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120 pages

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For many people, church is there to meet their needs--with programs designed with them in mind. Strategic Disciple Making teaches these churchgoers to develop a servant's heart. Readers will discover that they control the destiny of their church. If they seek personal contentment, they must grow as disciples, and church expert Aubrey Malphurs explains the true meaning of the word.This refreshing resource offers a radical "how-to" for renewing faltering faith. It is perfect for burned-out ministers and downcast church leaders who want a more authentic discipleship experience.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 janvier 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781585588961
Langue	English

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S TRATEGIC DISCIPLE MAKING
S TRATEGIC D ISCIPLE M AKING
A P RACTICAL T OOL for S UCCESSFUL M INISTRY
AUBREY MALPHURS
2009 by Aubrey Malphurs
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malphurs, Aubrey.
Strategic disciple making : a practical tool for successful ministry / Aubrey Malphurs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8010-9196-4 (pbk.) 1. Discipling (Christianity) I. Title. BV4520.M34 2009 253-dc22
2008038690
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
C ONTENTS
Introduction
Part 1 The Preparation for Making Mature Disciples
1. What Are We Supposed to Be Doing? The Church s Mission
2. How Are We Doing? The Current State of Disciple Making
3. What Are We Talking About? The Definition of Disciple Making
4. Whose Job Is It? The Responsibility for Making Disciples
5. How Did Jesus Make Disciples? Biblical Disciple Making, Part 1
6. How Did the Church Make Disciples? Biblical Disciple Making, Part 2
Part 2 The Process for Making Mature Disciples
7. How Would We Know a Mature Disciple If We Saw One? The Characteristics of a Mature Disciple
8. How Do Churches Make Mature Disciples? The Church s Ministries for Discipleship
9. Are You Making Disciples? Measuring Mature Disciples
10. How to Recruit the Right Staff Staffing for the Development of Mature Disciples
11. How to Prepare a Strategic Budget Budgeting for the Development of Mature Disciples
Appendix A Pastoral Care and the Role of the Pastor
Appendix B What Did Jesus Mean in Matthew 28:19-20 When He Commanded His Church to Make Disciples?
Appendix C Sample Maturity Matrix
Appendix D Survey Questions
Appendix E Character Assessments
Appendix F Ministry Description
Appendix G Relational Skills Inventory
Appendix H Task Skills Inventory
Notes
I NTRODUCTION
Why have I written this book? What were the seeds that germinated this plant? It began with my passion for the Great Commission, specifically Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus says to the Twelve, Make disciples! This is Jesus s marching orders for his church. Most would agree that this is one passage of several that addresses the mission of the church. But what does it mean? To take seriously and obey Christ s command to make disciples, we must understand what it means or we re flying in the dark. Churches that don t understand Matthew s version of Jesus s Great Commission are much like an oceangoing vessel that is plowing through fog-enshrouded, iceberg-infested waters without navigation equipment.
For much of my life as a Christian, I have either attended or pastored what is known in some areas of the country as a Bible church. And most traditional Bible churches have interpreted Matthew 28:19-20 to mean that the church s mission is to teach the Bible-to make disciples simply means to teach people the Bible. I was told, If you preach and teach the Bible, everything else will fall into place. But this has not proved true.
So what does the Great Commission mean? The real problem in the Matthew passage is the term disciple . What is a disciple? Ask most Christians who regularly attend a church, or even a class of seminary students who are preparing to be pastors, and you ll get a variety of answers. By the way, how would you answer the question?
While my passion for Jesus s Great Commission motivated the writing of this work, God used a recent experience to urge me to do it now. One of my fellow faculty members at Dallas Seminary who teaches a class on biblical discipleship was out of town. Rather than cancel the class, he invited two other people and me, knowing of my interest in the topic, to address his class. One of the other speakers was a young man who was involved in discipling several committed men in his church. The other was a local pastor s wife who had a passion for discipling some of the women in her church.
I was excited about the opportunity and presented first. The content consisted mostly of the material in this book, shoehorned into a five-minute presentation. When I sat down, I noticed that the man and woman were not smiling and both were staring at the floor to avoid eye contact with me. After I heard their presentations, I understood why. Our views of discipleship were polar opposites.
A Quiz
Before you read any further, take the following quiz and see how you do. Determine whether the following six statements are true or false.
1. The only way to disciple a person is for a gifted, mature Christian to work one-on-one with a believer who desires to grow in Christ.
2. A disciple is a Christian, but a Christian may not be a disciple.
3. Discipleship is only one of several key ministries in the church.
4. The church should focus primarily on discipling those who are serious about Christianity.
5. Discipleship involves the edification of the saints not the evangelism of sinners.
6. Discipleship is best accomplished by a few in the church who are trained to disciple those who are serious about their commitment to Christ.
The answer to all the above questions is false.
So how did you do? Have I piqued your curiosity? Have I upset you? Perhaps you re shaking your head in disagreement. Or maybe you re nodding your head in agreement. Regardless of your response, read on!
The Question
Whether or not you concur with my answers to the quiz, I m sure you would agree that every church should have a simple, clear pathway for making authentic disciples. So the question is, Does your church have such a strategy in place? Does it have a game plan for making disciples? 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? What would be the first step? And what would be the second? My experience is that most churches either wouldn t have an answer or wouldn t have a clear answer, because most church leaders simply aren t thinking that way. I m convinced, however, that such a response can change so that our churches have a biblical, Christ-honoring answer and thus have a greater impact in the twenty-first century.
This Book Is for You!
I wrote this book for anyone in Christ s church who takes seriously Christ s Great Commission to make disciples. This would include senior pastors, pastors of small churches, executive pastors, other church staff, governing boards, congregants, consultants, professors, and denominational executives. I believe that all are responsible for being a part of the discipleship process if a church is going to obey the Savior. The church s success depends on those who own and implement Jesus s mission for our church.
Where Am I Going?
I have divided this book into two parts. Part 1 prepares the reader for making mature disciples and prepares the way for part 2. Part 1 addresses the church s disciple making mission, the current state of church discipleship, and the definitions of disciple and discipleship ; it asks who is responsible for making disciples in the church; it presents Jesus s message and methods for making disciples; and it covers the church s message and methods for making disciples in the first century. Part 2 presents the process for making mature disciples. Using a tool I call the Maturity Matrix, it addresses the characteristics of a mature disciple, the ministries for making disciples, how to measure the church s disciple making efforts, and how to use the Maturity Matrix to recruit staff and develop the budget.
The Value of the Maturity Matrix
There are five ways that the matrix will have value for you and your church.
1. Most importantly, it will guide you as you design a simple, clear strategy, process, or pathway for developing authentic disciples in your church.
2. It will help you understand your current process for making or attempting to make disciples.
3. It will enable you to analyze, critique, and recritique your process. What are its strengths and weaknesses? What is sound and what needs to be shored up?
4. It will assist you in developing your disciple making process. You will address the question: Now that we have critiqued our process, how can we as a church improve our disciple making?
5. It will enable you to understand other churches disciple making processes. You can place what they are doing on the matrix, and it will help you analyze and comprehend their processes. Often an understanding of other processes will aid you in improving your own process.
The Context
One of the first principles of good Bible study is to interpret a biblical passage in its context. This principle teaches that context is important. That is true for any topic, including this book. So what s the context for this book? It is strategic envisioning (planning). I argue that the way a church makes disciples is vital to how it does strategic planning. I wrote Advanced Strategic Planning 1 to help churches in general and their leaders in particular think and act strategically. This does not involve mimicking some church model, which seldom works, but working one s way through Christ s church-building process (see Matt. 16:18), which consists of touching four bases.
The first base is to discover the ministry s core values so that it knows why it does what it does or does not do what it should do (such as make disciples). Core