Interview with Harry Brown, trainer and leader of disciple making movements and individuals like David Watson (author of Contagious Disciplemaking), Jerry Trousdale (author of Miraculous Movements) and Richard Williams (author of Discipleship Principles to Transform the Church).
How to Get Your Church Involved in Disciple Making
- We value what we can measure or celebrate. We need an advocacy to measure what God is doing and celebrate it so others are excited
What is a disciple?
- Being a Disciple is about being a life-long learner. But learning is nothing without doing so I think that is is fair to say that being a Disciple is about being a life-long practitioner.
- Powerful distinction between being a Believer in Jesus and a Follower of Jesus
- The distinction is rooted in the Gospel you respond to
- A ‘Gospel of Salvation’ produces Believers who get heaven and miss hell
- A ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’ produces Followers who seek to obey the King in everything.
- The reality in the spiritual realm is that, “What You Win Them With is What You Win Them To.’
- If you came to Jesus for His free gift of salvation you think and act differently than if you responded to His call to embrace the cross and die daily.
- The distinction is rooted in the Gospel you respond to
How to Make a Disciple
- For a disciple making movement to happen, the first thing we need is to have a disciple worth multiplying.
- This is all about transferring good DNA
- The role of a Good Father is to raise a Good Son who will become a Good Father
- The key is that you are not just Saved From Something – Saved For Something
- The universal assignment to bring the Kingdom of God into your Circle of Influence!
- The game changer here is that Jesus’ plan would center on ordinary people
- The new world order would have the common man at the center and the learned professionals on the fringe
- I have told anyone who would listen through out my 40+ years of professional ministry that I am the exception not the rule. If God’s plan depended on full-time Christian workers, there would be no way to complete the mission because they are too few and cost too much to ever get the job done.
- What Jesus was pointing to was the ‘Miracle of Multiplication’ which is illustrated in the Parable of the Sower
- ¾ of the seed was lost
- But the seed that found good ground multiplied 30/60/100 times
- The unstoppable power is that each of those seeds has the potential for 30/60/100!
- We are in a war that can only be won by soldier changing sides. Our job is not to eliminate the lost by getting them saved, our job is to enlist them as followers who repeat the process with others.
- Obedience Based Reproductive Discipleship – Though we might not all have the GIFT of evangelism, we’ve all been commanded to EVANGELIZE and thereby MULTIPLY disciples.
- Teaching them to obey is about learning to die every day
- Mosaic World View.’ What that means is that I see the world not in terms of geography, language or culture but as a collection of interconnected affinity groups.
- These affinity groups all represent various segments of society
- The untapped power of the Great Commission is for the Gospel to ripple from one segment to another where people crossover.
- Firehouse illustration: Unity within Diversity while on the job but each one represents a ‘gateway’ to a segment when they go home.
- Headline Statement: To have an honest conversation about completing the Great Commission, you have to focus on ordinary people multiplying disciples in their natural networks of friends and family.
- ‘Gateway People’ (entry point to a segment in Scripture)
- Lydia (Acts 16) – Wealthy Merchant
- Zaccheaus (Luke 19)
- Nicademus (Jn. 3)
- 1 Cor. 11:1 “Follow me as I follow Christ” embodies the spirit of the concept. It forms a picture where I am reaching back to help those behind me but also reaching forward to receive the help I need.
- The other dimension is about ‘getting better together’.
- The New Testament is full on ‘one another’ passages that range from ‘love one another’ to ‘admonish one another’ to ‘stimulate one another’ to love and good deeds.
- This can happen to a small degree when we gather on Sunday but the greatest expression comes when there are smaller segments of the Body of Christ that are committed to help each other get where they want to be.
- Jonathan Training at Emerald Hills specific training about how to raise up teams of disciple makers who will make disciples cross-culturally in conjunction with Team Expansion… and for those folks, to me it often reminds me of that famous YouTube clip in which the airplane manufacturing teams are continuing to build the airplane once the plane is aloft. We don’t wait, in the gospel of the Kingdom, until we have a perfect airplane, before we launch the airliner. We get up in the air and then put the finishing touches on things.
It Begins With Me
- Mark 5 Jesus casts out demons and commissions the restored man to go home and share what God has done.
- It is a healthy question to ask, “Am I the person God called me to be?” But since none of us will fully ‘arrive’ don’t wait to begin to obey what you know.
- 3:13 Forgetting what lies behind, reach forward to what lies ahead – Press
- The picture for discipleship is ‘every day in every way’
- Concepts, Tools, Resources
- moredisciples.com – 30 days of challenges. Free practical next steps in bite sized chunks emailed daily.
- Wesley Self-Examination Model – determine and work “growing edges”
- Group in Africa implementing these principles since 2014. 112 groups. 750 in attendance. 481 baptisms – majority converted Muslims. 70 more waiting for rain to be baptized.
- Formula to complete the Great Commission is 2 + 2 = 4
- If there are 2 billion Christians in the world and everyone made one disciple in one year, then 2 + 2 would be 4 billion Christians.
- In the second year, 4 + 4 billion would be 8 billion Christians!
- In a world with a population of 7+ billion that is a profound thought
- Smaller scale: 100 disciples making one disciple per year is 500k+ disciples in 10 years!
- Great Commission is like a stair case. If you stop short of the top stair – you don’t get where you want to go. The cornerstone of being a disciple is making disciples.
- John 14:15 Simple equation – if you do love Me, it will evidence itself in obedience. No exceptions.
- Like the 5 Love Languages – God’s love language is grace & mercy. Our love language to God is obedience.
- Telling my wife on our wedding day, “I love you” doesn’t replace demonstrating my love every day.
- Obedience is like manna – yesterday’s portion is not sufficient for today
- Jesus directed us to, “take up our cross daily” and follow Him
- Powerful lesson from Rev. 2,3 – Jesus speaking to the Churches – Summary:
- I affirm what you have done well
- But I have this against you;
- You have done some things wrong or left some things undone
- I will give you time to correct this
- If you don’t there will be consequences!
Dare To Be A Disciple
- God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy – press on!
- Attendee Questions:
- How do I do this in a church that’s older?
- Things change when there is dissatisfaction, ears to hear and a plan to improve.
- Don’t ask, “Do I have to wait on the church?” Instead ask, “What can I do to live this out in my network?” (i.e. Discovery Bible Studies)
- Start with one person and let grow naturally
- How should a church get started?
- moredisciples.com
- Triage people
- Group 1 – Those that won’t change
- Group 2 – Those that will
- Group 3 – Those that believe “This changes my life”
- Focus on the 3rd group and find ways to measure and celebrate what they are doing
- Small Groups have become a hindrance.
- Not all small groups are created equal.
- How you start is where you’ll go. DNA starts at conception.
- Start new groups with different DNA (purpose) rather than try to change existing ones.
- As a college student, how do I advise leaders to join me?
- Point to resources and concepts
- Most powerful way is to humbly say, “I’ve been out doing this and this is what has happened. Would you like to be a part of it?”
- Fruit speaks for itself.
- How do I do this in a church that’s older?
Lets get better together. Let this be leaven. Help us recruit into our staff with their spheres of influence.
