How Not to Fix the Discipleship Problem in a Church
There is a way of addressing church stagnation and lack of discipleship in the church. Here are nine wrong ways of addressing the issue.
There is a way of addressing church stagnation and lack of discipleship in the church. Here are nine wrong ways of addressing the issue.
The church is called to engage in discipleship. How can you make your church evangelistic? This article explains five steps you need to take to get your church engaged in evangelism.
This article provides sound biblical advice for providing discipleship to those are suffering.
This article discusses what kind of connection sports have with Christian discipleship. It considers the biblical language related to sports, as well as the leadership lessons that can be learned from sports.
How do you make disciples who are zealous to truly follow Christ? It is through a balanced discipleship. This article offers three areas in which balance must be kept.
This article addresses the question "How do we disciple?" by considering discipleship by preaching. All disciples are formed and strengthened by preaching.
How can you be committed to everyday discipleship? This article shares six lessons to help you get started and persevere in this endeavour.
This article encourages women to consider all of Scripture, not merely Titus 2:3-5, when it comes to discipleship relationships. The author explains what gospel-centred, whole-Bible discipleship entails, and how this shapes women's ministry.
If you are not committed to discipleship, did you know that the reason may be that you believe one of the nine myths of discipleship that this article unpacks?
How can the church disciple those with mental illness? Discipleship to the mentally ill should at least embrace these four things.
Seminary is a time of discipleship. Therefore, seminarians need the church. How can the church serve the training of pastors? This article provides three ways the church can do this.
Regeneration is the birth of a disciple. Therefore, discipleship should be rooted in the biblical doctrine of regeneration. This article discusses four aspects of regeneration that must shape the philosophy of discipleship.
The purpose of discipleship is to make disciples Christ-like. Therefore, discipleship is not just a program; it’s life. This means that discipleship should be formal, informal, spontaneous, and intentional.
This article explains that individualism is a threat to discipleship, because discipleship happens in a community rooted in the gospel.
Culture is everywhere and, like it or not, culture is changing you. If this is the case then how can Christians use the tools of culture for discipleship? This article defines what culture is and gives a way in which Christians can engage with pop culture.
This chapter forms an introduction to the Gospel of Mark. Introductory matters addressed are its authorship, the audience, the date, the emergence of Mark in gospel studies, theological emphases (Christology, the Messianic secret, the disciples and discipleship), and an outline of the Gospel.
How do we become disciples who last? This article discusses four ways we can develop discipleship perseverance, in an effort to make mature disciples.
Life as a sinner with other sinners is challenging and messy. How shall we respond to one another when misunderstanding happens? This article points to Christ as the picture of what ministry and discipleship look like: they involve being misunderstood and being vulnerable.
Discipleship has characterized the church throughout history. This article looks at the life of Saint Patrick, and four lessons we can learn from him on making disciples: discipleship is an effort of teamwork, it must be holistic, community based, and hospitality can play a role.
When thinking about discipleship, no one should ignore the lessons gained from Herman Bavinck. He There are three essentials to discipleship in his view: God's revelation, union with Christ, and ordinary obedience.
Is discipleship merely about knowledge transfer? This article argues that discipleship needs to be aware that our gospel begins not with the fall, but with creation and the cultural mandate. Thus, not only one's private life needs to be discipled, but also one's public live. Understanding the goodness of creation will foster engagement in the world.
We all live with some type of worldview. How do we expose false worldviews and show people their need for Jesus Christ? The church has the gospel, discipleship, missions, and apologetics to do this.
The church has always pursued making disciples. What can we learn from those who went before us? This article draws four lessons from Jan Hus on discipleship.
Discipleship is a call to share not only the gospel but also your life. This article explains that only love can motivate us to share the gospel with those we disciple. After explaining this, the article draws three practical implications.
This article offers four essentials for cultivating discipleship in the church: storytelling, the gathering of the church, the church in the world, and family worship.
When we pray, "Hallowed be your Name," what are we praying for? We want to see God's glory revered in our lives and the lives of others. Thie article shows how this prayer shapes discipleship.
How do you cultivate a church environment where discipleship is rooted in a circle of disciples discipling others? In Acts 11 and Acts 13, the church in Antioch gives the essence of a multiplying culture. This article explains that there are five things essential to multiplying disciples.
This article explains that the sixth petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Deliver us from evil," is linked with discipleship.
Long-term discipleship is the key to preparing believers for a short-term mission. This preparation should consist of gospel clarity, spiritual integrity, cultural agility, and team unity.
Is discipleship a once-off thing? Is there a time when discipling others should stop, and how do you help those who think they have been discipled enough? This article explains that discipleship is a lifelong process, and those discipled still need discpling. It shows four ways in which this can be done.
Parenting is part of discipleship. This article is a call to churches to partner with parents and equip parents to make disciples at home. The article discusses the different ways the church can be involved in this ministry of equipping parents.
How do you practice discipleship in an age of social media and smartphones, which result in people having a shorter attention span? There are four things you can do to build disciples in such an age.
If discipleship is about helping others follow Jesus, where should one start when looking to foster discipleship of women? This article offers three things to consider.
Can the Great Commission be taken personally? This article argues that discipleship has always been done by a group of Christians each reaching out to the people around them.
Spiritual poverty is the key to discipleship. How? It is spiritual poverty that drives us to Christ and it is the same poverty that prompts us to direct others to Christ.
This article suggests that discipleship has always been the Lord Jesus' primary plan for the church, even though many churches lack this practice. The author considers how to build a disciple-making church.
Is your discipleship strategy missing something? This article argues that many churches' discipleship strategies lack Jesus' plan for making disciples.
This article offers ten key issues that must shape the church in thinking about discipleship.
What is the fullness of the Spirit referred to by Paul in Ephesians 5:18? Often this text is read in terms of the empowerment of individual believers for discipleship and ministry, and this leads to difficulties in relating the text to its immediate literary context.
Making disciples is a command of Christ. Therefore, it must be intentional, with the aim of making followers of Christ who are instructed in Christ's way. These are the core beliefs of discipleship.
Making disciples is a responsibility of the church. This article lays down the biblical ground for this call and the manner in which discipleship should be pursued by the church.
Often Jesus called his disciples and followers to leave everything. What is the content of this call? There are also passages in Luke and Acts that seem to require voluntary poverty. Other passages require a right attitude to the continuing possession of wealth. What was Jesus' teaching on possessions?
This article teaches on the demands of discipleship: learning, loving, and living. Christ communicates with the disciple and the disciple experiences communion with Christ. The rest of the article discusses in detail these aspects of discipleship.
This article identifies a number of unbiblical approaches to evangelistic ministry. These include the omission of the aspects of repentance from sin and the lordship of Christ, the hiding of the terms of discipleship, and the salesmanship techniques employed in bringing people to confess faith in Christ.
In this article, the author speaks of our discipleship in terms of being conscious that we bear the image of God as restored and renewed in Christ.
Discipleship training is a process. Like physical training there are things that must characterize discipleship. This article discusses seven characteristics of discipleship training.
For the Lord Jesus, there was one necessity that controlled his life. This article, an exposition of Mark 8:27–Mark 9:1, shows what it meant for Christ to do the will of God, and what Christian discipleship today is all about.
Matthew 16:23-24 is interpreted in mainly three different ways. The purpose of the author of this article is twofold. First, he wants to identify and to understand how, through linguistic and contextual analyses, each of these traditions originated. In the second place, he wants to emphasize that Jesus was concerned with discipleship in the kingdom of heaven.
What is a disciple? A disciple is a follower. Discipleship is geared at making people followers of Christ. This article explains the goal of discipleship and the responsibility to disciple.
Longenecker focuses in this article on the designation in the Gospels of Jesus Christ as Son of Man. The author argues that a good understanding of this designation has important implications for Christian discipleship.
Discipleship is what the church is called to. This article explains what it means to be a disciple.
The article provides a reminder to believers on the dangers and difficulties involved in the work of discipleship and evangelism. This includes the importance of understanding the depths of the grace of God towards sinners who may still continue to sin even after being converted, and indeed the believer's attitude towards sin.
Looking at the basics of Christian faith, this article shows that recognizing the authority of Christ and His kingship is vital, and has implications for discipleship.
This article looks at the history of the Heidelberg Catechism in terms of its context and structure. The author maintains that the catechism can still play a big role in the church through catechetical discipleship and training believers in sound doctrine.
Discipleship is crucial for church growth. This article is a reflection on effective evangelism and how churches can do mission work.
This article discusses the meaning of discipleship, presenting the life of Paul as a example of the attitude of a disciple of Christ.
Ramachandra sets the challenge of contemporary Christian discipleship and mission in the context of our changing political, economic and cultural context. He presents a vision of the gospel and the Church of Christ as the true universalism in the context of globalization.
This article on the goal of evangelism and the motives for evangelism, is also about discipleship and evangelism.
It has often been said that the Gospel of Mark has no real teaching on salvation. Theologians commonly identify the teaching on the person of Christ as Mark's central concern. Although Mark certainly does focus on Christ, for him his teaching on Christ is inseparable from what he teaches on salvation. In Mark's Gospel, understanding who Jesus is and what He did and is doing entails acknowledging his claim upon one's life. Therefor Mark's characteristic model of salvation is discipleship.
Nolland studies Matthew 5:43-48 and other key texts that highlights the command to love our enemies as a priority in Christian discipleship. He further sheds light on Jesus’ teaching by setting it in the wider context not only of Matthew’s gospel but also of the ancient world and the Old Testament. He demonstrates that, without being critical of the Old Testament, Jesus radically extends its teaching.