Once you establish a baseline, you can assess ways to grow and improve. Essentially, you’ll gain a sense of the necessary resources for helping you on your journey to become the best possible disciple maker. That is the ultimate goal for developing this tool—to help each person in his or her journey make disciples as Jesus made disciples who then made disciples.

The online assessment offers five basic levels that are not as much theological in orientation (Kingdom, church, etc.,) as they are practical and measurable. This is an important point. We’re not saying our model is taught in Scripture. Rather, it’s a model that we find to be in step with what the Bible teaches. The distinction is important.

The authors of this blog intended readers of this content to take The Disciple Maker Assessment. Take the Disciple Maker Assessment here at no cost.

We have followed the general outline that aligns with Scripture, but our assessment tool is more descriptive of what we find practically in the lives of disciple makers today. We think you’ll find it helpful and biblical, but we would not bind it on others as God’s standard. Again, this is not to say that our model lacks theological support—far from it. A deeper analysis shows that our model has much in common with the disciple-making practices described in the Bible and by Jesus Himself, as the discipleship scholar Robert Coleman laid out many years ago in his seminal work, The Master Plan of Evangelism.

The goal of this assessment tool is to help you determine your personal level of maturity and competency in being used by God to effectively build up others in their relationship with Christ, and to develop their own ability to do this with others. This is what the Apostle Paul encouraged Timothy to do when he wrote: “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Tim. 2:2). This is commonly called the process of making disciples who make disciples.

The assessment tool measures your level of effectiveness in making disciples. Once you understand where you currently are in this lifelong process, you can intentionally grow in ways to improve your effectiveness on this journey. Our goal is to help each person become a better disciple maker throughout his or her life.

Take this assessment for free here.

Stay tuned for more from our eBook, Becoming a Disciple Maker, which you can download free here.

Written by Bobby Harrington and Greg Wiens

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).

Greg Wiens has been assessing leaders and organizations for over 35 years. He has worked with a gamut of organizations ranging in size and interest from Fortune 100 companies and public schools, to small non-profits and churches. He has pastored and planted churches as well as founded a number of organizations. He currently leads two missionally focused organizations: Healthy Growing Churches and Healthy Growing Leaders committed to engaging churches and leaders to multiply. Greg has co-authored two books: Dying to Restart and Daring to Disciple.

Source: Why Develop a Disciple Maker Assessment Like This?

The post Why Develop a Disciple Maker Assessment Like This? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Bobby Harrington:

I believe that everyone who makes disciples will be regarded as a hero in heaven. So I encourage people to take on this role, loving people enough to invest into their lives and to help them trust and follow Jesus. It is hard to image anything worth more at the end of our lives as we gaze into eternity standing before Jesus.

But there is an even greater eternal impact.

Eternal Impact

If we learn to make disciple makers, we have multiplied the good even further. Multiple disciple makers will have more impact than just one disciple maker. In fact, if disciple makers will be heroes, then those who make disciple makers will be hero-makers!

We wanted to encourage disciple makers, so we developed an online assessment.

Our assessment helps people envision not just making disciples, but making disciples who make disciples.

Knowing Where You Are: The Assessment

Take this assessment free here.

In the early beta-testing of the online tool, we discovered a surprising insight. Less than 25 percent of the respondents aspired to be level 5 disciple makers!

That means of people known to be committed to disciple making, only 25 percent aspired to make disciple who make disciples. Only 25 percent aspired to be disciple makers, who, in my view, are the hero makers.

You can take the Disciple Maker Assessment here at no cost.

The 25 percent included many people in ministerial and pastoral positions. We were surprised, but after conversations between the development team, the number began to make sense. The truth is that it is a big step for everyday Christians—and even those in ministry—to turn aspirations and desire into actions and become personal disciple makers.

Once a leader or a church leadership team starts to emphasize the importance of personal disciple making or getting people to embrace it as something they practice it requires a lot of teaching, love, and coaching. Most of our early respondents felt good about aspiring to become disciple makers. We agree with that.

We want expand everyone’s vision.

Let’s aspire to be like Jesus and Paul (2 Timothy 2:2). They made disciple makers. Those who make disciple makers change the lives of multiple generations for eternity. They are making people who will be heroes in eternity.

For Jesus spent the most important time in his ministry not just making disciples, but making disciple makers out of James, Peter, John, and the rest of the 12. Those who make disciple makers are imitating Jesus.

There is no higher calling.

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).

Image Credit: SpaceX

Source: Be a Hero Maker—Make Disciple Makers

The post Be a Hero Maker—Make Disciple Makers appeared first on Passion for Planting.