If you have been a Christian any length of time you have heard the bible verse about us being a body of believers and Jesus is the head of the body (Romans 12:4-5). That is where discipleship is birthed. The community setting where Jesus draws each of us together is what makes discipleship so important to believers. The community helps to build up the body as a whole and then helps strengthen the individual parts who intern make the body stronger.
Churches aren’t meant to make leaders. Leaders come from discipling new believers to maturity, not teaching leadership course to people who don’t know Christ very well or stealing leaders from other churches. That is just a fact. I love reading leadership books that talk about all the good leaders being somewhere else and how they need to be persuaded to come help us. While that can be a quick fix and help now, what happens when they are stolen by another church? Mature leaders who have been discipled in your church will stay with you through thick and thin, and they will make more disciples as they grow.
The church community must be mature. This is where many churches are struggling today, and it comes from trying to use programs to disciple our people, not people to disciple our people. We fell into the trap of the quick fix and the pastor who is hands off, and new believers we left to fend for themselves at worse, or given DVD curriculum at best. We must relearn disciple making and begin to disciple one-on-one. You know you have a core group of believer you can work with to start the ball rolling. Two things I recommend, one is Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time <Affiliate Link>this is the book that lays the groundwork for making disciples. The other is Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ
this is the workbook to go along with the book. Both of these are by Greg Ogden and are great for starting a disciple making program. I also believe we should not reinvent the wheel. If something is good and it works, then use it.

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