Leading a Disciple Making Movement

This course is for ministry leaders who strongly desire to lead their church or ministry to embrace a disciple-making mission and who are in a position within their church or ministry to develop and implement a disciple-making strategy and plan. This would include pastors, para-church leaders, missionaries, and teachers/professors who are ...

Leading a Disciple Making Movement
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Course description

Turning Your Church into a Disciple-Making Mission

Purpose

The purpose of the GDI Cohort experience is to equip leaders in a mutually supportive and stimulating environment, who intend to turn churches and ministries into communities that fulfill the Great Commission’s imperative of making reproducing disciples of Jesus with a particular focus on “micro groups.”

Objectives

  1. Provide a process whereby a church/ministry can transition from its current model of ministry to become a church that makes reproducing disciples of Christ.
  2. : Imagine what your church/ministry can become through concrete pictures of actual churches that have been transformed into disciple making congregations, particularly through a growing movement of reproducing micro groups.
GDI Successful Journey

 

3. Unpack and lay-in the three major components upon which to form the disciple making culture in your church/ministry:

A. Relational Environment: Just as Jesus majored in the relational investment in the twelve, so we must adopt Jesus’ approach if we are going form disciples who make disciples. Our particular approach centers on the “micro group” as the optimum setting for the relational environment.

B. Intentional Leaders: The leader of the “micro group” is the most important leader in the church. They are on the front line of leading and reproducing the basic disciple making unit, the micro group. This implies that the pastors’ role is to empower God’s people for their ministry which in turn builds up the body of Christ.

C. Reproducible Process: Central to making this a simple and reproducible for the average believer there is a need for a transferable disciple making tool that maps out the picture of a mature, reproducing disciple. We suggest that Discipleship Essentials be the tool that you master, though your theological tradition may suggest something else.

4. Change Process: Provide a clear understanding of how change occurs within the culture of a congregation as you are incorporating the above three components.

5. The purpose of this cohort is to raise up an ever-expanding band of leaders who sense the Holy Spirit’s call (professionally and personally) to make a lifetime investment into growing reproducing* disciples and ministries.

6. Aspire through this training to grow model disciple-making churches** or ministries that become replicating training centers.

7. Reflect biblically and theologically on Jesus’ and Paul’s relational model of disciple making and apply this model to the way disciples are made.

*“Reproducing” is shorthand for disciples who make disciples.

**See the profile for a model church.

Covenantal Commitments: Expectations of Participants

  1. Meet online 20 sessions for 2 hours over a 2-year period with a cohort of ministry leaders in order to begin the transition process to become a church of disciples who make disciples.
  2. Complete the structured online interactive curriculum on a timely basis to move sequentially through the steps necessary to refocus the mission and ministry practice around disciple making. The cohort will be facilitated by a trained coach whose role is ask the penetrating coaching questions as well as create a sense of community among the participants.
  3. Practice the art of disciple-making by selecting, leading, and replicating a micro group so that you can experience the power of transformation and multiplication of disciples as the inception of a growing network of disciple makers.

For more information visit the GDI Website and "Click" the Online Cohort tab. You may also contact Dan Dominguez, PhD, GDI Director, Leader Development, at dan@globaldi.org or at 210 846-2641

Use this link to complete an application to join a GDI Cohort:   https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeN_Rs0YuBTiBDuz2GxY28ZcKR4lWNNeGxv0iuP9idr19oAKA/viewform   

Course content

Welcome to the Leading a Disciple Making Mission Experience!
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Introductory Session
Session 1 - The Goal of Disciple Making
Lesson 1 - The Human Heart: Radical Evil in the Ruined Soul
Lesson 2 - The VIM of Discipleship
Session 2 - Vision of a Disciple Making Church: Starting with the End in Mind
Lesson 1 - The Camarillo Story
Lesson 2 - The Model Church Continuum
Optional Lesson - Perimeter Church, Atlanta Georgia
Session 3 - The Power of Micro Groups
Introductory Video - The Origins of Discipleship Essentials
Lesson 1 - Forming and Launching Your Micro Group
Intentional Leader
Relational Environment
Reproducible Process
Successful Journey
Lesson 2 - Beginning a Journal
Lesson 3 - Transformational Discipleship - The Four Necessary Ingredients
Climatic Condition #1 - Transparent Trust
Climatic Condition #2 - The Truth of God's Word in Community
Climatic Condition #3 - Life Change Accountability
Climatic Condition #4 - Engaged in our God-Designed Mission
Conclusion
Session 4 - Evaluating the Effectiveness of your Disciple Making Mission
Introductory Video - Reality Check
Lesson 1 - Identifying the Symptoms and Causes of a Church's State of Discipleship
Lesson 2 - The Model Disciple Making Church Continuum Revisited
Lesson 3 - Diagnostic Executive Summary
Lesson 4 - Micro Group Journal
Session 5 - Leading Change
Lesson 1 - Start Small, Go Slow
Lesson 2 - John Kotter's Leading Change
Step 1 - Establishing a Sense of Urgency
Step 2 - Create a Guiding Coalition
Step 3 - Developing a Vision and a Strategy
Step 4 - Communicating the Change Vision
Conclusion - Selecting a Change Scheme or Framework
Session 6 - Relationship: Life Investment
Lesson 1 - Make Disciples Jesus' Relational Way
Lesson 2 - Life Investment : It's All About Relationships
Lesson 3 - "Going Deep" by Gordon McDonald
Bonus Section - The Power of Personal Invitation
Session 7 - Multiplication: Through the Generations
Lesson 1 - Multiplication: Through the Generations
Lesson 2 - Spaces of Community
Bonus Section - Born to Reproduce by Dawson Trotman
Session 8 - Transformation: The Four Necessary Ingredients
Lesson 1 - Transforming Discipleship Revisted
Lesson 2 - Engaged in our God-given Mission
Lesson 3 - Encouraging a Missional Focus in a Micro Group
Bonus Section - Micro Groups and Transformation
Session 9 - Emotionally Healthy Discipleship
Session 10 - The Role of the Micro Group Leader/The Importance of Curriculum
Lesson 1 - The Practicalities of Disciple Making
Lesson 2 - The Reproducible Process: The Importance of Curriculum
Session 11 - Obstacles to Establishing a Disciple Making Movement
Session 12 - The Dependency versus Equipping Model of Ministry
Lesson 1 - Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministry to the People of God
Lesson 2 - Preaching the Key Concepts (Recommended but Optional)
Session 13 - The Authority of Jesus
Lesson 1 - The Confounding Jesus
Lesson 2 - When you've said Jesus, you've said it all
Lesson 3 - Jesus: Who does He think He is?
Lesson 4 - Jesus' Authority in the Gospel of Matthew
Lesson 5 - The VIM of Discipleship Revisited
Session 14 - The Mission of the Church Part 1: Which is it: Make Christians or Disciples?
Lesson 1 - Can you be a Christian without becoming a Disciple?
Lesson 2 - What’s the Difference Between Disciples and Christians?
Lesson 3 - The Discipleship Gospel
Lesson 4 - The Role of Preaching in Making Disciples (Recommended by not Required)
Lesson 5 - Extra Credit: For The Overly Ambitious
Session 15 - The Mission of the Church Part 2: What are the Characteristics of a Disciple?
Lesson 1 - Going, Baptizing and Teaching
Lesson 2 - Come Join the Circle Dance of Love
Lesson 3 - A Picture of a Mature Disciple of Christ
Session 16 - Jesus' Model of Making Disciples
Lesson 1 - Why Jesus Invested in a Few and How
Lesson 2 - Robert Coleman's The Master Plan of Evangelism
Lesson 3 - Bringing it All Together
Session 17 - Paul's Parental Model of Disciplemaking
Lesson 1 - Paul's Empowerment Model: Spiritual Parenting
Lesson 2 - Discipleship Versus Spiritual Formation: Is There a Difference?
Lesson 3 - Spiritual Formation: What it is and how it is done
Lesson 4 - The Essential Commandment
Lesson 5 - Growing Intentionally (Extra Credit)
Session 18 - Practical Steps to Form a Disciple Making Culture
Lesson 1 - The Leadership Core and Church Culture
Lesson 2 - Disciple Making Church Serendipities
Session 19 - Becoming a Model Church

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