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The Disciple-Making Leader (The Optimal Path) is one who as they advance down the The Disciple-Making Pathway they also are given opportunities to move up the Leadership Pipeline. This means that as a leader deepens their spiritual maturity, they are given support, training, and opportunities to grow in different ministry skills. This integration ensures that…

Dear Discipleship-first Friends, I’m going to be honest. I am hit – way more than I care to admit – with the realization that my agenda is my agenda and not God’s. I might have just preached a sermon about God’s will that Sunday, but my life is more about my will. Yes, I desire…

Dear Discipleship-first Friends, God’s Will… Period. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. I wonder if we get too familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. We know the words. We know them so well that if someone started praying them out loud in a church service, like a kid saying the Pledge of Allegiance, we…

“Not for the faith of heart” is a phrase often used in our American culture. A topic one morning in my men’s small group we dove into. Pouring over the book of 2 Corinthians, we discussed the trials the Apostle Paul and his companions faced (2 Corinthians 11:23-33): terrifying shipwrecks, beatings, snake bites, to name a…

Dear Discipleship-first Friends, This is the sixth and final article in our series on often-overlooked advice on how to lead a church in Jesus-styled disciple making. To recap, the first five areas of advice we looked at were: Don’t Announce the Revolution Preach and Normalize King Jesus Normalize Being a Disciple of Jesus Normalize Conformity…

Dear Discipleship-first Friends, Continuing with our series detailing often overlooked advice on leading a church in Jesus-style disciple making – we’ve covered a lot of ground with the first four articles (if you missed any of the previous articles, just click the links below): Don’t Announce the Revolution Preach and Normalize King Jesus Normalize Being…

This article is the fourth installment in a series of six, regarding what is often unspoken advice to follow while teaching that being a disciple of Jesus is mandatory in the local church: Don’t Announce the Revolution Preach and Normalize King Jesus Normalize Being a Disciple of Jesus However, the third and most recent post…

Dear Discipleship-first Friends, In the previous article on preaching and normalizing “King Jesus,” I argued that we want to avoid the false dichotomy of “King Jesus” vs. “Savior Jesus” by integrating and synthesizing the two. That is to say that Jesus can only be a savior because He is first the King. Preach and Normalize…

Dear Discipleship-first Friends, As I wrote in a previous article, Christ is one of those words in the New Testament that I believe it is unfortunate that we transliterated instead of translated. Jesus Christ would have been understood in the early church to mean “Jesus the Anointed King.” Re-read Paul’s letters and notice how often…

Dear Discipleship-first Friends, Several weeks ago, we published an article where we laid out the argument that discipleship is mandatory for churches and followers of King Jesus (click here for this article). We followed that article with one that noted 6 steps for implementing disciple making in your church (click here for this article).  In…

Jesus’ commission was clear, “Go make disciples of all nations.” The key command – the divine imperative – is to “make disciples”. But what exactly is a disciple? This question reminds me of Vince Lombardi, arguably one of the greatest football coaches of all time. The NFL Championship Super Bowl trophy is named after him:…