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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