By Impact Discipleship Ministries: I have been the senior pastor of a local church for over thirty years. Many times in the last thirty years, I have had to “reset” my life and ministry. When I am in need of a reset, I always ask myself two questions. First, what am I called to do? Second, how well am I doing at accomplishing what I’m called to do? These two questions help me to recalibrate my life and help me get back to what I really need to be doing.

Seminary helped prepare me for ministry in several important ways. It increased my theological understanding, it helped me in my preaching, and it better prepared me to provide pastoral care. It did not do a very good job of teaching me how to lead the church to be a disciple making church. That is a major problem, especially when the mission of the Church is to help Christians make disciples of all nations.

The job of every pastor is to preach and provide pastoral care, but it is also the pastor’s job to lead the church to accomplish Jesus’ mission. If I preach outstanding messages and provide great pastoral care but fail to lead my church to be a disciple making church, I have not done my job.

Some would say seminary does not do a good job of teaching pastors leadership. I would take that a step farther and say that seminaries don’t do a very good job of teaching pastors disciple making leadership.

Three decades of ministry have taught me some things seminary never did. It has taught me the six priorities of a disciple making pastor. These six things are not automatic, they must be learned. All six of them are found in the life of Christ and therefore should be found in every pastor. Let’s take a look at the six things every pastor ought to be able to do.

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Lead the church toward mission!

The number one leadership tsk of the pastor is to point the church toward the mission of making disciples of all nations. By doing so, the pastor’s job is to get everyone going in the right direction and the same direction.

Lead themselves first!

Before a pastor every leads anyone else to multiply disciples, that pastor must first be modeling being and building disciples. That pastor must be doing exactly what is asked of everyone else in the congregation.

Lead the church to execute the mission!

Knowing and pointing toward mission is not enough. The pastor must know how to execute the strategy that accomplishes the mission. The pastor must be able to lead the church to help untrained seekers become fully trained disciples.

Lead leaders!

A church cannot become a movement of multiplying disciples unless the pastor can become a leader of leaders. If the pastor cannot lead leader the church will remain a movement of edition and never become a movement of multiplication.

Lead with a plan!

If pastors do not tell their lives where to go, someone else will. Many pastors are not making disciples because they do not have a plan for how to live their lives. Making disciples will not happen by accident. You must have a plan for how to lead the church and you must work your plan.

Lead well!

Leading well is not the same thing as finishing well, although it includes it. Leading well brings with it the idea of thriving and flourishing until the end. It means leaving behind a legacy of disciples who are making more disciples. Leading well means having a “much fruit” life.

Impact Discipleship Ministries provides equipping groups for pastors who want to become disciple making pastors. In seven online sessions, you will learn the priorities of what it means to be a disciple making pastor.

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Source: Two Questions Every Pastor Should be Asking

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By Ken Adams: For most of us, if we don’t have a good reason for why we need to do something that will be challenging, we probably won’t do it. Knowing why is essential in most any endeavor, but especially when it comes to multiplying disciples. If we knew and understood why multiplication is so important, we would be committed to making it happen. With that in mind, let me share with you a few of the reasons why multiplication is essential in carrying out the mission of Jesus.

Multiplication is the fastest way to reach the nations

Jesus called us to make disciples of all nations, and that can be done one of two ways. We can make disciples by addition, or we can make disciples by multiplication. Multiplying disciples is by far the fastest way to accomplish the mission Jesus gave us to do. If we make disciples by addition we will never reach all nations simply because addition can never keep up with the exponential growth of the world’s population. Multiplication starts slowly but it picks up steam quickly, so quickly that the world’s population of nearly eight billion people can be reached in a lifetime if every disciple multiplied more disciples.

Multiplication is the smartest way to reach the nations

If you wanted to provide your child with the best education possible, would you choose a classroom with a teacher student ratio of 1 to 100 or 1 to 10? No one would intentionally choose the larger teacher student ratio if that person wanted to give his or her child a quality classroom experience. This is another reason why multiplication is so much smarter than addition. In movements of addition, groups or classes tend to get larger and larger. In movements of multiplication, the goal is to keep multiplying groups of people so that the church is getting larger and smaller at the same time. In Acts 2, the Church in Jerusalem was over three thousand members strong, but those members stayed small by meeting from house to house. That was a very smart way for the Jerusalem Church to grow.

Multiplication is the easiest way to reach the nations: Maybe you have heard someone say, “Work smarter, not harder.” The smarter way to make disciples is also the easiest way to make disciples. Think about your money for a moment. Would simple interest or compound interest be an easier path to building personal wealth? Compound interest is allowing your money to work for you by multiplying it. The same is true for disciple making. Trying to reach the nations by addition is so much harder than reaching the nations by multiplying disciples. For example: if I gave you a penny a day and doubled it every day for thirty days, you would have over $10 million dollars in thirty days. That’s easy money.

I’ve given you three good logical arguments for why you need to multiply disciples, but the real reason we need to multiply disciples is because Jesus told us to. Multiplying disciples is ultimately a matter of obedience to Christ’s commission. You are either making disciples who make more disciples, or you are not.

By Ken Adams

Used by permission. Originally posted here:

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Source: Why Do We Need Discipleship Multiplication?

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Source: PODCAST 093: Rick Rusaw & The Standard of Church as Platform

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