrate. The narrative is how we tell others about our behaviors. The narrative also includes the consistency of definitions and words we repeatedly use.

The following graphic pulls all the elements together:

Those who joined Discipleship·org’s 2018 National Disciple Making Forum are familiar with Shodankeh Johnson and the story of his disciple making movement in West Africa. You can learn about his movement and others by reading the free ebook, Kingdom Unleashed. This disciple making movement – and others like it – take away our breath in terms of the disciple making movements that have been created and what they have accomplished (millions of people are disciples who make disciples).

When a group of us met with Shodankeh in February he challenged the conventional wisdom on how a disciple making culture is created. Since he has such a significant track record in creating disciple making churches and movements, we slowed down and listened to his advice.

He surprised us with his emphasis on discipline.

He is a big advocate that we embrace discipline as the heart of disciple making. What he means by discipline is the explicit practice of specific things like fasting and prayer rhythms, Discovery Bible study, starting with persons of peace, etc., be adopted upfront. He believes that discipline is more important than talking or explaining.

He believes we place too much emphasis on Narrative (our stories and words) without first putting disciplines into place. But it may more of a reflection of his culture. Here in North America, stories and language are very powerful it terms of influencing people and helping create a culture.

I believe there is wisdom in listening to Shodankeh, but we also may need balance. We do not want to underplay the importance of narrative in the western context. In tribal, more authoritative environments, narrative may not be as important. In North America, you need to create narrative to help people with behavior and discipline. For its strengths and weaknesses, North Americans come from a broader culture that values autonomy.

Take-Aways for Disciple Making Leaders

Those who want to lead disciple making churches will be helped by a systematic approach to these issues. We must first clarify the values and beliefs at the heart of effective disciple making and then work our way outward, by clarifying the disciplines will need to embrace (the elements).

As we explore creating disciple making cultures in North America, one path forward for many church leaders may look like the following:

Embrace, at a deep level, the core values and beliefs of Jesus-style disciple making.
Commit to the right Disciplines – prayerfully (and with wisdom) adopt simple disciplines that capture the essence of the values, beliefs, and elements of disciple making (it is essential to adopt the right disciplines first).
Fight tenaciously to uphold the disciplines.
These disciplines consistently held and practiced will create habits – and these habits will create lifestyles.
Develop language and narratives to explain and make viral the lifestyle of the culture. Use the language and tells stories that make sense of things early on in the process and every chance you get through it. Use them regularly in sermons, teachings, writings and conversations. Make the narrative sticky.

We are still in the early stages of our learnings about disciple making movements for North America. We have a church culture that was built around the assumptions of the modern world, and now, in a post-modern world, we are learning to go back to the Bible again. We are looking at examples of those who point us to the Bible in new ways so that we can established church cultures that will make disciple making the norm. I am so grateful for all those leaders from diverse theological tribes who partner with Discipleship·org and who are exploring these things with us.

But there is one thing we are clear about at Discipleship·org. Jesus is our model. We are focused on his message and his methods of disciple making. So, as we go back, we keep asking again and again, “how did Jesus make disciples and how can we emulate him in our context?

We are certain that the focus on Jesus is our best path forward as we seek to create disciple making cultures that will thrive in our new post-modern context.

By Bobby Harrington

Bobby Harrington is the Executive Director of Discipleship.org, a collaborating ministry of disciple–making organizations, a host for National Forums, and a distributor of free content. It is a ministry that advocates for Jesus’ style of disciple making. He is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Christian Church (by the Harpeth River, just outside of Nashville, TN). He has a Doctor of Ministry degree in consulting and has spent years as a coach to church planters and senior pastors. He is the author of several books on discipleship, including DiscipleShift (with Jim Putman and Robert Coleman) and The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (with Josh Patrick).

Photo by Ali Inay on Unsplash

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by Bobby Harrington: 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 or lens is not an exhaustive or a comprehensive one because it doesn’t look at the more organic components that are vitally important in the Bible. For example, it does not directly measure the way the people in the church love one another, the faithfulness of the people to God in the face of persecution, the way they serve the poor and needy, nor the devotion of the church to prayer, etc. Each of these components (and more) is vitally important in the Bible and for church’s faithfulness to God. They are all BIG deals. And these items may or may NOT be related to the measurements of this particular model we are developing.

Our question is a mathematical one.

I believe we can maintain the importance of numbers without overstating their importance. We do this because we know that God wants more disciples. Jesus’ Great Commission was to make disciples from all nations, tribes, and people groups (Rev. 7:9; Matt. 28:19-20). True disciples are people who have been rescued from hell and they are a source of great joy in heaven (Luke 15:7, 10). Each disciple is a rescued person and that is an important number because this is why Jesus came to planet earth (Luke 19:11).

This is why God inspired Luke to celebrate the numbers of disciples who are being made in the book of Acts (Acts 2:42; 4:4; 6:7). For the gospel to transform a person represents God’s highest desire for that person. Like the apostle Paul, we relish helping people to be what God wants them to be, to live life as God intends it. Faithful disciples made in this life will represent real joy at the end of time.

For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy (1 Thess. 2:19-20).

So we think it is important to measure how many people are being reached and made into disciples by a local church. That is why Discipleship.org is working on the “Level 5” Framework.

Disciple making is typically one of the things that a church does. But in a disciple making church, it becomes the focus of what a church does. Behind all decisions is a consciousness that we are called to be disciples and make disciples.

In 2017 in my role with discipleship.org, I worked with many of our partners and Exponential (a leading church planting network) and we developed a model for individual disciple makers built around mathematics.

That numerical description can be tricky. And easily mis-understood.

You can read the free eBook on the model Becoming a Disciple Maker) and take the free assessment we are doing with the level 5 model is describing a factual snapshot in time of the impact of an individual disciple maker.

Here in a summary fashion is the framework for the snapshot.

Level 1: Subtracting // Level 2: Plateauing // Level 3: Adding

Level 4: Reproducing // Level 5: Multiplying

Again, it is simply a mathematical snapshot and assessment of the impact of an individual disciple maker. At one end, there are individuals who lead people away from being disciples of Jesus (think of atheist or heretic involved in mentoring). Then at the other end, there are individuals who make disciples who individually make disciples – and those disciples make more disciples who make even more disciples – to the 4thgeneration. This is what the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy to do in 2 Timothy 2:2.

Now, in a like fashion, discipleship.org is working to develop a model of disciple making churches built around mathematics. Again, that model can be tricky. And easily mis-understood.

But all we are doing with the level 5 model is describing a factual snapshot in time of the mathematical impact of a church in terms of disciple making. Look again at the following mathematical framework and think of how a church is doing at disciple making (as a family of God’s people).

Level 1: Subtracting // Level 2: Plateauing // Level 3: Adding

Level 4: Reproducing // Level 5: Multiplying

At the left hand side, there are churches who lead to the subtraction of disciples (think of churches that embrace heretical teachings and lead people away from the Gospel). Then, on the far right side, think of a very small percentage of churches around where individual disciple making is core to the church’s culture and disciple making is viral (spreading rapidly and widely). In this church people believe that disciple making is “what we all do,” it is the “way we all do things in this church.” In these churches, disciple making feels almost unstoppable.

So when we describe a level 5 church, we are describing what only God does through his leaders creating a culture in a local church. Stated differently, this kind of church is not something that humans can engineer. Only a very small percentage of churches around the world are at level 5. It is something that we pray that God’s Spirit would do through us again in our time in North America. God is doing this in various parts of the world today as described in the book, Kingdom Unleased(https://discipleship.org/ebooks/download-the-kingdom-unleashed-sampler/).

A Level 5 Disciple Making Church– individual disciple making is the core DNA and culture of the church, where the average church member makes disciples to the fourth generation and this disciple making activity is regularly produced in significant and diverse streams within the church and these streams multiply consistently into new churches.

Here are each of the 5 levels of disciple making churches.

Level One – Blind (to value of Disciple Making DNA) and Subtracting Disciples

The church leadership does not see, in a meaningful way, the imperative to make disciples. They may be turning heretical or dying. Little or insignificant leadership intentionality. They may think of discipleship as one of the things a church does or as a broad category that applies to lots of different things. No understanding that Jesus-style disciple making is fundamentally important. No key decisions, commitments, or practices are in place. This church is dying and they are losing at making disciples.

Level Two – UnFocused and Plateaued in Making Disciples

This church is unfocused. The leaders may want to learn about disciple making or discipleship. They will typically be focused on the past or on keeping the current attenders of the church happy. The church may have good leaders, but they are unfocused or uninformed or divided. They do not know how to champion disciple making.

Level Three – Programmatic and Adding disciples.

This is a church that adds disciples – either through individual conversions (through the programs of the church) or by adding disciples from other churches. This kind of church is typically built around the four P’s – pastors, praise and worship excellence, programs and preaching. They bred a dependence that the church and programs (by leaders) to make disciples. Individual disciples (everyday members) do not make disciples.

Level Four – Empowering and Reproducing Disciples.

The leaders are coaches equipping disciple makers. Discipleship groups are an everyday reality within the church. The leaders are creating systems that are reproducing discipleship experiences and are actively discipling other people in groups. The leaders actively advocate for discipleship. They champion agreed upon discipleship practices and groups. The leaders are living out discipling relationships and advocating them for the whole church. All the leaders and the clear majority of those who are considered part of the church (75+) are actively involved in discipling groups and they are based upon and practicing a good philosophy of reproduction.

Level Five – Viral DM-DNA and Multiplying Disciples

Reaching and multiplying disciples of is the norm and it has led to regularly multiplying groups to the 4thgeneration in the church. The multiplication to 4 generations happens in most of the streams of ministries within the church. The church multiplies consistently into new churches that are planted.The church is a reflection of a disciple making movement. There is such a movement of disciple making and the DNA is so clear and real that something would have to happen to stop it and for disciple making to come to an end. It is the DNA of the church culture and leadership.

I hope that you will join me as we carry on this conversation. Next week I will share what we are learning about the DNA of a level 5 disciple making church.

We have been teaching this material at the Exponential Conference, where Discipleship.org as we hosted a pre-conference on this topic. I was joined in this conversation by Jim Putman (Relational Discipleship Network), Bill Hull and Ben Sobels (the Bonhoeffer Project) and Dave Clayton (Renew Network). There was so much interest in this teaching that they had to switch us to a bigger room. We hope to make the audios of the training available in the future through discipleship.org.

We are excited to see such vivid interest in Jesus style disciple making. We want to encourage every possible leader and Christian to join with us in these important conversations.

By Bobby Harrington

Bobby Harrington is the Executive Director of Discipleship.org, a collaborating ministry of disciple–making organizations, a host for National Forums, and a distributor of free content. It is a ministry that advocates for Jesus’ style of disciple making. He is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Christian Church (by the Harpeth River, just outside of Nashville, TN). He has a Doctor of Ministry degree in consulting and has spent years as a coach to church planters and senior pastors. He is the author of several books on discipleship, including DiscipleShift (with Jim Putman and Robert Coleman) and The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (with Josh Patrick).

The post What is a “Level 5” Disciple Making Church? appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: What is a “Level 5” Disciple Making Church?

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by Bobby Harrington: Various Discipleship·org partners and I had a very challenging meeting last month as we sought to define some key terms that are crucial for disciple-making leaders to thrive. I wanted to share this challenge with all our readers, and that’s why I’m writing to you today.

The group of disciple-making leaders I mentioned above and I worked together to define the following:

A church
A disciple-making movement
A Level 5 disciple-making church (viral multiplication of disciple making within a church)

It is hard to define each of these terms because they represent complex, nuanced realities.

We tried to broach these definitions at a gathering of Discipleship·org leaders in 2018, but we got bogged down and had to stop. I knew we would need to come back to this important work early in 2019 and that’s what we did in early January. After praying about it and seeking counsel, we met in Phoenix. This article is a summary of our meeting and the working definitions that we plan to use with Discipleship·org.

Thank you for taking time to read through my brief summary of our definitions and for joining this conversation with your comments and prayers:

Who Was Present

I was pleased that we (myself and Discipleship·org’s Geary Tanner) were joined by Bill Hull (and Ben Sobels) from the Bonhoeffer Project, Jim Putman (Relational Discipleship Network), Dann Spader (Live Jesus Initiative, formerly with SonLife and Global Youth Initiative), Todd Wilson (Exponential), Justin Gravitt (Navigator Church Ministries), Steve McCoy (Small Circle) and several key observers and supporters. Roy Moran, an expert in Disciple Making Movements and the chairman of the board for New Generations, also joined us to provide subject expertise and to help us better understand Disciple Making Movements (DMMs).

1. Defining a Church

This might sound like an easy thing to do, but it is not.

We were fortunate to have Todd Wilson, CEO of Exponential, share with us their top learnings as they have worked on establishing criteria for a minimum ecclesiology (church) based upon the teachings of the Bible for a couple of years at Exponential. Exponential is the world’s leading church planting network, so the way they define a church is important for their ministry. Todd shared some of the work that he and Larry Walkemeyer had completed to help church leaders and denominations come up with a biblically responsible definition. You can read the chapter summarizing their work in the free eBook entitled The Mobilization Flywheel.

The conversations and debates around a definition were very difficult. We tried to reach a consensus on a definition a couple of times and then we came to an impasse and had to stop. We had a group of tough-minded and highly convicted leaders in the room. The last day, after working through several other topics and spending time understanding international disciple making movements, we tried it again. We were getting closer. And then, just before the end, we came to a basic, simple definition that everyone agreed upon. Here is our simple definition of a church:

A Church – A spiritual family growing in surrendered obedience to all the teachings of Jesus Christ who gather together regularly under Biblically recognized leadership for the purpose of fulfilling the great commission (making disciples) with a Great Commandment heart (loving God, loving people).

2. Defining a Disciple-Making Movement

A few weeks ago Discipleship·org published two articles by Roy Moran on Disciple Making Movements (often referred to as DMM for short). I refer our readers to these two blogs click here. Roy provided a brief history of these movements, the key issues involved and fundamentals of a definition. It is commonly believed that there are currently no clear disciple making movements in North America.

Here is the definition that Roy and I worked out after our meeting in Phoenix. It is now our working definition at Discipleship·org.

A Disciple Making Movement – exists when churches plant churches through gospel activity that has abundant fruit among the lost, that multiplies these disciples (people growing in obedience to all of Jesus’ commands) who in turn replicate themselves in others, so that we can see at least four generations regularly produced in multiple streams of disciple-making activity and these streams multiply consistently into churches.

3. Defining a Level 5 Disciple-Making Church

In 2017 Discipleship·org worked with Exponential to develop a model for individual disciple makers built around mathematics. That description can be tricky. And easily misunderstood. You can read the free eBook on the model and take the free assessment. All we are doing with the level 5 model is describing a factual snapshot in time of the impact of an individual disciple maker. Here in a summary fashion is the framework for the snapshot.

Level 1: Subtracting // Level 2: Plateauing // Level 3: Adding

Level 4: Reproducing // Level 5: Multiplying

Again, it is simply a mathematical snapshot and assessment of the impact of an individual disciple maker. At one end, there are individuals who lead people away from being disciples of Jesus (think of atheists or heretics involved in mentoring). Then at the other end, there are individuals who make disciples who individually make disciples – and those disciples make more disciples who make even more disciples – to the 4th generation. This is what the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy to do in 2 Timothy 2:2.

In a like fashion, Discipleship·org is working to develop a model of disciple making churches built around mathematics. Again, that model can be tricky. And easily misunderstood.

But all we are doing with the level 5 model is describing a factual snapshot in time of the impact of a church in terms of disciple making. Look again at the following mathematical framework and think of how a church is doing at disciple making (as a family of God’s people).

Level 1: Subtracting // Level 2: Plateauing // Level 3: Adding

Level 4: Reproducing // Level 5: Multiplying

Only a very small percentage of churches around the world are at level 5. Drawing upon our learnings from disciple making movements, this would be a church like the Jerusalem church as described in the book of Acts 2: 46-47.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

So when we describe a level 5 church, we are describing what only God does through people in a local church. Stated differently, this kind of church is not something that humans can engineer. It is something that we pray that God’s Spirit would do through us again in our time. God is doing this in various parts of the world today as described in the ebook, Kingdom Unleashed.

Disciple making by, what feels like, almost all individuals within the church is viral (spreading rapidly and widely) and it feels almost unstoppable. Pretty much everybody is personally engaged in disciple making and they describe it as, “this is how we do things here.” A level 5 disciple-making church is where disciple-making multiplication is the norm.

A Level 5 Disciple-Making Church – individual disciple making is the core DNA and culture of the church, where the average church member makes disciples to the fourth generation and this disciple-making activity is regularly produced in significant and diverse streams within the church and these streams multiply consistently into new churches.

By Bobby Harrington

Bobby Harrington is the Executive Director of Discipleship.org, a collaborating ministry of disciple–making organizations, a host for National Forums, and a distributor of free content. It is a ministry that advocates for Jesus’ style of disciple making. He is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Christian Church (by the Harpeth River, just outside of Nashville, TN). He has a Doctor of Ministry degree in consulting and has spent years as a coach to church planters and senior pastors. He is the author of several books on discipleship, including DiscipleShift (with Jim Putman and Robert Coleman) and The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (with Josh Patrick).

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

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Source: Defining “Church” and a “Level 5 Disciple-Making Church”

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by Bobby Harrington: We champion discipleship-first people – those who see life through the lens of being disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus. These people form our tribe. Discipleship.org exists to help the members of this tribe to be faithful and effective disciple makers.

Discipleship.org is like the “chamber of commerce” for disciple making – we aggregate and promote the leaders, organizations, speakers and writers who we consider partners. So as point-leader for Discipleship.org, I get a front row seat to watch and listen to the state of disciple making in our community. Recently over 1400 pastors and leaders from around the country joined over 20 networks/organizations at our third annual National Disciple Making Forum.

I have been prayerfully filtering through many conversations from this forum and our other gatherings and learnings from the past year.

Following is my annual summary of the encouraging trends that I am observing for 2019. The first five are wide-spread observations and the last five are trends we want to explicitly encourage.

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Source: 10 Top Disciple Making Trends for 2019 (Part 1)

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by Bobby Harrington and Jason Dukes: Many discipling-making efforts today are focused on information transfer and they are often delivered through church programs. We are grateful for the way these efforts help people, but they often carry with them certain limitations.

When we look at the life of Jesus, we see that his disciple-making rhythms were much more extensive and they involved all of life. Our goal as disciples is to emulate his approach, which means eating together, serving together, practicing Sabbath together, and learning together. We share projects, priorities, and plans—and enjoy them together, too!

We have arguments and give forgiveness. We share conversations that cover multiple topics, and the gospel flows into them from God rather than us forcing our preferences into them.

We’ve identified the 7 disciple-making rhythms of a “with-Jesus” life in a diagram:

Disciple-making relationships endure over the course of these rhythms, moving along a disciple-making spectrum as diverse as the following descriptions:

Not-yet believing and following
Newly believing
“Inviting-along” others into the family of believers (as Jason C. Dukes describes in his free eBook Inviting Along)
Maturing while multiplying
Encouraging and coaching other disciple makers
Pairing up with several other believers and not-yet-believers to form a new group
Joining together with other family-like groups to form a new community of faith
Being sent into the nations of the world to live this inviting-along, disciple-making way

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Source: The 7 Disciple-Making Rhythms of Jesus

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by Bobby Harrington: In his great commission, King Jesus told us to make disciples who “obey everything that he commanded” (Matt. 28:18-20).

If we are honest, that presents us with a big challenge today: we must be clear on Jesus’ commandments so that we can obey them.

But how can we be clear on the meaning of anything these days?

The Oxford Dictionary chose “post-truth” as the 2016 Word of the Year. The Washington Post declared this news with, “It’s official: Truth is dead. Facts are passé”.

As our political and religious discourse shows, objective facts are less influential in shaping our perception of reality than appeals to emotion and self-inspired beliefs (i.e., believing what we want to be true).

I look forward to discussing this question at a deeper level with you, the  Discipleship-First Tribe in 2019 at the National Forum. For now, let me share five elements that guide me as I personally seek clarity on Jesus’ teachings so that I can obey them as a disciple and a disciple maker. I hope they will encourage you to take the same path.

1. I Pray Earnestly that God will Make Jesus’ Truths Clear in Our Culture Today

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Written by Bobby Harrington

Bobby Harrington is the Executive Director of Discipleship.org, a national platform, conference, and ministry that advocates for Jesus’ style of disciple making. He is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Christian Church (by the Harpeth River, just outside of Nashville, TN). He has a Doctor of Ministry degree in consulting and has spent years as a coach to church planters and senior pastors. He is the author of several books on discipleship, including DiscipleShift (with Jim Putman and Robert Coleman) and The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (with Josh Patrick).

Photo by David Travis on Unsplash

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Source: The Truth About Jesus’ Commandments in Discipling Relationships

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by Bobby Harrington: At Discipleship·org, our discipleship-first mantra views life through the lens of being disciples who make disciples. To be most fully alive is to walk with Jesus, live out the priorities we find in his life. It is loving people as Jesus loved people. But let’s not study about it and talk about it too much.

That does not make it real—we must live it out!

The single most important indicator that you understand the importance of discipleship is the evidence of your own life, which is your personal “scorecard” (if I may call it that). By that, I mean the names and faces of those people that you are discipling and the names and faces of the disciple makers whom you raised up who are now discipling others.

Can you list their names? Can you see their faces?

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Source: What We Will *Not* Be Asked… at the Day of Judgement

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