The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask about Your Church: #1 What is Our Mission?

The Great Commission is the prime directive that tells Christians “interfere” intentionally in the human culture to make disciples of Jesus!

Simple Discipleship Blog

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What is the mission of your church?

It is such a simple question, but seemingly perplexing to many church leaders. Most church leaders rightly assume that “mission” refers to the Lord’s Great Commission in Matthew 28, but Acts 1:8 offers insight as to how the contextual movement of ministry of a local church. For this article we will focus on the mission or “what is the primary purpose of the church.” On this point, I must respectfully disagree with Pastor Rick Warren and the purpose-driven movement. I think ‘mission-driven” is more accurate to the Great Commission. I believe that worship, discipleship, evangelism, ministry, and, fellowship are all essential activities of a healthy church, but these are not the purposes of the church. The purpose of the church is found in the Great Commission stated by Jesus Christ:

And Jesus came and spoke to them…

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Simple Discipleship and Christian Coaching

What’s the difference between coaching, counseling, and mentoring?

Simple Discipleship Blog

“I WAS COACHING WHEN COACHING WASN’T COOL”

Until recently the word coaching was connected to some area of sports, but that has changed. Today the term “coaching” is applied to many areas of everyday life. In the secular realm one may hire a life, executive, business, wellness, etiquette, marriage, spiritual, and of course, sports coach. However, the church has been slow to move toward this popular method of equipping. In 2001 Gary Collins expressed concern that while coaching was the “hottest” new profession in America, virtually no churches were using it (Christian Coaching, 15). In 2003 Reggie McNeal recommended that churches provide life coaching for spiritual formation (The Present Future, 77). It is now 2010, and only a few churches provide any kind of structured coaching ministry. I believe churches should establish Christian coaching ministries as a means of equipping for spiritual formation and life. Christian coaching ministries…

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The Twelve Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Church

Be the leader God intends you to be!

Simple Discipleship Blog

The leader of a rowing team is the only one that can see where the vessel is going.

Leaders by nature must lead. I have heard an unusual number of pastors say, “I just want to preach. I don’t want to deal with strategy, planning, administration, counseling, change, and certainly not conflict.” However, this attitude is inconsistent with almost all of the biblical examples from Moses to the Apostle Paul and Elijah to the Apostle John. Each of them proclaimed the word of God but they also had to deal with administration, logistical issues, strategy, planning, counseling, change management, and conflict. From personal experience, I know that preaching is not only one of the more pleasant ministry tasks, but it is also challenging. Still, it is only a small part albeit most visible aspects of what pastors do. My point is that it is necessary for church leaders to move…

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THE PERSONALITIES OF THE GOSPEL WRITERS: A GOSPEL FOR EACH PERSONALITY

What was the personality style of the Gospel writers?

Simple Discipleship Blog

Read the four gospels and you will see the distinctive expressions of the personalities of each writer—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For evangelical Christians, God inspired the words to be written in their respective sections of what became part of the Bible, but God’s inspiration did not diminish the individual personalities of the writers. This article seeks to identify the personality or behavior styles of the four gospel writers using the widely accepted DISC system that is simplified for easy understanding.

A SIMPLIFIED DISC SYSTEM

The DISC is widely accepted in the human resources and professional life, work, and leadership coaching fields. Each letter in the DISC illustrates a personality or behavior style of about a quarter of the population. Respectively the letters stand for D- dominating, I- inspiring, S- steadying, and C- calculating. The words representative of each group illustrate the behavior characteristics of each style. A simplified system…

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DISCIPLESHIP BEST PRACTICES: 13 Ways to Make Disciples

On the new SimpleDiscipleshipBlog.com, Read all 13 best practices for making disciples.

Simple Discipleship Blog

Personal Discipleship

Even with all of the recent focus on discipleship, many churches remain paralyzed in their 20^th century silo-style of discipleship delivery which has proven ineffective at transforming lives and making disciples. In fact, silo-delivery of discipleship reinforces behavioral compartmentalization defined as “a state in which some integrated part of a person’s life becomes separated from the rest of the personality and functions independently.” You know this concept: people hear teachings of Christianity in a Bible study or sermon and then fail to integrate the principles into their lives since, as they see it, they have their church life and their other life. A ubiquitous (all inclusive-everywhere present) discipleship delivery system provided in a process manner is much more effective.

13 WAYS TO MAKE DISCIPLES

This series of articles will focus on eleven delivery methods of a ubiquitous discipleship process which include but are not limited to:

• Simple Discipleship:…

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WHAT IS YOUR CHURCH’S LOVE LANGUAGE?

What is the love language of your church?

Simple Discipleship Blog

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Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages made a big impact on me and how I see and relate to people. In his great work he identifies five primary love languages that fill a receptive need in other individuals. For instance a person who has the love language of Words of Affirmation may not be inspired when given a gift and they might just get bored with Quality Time. On the other hand, if the same person is given Words of Affirmation, they may feel inspired and motivated to do great things. Here are the five love languages as taught by Gary Chapman:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Acts of Service
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Quality Time
5. Physical Touch

I know someone in my family whose love language is Acts of Service. For years family members would give gifts at birthdays and Christmas but the person did…

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THE DEMISE OF THE SUNDAY EVENING SERVICE

Be sure to ask the right questions before making decisions!

Simple Discipleship Blog

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After the invention of the electric light bulb and availability of electricity, many churches added a Sunday evening worship service along with other activities. Indeed, the morning worship remained the pearl that received greater attention and preparation but Sunday evening services were often well attended. In this writer’s experience, churches often enjoyed at least half as many on Sunday evening as they did in the morning service. Approaching the turn of the 21^st century, Sunday evening worship attendance had dropped in many churches. As some churches began to cancel Sunday evening services, more church leaders began to consider doing the same and many followed suit. This article looks at the decline and demise of the Sunday evening service and offers a challenge. Did churches cancel Sunday evening worship services for the right reasons? Is the cancellation of Sunday evening services a portend of…

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THE DISCIPLE-MAKER’S OATH

Re-Commission your congregation to increase the church commitment to make disciple-makers!

Simple Discipleship Blog

What is the intent of The Great Commission given by Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:18-20? Many Christians in the 21^st century fail to see themselves as disciples of Christ and some may not comprehend the meaning of being “followers of Christ.” It is obvious to most Christian leaders whether they serve in volunteer or vocational ministry that Jesus intended for all Christians to be disciples and more than that, he intended for all Christians to be disciple-making disciple-makers. His desire is that immediately upon receiving Christ and being filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, every Christian is to make disciples.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MAKE DISCIPLES?

For many Christian leaders The Great Commission is a two-step process—baptism (conversion/evangelism) and teaching all that Jesus Christ commanded (discipleship). In a sense, Jesus never intended for making disciples to be a two-stage process. Even so, it is tragic that so…

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THAT ONE THING DISCIPLES OF JESUS MUST DO!

Are you making disciple-makers?

Simple Discipleship Blog

After over twenty years serving as a pastor of churches, my “tent-making” job is that of working as a leadership trainer and executive sales coach for a training company. The experience has been enlightening and challenging. In every class or coaching session I ask the client, “What do you want to do after the class or session that you not currently doing?” This is a great question for pastors preparing for preaching and teaching but it is also a question we need to ask of every Christian and church.

Consider the following passage:

Matthew 4:18-22

¹⁸Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. ¹⁹Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” ²⁰They immediately left their nets and followed Him. ²¹Going…

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Start a Christian Coaching Ministry

A Christian Life-Coaching ministry may be an innovative church growth element.

Simple Discipleship Blog

This is THE most popular post for the last two years. Now I am ready to help your church start a Christian coaching ministry. We also provide Executive Ministry Coaching. The parent company for Simple Discipleship is RENOVA Coaching and Consulting LLC. We are partnering with a coach training organization to provide certified coach training at three levels…1) Certified Christian Coach, 2) Certified Disciple Coach, and 3) Certified Wellness Coach. Go to http://renovacoaching.com/ for more information.

Churches have been slow to use coaching as a method of equipping in various areas such as life, leadership, marriage, career, wellness, and yes, spiritual formation and growth. In 2001 Gary Collins expressed concern that while coaching was the “hottest” new profession in America, virtually no churches were using it (Christian Coaching, 15). In 2003 Reggie McNeal recommended that churches provide life coaching for spiritual formation (The Present Future, 77). It…

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