Each book includes a code for an online UNIQUELY YOU! DISC profile.

A pastor friend asked me what I was currently working on and I told him about The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit. I also offered that I planned to use it in workshops and discipleship coaching to equip all Christians to share Christ and then to disciple new Christians ASAP (As Soon As Possible). The idea is to encourage and equip Christians not only with the ability to share their faith but to then nurture or disciple those they win to Christ at least to the point where they may feed themselves. My pastor friend seemed surprised and questioned not whether I could but whether I should have such a vision. I was perplexed by his response. His view was much like that of many Christian leaders that says. “Leave the driving to us.” You may remember the old Greyhound bus buy line. My friend had adopted a view that says only the pastor, or person with theological education may disciple people. Another point he made was that he wanted to spend his time winning people to Christ and he was sure that the Holy Spirit would take care of the discipling. How is that working? We need but see the many articles and statistics about church decline.

Eagles in Leadership podcast in which Dr. Tom Cocklereece discusses "The Disciple-Maker's Toolkit." (Click --> Eagles in Leadership Podcast)

A MEMBER’S SIMPLE DISCIPLESHIP WORKBOOK

I did not initially plan to write what became The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit, as my plan was to write a primer for new Christians. However, I already had been using several assessments as I was personally discipling Christians. The assessments were the usual battery of useful tools to encourage self-awareness and spiritual growth such as:

• The Simple Discipleship Spiritual Vitality Assessment
• A doctrinal assessment created for my doctorate
• A spiritual gifts assessment
• A DISC personality traits assessment 

I began to consider the idea of combining the typical assessments used in disciple-making, adding the basics of Simple Discipleship, and including some additional material to enhance the usefulness of the material. The result is The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit. As with anything a writer produces, there are already some things I desire to add or improve. Perhaps in a second edition that would break the material into twelve weekly segments and I have already begun providing a separate guide to help leaders use the Toolkit in such a manner.

Each Toolkit comes with the 12 week study guide included in this article. Additional support materials will be added to the Simple Discipleship website.

WHAT’S IN THE TOOLKIT?

The Toolkit is a concise collection of disciple-making materials that includes a simple way to understand and live the Christian life. Here is the Table of Contents laid out in my 12 week format with some explanation for disciple-making:

Week 1- Introduction

• The Disciple-Maker’s Oath- calls for the disciple-maker and the “student” to accept a proper view of Jesus’ Great Commission that every Christian is supposed to be a disciple-maker. The point from the church leader’s perspective is to cultivate a culture of disciple-makers.
• How to Use the Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit- defines what the Toolkit is and how to use it.
• Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit Introduction- presents the Gospel and then the vision of every Christian being a disciple-maker.

Week 2

• What Is Simple Discipleship- a summary of the primary values of Simple Discipleship. It iterates the fact that a disciple’s actions are based on heart values.

Week 3

• The Biblical Basis of God’s Expectations of Christians- Within each of the primary value domains of Simple Discipleship are 10 basic expectations God has for every disciple. One could argue that there are more, but this is a starting point for many Christians. Remember instruction from Dr. Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger from their bookSimple Church which presented the four characteristics of a church with a simple discipleship process—clarity, movement, alignment, and focus. Each of these are designed into Simple Discipleship plus some additional qualities such as measurability (Simple Discipleship was the first to provide a balanced scorecard for churches), scalability, and reproducibility, to name three. The expectations build missional DNA into the life of the Christian as well as small groups and the church.

Week 4

• Simple Discipleship Spiritual Vitality Assessment- in the Simple Discipleship book it is called the SD-360 Survey with the original idea of “living life around the cross.” The concept still works but the end result is increased spiritual vitality.
• The Balanced Christian Life- ditto, however using one’s scores on the assessment, a visual graph is produced to show the relationships of service in all four discipleship domains. Too many Christians spend most of their church connection time in only one or two domains—Worship and Word.

Week 5

• The Stages of Spiritual Growth- According to Barna Research, most pastors cannot define the biblical stages of spiritual growth. This is a problem since a disciplist must know what the desired fruit should look like as well as the stages on the way.
• Simple Discipleship Spiritual Growth Matrix- a visual of the Stages of Spiritual Growth.

Week 6

• How to Have a Daily Worship Time- an absolute must for growing Christians that can change your church.

Week 7

• Disciple’s Doctrinal Assessment- This was my project as I was working toward my doctoral degree. It is statically valid and reliable assessment that is based on The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, but has been found to be useful for any evangelical Christian.
• Doctrinal Study Guide- a reprint of The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 that includes all of the Bible verses for support that may be used as a doctrinally based study guide.

Week 8

• Simple Evangelism- SE Card Edition- The logo of Simple Discipleship or any church with a contextualized logo may use the visual logo as a simple evangelism presentation.
• Simple Evangelism- Napkin Evangelism Edition- This is a reprint of one of my own most read articles from theSimple Discipleship Blog. The point is to encourage people to learn to share their faith in simple visual and storied ways.

Week 9

• Simple Discipleship New Life Coaching- Using the back side of the Simple Evangelism card includes a simple list of the primary values and expectations of Simple Discipleship that may be used for a 4 to 6 week period to disciple new Christians.

Week 10

• Disciple’s Spiritual Gifts and Assessment- a spiritual gifts assessment of 12 of the biblically identified spiritual gifts with their definitions as related to disciples.

Week 11

• People Skills and DISC- an introduction to the concept and use of DISC personality trait assessments as a “people skills” tool to aid in disciple-making.
• Your DISC Personality Profile- a word-based DISC personality trait profile assessment. As of 8/23/2010 each Toolkit comes with a code for use to complete the DISC on the website ofUniquely You by Dr. Mels Carbonell.
• Squirrelly DISC- an entertaining look at personality traits- between 460 and 370 BC Hippocrates developed the concept of four primary personality types into a medical theory—choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic. More recently the four personality types were renamed as D-dominant, I-inspiring, S-steady, and C-competent. Gary Smally reclassified them respectively as lion, otter, golden retriever, and beaver. Me and my wife Janice have fun with applying the four personality types to…squirrels. Funny and entertaining!
• Simple Discipleship and DISC Personality Traits- an explanation of how Christians of either DISC personality trait sometimes have a tendency to focus on one domain of the Christian life and encourages them to live a balanced Christian life through serving in each domain.
• Combined Simple Discipleship and DISC Assessment- An assessment that helps people determine whether they tend to serve in one domain.

Week 12

• Applying Simple Discipleship- answers the question, “What now?”
• Simple Discipleship Key Ideas- a summary of The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit on one page.

HOW TO USE THE TOOLKIT

There are several ideal uses for The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit:

• discipleship conferences
• leadership team training for discipleship
• by church planters launching a simple church discipleship process
• by pastors launching a simple church discipleship process
• by disciplers doing one-on one or group discipleship
• by Sunday school and small group leaders for a quarter
• by Christian Coaching Ministries
• for individual self-training for disciple-making
• for online disciple-making training

The Toolkit is authored by Dr. Tom Cocklereece and printed by RENOVA Coaching and Consulting that now has a Coach Training Academy. The workbook is 66 pages and is available in print as well as ebook format. You may purchase The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit at the following sites:

1. Simple Discipleship website store– The cost is $12.00 each and discounts may be provided for quantity by emailing tom@simplediscipleship.com .
2. Amazon Kindle ereader- This is the Amazon Kindle version and has some problems but you can get a general idea before purchasing the printed version that is only available at the Simple Discipleship site. Assessments do not work well on the ebook versions. Price = $7.50
3. Barnes and Noble Nook ereader– This is the Barnes and Noble Nook version that works reasonably well but again, assessments do not work very well on ebook readers. Price = $7.50

Simple Discipleship is now a provider for two excellent publications: 1) Simple Discipleship- to help church leaders develop a simple church discipleship process that works, and 2) The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit- to introduce lay Christians and leaders to the Simple Discipleship process and equip them as disciple-makers.

Simple Discipleship is also now a certified coach training academy and is affiliated with the Biblical Coaching Alliance and the Life Breakthrough Academy. Thus, we now provide several levels of coaching and coach training such as: 1) Certified Christian Life-Coach Training- to equip individuals to serve as leaders of church Christian coaching ministries, 2) Simple Discipleship Coaching- to help church leaders implement SD, 3) Disciple Coach Training- to train coaches to coach church leaders to implement SD, 4) Discipleship Coaching Training- and 5) we will soon offer RENEW Wellness Coach Training- a church-based support group ministry that incorporates Simple Discipleship principles.

Go Make Disciple-Makers!

Tom Cocklereece, DMin, LBCT

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QUESTIONS:

1. Do you believe the churches have effectively equipped and empowered the laity to make disciples?
2. Do you believe traditional church ministry approaches are effective at discipleship? Why or why not?
3. What process does your church use to make disciple-making disciples?
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) titled The Disciple-Maker’s Toolkit the first publication of RENOVA Coaching and Consulting LLC.

http://www.simplediscipleship.com

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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, discipleship and leadership specialist

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