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MalStra 10-01-014 |
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Strategic Disciple
Making A
Practical Tool for Successful Ministry Aubrey
Malphurs BakerBooks, 2009, 182 pp. ISBN 978-0-8010-9196-4 |
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Aubrey Malphurs is
professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary. He is also a church consultant who has
written several helpful books on doing church. This book on disciple making includes
considerable biblical examination and describes a classic program approach to
making disciples. Introduction “If a new Christian visited your church and asked
you or someone in the church how you would help him or her to grow as one of
Christ’s disciples, what would your answer be?” (8) [This is a very good
question – one we should be asking ourselves. Dlm] Part 1.
The Preparation for Making Mature Disciples Chapter 1. What Are We Supposed
to Be Doing? The Church’s Mission “More than two thousand years ago, the Savior
predetermined the church’s mission.
It’s the Great Commission as found in such texts as Matthew 28:19-20;
Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-49: John 20:21; and Acts 1:8.” (13) “Few churches seem to value evangelism, and not
much of it is taking place as it was earlier.
In fact, evangelism seems to be a dying value in far too many churches
in the twenty-first century.” (15) “I would argue from a theological perspective
that the church’s worship of God is one of five functions of the church
(worship, fellowship, biblical instruction, evangelism, and service) that
come under the church’s mission. But
worship is not the church’s sole
mission.” (15) Observations about the Great Commission. It is addressed to the disciples. It is an imperative, Christ’s mandate to
the church. It emphasizes
evangelism. It is a command to
go. It extends to all nations. There are no geographical limitations. (17) The Great Commission includes both evangelism and
spiritual growth. Jesus is clear. “He expects his entire church (not simply a
few passionate disciple makers) to move people along a maturity or
disciple-making continuum from pre-birth (unbelief) to the new birth (belief)
and then to maturity. …we can measure a church’s spiritual health and its
ultimate success by its obedience to the Great Commission.” (19) 2. How Are We Doing? The Current
State of Disciple Making Not very well. 3. What Are We Talking
About? The Definition of Disciple Making The common view is that a disciple is a committed
believer. Malphurs
argues that a disciple is simply a believer.
There are not two classes of Christians. “The ultimate goal of the Great Commission
is to produce mature believers.” [I would
have said the goal of the Great Commission is to “disciple all the nations.” Dlm] The term discipleship describes the ongoing life
of a disciple, following the Savior and becoming more like him. (34) 4. Whose Job Is It? The Responsibility for Making
Disciples God’s role is to bring about growth (I Cor.
3:5-7). Scripture holds each disciple
responsible for the pursuit of discipleship.
And the church as a body is responsible for helping its people grow as
disciples. 5. How Did Jesus Make
Disciples? Biblical
Disciple Making, Part 1 Jesus worked with a narrow circle (the Twelve)
and a broader circle (the crowds). The
Twelve were divided into smaller groups, including an inner circle of Peter,
Andrew, James, and John. Jesus taught
the crowd to count the cost of becoming a follower. Among other things, He taught the disciples
to follow him, to serve, to obey, to deny ourselves and embrace his will for
us, to hold to his teachings, to love one another, to bear fruit, and to
engage in evangelism and disciple-making.
In the Gospels, Jesus was the primary disciple
maker. He preached, focused on a small
group, spent time alone with his inner circle, and counseled
individuals. It does not appear that
he disciple many, if any, individuals.
6. How Did the [Early] Church
Make Disciples? Biblical Disciple Making, Part 2 In the Gospels, Jesus’ message was for Israel but
when he commissioned the church he added the nations, including the Gentiles
and Samaritans. The disciples also
spoke to the crowds and to other disciples.
Paul’s epistles were addressed to the disciples in various local
churches. Throughout the Acts and the
Epistles they lived out Matthew 28:20: “teaching them to obey everything I
have commanded you.” The church’s missionaries taught the crowd how to
become believers/disciples. They
taught the disciples to follow in Jesus’ steps (in suffering in particular),
to serve each other and to serve others, to die to themselves and to embrace
His will for them. People can know
they are His disciples if they abide in his word, love other disciples, and
bear fruit. As a result they will
become fishers of men (disciple makers).
“Thus discipleship for the church continues to
follow the same pattern as discipleship in the Gospels. …discipleship was
both the mission and the very life of the church. It is not to be one of several programs of
the church; it is the program of
the church. All the activities and
programs of the church work together to make disciples.” (67) “One of my purposes for writing this book is
to encourage the approach of using mature believers to disciple the less
mature.” (71) Part 2.
The Process for Making Mature Disciples Chapter 7. How Would We Know a
Mature Disciple if We Saw One? The Characteristics of a Mature Disciple “The goal of a church’s ministry is to bring its
people to spiritual maturity, which, theologically, is the ultimate goal of
the Great Commission.” (77) “The church’s mission has always been and
will continue to be the Great Commission.” (78) Many leaders don’t know what a disciple looks
like. They don’t know how to make a
disciple or how to measure progress. A
group of leaders should develop a list of characteristics of a mature
disciple based on their knowledge of the New Testament. Then place these characteristics under two
to five headings. (e.g.
Worship, Fellowship, Biblical instruction, Evangelism, Service). Put these category titles in a mission
statement in a form that people can remember them. Here’s an example: “Our mission is to share Christ and build
believers. Believers display four
marks:
Chapter 8. How Do Churches Make
Mature Disciples? The
Church’s Ministries for Discipleship “It is your ministries and their sequencing that
make up your disciple-making pathway or game plan.” (87) “Every ministry must
have a clearly articulated purpose or end that answers the question, why are
we doing what we are doing? …it must have a clearly
understood and well-articulated purpose…and must in some way lead back to and
contribute to the church’s mission….” (88)
Churches have primary ministries and secondary
ministries. Every believer is expected
to participate in the primary ministries.
The idea is to move new people into the life of the church, embracing
all its primary ministries. All of the secondary ministries, not essential to
the church’s purpose, are electives.
These ministries are a distraction.
They add confusion and complexity.
They diffuse energy from the purpose and absorb staff and
funding. These should be eliminated,
minimized, or incorporated into the primary ministries. Design the disciple-making process in three
phases.
Chapter 9. Are You Making
Disciples? Measuring
Mature Disciples The strategy is to develop your characteristics
of maturity with your primary ministries.
Informal evaluation occurs all the time, often unknown to us. Visitors decide whether to return. Parents ask their children what they
learned. Unbelievers check out whether
the pastor is interesting, the people are friendly, and the kids are
safe. And so on. Deliberate evaluation serves several
purposes. What we measure tells people
what we expect and that’s what we tend to get. It encourages people to evaluate their
ministries. It affirms the importance
of ministries and those leading them.
It leads to improvement. And it provides the basis for important
ministry changes. You must decide who will lead the evaluation
process, whom will be evaluated, what will be evaluated, and how
frequently. Certainly the key people
involved in the disciple-making process must be evaluated to determine the
effectiveness of ministry. Evaluate clarity of the process, number of
committed people, and attainment of goals.
The primary statistics you need are attendance figures. Do people understand the process? Are they in the process? Ask them in interviews, focus groups and
surveys. Track the numbers. Check to see if you are meeting your
participation goals. [Some missional church books suggest we should be tracking
service activities in the community rather than attendance at church
events. I’m wondering if either of
these really helps us know whether people are becoming more like Jesus in
many aspects of their lives. Dlm] Chapter 10. How to Recruit the
Right Staff. Staffing for the Development of Mature Disciples “Your church is only as good as the people who
make up the team.” (119) The team
includes your board, staff and “a well-mobilized congregation.” Chapter 11. How to Prepare a
Strategic budget. Budgeting
for the Development of Mature Disciples “I believe a church that desires biblical
numerical growth…assigns a percentage of funds to four key areas: missions
and evangelism, personnel, programming, and facilities. All of these contribute in some way to fulfilling
the church’s mission and vision to make disciples.” [of
all nations dlm] “Both missions and evangelism should be
priorities of the church.” “…both
evangelism and missions are critical to any church that wants to live and
breathe disciple making.” (146) “People give to big, dynamic visions that, in
turn, produce passion that is vital to giving.” “To a certain degree, raising finances is a
measure of the church’s vision. People’s
giving response will often tell you something about the quality of your church’s
vision and the leader’s ability to cast that vision. The only way people can really know the
church’s vision is through the vision caster and how that person articulates
and frames it in the context of disciple making.” (149) [People tend to give to what church leaders
emphasize with the most frequency, clarity, vigor and genuine
enthusiasm. Therefore the income from
special offerings can reveal what is really most important to church vision
casters, something they may not even realize themselves. Dlm] “I strongly encourage churches to conduct regular
capital campaigns to fund special projects, such as missions giving, …. Though
missions should already be included in the budget, you would be wise to raise
additional support to expand your missions
network. In general, people support
and seem always to find more money for missions. [This gives rise to the temptation to raise
money for other ministries under the name
of missions. Dlm] Appendix B.
What Did Jesus Mean in Matthew 28:19-20 When He Commanded His Church
to Make Disciples? “…we must examine the main verb and its object
‘make disciples’ …. [It may make some difference that in the Greek, the main
verb is disciple (mathateusate) and the object is
nations (ethne).
Mathateusate panta
ta ethne. Literally, disciple all the nations. Dlm] Appendix D has a good list of survey
question. Appendix E has a good list
of character assessments. |
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