ChosenRebel's Blog

Six Questions on a Thursday to Clarity Your Discipleship

I just rediscovered a book on my shelf that I don’t know how it came into my possession. It is a review copy of Glenn McDonald’s The Disciple Making Church: From Dry Bones to Spiritual Vitality. Here are six questions from the opening chapter of his book worth discussion on how to evaluate our maturity as disciples.

1. Who is your Lord?
2. Who are you?
3. Who is your Barnabas?
4. Who is your Timothy?
5. Where is your Antioch?
6. Where is your Macedonia?

McDonald asks a significant clarifying question at the beginning of his book. “What if we asked a different set of questions? What would our churches look like if, more than anything, we valued a particular set of redemptive relationships?” (p. xiii)

Having just finished training church planters in New York with Dynamic Church Planting International (DCPI), I was struck by how many of McDonald’s questions corresponded to the principles approach that we took with the training of leaders.

1. Question one gets at “The Boss Principle” – who rules the life and sets the agenda? (DCPI #1)
2. Question two gets at  “The Power Principle” – who is the source of your life? (DCPI #2, also #10)
3. Question three gets at “Barnabas Principle” – who is building into your life? (DCPI #3)
4. Question four gets at “The Leadership Principle” – whose life or lives are you building into? (DCPI #7)
5. Question five gets at “The Team Leader Principle” – who is in the small circle of friends helping  you to discern God’s direction in your life? (DCPI #5)
6. Question six gets at “The Mission Principle” – where is God calling you to take the gospel? (DCPI #6, also #11)

Thoughts:

• The “Principles” approach of DCPI* is a better way to train church planters than a “Models” approach.
• Answering these six questions would go a long way to refining our discipleship processes in our churches.
• I want to urge all my readers to answer these six questions. Maybe get away for a prayer retreat to answer them and plan a strategy for how you will continue to answer them for a lifetime.

Consider yourself urged.

And, by the way, if I could help facilitate your retreat, I am available almost any weekend. Just give me a call.

—–

* Dynamic Church Planting International, founded by Paul Becker in 1994, trains church planters around the world. Every track of training begins with a 75 minute session on twelve principles that are the foundation of dynamic church planting efforts of church planting movements around the world.