THE NEW GREAT AWAKENING

A FOCUS ON THE PERSECUTED CHURCH

1.  Gets people into reading and studying the Bible.
2. The host church becomes a center of Bible teaching in the community.
3. Evangelism…it will win some to Christ.
4. It will get the people busy inviting others to attend since it is something new.
5. It deepens the spiritual faith of the people.
6. It deepens the spiritual roots of the people so they are firmly planted.
7.  It leads people to pray for the persecuted church around the world.
8. It leads people to appreciate their freedom to worship.
9. It may lead to a greater commitment of the people.
10. God may use Secret Church and other discipleship worship events to spark a new Great Awakening.

DISCIPLESHIP BEST PRACTICES: #9 – 10 BENEFITS OF PEER GROUP DISCIPLESHIP

This series of articles explores thirteen major methods that are effective for making disciples. Keep in mind that in a ubiquitous (all encompassing, everywhere present) disciple-making process, virtually each method is not only encouraged but is planned into the church ministries. Here is a list including links to articles that have been completed in the series:

·    Simple Discipleship: A Comprehensive Disciple-Making Plan- The Simple Discipleship Virtual Book Tour- (updated) originally posted in 2010

·    DISCIPLESHIP BEST PRACTICES: 13 Ways to Make Disciples

1. Passive Discipleship: the least effective method but essential to support other methods

2. Private Discipleship: the Christian and the Holy Spirit (most effective but under used)

3. Presence Discipleship: In times of crisis the disciple invests time, assistance, and prayer.

4. Participation or Proximity Discipleship: applies to all areas but most of all to giving

5. Projected Discipleship: Actively but humbly projecting a Christian example of living Christ’s teachings.

6. Platform or Presentation Discipleship: preaching in church and lecture-style Bible study

7. Program Discipleship: Pre-packaged materials delivered in large or small groups.

8. Personal Discipleship: One-on-one discipleship (very effective but seldom used)

9. Peer Group Discipleship: Bible study and Sunday School

10.  Practical Discipleship: Hands on service, evangelism, and missional projects

11.  Proficiency Discipleship: Leadership Development

12.  Proclamation Discipleship: Evangelism and preaching to unchurched

13.  Process Discipleship: All of the above delivered in a systematic way

WHAT IS PEER GROUP DISCIPLESHIP?

The previous article in this series was about “Personal Discipleship,” also known as one-to-one discipleship. The present article is about “Peer Group Discipleship,” also known as small group discipleship and it is one of the most effective methods when done well. Encarta Dictionary defines “peer” as someone who is equal to another in age or social class. Churches have done well at making disciples using peer groups called Sunday school classes or small groups. They tend to be natural groupings based on a number of demographic, social, and spiritual commonalities. The things they have in common functions as the “glue” for an ongoing community relationship. The positive effect of psychosocial development and interaction in peer groups has been well documented in recent years. However, the benefits of spiritual growth compound the overall growth and development of the group as a supportive community.

Peer group discipleship engages the class in interaction, reflection, evaluation, and an assessment of values. People today inside and outside the church experience an ever increasing level of dysfunction. Discipleship peer groups lead people deeper in their relationships with Christ and with one another. The effectively learn to love one another and as a result they become a faith community within the church. A healthy church of any size should have healthy or holistic small groups.

PEER GROUP DISCIPLESHIP IS INTENTIONAL

Simply forming Sunday school classes and small group Bible study units does not automatically qualify as peer group discipleship. There are many examples of teachers of Sunday school classes and small groups who show up to impress their groups with their insights into Scripture but have no clue about how to make disciple-making disciples. Many think their job is to teach the Bible but their job should be—make disciples. A group leader with the perspective of making disciples connects with people and creates community. A disciple-making peer group leader is infective! It is sad to say that many classes and groups will meet this week and the group could just as well push a button on a CD/MP3 player for their weekly lesson. Jesus taught with passion, examples, Biblical authority, and love. Effective peer group discipleship does what Jesus did.

10 BENEFITS OF PEER GROUP DISCIPLESHIP

Peer group discipleship has many benefits and here are ten:

1. Members of peer group classes disciple one another as they share Bible knowledge, insights, and application points.
2. An excellent facilitator guides the Bible study and discussion in a manner that engages the entire group.
3. Provides a visual and living illustration of three-way reconciliation (forgiveness from God, forgiveness of self, and forgiveness of others).
4. Demonstrates Christian unity (all for one and one for all).
5. Encourages perpetual spiritual growth as less spiritually mature interact with those more spiritually mature.
6. Provides social relationships in the church context as well as outside the church in the community.
7. Provides social stability for those within the group as they interact to meet needs and love one another.
8. Teaches the roles of each as related to the identification and use of spiritual gifts and natural talents.
9. The group culture encourages chosen accountability as related to Christian behavior.
10. Groups collectively form a healthy church and provide for the overall needs for ministry.

Can you think of more benefits of peer group discipleship? Please share them in the comments section.

SD Blessings,

Dr. Tom Cocklereece, The Disciplist

QUESTIONS:

1.      Ten benefits of peer group discipleship are listed. Can you share some more?

2.      Could your small group leader easily be replaced by a CD/MP3 player and hardly miss the leader?

3.      Is disciple-making the focus of your Sunday school and small group Bible study units?

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Dr. Tom Cocklereece is CEO of RENOVA Coaching and Consulting, LLC
Author “Simple Discipleship,” contributing writer L2L Blogazine
He is a pastor, an author, professional coach, and leadership specialist
Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Web | Blog | Book | Coaching Site

Simple Discipleship was published in 2009 and The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit in July, 2011, so this simple church discipleship process has been “out there” long enough for church leaders to begin sharing their experiences. It is one thing that the Simple Discipleship book has received very good reviews but church leaders want more than a book, they want something that works. I have received several reports from pastors in the field about how the Spiritual Vitality Assessment is a great tool for creating a disciple-making culture. The Spiritual Vitality Assessment was introduced in the Simple Discipleship book as the SD-360 Survey but remains unchanged despite the change of nomenclature. It consists of 40 statements based on biblical values and expectations discussed in both books. The 40 statements or questions are divided into four sections in which participants may sore a total of 400 cumulatively out of a possible 100 in each section. Here are three stories of how the assessment is working in the churches.

THE SPIRITUAL VITALITY ASSESSMENT RESULTS IN SALVATION

One of the first churches that began using Simple Discipleship decided to change question #2 in the WORSHIP section of the assessment. Question #2 says, “ I know that when I die I will go to heaven” with the ability of the participant to respond with an answer from 0 to 10. The church leaders left the question as is but changed the response section so that the participant could only respond with either a 0 or 10. A “0” response meant “I don’t know” and a “10” response meant “I am sure.” The church leadership gave the Spiritual Vitality Assessment in Sunday school classes. Three people from different classes went to talk privately with their respective teachers or with a trusted friend. In each of the three cases the individuals said that the assessment led them to think specifically about their salvation. They were convicted by question #2 and subsequently received Jesus and Lord and were baptized. The questions cause participants to think personally about their own standing in relation to their beliefs.

THE SPIRITUAL VITALITY ASSESSMENT SHOCKS A CHURCH TO ACTION

From the introduction of Simple Discipleship, I have encouraged churches to give the Spiritual Vitality Assessment only when the pastor is serving and supportive of the process. However, an interim pastor contacted me a couple of years ago and asked me to give the assessment in the church where he was serving. The church was clearly struggling and had been in serious decline for several years. The assessment was given and I prepared a report of the compiled assessments. The pie graph of the results was shocking as the green MISSIONS section was very small. This is an indication of a dying church that has virtually no community connection. The green section for the church is called the “Community Missional Footprint” and is an indicator of missional involvement. The pie graph illustration shown here brought audible gasps from the congregation but then resulted in a significant level of missional projects in the community. The church has since made progress and has the potential of resurgence.

THE SPIRITUAL VITALITY ASSESSMENT CONVICTS A LEADER TO SERVE

Recently I had been doing Discipleship Coach Training for a church planting pastor and his staff. The pastor had struggled with starting small group Bible studies as they lacked willing and qualified teachers. A potential leader joined the new church and had volunteered to start a new small group. Unfortunately, he backed out with little or no explanation. Concurrently, the pastor had given the Spiritual Vitality Assessment to the church congregation and a surprising thing happened. The person who had back out of leading small groups contacted the pastor and let him know that he was disturbed by the Spiritual Vitality Assessment results and felt convicted by the Lord to step up to his earlier commitment of leadership. The pastor was very pleased and contacted me to once again share his testimony of how Simple Discipleship was helping establish a disciple-making culture in the church.

More stories will follow as church leaders are sharing with us. The proverbial proof will be in the pudding as leaders and churches become effective at making disciple-makers.

SD Blessings,

Dr. Tom Cocklereece, The Disciplist

QUESTIONS:

1.      What process does your church use to make disciples?

2.      How may the Spiritual Vitality Assessment could help your church become a disciple-making church?

3.      What is the Community Missional Footprint of your church?

——————–
Dr. Tom Cocklereece is CEO of RENOVA Coaching and Consulting, LLC
Author “Simple Discipleship,” contributing writer L2L Blogazine
He is a pastor, an author, professional coach, and leadership specialist
Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Web | Blog | Book | Coaching Site

DISCIPLESHIP COACHING

WHAT IS A DISCIPLE?

What is discipleship coaching? Perhaps we should look at each term separately. The term discipleship comes from the word “disciple” and means “follower, student, or devotee.” The origin of the English word is from the word “pupil” or “discipul” which is Old English from Latin discipulus meaning pupil, and from from discere which means “to learn.” It denotes a specialized pupil—a disciple. For our use of the term, a disciple is a follower of Jesus Christ, yet because even this meaning is vague to many Christians today, we must be more specific. In Luke 6:46 Jesus gave us a good definition of “disciple.”

 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say? Luke 6:46 (NKJV)

So, if we are going to call ourselves Christians (lit. to be like Christ), if we are going to follow Christ then we must do what he says, and of course we learn that from the Bible, genuine Christian family and friends, our church experience, our daily worship time, and perhaps a disciple coach. His final command before he ascended to heaven was, and I am being consistent with his intent rather than what we have made it, “Go make disciple-making disciples.”

WHAT IS DISCIPLESHIP?

The term “discipleship” is the combination of two words: “disciple” and “ship.” The suffix “-ship” derives from the Old English suffix “-scipe” and means “to shape” or “to guide.”  Thus, it can be said that discipleship is the shaping or guiding of a person to not only follow Christ but to be like Christ. We could easily morph the word discipleship into the term “disciple-guide” or even “disciple-coach.” The present discussion is important because there appears to be great confusion over the definition of disciple and discipleship.

Thus, it can be said that discipleship is the shaping or guiding of a person to not only follow Christ but to be like Christ. We could easily morph the word “discipleship” into the term “disciple-guide” or even “disciple-coach.” Both terms are more easily understood.

Following our logic, discipleship is the process of shaping and guiding a follower of Christ. The work of a sculptor fits the description quite well as the artist begins with a large piece of rock and begins purposefully chipping away, while all the time the artist has the ultimate final shape in his mind as he works. Be assured that God in the person of the Holy Spirit is the actual sculptor of disciples, but he does use others as instruments of the sculpting. With God directing the process, the disciple-coach sees the imperfections in the medium, he ultimately sees Christ within the growing disciple. The disciple-coach guides the process with the co-active participation of the disciple, as it is the only way the process of discipleship works—active participation of the disciple. At this point we have defined the word “coach” as one who comes along side the disciple to encourage, guide, and ask questions that motivate self-awareness and a spiritual growth response.

If staff has been serving a church for 3-5 years & can’t describe their church as a “disciple making” church, what have they been doing?

NEGLECTED DISCIPLESHIP

It is unhealthy to ignore the “elephant” in the room and I think biblical discipleship is the neglected elephant in many churches. Pushing hard for un-discipled church members to be evangelists simply ignores the elephant in the church…namely, un-discipled Christians, casual Christians, carnal Christians, and non-Christians don’t evangelize. Out of the 13 methods of making disciples, many churches intentionally employ only three or four on an ongoing basis and even then it often is not delivered in a process. Remember that a process is measurable as with the Simple Discipleship balanced scorecard and spiritual vitality graph.

Pushing hard for un-discipled church members to be evangelists simply ignores the elephant in the church…namely, un-discipled Christians, casual Christians, carnal Christians, and non-Christians don’t evangelize.

GET RID OF THE ELEPHANTS

Simple Discipleship is a ubiquitous simple church discipleship process. Okay, “ubiquitous” means everywhere present which means that disciple-making should be an intentional part of everything the church does. This supports my contention that the church has one purpose, make disciple-making disciples. The activities of worship, prayer, fellowship, ministry, and missions support the mandate of the church, make disciple-making disciples. A message from many great leadership books is “Keep the main thing the main thing.” When churches make disciple-making disciples the elephants of apathy, theological liberalism, and busyness to accomplish busyness all float away.

When churches make disciple-making disciples the elephants of apathy, theological liberalism, and busyness to accomplish busyness all float away.

Disciple-Maker

TRAIN AND ENGAGE DISCIPLESHIP COACHES

To the point, church leaders can launch a real Great Commission Resurgence at the “grass roots” level by doing several things:

1. Disciple-making will not be the main thing unless PASTORS make it the main thing!
2. Implement a simple church discipleship process.
3. Establish Christian Coaching Ministries in the church and task them with disciple-making and assisting with maintaining a disciple-making culture in everything the church does. A Christian Coaching Ministry could be the engine that sparks congregational prayer, evangelism, missions, outreach, and new growth. In these challenging economic times, a new ministry like this could breathe new life into many churches of all sizes.
4. Equip Discipleship Coaches: When churches act upon the first three points in this section, I recommend that they train and engage at least four (4) discipleship coaches. The present point needs more explanation:

SD Discipleship Coaches

Each coach should be in charge of only one Simple Discipleship domain (Worship, Word, Ministry, or Missions). Each coach has several responsibilities:

• Provide opportunities for people as related to the respective domain for which each discipleship coach is responsible. For instance, the Missions Discipleship Coach should coordinate missional and missions opportunities.
• Connect people to discipleship growth opportunities in their particular domain.
• Collaborate with other Discipleship Coaches to ensure a working process.
•  The four Discipleship Coach positions should be divided between both men and women. The reason for this is defined in the next point.
• Each Discipleship Coach should focus on personal discipleship and peer group discipleship, providing discipleship coaching for new Christians and any others who desire to grow. New Christians and others should be paired with Discipleship Coaches of the same gender for obvious reasons. The length and frequency of sessions may be determined by each church however, Simple Discipleship encourages a minimum of one hour session for six weeks using New Christian Life Coaching that focuses on discipling individuals so they may begin spiritually feeding themselves.

Finally, another elephant in the churches, specifically in staff meetings, is that traditional Christian church education ministries are not making disciples. There are exceptions but pastors should ask the hard question directed to staff members whether they are ministers of education, counselors, administrators, youth leaders, teachers, and custodians, “How many disciples are you making?” Every staff leader should be actively working with individuals and groups on a regular basis to make disciple-making disciple makers. THE BIGGER QUESTION IS…”DO CHRISTIAN CHURCH LEADERS KNOW HOW TO MAKE DISCIPLES RATHER THAN CONVERTS?”

Simple Discipleship can provide certified Christian coach training for your leaders. We can also help you develop your Christian Coaching Ministry that can launch a revival from the inside out. Go to the “Coach Training” tab at the top of this page for information.

Go Make Disciple-Makers!

Tom Cocklereece, DMin, CLBC

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QUESTIONS:

1. Do you agree with the premise that “discipleship” derives from Old English words that may be boiled down to “disciple-coaching?”
2. Do you believe traditional church ministry approaches are effective at discipleship? Why r why not?
3. Do you agree that the “elephant” in many churches is that they are not focusing on the main thing, making disciple-makers?
4. Does your church have a Christian Coaching Ministry that is separate from the counseling ministry?

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Dr. Tom Cocklereece is the author of Simple Discipleship: How to Make Disciples in the 21^st Century which was published and released by Church Smart Resources in November 2009. He is also the author of a new resource just released (2011) titledThe Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit the first publication of RENOVA Coaching and Consulting LLC.

http://www.simplediscipleship.com

——————–

Dr. Tom Cocklereece is CEO of RENOVA Coaching and Consulting, LLC

Author “Simple Discipleship,” contributing writer L2L Blogazine
He is a pastor, an author, professional coach, discipleship and leadership specialist

Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Web | Blog | Book  | Coaching Site

HOW BIG IS YOUR SPIRITUAL VITALITY PIE?

• The Disciple-Maker's Toolkit
• Measuring Spiritual Vitality

1. The whole process of Simple Discipleship is designed to generate chosen accountability by encouraging people to take the responsibility for their own spiritual growth.
2.  The assessment provides qualitative values so the disciple may see their high and low numbers. If they have a low Missions score, then they may be motivated to get involved in a mission trip offered by the church.
3. The assessment provides people with needed spiritual life-balance. After completing the assessment a visual pie graph is generated so they may see the balance or imbalance of the four discipleship domain values. People tend to get comfortable in one area of life, in this case, Worship, Word, Ministry, or Missions. It is a complex mixture of personality (DISC) and spiritual giftedness. (Both of these assessments are also in the Toolkit). Spiritual Life-Balance is important to the development of a healthy disciple as it reflects life lived around the cross.
4. The assessment motivates people to get moving spiritually. The assessment will indicate a different size pie graph based on the total of the four primary discipleship domain numbers. Perhaps it is something that must be mentally visualized. Two people in our group had scores that illustrated balance but one had a cumulative Spiritual Vitality Score of 201 while the other had a score of 355. Since the maximum possible total for this assessment is 400, the person with the 201 score is not satisfied and wants “a bigger pie.”