The church is in need of major renovation when it comes to making disciples. The concept of making disciples to follow the Lord Jesus Christ seems completely foreign to the church today. In order to achieve the desired goal of making disciples for Christ, training others to go out and proclaim gospel, and helping others to train people to disciple one another, one needs to go back to foundation of the Word of God. It is in God’s Word where multiple examples are found of how to make disciples to follow Jesus Christ. It is my desire to see more people in the church have a passion for discipleship. Therefore, this paper will examine in detail how to make disciples in a ministry context. This will be accomplished by examining the 5 V’s of discipleship—vision, values, views, vehicles, and verifiers. It is my purpose to examine each area in order to have a detailed plan of discipleship that will be used in my own ministry context to make disciples for Christ. I hope that this plan can and will be used to train others in the church to make disciples, and disciple one another, for the glory of God.
Vision
I pastor a church in a rural town with the population less than 2,500. When you think of being a pastor, you have a big vision. You want the church that is large, great youth ministry, and people coming to faith in Christ each service. However, most pastors do not encounter this reality, and it can be damaging to have such a vision. My vision for the church and my ministry is
Making disciples is the overarching purpose of the church. However, many churches struggle with understanding and fulfilling the true meaning of Christian discipleship in individuals’ lives. This writing assignment will attempt to expound on several significant aspects of discipleship. The importance of the centrality of Jesus Christ to Christian discipleship will be detailed. Also, obedience to the directives of Christ and submission of particular areas of one’s life will be outlined. Finally, the three stages of discipleship according to Dave Earley and Rod Dempsy will be delineated and expanded upon.
Discipleship is about engaging in the Word, following and obeying Jesus and going out to make disciples. An essential element in being a disciple is to be open to learning, to be teachable. It is a mindset to be continuously adopted and cultivated. For us to disciple others, we must be a better disciple ourselves. When making disciples, we are instructing others to be willing to be a discoverer. It applies to both spiritual growth as well as personal development, openness to new techniques, ideas and methods in all aspects of life. Our spiritual learning comes from delving into His
While the goal of Christian education and discipleship is spiritual formation of the new believer into a true disciple who makes other true disciples, this concept has been watered down in the American church today by emphasis on programs instead of progressive spiritual growth in every member’s life. There are many
A church whose pastor and others in leadership have failed to put in place a proactive plan for discipleship for Believers is usually a “growing” church — growing stagnant, growing cold, growing spiritually immature Christians, and eventually, many growing closed. Patte said, “There is much at stake in accepting or rejecting the challenge of discipleship…” When a pastor or a church makes a conscious decision to make discipleship of Believers a primary focus in their
Discipleship students, or those who already have a faith commitment, tend to immediately join one of two categories. The first, or Stagnant, students are those who “made a decision to follow Christ at some time in life but never really grew in faith.” These students, from the outside, look very similar to the world as “the distinction between churched and unchurched students is rapidly shrinking.” These students require time to draw them into a
Often, pastors think within the four walls of the church, and rightfully so, when they look at their ministry. However, getting involved in community events, i.e., city commission meetings, business leaders, local stores, and business, etc., are important to change the culture around the church. Trull and Carter
It is not our goal to “trade” members neither with other churches nor to increase our membership by reaching disgruntled members of other churches. Our vision is to reach young people who may not have a “church” background, teach and train them, equip them, and qualify them to go out and win souls. We believe that by doing this, we will build a strong army who can take our community, state, and the world for Christ. We want to reach young people ages 10-18 in our community. According to Warren, “If you want to build a healthy, strong, and growing church you must spend time laying a solid foundation.”
The individuals that make up a church are builders. These builders have the ability, through Christ, to define, illustrate, measure, and discuss a ministry blueprint that will help bring clarity to their church’s ministry process. This process will not only help define what the goals of their church are, but also how to reach those goals. In addition to bringing clarity to the vision of the church, having this ministry blueprint in place will help the leaders in their church communicate and be understood even more effectively.
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers to equip his people for works of service, so the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
According to Early & Dempsey, “a disciple is a person, while discipleship is a process. A disciple is a passionate follower of Jesus Christ who is intimately involved in the mission of Christ. On the other hand, discipleship is the process of moving the disciple towards spiritual maturity and the mission of Christ. Being a disciple is God’s perfect will for every individual life; however, discipleship is God’s will for every individual church” [1]
So discipleship can be summed up; to follow, to learn, to preach, to believe, to serve. All factors are
A sentiment common to almost any organization is that the one fact that remains constant is change. As society changes, and human understanding grows, any organization that maintains a static posture, assures its demise. Churches and Christian organizations are no exception. The gospel may remain the same, but the method for communicating it must speak to the audience to assure understanding. The Christian leader must be prepared to meet this challenge by incorporating an effective model for change into his theology of leadership in order to keep the ministry relevant and effective. Searching for such a change agent can prove to be challenging as well. To aid in this search, four
Christ is the leader of the Church, Paul in Ephesians 1:22 said “God placed everything under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church” however, God entrusted the authority to lead to his servant whom he set them aside to lead the community. Pastor as a public Leadership is to lead community. A person who is called by God to lead public has a responsibility to be in the community, with the community and for the community. One of best questions raised in the class during public leadership discussion was “How we can be a community pastor rather than just a church pastor?” This really a kind of question we are to consider as pastor especially as rural congregation pastor. In most cases when pastor are called to
This course has had a great impact on my walk with Christ as well as my witness for Christ. I pastor a church and teach two classes and for me I thought that I was doing plenty. However this course has helped rekindle my passion for sharing Jesus Christ with people through personal evangelism. This paper will demonstrate what I have learned throughout this course.
Furthermore, it is vitally crucial for the church leadership to clearly articulate its missional vision, which is to be embraced by the rest of the church’s community. The process of spiritual transformation starts from the invitation and continues through engagement and discipleship. This transformational process embodies the missional vision and the language for 'right now ' and 'here '. Surely, the church’s vision ought to be aligned with the missional attributes of the gospel itself, which are 'the good news is for everyone ' and 'belonging before believing '. Our witness should take place amidst relationship and listening. One principle that I consider to be exceptionally useful in my community is St. Patrick’s idea of Celtic Evangelism: establish community, engage in conversation, and invite commitment (2009, 101).