from June 7, 2015 prayer update

I recently read David & Paul Watson’s (father / son) 2014 book, Contagious Disciple Making. These men serve with an organization called CityTeam. Their stories are drawn from their experiences with disciplemaking / church planting movements in northern India and in isolated settings in the U.S.

The disciplemaking / church planting process they describe has been used very successfully in a variety of settings around the world. Jerry Trousdale’s (also with CityTeam) 2012 book, Miraculous Movements, is an account of the impact of these practices in Muslim north Africa. I had the privilege of participating in a small interactive conference featuring Trousdale a few years ago, when I worked with Pioneers. Many of Pioneers’ field workers practice the principles described in these two books.

Over the past decade, I have attended several multi-day training sessions involving this approach (or very similar approaches) to disciplemaking / church planting. I have been intrigued by it, but have remained somewhat skeptical about its applications in the Western Church, perhaps with the exception of the house church movement. Even though there are emerging examples in the U.S. in a variety of contexts, most success stories are among poor, oral learners, with people far from Christ and Christianity, in a simple church, house church context.

There is much in the book to commend it. I am convinced that chapter 6, on obedience-based disciplemaking, should be a core component of any disciplemaking model. Chapter 12 on prayer is excellent. This is a simple truth that most in the Western Church badly neglect. I believe it is foundational for the spiritual power to give birth to a movement or anything with a lasting impact. I appreciated the authors’ insights in chapter 13 into the limitations of “extraction evangelism and discipleship” as opposed to seeking to reach entire “silos” of people. Chapter 14 builds on the concepts introduced in chapter 13 as it describes the importance of identifying a “person of peace” as the doorway into silos. And chapter 15 describes the use of “discovery groups” as vehicles for evangelism, disciplemaking, and church planting. Small groups built around a fairly rigid, but very simple church model that is easily reproducible. And which can be facilitated by a very young believer with very limited knowledge of the Scriptures. This methodology is perhaps the most controversial piece of the disciplemaking model described in the book. It runs counter to almost all of our adult education, leadership development, and church planting models in the West.

How about you. Have you identified and been trained in a particular disciplemaking model? A model that you are seeking to practice regularly and with intentionality. If so, how is it going? And if not, would you benefit from getting some help in intentional disciplemaking? Either way, I would love to hear from you.