Next time your people meet to dig into discipleship or leadership development, try this. Break people into groups of three. Then give one person the floor for thirty minutes to talk about they’re experiencing God and what they’re hearing from him. The other two people...
Today’s entry is by guest blogger Dr. Charles Ridley, co-author with me on The Discipleship Difference and professor of educational psychology at Texas A&M University. When Barack Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States, pundits took to...
Two characters, Rob and Jim, from my latest book discuss the issue of holistic discipleship as they try to lay out what the behavior of a disciple looks like in everyday life. How would you draw the diagram they’re talking through? Rob created a diagram of...
Those of you who know me know I love biking. Recently I was riding my bike on a nice large street. It wasn’t even crowded. So I was shocked when a pickup truck passed me 25 feet before an intersection and proceeded to turn right directly in front of me. I started...
The essence of discipleship is “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt 28:20a). It’s not just about teaching knowledge, but about teaching obedience so people can live into what Jesus taught and how he lived. That’s the...
Pastors and leaders have some unique challenges and struggles. But what isn’t unique is the basic Christian lifestyle that Jesus calls all believers toward. The vast majority of biblical injunctions are for all of us, not just leaders. Leaders have some additional...
One pastor was doing a post-mortem on his latest discipleship class. “It just isn’t working,” he told a friend. “I’m not getting the results I was hoping for.” “What results were you hoping for?” asked the friend. No wonder we often don’t get the results we want…....
As someone who has been in ministry in one way or another for over 35 years, I noticed a gap in the field recently. We have assessments for leaders, pastors, and church planters, but how do we know if someone is a disciple? That’s really the starting point and...
Many years ago when I was discipling a man at my church, I had a clear plan for how discipleship should go. We were scheduled to be doing the section on prayer, but the man wanted to talk about a specific idol in his life. It completely derailed my discipleship plan,...
