Jesus’ Model for Making Disciples

Don’t Waste Your Time With 1-On-1 Discipleship

Don’t Waste Your Time with 1-on-1 Discipleship. Start a D-Group to Maximize your Investment Now that I have your attention, let me say that one-on-one discipleship is not a waste of time. However, there is a better way to invest your chronological clout. Anyone in business will tell you that the secret to success is working smarter, not just harder – because investing your time and resources in the right areas will yield the biggest returns. Solomon, King David’s son, was a financial genius: the Warren Buffett of his day. Twenty-five hundred years before Wall Street ever existed, he advocated the diversification of assets (Ecclesiastes 11:1-2). Wise people do not invest all of their funds in one stock for fear of losing their entire life savings, should the company collapse. Instead, good stewards invest in a variety of stocks, bonds, and commodities. The same can be said of your time. It’s precious. You only have so many hours each week to devote to discipleship, so invest in the right areas. After a decade of discipling, critiquing, evaluating, and implementing discipleship groups in various contexts and churches, I have identified 8 convincing reasons to start a D-group of 3 to 5 instead of one-on-one. Read More

On Sunday, I continued our sermon series on 1 John that we are calling Reality Check. < p>Many of the polls today suggest that one-third of Americans claim to be born again believers. Church attendance may cause you to celebrate thinking that Christianity is alive and well in our country. But if you probe a little further, you realize that the numbers are partly right. David Wells in his booklet, The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church, took the poll and added a few questions to the question “Are you born again?” for Clarification. He also asked, “Do you go to church with some regularity, do you pray with some regularity, and do you have some minimal structure of formal Christian belief?” The Number of people claiming to be born again Christians Dropped from 32 percent to 8 percent. Wells speculated, based on research, that if you added a few more basic questions (such as, “Are you regenerate?”) the numbers would drop to 1 or 2 percent. Read More

[leadplayer_vid id="51B3D90FEFE17"] Group Size What was Jesus's preferred discipleship group size? He ministered in 3 different group sizes. Do you know what they are? The Bible records that Jesus ministered to 3 distinct groups: large groups, small groups, and a group of three. Jesus’s Large group ministry consisted of speaking to crowds as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the multitudes of 5,000 and 4,000 who were fed on the hillside. Additionally, A group of 120 believers claimed allegiance to Jesus after his death (Acts 1), and we know of seventy-two whom were sent out during His earthly ministry (Luke 10). Read More

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Jesus’ Model for Making Disciples

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