by Bobby Harrington: Summer is almost upon us and many of us take this time of transition to reflect and to look forward. Discipleship.org exists to help you find success in making disciples. When you choose to be a disciple who makes disciples, we call you a hero, and our goal is to guide heroes like you.

As we head into the summer season, here are my top five recent reflections for disciple makers. I want to share them with you so that we can reflect on them together (join us to discuss these topics in our Facebook Group – click here).

1. More and more popular preachers like Matt Chandler are saying that discipleship must become central – but few can show churches where it has truly become the core mission in reality.

Just before leaving on a sabbatical, Chandler called out the church with regard to discipleship in his widely publicized sermon earlier this month. It was reported in the Christian Post and you can check it out here. The article title says it all: “Matt Chandler Warns Church is no Longer about Discipleship But ‘Being Entertained.’”

Prayerful Reflection – My payer is that we will focus more and more on showing the solution – and creating disciple making churches that show the way forward.

*Please note, prices are going up at the end of this week for the National Disciple Making Forum, so don’t forget to get your tickets now click here to register.

2. The right fight is over Established Church Culture vs Disciple Making Culture

“It is hard to get a church to focus upon disciple making.” I am hearing those words from more and more people. It is not a problem of strategy; it is a problem of culture. We need more disciple making church leaders showing us how to change culture because in the words of Peter Drucker, “culture eats strategy for breakfast every day.”

There are some important books coming out on this topic, including one by Brandon Guindon (a leader with our partners Renew and the Relational Discipleship Network). Click Here to read the first of his upcoming posts on this topic.

Prayerful Reflection – what will it take for Christians to make disciple making cultures be more common in churches than the old and increasing in-effective church cultures?

3. We need Critical Thinking and Clear Convictions

More and more Christians are losing their convictions in the face of a culture that places an over-emphasis on feelings, acceptance, and compassion. Critical thinking itself is suspect. Doubt or nuanced thinking about Biblical truth is highly valued.

There are fewer and fewer beliefs, doctrines, and values which are solid. We need champions with convictions. Champions who do not over-state Biblical truth as has often been done in the past. But champions who boldly stand on the clear teachings of scripture.

We believe the way forward is based upon the power of God’s Word – and clear convictions that come out of it for our lives.

Prayerful Reflection – how do we most effectively re-capture conviction and obedience based discipleship?

4. People want to be Explicitly told How to Make Disciples

With so many leaders saying that we need to shift back to discipleship, it creates a good problem. Now people do not want to be persuaded about disciple making. The persuading almost happens intuitively for most leaders engaged in helping people to deal with our culture.

The question, more and more, is now being stated this way: “OK, you do not have to persuade me about discipleship – just tell me how to do it.”

Prayerful Reflection – how can we most effectively get people exposed to the best methods and disciple making models?

5. We are on the precipice of a break-through with Disciple Making Technologies

Over the last 2 years there has been a significant increase in the use of APPS and phone technology for disciple making. In the past week alone, I have had three separate in-depth conversations with key leaders who have developed disciple making APPS or who are in the process of developing these APPS.

Some of the early models are being created by Discipleship.org partners like Steve McCoy with SmallCircle and Dann Spader with Sonlife and the Like Jesus Initiative.

Prayerful Reflection – how can we most effectively utilize technology and still have a relational foundation for disciple making.

For King Jesus,

Bobby Harrington, Point Leader, Discipleship.org

Join us at our National Disciple Making Forum!

November 7th- 8th in Nashville, TN

Don’t Wait – Prices increase this Friday night at midnight!

Sign up Today!

New Blogs

“It’s Ordinary People—Ben Sobels on Breakthrough Disciple Making”

by Ben Sobels

READ THE BLOG

“Unashamed”

by Sonlife

READ THE BLOG

“Word-Centered Discipleship”

by Downline Ministries

READ THE BLOG

New Podcast Episodes

LISTEN NOW

S6 Episode 30: Build Your Discipleship Ministry from the Ground Up (Michelle Eagle)

S6 Episode 29: Map/GPS Is the Necessary Disciple Making Curriculum: Now I Know Where I Am Going

S6 Episode 28: The Driver Is the Intentional Leader: Take the Baton and Pass It Forward

Photo by Victor Lozano on Unsplash

The post My Top 5 Recent Reflections on American Disciple Making appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: My Top 5 Recent Reflections on American Disciple Making

The post My Top 5 Recent Reflections on American Disciple Making appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Craig Etheredge: A disciple of Jesus is like a 3-D image. When you think of something being three-dimensional, it’s fully orbed and lifelike. Three-D images often appear on a movie screen, where characters seem to jump of the screen at you. Think also of how 3-D printers produce fully dimensional products. In the same way, a true disciple of Jesus has three dimensions that make them fully mature, fully orbed, and Christ-like. The first dimension of a disciple is that he is devoted to Jesus. That is, this person has become convinced that Jesus is the Christ and that salvation is found in no one else but him. This is where disciple making begins. It begins when a person turns from their sin and turns to Jesus as the forgiver and the leader of their life. There is no disciple making apart from conversion. Jesus modeled this for us.

This is from Craig Ethredege’s eBook, Invest in a Few. Download the eBook here in your favorite format at no cost.

Born Again

As he picked up the preaching mantle and began to lead the movement of God that John the Baptist had begun, Jesus started preaching a simple message. It only had two major calls to action: Repent and believe (Mark 1:15). The reason? Because “the kingdom of God is near.” With these words Jesus was saying, “It’s not enough to be religious; you must make it personal with me.” A religious leader of his day named Nicodemus helps us understand what this means.

He came to Jesus one night, not wanting to be seen by his colleges (after all he had a reputation to protect). He had a burning desire to know God, so Jesus told him plainly, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). Just as you are born into your earthly family, in the same way you must be born into God’s family. Nicodemus was a religious man: he knew facts and he was devoted to ritual and tradition as a Pharisee, a teacher of the law, but Jesus told him, “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). This is where discipleship starts.

The Gospel at Starbucks

I remember having coffee with a young man at a crowded Starbucks. He had been attending church in his hometown for several years and was feeling an urge to go into vocational ministry, so he asked me to meet with him. As we settled into our seats, I asked about his spiritual journey and how God was moving in his life. He was a lean, sharp-looking young man in his early twenties. He spoke with excitement in his voice. For the first half hour he talked about how much he loved the people in his church and how he really enjoyed serving in his church’s youth group. I listened intently.

Then, I asked, “So, tell me—when you gave your life to Christ?”

He paused and looked at me as if he didn’t understand the question.

So I rephrased my question: “I mean, tell me when you became a Christian—how did that happen?” He mumbled something along the lines of “I’ve always believed in God” and “I was confirmed at the age of twelve.” It was obvious that he was grasping for words.

That night, I spent my time talking to him about Jesus, how much God loves him, and that God created him to know him in a deep and personal way. I explained that our problem is sin, which has separated us from God, and that we are all cut off from him.

What surprised me as I spoke with him was how this man, who wanted to go into ministry, seemed to be hearing some of the basics about full devotion to Jesus as if for the first time.

I remember saying, “Look around this crowded coffee shop.” His eyes scanned the room, briefly glancing at the faces of the people standing in line to order.

“Everyone in this room and everyone in our world has fallen short of God’s design for them. Everyone of us is separate from God and helplessly lost.” I could see his demeanor change as he absorbed the heaviness of those words.

I continued “But that is why Jesus came. God sent his only Son to die on a cross, where he absorbed the wrath of God and paid sin’s penalty on our behalf. He died, was buried, and three days later, he rose from the dead, conquering sin and death and the grave. If you will turn from your sin and turn to Jesus, he promises to forgive you and restore your broken relationship with God.”

I let the words hang in the air.

Blog Reader’s Discount on the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum

Then I asked, “Have you ever done that?” After a good while, he simply said, “No, I haven’t.” In fact, he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that kind of commitment. Going to seminary was one thing to him, but actually following Jesus was altogether different.

As we left the coffee shop that day, I wondered how many other people are just like this young man: churched, involved, and sincere—but lost. The first step in becoming a disciple is coming to faith in Jesus. Paul put it simply, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God that raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9, NLT). A biblical conversion involves an acknowledgment of sin before God, a belief that Jesus is the Son of God, and a belief that only Jesus’ death and resurrection can pay for one’s sin. At that point, a turning from my sin and trusting Jesus in simple faith is required. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “You must be born again.” A true disciple is one who is devoted to Jesus by being born into God’s family through faith in Jesus.

Written by Craig Etheredge

A gifted communicator, author, and Bible teacher and the Lead Pastor at First Colleyville, a thriving church in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Craig Etheredge is the host of Morning Thrive, a radio program that covers central Texas. He is Founder and President of discipleFIRST ministries and a regular speaker at the FlashPoint Conference across the United States. Craig is also Adjunct Professor of Discipleship at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas and is actively involved in his local community serving on various boards.

Photo by Lloyd Dirks on Unsplash

Source: How to Identify People to Disciple (1 of 3)

The post How to Identify People to Disciple (1 of 3) appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Brandon Cook: John Ortberg asked his mentor Dallas Willard what it would take to live the kind of life Dallas was always talking about—a life caught up in the goodness of God, a life lived from the kingdom of God, an abundant life of prayerful love. In short, the life of a disciple.

Dallas paused for a moment and said, “John, you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

John wrote that down and said, “Okay, I got it, what else?”

Long pause.

“That is all. There is nothing else.”

That’s Dallas Willard for you. But…how can that be all there is? At the risk of trying to speak for Uncle Dallas, perhaps what he meant, in part, is this: All of God’s abundance is there. The grace, the power, the resource of God has already been given. You simply need to become aware of it. And you become aware—and you become transformed—by slowing down. You must slow down into the life of God.

Blog Reader’s Discount on the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum

Discipleship starts with hearing the whisper of God’s Spirit which whispers “yes” and “draw near.” The whisper of adoption by which God reveals that, in him, “we’re in” and he is with and within us.[1] But there is little hope of staying grounded in this whisper, let alone growing in our hearing of it, if we have no quiet in our souls to receive it. It is like seed, and if the thorn of our inner life is over-grown with stress and anxiety, the seed will get choked out. Or, it will find no place to land in the first place.

Similarly, if we can’t hear the whisper of God, there will be little energizing power from the Spirit of God filling our lives to love others as disciples. And we will have little resource left for hearing and responding to Jesus’ guiding voice in our lives. In other words, we can’t live into the three pictures of discipleship if our souls are constantly in a hurry.

Each picture becomes a reality only when we have space to hear the whisper of the Father’s love, the whisper of Jesus inviting us to make present the Kingdom for others, and the whisper of the Holy Spirit, empowering us to listen and respond. Without The Slow Life, we have a hard time hearing these whispers and thus, experiencing the transforming goodness of God. The Slow Life is, quite simply, the cornerstone of spiritual life and the foundation for all other spiritual practices.

Written by Brandon Cook

Brandon Cook is the lead pastor at Long Beach Christian Fellowship and a co-founder of The Bonhoeffer Project. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, he studied at Wheaton College (IL), Jerusalem University College, Brandeis University, and The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He worked as a professional storyteller before joining a transformational training organization and moving to SoCal in 2006, becoming a pastor three years later. Over the course of five years of pastoring, he became convinced that his work—and the work of the church—is to become fully committed to discipleship and making disciple-makers. The Bonhoeffer Project is for him a quest to live into the question “How are people transformed to live and love like Jesus?”

[1] See, for example, Galatians 2:20

Blog Reader’s Discount on the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum

Photo by José Martín Ramírez C on Unsplash

Source: Unhurriedness: A Cornerstone of Spiritual Life

The post Unhurriedness: A Cornerstone of Spiritual Life appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Dr. Kennon Vaughan: As the future of the church, we must understand how to effectively disciple millennials—a generation with unique strengths, weaknesses, learning habits, and desires. Drawing from years of ministry experience and relevant Ph.D. and doctoral studies, the leaders of this track will address how and why the church is losing youth, what millennials need for a healthy discipleship, church structures, and practical models for discipling younger men and women.

As the church in the west continues to capitulate historic orthodoxy for cultural mores, it is imperative the church offers young people biblical truth and a model for Christian living.

Downline Ministries is leading a track at this year’s National Disciple Making Forum.

This is one of the largest gatherings of disciple makers in North America with 65+ workshops, 15+ speakers, and 10+ tracks. Join us to learn practical ways to make disciples of Jesus this November 9-10 (Thursday-Friday). Register for the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum here.

Core Message of Downline

Downline exists to encourage a restoration of biblical discipleship in and through the local church.

Jesus’ model for evangelizing the world and maturing Christians is disciple making in the context of the local church. Discipling is not reserved for pastors and missionaries, but is the responsibility and privilege of every believer of Jesus Christ. Where the church has emphasized programs, events, and the celebrity pastor, we believe the biblical emphasis is upon the individual Christian and equipping them for the work of the ministry. Downline exists to walk along side, encourage, and call the church to recapture biblical, gospel-centered, disciple making pattered after our Lord.

More About Downline

Written by Downline

Downline was founded to address the lack of relational discipleship in the church. We believe that Jesus’ discipleship relationship with the 12 Apostles set the pattern for every believer and is Christ’s means for evangelizing the world and producing mature Christians. Sadly, we were not seeing with any consistency this type of discipling happening in the local church.

As we probed elders, lay leaders, and church members we found that Christians were not making disciples for two reasons: First, Christians are intimidated by their lack of biblical knowledge, and second, most Christians, having never been discipled, don’t know what it means to make disciples or what it looks like.

Downline was founded to resource the local church and train church members in these two areas.

The Downline Institute addresses the two problems mentioned earlier: lack of bible comprehension and unfamiliarity with the task of disciple making. The Downline Institute consists of four hours of class a week for nine months. Over the course of the nine months students are taught their bibles from Genesis to Revelation, discipleship philosophy, and discipleship practice in the local church, the home, and their vocation. In addition to the Institute, Downline hosts an annual discipleship conference, writes curriculum, and hosts a blog and podcast to further equip and resource the church.

Our goal is to equip pastors, lay-leaders, and members alike for the task of biblical disciple making.

Leading this track is Dr. Kennon Vaughan, who serves as the Lead Pastor of Harvest Church in Memphis,TN, and President and Founder of Downline Ministries. A Memphis native and graduate of Auburn University (BA), Dallas Theological Seminary (MBS), and Gordon Conwell Theological (DMin), Kennon founded Downline in 2006 to encourage a restoration of biblical discipleship in and through the local church. He is married to Kathryn and dad to four amazing boys: Caleb, Luke, Jonathan and David.

Source: Discipling Millennials: Engaging the Next Generation with the Gospel

The post Discipling Millennials: Engaging the Next Generation with the Gospel appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Regi Campbell: Mentoring in a small group can change you, your church and the world. It sounds dramatic, but we believe it’s true. The world needs sold-out, all-in Jesus followers—leaders and disciple makers. The church is Jesus’ chosen vehicle for spreading his Name and mentoring is his chosen vehicle for building the church. Think about it: He mentored 12 disciples who went on to build the church to over two billion who declare their belief in Christ today.

The church is full of older, wiser Jesus-followers who have valuable life experience that they’d love to share. Small group mentoring, mentoring like Jesus, and gives them a way to transparently share and engage in authentic community with younger men. It allows mature believers to find purpose and meaning as they move into the “giving back” season of life, and it helps the next generation grow into fully alive, reproducing disciple-makers.

The Men’s Discipleship Track at the 2017 Nat’l Forum

We will be sharing our track time at the 2017 Forum with Nate Larkin and the Samson Society. Both of our organizations believe authenticity and transparency are the keys to intentional, high impact, men’s small group mentoring programs. In addition to our panel discussion featuring Regi Campbell and Nate Larkin, we will have two sessions covering the following:

Mentor Like Jesus: His Radical Approach to Building the Church: This session will outline the 11 practices Jesus used to make disciples and show you how they can apply to the men of your church today.
Meat and Potatoes: The Key Ingredients to Launching a Men’s Mentoring Program: This session will take a practical look at where mentoring can fit into your local church, how to successfully launch small group mentoring program and some of the life change churches are seeing as a result of their mentoring groups.

Why was your organization founded?

Radical Mentoring was founded in 2007 but its history goes back to 2001 when Regi Campbell mentored his first group of men. After spending a significant amount of time and energy meeting with men one-on-one without really knowing the fruit, he was challenged by a quote from Tim Elmore: “More time with fewer people equals greater kingdom impact.”

Hearing that quote propelled him to try something different. Following the model Jesus provided over 2,000 years ago, Regi gathered 8 guys (same number of chairs around his dining room table), picked 12 topics he wanted to discuss, paired them with 12 books that impacted him, 24 Scriptures God had used in his life, and 12 homework assignments he created and launched his first mentoring group.

That group meet once a month for a year, and when it completed he launched the next one. After continuing to doing this for a few years, he decided to let others in on the action and so in 2007, Radical Mentoring was born. While some of the strategy and approach have shifted over time, the goal then and now is to put this intentional mentoring system into the hands of local churches and independent mentors who share a similar passion – to help men go all-in for Jesus.

Radical Mentoring believes the best way to do this is to put guys in a transparent and authentic group environment with an older, wiser Jesus-follower. Why? Because they’ve seen live changes as men become the disciple-makers and leaders we’re all called to be . . . and because that’s how Jesus did it.

What does your organization do to accomplish your purpose?

Radical Mentoring provides all the tools, resources and content a church needs to recruit and train mentors and then launch a sustainable, effective men’s small group mentoring program. And we provide it all at no charge.

Our system is simple – 4-8 men meeting with an older, wiser mentor for 3 hours once a month for 9-12 months. Each month, the group reads a carefully selected book, memorizes 1-2 relevant Scriptures, completes monthly assignments designed to help them become better husbands, fathers, leaders and Jesus-followers, meets one-on-one with another member of the group to build relationships, and commits to pray for the group and their mentor.

Every month, each of these elements are organized around a specific topic that is critical to being an all-in Jesus-follower (Prayer, Marriage and Purpose are just a few of the 24 available).

While the content is important for both individual learning and facilitating discussion, much of the impact from Radical Mentoring groups comes when mentors authentically and transparently share their life experiences (both good and bad) on each of these topics.

All of Radical Mentoring’s resources have been design to allow mentors room to couple valuable content with real-world experience as they model for their mentees what it looks like to live as an all-in Jesus-follower in each of these areas.

Written by Regi Campbell

Regi Campbell is an experienced investor and entrepreneur by trade, having been involved in the founding of 15 companies. He’s written three books and speaks on mentoring, marriage and marketplace ministry. But his real passion is mentoring younger men. In 2007, Regi founded Radical Mentoring to help encourage and equip to create disciple-makers through intentional men’s small group mentoring. Regi currently lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife Miriam. They attend North Point Community Church, where Regi has served as an elder.

Source: Radical Mentoring

The post Radical Mentoring appeared first on Passion for Planting.