Learn from Sonlife/Like Jesus Initiative

July 2, 2019

by Discipleship.org Partner

We want you to meet Dann Spader, the Founder of both Sonlife Ministries and Global Youth Initiative.

We want to help you find the best disciple-making guides, and that’s why we’re continuing to introduce these partners to you.

Here’s what Dann said about his ministry in our interview with him:

Tell us about the name of your ministry.

The Like Jesus Initiative is a digital platform developed to help churches to live like Jesus and create a culture of disciple making. The tool has been developed in partnership with Sonlife Ministries.

The name Sonlife has always stood for a passion to learn the Son’s Life and live it out in the context of the local church.

What is your unique disciple-making emphasis?

Sonlife Ministries grew out of an extensive study of Christ’s life chronologically, analyzing how Jesus not only made disciple makers, but how He created a movement of multiplying disciples.

We primarily teach a biblical philosophy of disciple making rooted in the life of Christ. Believing you can teach disciple making and miss Jesus, we choose to teach clearly the life of Jesus so that you cannot miss disciple making.

It has been our experience that this approach leads to disciple making as a way of life, not just a method or strategy. If disciple making is strongly rooted in Christ’s life… it becomes very transferable and cross cultural.

It is also our experience that because Jesus is such a deep well, you never tire of Him and will always learn more about how He made disciples. Disciple making becomes a way of life and the way to “walk as Jesus walked”. By always teaching Jesus as our model for life and ministry, our love for Jesus as the master disciple maker always grows.

How do you help everyday disciples who aspire to be disciple makers?

While training the 350 staff of a mega church in Louisville KY, we worked hard to develop resources to help the thousands of lay people “walk as Jesus walked” (I John 2:6). In this process, we developed three key study resources focusing on the “Mission, Model and Methods” of Jesus.

With the ability to preach these concepts, study them personally, and discuss them in small groups, we have found a slow but biblical way to create a disciple-making culture.

These resources have been developed alongside of a world class digital platform designed to provide church wide metrics, small group videos and application, and an inexpensive way to expose your whole church to the concepts. For more information visit LikeJesus.church.

Who are the key leaders in your network?

Sonlife grew out of a local church and is now led by Doug Holiday. Global Youth Initiative is the International Alliance of leaders around the globe committed to the Son’s Life as the model for disciple making.

Dann Spader is providing leadership for the Like Jesus Initiative and also as the founder of GYI which has now grown to 137 countries globally.

Dave Patty of Josiah Venture leads Eastern/Central Europe; Bill Hodgson of Shift M2M leads Australia and Western Europe, Andrew Tay of Intentional Disciplemaking Network leads SE Asia and China, John Abrahamse leads J-Life Africa, Abraham Sahu leads India, Mark Edwards leads Sonlife Central and South America, and Mike Harder serves as the new Executive Director of GYI.