Contagious Disciple Making: Leading Others on a Journey of Discovery - Softcover

Watson, David; Watson, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0529112205 ISBN 13: 9780529112200

Verlag: Thomas Nelson, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

It is hard to deny that today’s world can seem apathetic toward Christians. Some may look down at their iPhones when we mention God, motion for the check when we bring up church, or casually change the subject when we talk about prayer. In a world full of people whose indifference is greater than their desire to know Christ, how can we dream of growing the church?

In Contagious Disciple Making, David Watson and Paul Watson map out a simple method that has sparked an explosion of homegrown churches in the United States and around the world. A companion to Cityteam's two previous books, Miraculous Movements and The Father Glorified, Contagious Disciple Making details the method used by Cityteam disciple-makers. This distinctive process focuses on equipping spiritual leaders in communities where churches are planted. Unlike many evangelism and church-growth products that focus on quick results, contagious disciple-making takes time to cultivate spiritual leadership, resulting in lasting disciple-making movements. Through Contagious Disciple Making readers will come to understand that a strong and equipped leader will continue to grow the church long after church planters move on to the next church.

Features include:

• Engagement tools for use in the field
• Practical techniques to equip others to make disciples

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Watson serves the global church through Cityteam Ministries as the VP for Global Disciple-Making. He is also actively involved in mentoring the next generation of Disciple-Making strategists. Since 1989, Watson has been involved with movements that have seen 100,000 churches started, and he has trained more than 30,000 leaders from 167 nations.

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Contagious Disciple-Making

By David L. Watson, Paul D. Watson

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2014 David L. Watson and Paul D. Watson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-529-11220-0

Contents

Introduction, xi, 
PART 1 THE MIND-SET OF A DISCIPLE-MAKER, 1, 
Chapter 1 Disciple-Makers Embrace Lessons Taught by Failure, 3, 
Chapter 2 Disciple-Makers Deculturalize, Not Contextualize, the Gospe, l9, 
Chapter 3 Disciple-Makers Plant the Gospel Rather than Reproduce Their Religion, 19, 
Chapter 4 Disciple-Makers Realize How Hard Completing the Great Commission Will Be for Strategies and Organizations Built Around Branded Christianity, 23, 
Chapter 5 Disciple-Makers Realize the Structure of the Community Determines the Strategy Used to Make Disciples, 29, 
Chapter 6 Disciple-Makers Realize Their Culture and Religious Experience Can Negatively Influence Their Disciple-Making Unless They Are Very Careful, 35, 
Chapter 7 Disciple-Makers Understand the Importance of Obedience, 39, 
Chapter 8 Disciple-Makers Make Disciples, Not Converts, 47, 
Chapter 9 Disciple-Makers Understand the Importance of the Priesthood of the Believer, 51, 
PART 2 PRACTICES OF A DISCIPLE-MAKER, 57, 
Chapter 10 Thinking Strategically and Tactically About Disciple-Making, 59, 
Chapter 11 Be a Disciple Who Makes Disciples, 65, 
Chapter 12 Prayer, 79, 
Chapter 13 Engage Lost People, 105, 
Chapter 14 Finding a Person of Peace, 123, 
Chapter 15 Discovery Groups, 141, 
Chapter 16 Establishing Churches, 157, 
Chapter 17 Leadership, 173, 
Chapter 18 Mentoring, 203, 
Afterword, 233, 
Appendix, 235, 
Notes, 237, 

CHAPTER 1

DISCIPLE-MAKERS EMBRACE LESSONS TAUGHT BY FAILURE

I (David) participated in the meeting where the term Church—Planting Movement was coined. We—a group of mission practitioners and strategists—wanted to describe what we had observed in several countries as we took seriously our understanding of the Great Commission's charge to go and make disciples of all peoples, baptize them into local churches, and teach them to obey all the commands of Christ.

None of us, in our wildest dreams, ever thought we would witness what happened. Initially, our goals were to establish "beachhead" churches in resistant or inaccessible locations and people groups. We planned on establishing a single church where there was none. We had no plans for starting hundreds or thousands of churches. We didn't even dream it was possible to see that many churches started in the places where we worked. These places we were targeting had already demonstrated their resistance to the Gospel, to church planting, and to any other outside influence. We just did everything we could think of in hopes that something would work and at least one church would start. We defined success as one church started in a people group where there was none.

As one of the first in my denomination to take on this challenge, I had no clue how to make it happen. My wife and I were considered successful church planters because we took risks and tried new things. And, perhaps most important, because we were not afraid of failure. When we failed, we just tried something else.

Our organization trained us in good research skills. We discussed access and evangelism techniques. We developed prayer networks, security protocols, and communication and administration systems. As a result of research, I knew reaching the new people group could not depend on me, because I did not have access. This people group would not respond to outsiders because their history was full of wars resisting outside influence. What was I to do?

God taught me, through many failures, that I had to focus on making disciples of Christ, not followers of my church or denomination. He also taught me that I needed to teach these disciples to obey the commands of Jesus, not my church/denom-inational doctrines or traditions. This is what led to the breakthrough that resulted in more than eighty thousand churches among a people considered unreachable.

Initially, the term Church-Planting Movement meant "spontaneous churches starting without the missionary's direct involvement." Over time, my teammates and I decided to quantify and qualify the term to be a bit more specific for the church planters we trained, coached, and mentored. We defined a Church-Planting Movement as an indigenously led Gospel-planting and obedience-based discipleship process that resulted in a minimum of one hundred new locally initiated and led churches, four generations deep, within three years. Paul and I will go into greater detail about all the elements of this definition later. At the time of this writing, there are sixty-eight movements among people groups around the world.

As more and more leaders became practitioners of the methodologies that lead to a CPM, they had a couple of observations. First, they realized people have different definitions of church. In some cases, people became angry because what we reported as a church did not match their definition of one. The word church did not communicate what we thought it would. People challenged our practitioners, saying, "Jesus said He would build the church. Why do you have people focused on doing something Jesus said He would do?" These were good observations, and we needed to address them.

After a lot of conversations, we decided to use the term Disciple-Making Movement, or DMM, to describe our role in God's redemptive work. There is no doubt that we have a role. Matthew 28:16–20, the Great Commission, tells us to make disciples. The implication is that these disciples would also make disciples, and so on.

As believers obey Christ, they are to train men and women to be Contagious Disciple-Makers who pray, engage lost communities, find Persons of Peace (the ones God has prepared to receive the Gospel in a community for the first time), help them discover Jesus through Discovery Groups (an inductive group Bible study process designed to take people from not knowing Christ to falling in love with Him), baptize new believers, help them become communities of faith called church, and mentor emerging leaders. All of these very intentional activities catalyze Disciple-Making Movements. Jesus works through His people as they obey His Word, a Disciple-Making Movement becomes a Church-Planting Movement, and Jesus gets the glory for everything.

Many people use the term Church-Planting Movement or Disciple-Making Movement to describe or justify what they do. But on closer examination, Paul and I find that many groups who use one of these terms simply apply it to what they have always done. In our experience, a CPM is the result of obedience-based discipleship that sees disciples reproducing disciples, leaders reproducing leaders, and churches reproducing churches—in other words, a Disciple-Making Movement. If these things are not happening, it is not a CPM.

True DMM methodology is about being disciplined in educating, training, and mentoring people to obey all the commands of Jesus, regardless of consequences. The results are not quick. They only appear to be so because of exponential growth. When we truly engage in the process that leads to an observable DMM, we typically spend two to four years discipling and developing leaders. But because of the replication process due to leaders being taught to obey God's Word by making disciples and teaching them to obey, in this same two to four years as many as five more leaders emerge. These...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Thomas Nelson
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0529112205
• ISBN 13: 9780529112200
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: HarperCollins Publishers; enquiries@harpercollins.ie; ; Fullham Palace Road 77-85; London; W6 JB; Vereinigtes Königreich