Disciple Making Archives - Helping Churches Thrive

Why We Must Get Disciple-Making Back Into The Christian Life

Here’s what I’m concerned about… In the New Testament, sharing one’s faith, personal efforts to make disciples by individual disciples, is the norm: Jesus wasted no time in sending the twelve, and then the seventy, into Judea and Galilee. As busy as he was, Jesus regularly modeled personal disciple-making for his 12 men-in- training (John…

Ten Questions To Identify Your Church’s Actual Mission

Does your church have a mission statement? If it’s an evangelical church, it probably does. What does it say? More than likely, it says something to the effect of: “We exist to make disciples” – defined as growing, devoted followers of Jesus. Writing a mission statement is a “slam dunk” because this imperative is so…

The Church In Motion

The following is a sermon which I’ve preached in many churches. I turned it into this article for the Spring, 2021 edition of Revitalizer magazine. Like most couples who’ve been married for a long time, Donna and I are very much alike in some ways and yet still very different in other ways. On our…

Five Observations About The Turn Inward

Sometimes a wrong turn can be tragic, sending a ship to the bottom of the sea, a motorist onto the wrong lane of the highway or a passenger jet onto the wrong runway. In churches it’s often the turn inward which sends the congregation on a one way journey to obscurity. Here are five…

What’s the Church for anyway?

About twenty years ago I thought we finally had it right. My own enlightenment came through Sonlife Ministy’s Dann Spader: The church is for making disciples out of the raw material of lost people. This involves winning the lost, building up the believer and equipping the worker. Refreshing. Challenging. Simple. Biblical. Unarguable. Or so I…

QUICK GUIDE – Is My Church A Healthy Church?

A Worksheet For Individual Or Group Use 1. What is a healthy church? Why do we have differing opinions on this? Because it’s a theological (ecclesiological) question. Your theology of the church determines your definition of a healthy church. Common views from a couple of decades ago: “A healthy church is a church that’s getting…

Falling In Love With Our Communities

Isn’t it amazing what love can do to a normal human being? Take the 16 or 17 year old guy. His whole life has been about himself. He’s never done anything very unselfish, let along sacrificical, nor has he given any lavish gifts to anyone. And then SHE comes along! He’s head over heels in…

QUICK GUIDE – Discipleship Pathways – Strategies For Discipling

Increasing numbers of evangelical church leaders believe in “intentional disciple-making.” This means having a plan, a system, a process for bringing new believers to maturity in Christ. We encourage every church to decide on a discipleship pathway for their own congregation. It may be very imperfect, but an imperfect discipleship pathway is far better than none…

Prepping Your Church For The Next Pandemic

Something strange is happening in our basements. The world has become so weird and scary that a lot of people who hate buying groceries – and formerly laughed at the crazy doomsday peppers – are beginning to squirrel away food in their basements. It goes without saying that the COVID pandemic and all that it…

Prepping Your Church For The Next Pandemic, Part Two

Our disasters are not without their value if they help us to get ready for the next “go round.” I didn’t have flight insurance. They canceled my flight because they didn’t have enough passengers. I lost my money and had to drive to a more distant airport. Next time, I’ll be ready. Last week I…

Your Church Can Be Irresistible

“What the world needs now, is love, sweet love. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” What the World Needs Now Is Love, Hal David and Burt Bacharach, 1965 America is stressed to the max. You don’t need me to flesh this out for you; you’re seeing it and experiencing it every…

Your Church Can Be Irresistible, Part Two

“I have yet to meet the church member who didn’t think that their church was the friendliest congregation in town.” Howard Hendricks “People today are not looking for friendly churches, they’re looking for FRIENDS in churches.” Anonymous Last week I wrote about how church members can make their congregations irresistible by offering their fellow attendees the…

Even Larger Churches Can Offer The Welcome Of God

(Your Church Can Be Irresistible, Part Three) “People today are not looking for friendly churches, they’re looking for FRIENDS in churches.” Anonymous I’ve been writing about how church members can make their congregations irresistible – very attractive – by offering the welcome of God. Click here for Your Church Can Be Irresistible and Your Church Can…

Four Opportunities For The New Year

“The secret of the Christian life is a series of new beginnings” George Sweeting In my home area of northwestern Wisconsin there is a village which is prospering and attractive. It’s not my home-town, I’m sorry to say, it’s ten miles up the road. Back during my adolescent years, my village was prospering and the…

Five Reasons Why We Must Storm The Gates

Before Jesus gave his disciples the New Commandment (John 13:34,35) or the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), he pronounced the Great Prediction of Matthew 16:18 (NIV): “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” There’s no actual command here. …

How We Can Storm The Gates Of Hades

‘Need something exciting to do? Does your church need an exhilarating new mission or purpose? How about “storming the gates of hades,” a phrase used by Jesus in connection with his first mention of the church? Here’s Matthew 16:18 (NIV) in its entirety: “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock…

More Great Ways To Storm The Gates Of Hades

In a post worship service discussion, a member of my congregation took me to task for comparing churches to support groups. What I meant was that as Christians in churches, we support and encourage each other as we go through life. What she heard, however – and, of course, every attendee hears a slightly different sermon…

Three Reasons To Not Bring Your Politics To Work

“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may…

Three Dangers In Mixing Politics And Religion

It’s easy to mix a little politics in with our Christianity. As evangelicals, we avoid the old “social gospel” like the plague, as well we should. The social gospel is what the Apostle Paul would call, “another gospel which is not another,” (Galatians 1:6) for it confuses the good news that Christ came to die…

Book Review: I Once Was Lost

Delightful. That’s my one word review of the book by Presbyterian pastor Don Everts and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship coordinator, Doug Schaupp (IVP Books). The two have extensive experience in leading college-age postmodern skeptics to faith in Christ; more than two thousand of them, in fact. Their book is based on a great deal of listening…

Four Ways Great Churches Keep It Simple

“Out of complexity, find simplicity.” Albert Einstein Not everything in life is simple, of course. There’s doing your taxes. Or getting your new computer up and running. Sigh. But the longer I live, the more I value the genius and the hard work which it takes to arrive at the elegant simplicity that is on…