DiscipleShift: Five Steps to Help Your Church Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (Zondervan/Exponential) by Jim Putman (with Robert Coleman and Bobby Harrington)! The signature book for Exponential ’13, DiscipleShift walks readers through five key “shifts” that churches must make to refocus on the biblical mission of discipleship:
From Reaching to Making
From Informing to Equipping
From Program to Purpose
From Activity to Relationship
From Accumulating to Deploying
In DiscipleShift, Putman, Robert Coleman (The Master Plan of Evangelism) and Bobby Harrington focus on discipleship as relationship versus information, using the Acts 2 church’s example of discipleship.
“In Acts 2, you see that the people lived in relationship,” Putman said in a Church Planter Weeklyinterview, “and in that relationship, they’re devoted to the apostles’ teaching, to breaking bread and fellowship, to caring for the hurting, even being willing to sell what they have and give it away. Jesus taught them to do all of these things. Live out that model, and you will see it actually works for all people in all cultures for all time.”
DiscipleShift goes beyond theory to equip and guide readers with practical counsel. The authors draw from real-life stories and examples of how relational discipleship is cultivated and passed on–and the potential impact on a church and community when a mature disciple of Jesus is discipled in relationship and goes on to disciple others the same way.
“Jesus discipled people in relationship, not in preaching to thousands of people,” Putman says. “We want the results of Jesus without using the methods of Jesus. That doesn’t work. We cannot divorce Jesus’ teachings from His methods and get His results.” For more information, including how to order DiscipleShift, click here. Jim Putman will be speaking in the Exponential 2013 FREE Live Webcast. To register to watch it, click here.
About the authors
Jim Putman is the founder and senior pastor of Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho. Putman is also the founding leader of the Relational Discipleship Network and holds degrees from Boise State University and Boise Bible College. Known for his passion for discipleship through small groups, he has written multiple books about discipleship, including Church is a Team Sport, Real Life Discipleship and Real Life Discipleship Workbook (with Avery Willis and others).
Dr. Bobby Harrington is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Community Church, just beside the Harpeth River, south of Nashville, Tennessee. Harpeth Community Church was launched in 1998 as an “attractional church,” that is now making the transition to being a “relational discipleship church.” Harrington has a doctor of ministry degree from Southern Baptist Theological seminary, and along with Jim Putman, is one of the founders of the Relational Discipleship Network. Previously, he served as the director of research, development and missional leadership for Stadia. He also has written Together: Network and Church Planting (with Marcus Bigelow).
Dr. Robert Coleman is the distinguished senior professor of discipleship and evangelism at Gordon-Conwell seminary and a prolific author, having written hundreds of articles and 21 books, including The Master Plan of Evangelism, which has sold millions of copies worldwide. Coleman directed the School of World Mission and Evangelism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for 18 years and currently serves on the Mission America Facilitation Committee and several international mission boards and is the president of Christian Outreach. From 1989-2001, he led the Institute of Evangelism in the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College and served as dean of the Billy Graham International Schools of Evangelism. He is also a founding member of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism and a past president of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education.