Would the “Real Disciple” Please Stand Up? By Jess Bousa, guest writer

Today I have invited my friend Jess Bousa to write a blog for Simple Discipleship. You will see that he is as passionate about discipleship as I am. He has written a new book that will be a great resource to grow disciples. If your internal fire for your own spiritual growth is burning low, [...]

#11 The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church: What is our leadership development process?

 
World famous author and Christian leader John Maxwell has well said, “Everything rises or falls on leadership.” This is one reason it is so important for pastors and church leaders to actually lead instead of simply manage. The temptation for pastors is to put the church on “automatic” and focus on preaching and teaching, and [...]

The Top 10 SIMPLE DISCIPLESHIP Weblog Articles- 2008/09

I have been writing articles for this blog site for just over a year and I am pleased and surprised at the response. There are 224 readers of this blog on a regular basis. I know that does not sound like a huge success, but it is exciting for me. I have endeavored to offer [...]

#10 The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church: What is Our Process for Resolving Conflict?

When I posted the introduction article to this series, I titled #10 as “What is our process for managing conflict?” I have updated this article to use the word “resolving” instead of “managing.” Virtually every organization, church or not, manages conflict in one way or another whether it is ignored, confronted, or resolved, each is [...]

#9 The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church: What Is Our Legacy?

 
I look forward to the Tour de France every summer and have enjoyed following the cycling career and life of Lance Armstrong. He is never satisfied with his past performances, but is always looking ahead to do better. He sees his main competitor as himself rather than other cyclers. He has an amazing story of [...]

The Hole in the Great Commission Resurgence

On its face, I support the Great Commission Resurgence movement by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Before I discuss the shortcoming or the “hole” in the GCR I must give proper credit and accolades to the Christian leaders who have authored the GCR and had the leadership courage to bring it to the forefront at [...]

#8 The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church: What is Our Vision?

The Great Commission Resurgence and how vision works–or doesn’t.

#7 The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church: What Do We Believe?

We live at a time of superficiality in virtually every arena of life today from politics to economic and from philosophy to religion. At this time people seem to care less about substantive beliefs and more about shallow temporary things. Many pastors get the impression that Christians have little concern about fundamental beliefs, considering that [...]

The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church: #6- What Process Does Your Church Use to Make Disciples?

The key word for this article is “process.” Prior to the twentieth-century, churches saturated their ministries with discipleship rather than treating it as a separate entity. Worship, music, prayer, Bible study, fellowship, and so on, were recognized as being a part of discipleship. A paradigm shift occurred in the twentieth-century when many churches adopted a [...]

The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church: #5 What Is Our Plan?

Many church and ministry leaders are familiar with the usually dreaded process of developing a strategy plan. Some leaders suffered through the great effort of developing a strategy plan about every five years—organizational analysis, SWOT analysis, demographic studies, visioneering, mission development, and constructing of goals as action steps. The usual result of all of the [...]