Leadership

Discipleship Leadership Training

How To Find Potential Leaders and Fruitful People

By on Sunday, April 9, 2023
find potential leaders

Our resources are limited. Time, money, energy, and personnel are all stretched far too thin when pioneering in new areas. Some people seem to only drain our precious resources. As disciple makers, how do you avoid wasting time on the wrong people? How do you discover the potential leaders who will be most helpful in growing the movement?

Don’t Just Guess- Give Assignments

While it is tempting to try to guess who will be worth investing in, we are often wrong in our guesses. The best way to discover who to invest in is to first train a larger group of people. Give them assignments to apply the training. Then, watch to see who does what they were trained to do. Those who actually take steps to begin working are the ones worth investing in. These are the people who will most likely be the most fruitful.

*Jeremiah- An Unlikely Choice

I was invited to speak in a Discipleship Training School (DTS) for Youth With A Mission (YWAM). There were about 15 students. I was teaching for a week on the Biblical Foundation for Missions. My goal was to present the need of reaching the unreached. I would then call people to get involved in church planting efforts. read more

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Discipleship Leadership

Why Saying “No” is a Crucial Skill

By on Sunday, March 5, 2023
say no

I personally don’t like saying no.  It feels…not nice.  It seems…unkind, or like I don’t value the person who is asking me to do something.  Yet saying no, and meaning it, is a crucial skill for those of us pursuing DMMs.  This is why we need to learn not only what to say no to, but also how to say no with honor and respect.

Lets start with the what part.  What do we need to say no to as a DMMer?  (Is that a thing? Can I call us that?) Sorry.  Rabbit trail.  Okay, so my point is, we need to say “No” to things that side track us, that pull us away from the main vision we are going after- a Disciple Making Movement.  Anything that seems good but isn’t related to making disciples who make more disciples or to reaching lost people should go on our “I might need to say no” list.

What else do we need to say no to?  We need to say no to anything that will prevent the movement from reproducing on its own (self-propagating).  For example, as mentioned in the last post, boots donated from a foreign team to make it easier for locals to walk on the muddy trails.  Say no to someone who wants to help you build a church building with outside funds. Say no to people who want to buy all your workers motorcycles. Foreign teams are usually something you want to consider saying no to. Having them come, especially in the early stages of the movement, is something to be very careful about.  All of these things make the local insiders feel “less than” or “less powerful” to build the movement on their own. They hinder reproducibility. read more

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Church Planting Leadership Missions Strategy

Multiply and Increase…Everything!

By on Sunday, December 18, 2022
multiply everything

In recent weeks I’ve had numerous conversations with people. The topic of tracking has surfaced more than once. Is it biblical?

Tracking numbers and setting goals can feel like it isn’t relational. While the feeling is real, it doesn’t need to be true. We can be both relational and also track fruitfulness. Led by the Holy Spirit and deeply dependent on Him, we can set goals and evaluate progress while still valuing each individual involved.

Admittedly, some people swing one way or the other. Many leaders don’t hold this tension well. We tend to err on one side or the other. Sometimes we say we don’t care about results at all- “God knows my heart and how much I want to see people saved! That is enough.” It sounds spiritual, but is it?

Or sometimes, we beat ourselves up when we don’t see our goals reached. It’s discouraging when we aren’t yet seeing the growth we hope for.

On the other spectrum, some leaders have a complete business mindset. It’s all about numbers for them. This is definitely not a reflection of Kingdom leadership. read more

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Church Planting Leadership

Movement Pioneers Are Busy and Overwhelmed…How Can We Help?

By on Friday, September 23, 2022
deacons movements

Is it time to appoint deacons? What is the difference between a deacon and an overseer? What do they do in a DMM (Disciple Making Movement)? Can I call myself Bishop if I am the leader of a movement?

I’ve been writing a series on leadership development in Disciple Making Movements. This is Part Five of that series. Please remember that what I write is not to be applied to legacy or traditional churches. My goal is not to attack churches or tell anyone that their denominational tradition is wrong.

My aim is to help DMM practitioners look at scripture and consider how to apply these scriptures in a growing movement (DMM or CPM). One that needs leadership.

If you are not involved in trying to start a movement of disciples in your area, these articles may be interesting to consider. I must emphasize, however, that they should not be used to leverage criticism of existing church structures.

In this article, we will consider passages in the New Testament on deacons, bishops, and overseers. These terms may not be helpful to use in a DMM, but principles from these passages definitely will guide us. read more

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Church Planting Leadership

Five Tips on When to Release Responsibility in Disciple-making

By on Sunday, September 11, 2022
release

Jesus gave authority and power away before his disciples were fully ready. Do we? Sometimes I am afraid to give away responsibility. What if they mess it up? Most of the time I am slower to give away power and authority than I suspect Jesus would be.

Disciple Making Movements (DMMs) model everything after Jesus. Paul’s a great model too. Today I read Luke 9 in my daily devotions. I got stuck on verse one, “He gave them power and authority…” Then, in verse two, He sent them out to use it, however imperfectly.

We find the releasing of authority repeated in the Great Commission. “All authority in Heaven and on Earth I have given to you. Therefore, go and make disciples…” (Matt. 28:18). After a few years with this rag-tag team of people, He gave them everything that was His. But first, He gave them power and sent them out when He was still nearby to see how they did with it.

In Disciple Making Movements (DMMs) and Church Planting Movements (CPMs), we apply a model of experience, debrief, train, and repeat. Before people are “ready” they are doing and trying. This is not without feedback and the help to learn as they do. read more

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Church Planting Leadership Mindset Shifts

Who Drives Rapidly Growing Disciple Making Movements Forward?

By on Sunday, July 31, 2022
drives disciple-making movements

Reading this question you might think, “the apostolic leader.” Having a charismatic leader who motivates, trains, and inspires people is definitely helpful. They are not, however, the driving force in movements. The multiplication we see in rapidly multiplying movements is driven by ordinary disciples.

A less dynamic leader, who knows how to train and mobilize every believer will see greater fruit. It’s one of the key characteristics of movements. Every believer makes disciples.

Disciple-making and evangelism are not only the role and responsibility of trained clergy. In their jobs, neighborhoods, and families, lay people share their testimonies, pray for people, and invite them to read and study God’s Word. This leads to movements. This drives disciple-making forward.

Many churches and organizations say they want to fulfill the Great Commission. I don’t doubt their sincerity. The problem is that it’s not working. Millions still remain unreached. Having a desire to see the Great Commission completed is not enough. We need to actually do it! read more

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Leadership Missions Prayer

How to Develop the #1 Habit That Releases Movements

By on Monday, July 18, 2022

Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution and then failed to do those things? Most people have. We say, “I’m going to lose 10 kilos.” Or we might say, “I’m going to start exercising.” We make resolutions, we set goals- then we go back to our old ways. Sometimes this makes us not even want to set goals! The problem isn’t with goal setting. If a goal is to become a reality though, you have to change your behavior. There is one regular practice that will make a bigger difference than any other. It is the development of a daily intercessory prayer habit.

Habits Matter

We are creatures of habit. Habits are not things we think about. We just do them. I don’t think about if I will drink coffee in the morning. I just do. I don’t think about brushing my teeth either. It happens automatically. When I meet someone, I always say, “How are you?” Another habit.

There are many important habits we need in our life if we want to release movements. Sharing your testimony freely needs to become a habit. Praying for the sick should become normal behavior. Making room in your calendar to focus on discipling new believers – it needs to be a typical thing for you. read more

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Leadership

Part Four: How Does Eldership Function in Disciple Making Movements?

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2022
elders in Disciple-making Movements

“There is a well-respected man who has come to Christ. He used to be an imam. The whole community honors him and his testimony is solid. But he has two wives. Can he serve as an elder?” A church planter asked me this on a coaching call. Not a simple question to answer. This man was the cultural elder and the Person of Peace. Could he not be a spiritual leader too?

Many questions swirl around these issues as we start movements.

What do elders in a Disciple Making Movement (DMM) do? How are they appointed? Who decides who is appointed as an elder?

This is the fourth in a series of articles I’ve been writing about spiritual leadership in Disciple Making Movements.

Each movement needs to prayerfully determine how they will handle these questions. They must consider their own context in light of Biblical principles and the examples found there.

Biblical Principles on Eldership

There are 68 references to the word elder or elders in the New Testament. The Greek word used is presbuteros which has several meanings. According to Bible Study tools, any of these references simply mean those advanced in age. It was also used to mean the Jewish leaders in the council or Sanhedrin. This same word is used for various leadership roles in the Church. Sometimes it is translated elder, other times overseer. read more

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Books & Movies Leadership

Looking For Recommendations? 5 Good Books to Read in 2022

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Books

If knowledge puffs up (1 Cor. 8:1), why read books? Reading is not as important as applying what you read. Practicing what you know has a far greater value than gaining more and more knowledge. Having said this, good leaders continually learn and grow. Books help us do that. Visionary leaders read. No doubt about it.

Invest money and time in reading. Read widely. Read authors who share your perspective and passions, and those who don’t. Try reading different types or genres of books. As in relationships with people, it is good to listen to new voices and be updated in current viewpoints.

Reading and listening to audiobooks has been my habit for a long time. Some years, I read more than others, but I’m always reading or listening to new books.

Here are some recommended books for the new year and a short summary of my take-aways from them. If you purchase these via the button below, I get a tiny commission from Amazon that will help this platform continue to grow.

1. Emotionally Healthy Discipleship by Peter Scazzero

Chapter one of this book highlights four failures in disciple-making. read more

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Church Planting Leadership Mindset Shifts Strategy

Are Ministerial Titles Helpful or Can They Harm Movements?

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2022
ministerial titles

“Pastor Cindy”…ahh! That had a nice ring to it! Being called pastor somehow set me apart. I was special. When my husband and I first started pastoring, we were quite young…fresh out of Bible college. We served as youth ministers in a church that instructed us to call ourselves “Pastor Todd” and “Pastor Cindy.” Only later I came to understand the danger of titles, and what it did to increase the separation between myself and those I served.

Titles put you on a pedestal. It’s one you will sooner or later fall off of. It may be in a very visible way that hurts many. Or it could be in a hidden way, which hurts you. We all fail to live up to that standard of perfection and holiness. We’re human. The titles of Pastor, Bishop, Apostle, Reverend, sometimes cause more harm than good. This is certainly true when it comes to Disciple Making Movements and releasing the priesthood of all believers.

Where Do Ministerial Titles Come From?

This article won’t be able to go into depth or be complete on this topic. I simply want to give a brief summary to help us understand a bit of the historical context. read more

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