Making Disciples a Few at a Time
Greg Ogden
An imprint of InterVarsity Press
Downers Grove, Illinois
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com
E-mail: email@ivpress.com
©2003 by Greg Ogden
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at <www.intervarsity.org>.
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The story of Celebration Life Ministries (pp. 172–73) is printed by permission.
Cover design: Cindy Kiple
Cover and interior images: Eyewire Collection/Getty Images
ISBN 978-0-8308-6808-7 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-2388-8 (print)
Introduction: A Story of Transformation
PART 1: THE DISCIPLESHIP DEFICIT
1 The Discipleship Gap: Where Have All the Disciples Gone?
2 The Discipleship Malaise: Getting to the Root Causes
PART 2: DOING THE LORD’S WORK IN THE LORD’S WAY
4 Jesus’ Preparatory Empowerment Model
5 Paul’s Empowerment Model: Spiritual Parenting
PART 3: MULTIPLYING REPRODUCING DISCIPLESHIP GROUPS
Church-Based Strategy for Disciple Making
6 Life Investment: It’s All About Relationships
7 Multiplication: Through the Generations
8 Transformation: The Three Necessary Ingredients
9 Practicalities of Disciple Making
Appendix: Frequently Asked Questions
A Story of Transformation
I admit I stumbled onto a discovery, yet it has become one of the most amazing ahas of my pastoral ministry. This discovery was the result of an experiment. I had written a first draft of a discipleship curriculum, which turned into the final project for my doctor of ministry degree.1 The focus of the project was to implement this curriculum in the local church and then to evaluate its effectiveness. Up to this point in my ministry, I had equated making disciples with a one-to-one relationship. After all, wasn’t the Paul-Timothy model the definition of discipling? The point was to grow a disciple who would make a disciple, and so on.
My adviser in the doctoral program suggested that I consider a variety of contexts in which I could test the curriculum and then track the dynamics of a discipling relationship. ...
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About Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a TimeMany churchgoers complain that their churches lack a coherent plan for discipleship and spiritual growth. In turn, many church leaders lament their lack of resources to build and manage effective programs to help people become fully devoted followers of Christ. In Transforming Discipleship Greg Ogden introduces his vision for discipleship, emphasizing that solutions will not be found in large-scale, finely-tuned, resource-heavy programs. Instead, Ogden recovers Jesus’ method of accomplishing life change by investing in just a few people at a time. And he shows how discipleship can become a self-replicating process with ongoing impact from generation to generation. Biblical, practical and tremendously effective, Transforming Discipleship provides the insights and philosophy of ministry behind Ogden’s earlier work, Discipleship Essentials. Together, these ground-breaking books have the potential to transform how your church transforms the lives of its people. |
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