I was having a conversation yesterday with someone about the lack of disciple making in new churches and in established churches. It seems that many church leaders know how to implement small groups and preach sermons but few know how to make and model disciple making on a personal level.
The reason I was talking about this is because I am beginning work on an eBook about the path to making disciples. I want to encourage Christians that they can make a disciple in the next 12 months who will make a new disciple in the next 24 months. I’ll share more details soon on the blog (I’ve already share the details to my newsletter contacts).
But in the meantime, my friend J.D. Payne has written an eBook on discipleship and church planting that is a great resource.
J. D. is a National Missionary with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and an Associate Professor of Church Planting and Evangelism in the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A. where he directs the Center for North American Missions and Church Planting.
I love J. D.’s definition of church planting: “Biblical church planting is evangelism that results in new churches”. (For my particular focus, I might modify the definition to “Biblical church planting is intentional disciple making that results in new churches”.)
J. D. has written a number of other books on evangelism and church planting. All of his books come highly recommended and I can personally say that his book Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the Whats, Whys, and Hows of Global Church Planting is the best on the subject.
So, that brings us to his present work entitled Discipleship In Church Planting: Some Guidelines to Move Us Forward. This eBook is only 55 pages long and it’s free so there’s no excuse not to read it.
Discipleship in Church Planting “provides some guidelines for church planters to establish healthy approaches for teaching new believers to obey all that Jesus commanded. Chapters include:
- Set the Example
- Keep It Simple
- Begin at the Individual Level
- Teach Obedience
- Teach Healthy Disciplines as Soon as Possible
- Return Them to the Field Immediately.
Each chapter concludes with several questions to guide teams in their conversations regarding the approaches they will use for discipleship training.
If you’ve read my blog very long you will recognize that J. D. and I think a lot alike (or, more accurately, that I think a lot like J. D.). For that reason, I highly recommend that you download this eBook right now as a PDF file or as a Kindle or ePub file. J. D. is keeping this as a free resource but asks that you consider subscribing to his blog (you should be subscribed to his blog already) and share this resource with three friends.
I’ll help you out on that last request, just retweet or share the following:
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/nathancreitz/status/131714566638931968″]
