Dear Discipleship-first friends,
Are you looking for models of disciple making churches that you can learn from and imitate?
I have both the responsibility and honor of being the point leader for RENEW.org Network (which focuses on Jesus’ teachings) and Discipleship.org (which focuses on Jesus’ disciple making methods), two North American disciple making networks.
My short biography in the last fifteen years, given my roles, is that I have focused on learning everything I can about discipleship and disciple making from national and international leaders. I have then sought to put these learnings into practice personally (and in my church) and to publicly interview, promote, write on, and host conversations about what it means to lead disciple making churches, and especially what it means to renew Jesus’ teachings in the process (the focus of RENEW.org).
I am therefore often asked an important question: “Can you tell me the names and locations of the most effective disciple making churches in North America?”
It is a great question. But it is tricky.
How do you measure effectiveness? Are you looking for specific disciple making practices—or a disciple making culture? What size of church are you thinking about? Is it a small- or medium- or large-sized churches?
And everyone wants to know the answer to this question: What are the mega-churches that are the most effective disciple making churches?
So, to help answer these questions, RENEW.org and Discipleship.org are joining together—along with our many partner networks—to come up with a list of the top disciple making churches in North America.
In the future, we plan to publish the list so everyone can see—and learn from—the top disciple making churches that we find.
Will you help us find these churches? You can recommend a church, even your own church, by emailing mason@discipleship.org.
What should you look for? Here is a list of the ten character traits of a Reproducing Disciple Making church . . .
The following is a summary of “Level 4 disciple making” from our national survey which you can find HERE:
| The church is explicitly committed to disciple making as their core mission. |
| Disciple making is a core part of the cultural identity of the church; it is commonly understood that “this is what we do around here.” |
| The ministerial/pastoral leadership are each a) personally focused not just on making disciples, but on making disciple makers (of lay leaders) b) with at least 20-39% of their time spent personally training and equipping leaders to be disciples and make disciples (this is outside large services and gatherings). |
| 20-25% of adult members of the church are personally engaged in leadership roles in reproducing disciples (as leaders or apprentices). |
| The church regularly reproduces discipling groups (each group is coached to branch/start a new group). |
| The are several streams of disciple making activity in the church where groups have reproduced to four generations. |
| There is a joyful expectation that everyone in the church should be engaged in discipling relationships, with 75-80% of “the membership or those who make the church their home” actively and regularly engaged in discipling groups. |
| The church has a defined and effective disciple making system—simple, effective, and reproducible—that everyone understands and uses. |
| The church regularly witnesses at least a 1-in-20 baptism rate, where 1 person out of every 20 attendees has been baptized in the last twelve months. |
| The disciple making activities of the church result in planting new campuses or churches approximately every three years. |
If you know of a church that could match at least 7 of these character traits, please tell us right away by emailing the church name, senior minister/pastor, and website of that church to Mason@discipleship.org.
Or better yet, if you think that your church matches at least 7 of these character traits, take the five-minute inventory by following this link right now.
With your help, you can look for a newsletter coming from us, before too long, where you can read a list of effective disciple making churches and begin learning from them in your own disciple making journey.
For King Jesus,