7 Stages of a Disciple Making Movement
In this blog post, I want to introduce the reader to the 7 stages of a developing disciple making movement. Then in my next teaching post on this blog, I want to specifically focus on 1 of the stages that seems to be challenging to many practitioners of the dmm/cpm strategy.
These 7 stages are broad categories that encapsulate several of the Critical Elements of disciple making movements. If you check out several of my older posts from several years ago (especially from the first year of the blog 2008) you will find several blogposts that describe what we call Critical Elements. (This series of blogposts from 2008 are entitled "The Critical Elements","Critical Elements of a Church Planting Movement", "Passionate Extraordinary Prayer", "Authority of Scripture and Obedience", "Rain and the Holy Spirit", "Miracles", "The 1:8 Factor", "The Strategic Critical Elements", and finally "The Discipleship Elements". These articles on the blog begin on the date August 14, 2008. They are well worth going back and reviewing. Also it should be noted that any list of Critical Elements are a work in progress and there have been modifications since these articles were written.) These are principles that seem to be present in every church planting movement around the world.
In order to illustrate how important these Critical Elements are, in our project in Latin America we intentionally crafted our discipleship strategy in such a way that we attempted to make sure that every Critical Element was present. After launching the project in 2008, we attempted to make sure that we were applying all the Critical Elements that we knew about. I recall that myself and Randy Travis (our training coordinator) and Keith Travis (our strategy coordinator) spent time reviewing these elements in early 2011 just as breakthrough was about to happen in the project! Indeed, even now, our team reviews and uses the Critical Elements as an assessment tool in terms of team accountability. The Critical Elements form an important part of our training events.
But several years ago, in order to make the Critical Elements a bit simpler, I created a teaching called the 7 stages of a Disciple Making Movement, in order to give a big picture view of the process of facilitating a DMM/CPM from the very beginning. What I present in the 7 stages is a step by step process of how to begin from scratch applying this strategy. And I point out that although you would apply these stages in order (first stage 1, then stage 2, then stage 3 etc..), you never leave any of the stages behind. In other words, you begin with stage 1, but when you add stage 2 you never stop stage 1...merely add stage 2 to the mix and so on until all 7 stages are engaged. In a full blown movement, all 7 stages will be functioning at once.
With that being said....Here are the 7 Stages of a Disciple Making Movement.
Stage One: Develop A Kingdom of God Mindset.
If there will really be a movement, the team that is facilitating and catalyzing the movement must look beyond merely growing their church, their organization, their denomination, or their ministry. It must be about multiplication of disciples to Jesus, and to the growth of the Kingdom, not any particular sub group. All the groups that really are involved will see growth, but it cannot be limited to our group. It is about Souls, God's Glory, and the Kingdom. If this is not the mindset, then you may have some success, but your work will fall short of a movement.
Stage Two: Personal Spiritual Principles (Prayer and Obedience to the Word and the Spirit)
In this stage, the facilitators focus on their own personal walk with Christ. You cannot spread a virus by talking about it. Only the infected are contagious! Likewise, the sincerity of the facilitators in the walk with Christ is vital if we are going to see a disciple making movement happen. So Prayer is Key....both personal, and team prayer...and development of a prayer base to cover the work. Then the Obedience to Scripture as total authority (as illustrated in a 3 Column Bible Study lifestyle) is vital. Once this is in the lives of the facilitators, these principles can be authentically mentored into the followers and disciples that we work with.
Stage Three: Develop Your Access Strategy
How will you engage with the people in your target group, city, region etc.? What are their felt needs? Realizing that we are not engaging with traditional preaching/evangelistic methods, we must find a way to develop Relationships with the people we want to reach. This is called Access Strategy.
Stage Four: Find Persons of Peace
Based on the teaching of Luke 10:1-12, this Jesus Strategy begins with moving beyond our initial Relationships with the people, and looking for a Person of Peace. This person will be willing to study scripture with you...and will be able to influence his/her family or friends to be a part of the study.
Stage Five: Begin and multiply Discovery Bible Studies (DBS)
Evangelism happens through a natural process of studying the Bible together. A DBS is not a Bible teaching that is conducted by the facilitators. It is a shared experience of studying the Bible Together. Information about this process can be found at our website at: http://worldmissionsevangelism.com/discovery-bible-studies/
Stage Six: Transition to Church Life and Develop and Multiply Groups of Believers
This is the Critical Stage in Moving from a mere Disciple Making Movement to a Church Planting Movement. How are new churches developed from new multiplying groups of believers?
Stage Seven: Train and Mentor New Leaders as the Groups and Churches Multiply.
Ongoing Leadership Development and Multiplication is Critical as a movement takes hold in a nation, region, city or people group.
So here are the 7 Stages of a DMM/CPM. In the next teaching blog, I want to deal with Stage Six. One of the key, yet most challenging stages seems to be the transition from group to church. Many people that we have trained in more traditional church settings see this stage as the one they have the most questions about. So we will look specifically at that in the next teaching blog.
These 7 stages are broad categories that encapsulate several of the Critical Elements of disciple making movements. If you check out several of my older posts from several years ago (especially from the first year of the blog 2008) you will find several blogposts that describe what we call Critical Elements. (This series of blogposts from 2008 are entitled "The Critical Elements","Critical Elements of a Church Planting Movement", "Passionate Extraordinary Prayer", "Authority of Scripture and Obedience", "Rain and the Holy Spirit", "Miracles", "The 1:8 Factor", "The Strategic Critical Elements", and finally "The Discipleship Elements". These articles on the blog begin on the date August 14, 2008. They are well worth going back and reviewing. Also it should be noted that any list of Critical Elements are a work in progress and there have been modifications since these articles were written.) These are principles that seem to be present in every church planting movement around the world.
In order to illustrate how important these Critical Elements are, in our project in Latin America we intentionally crafted our discipleship strategy in such a way that we attempted to make sure that every Critical Element was present. After launching the project in 2008, we attempted to make sure that we were applying all the Critical Elements that we knew about. I recall that myself and Randy Travis (our training coordinator) and Keith Travis (our strategy coordinator) spent time reviewing these elements in early 2011 just as breakthrough was about to happen in the project! Indeed, even now, our team reviews and uses the Critical Elements as an assessment tool in terms of team accountability. The Critical Elements form an important part of our training events.
But several years ago, in order to make the Critical Elements a bit simpler, I created a teaching called the 7 stages of a Disciple Making Movement, in order to give a big picture view of the process of facilitating a DMM/CPM from the very beginning. What I present in the 7 stages is a step by step process of how to begin from scratch applying this strategy. And I point out that although you would apply these stages in order (first stage 1, then stage 2, then stage 3 etc..), you never leave any of the stages behind. In other words, you begin with stage 1, but when you add stage 2 you never stop stage 1...merely add stage 2 to the mix and so on until all 7 stages are engaged. In a full blown movement, all 7 stages will be functioning at once.
With that being said....Here are the 7 Stages of a Disciple Making Movement.
Stage One: Develop A Kingdom of God Mindset.
If there will really be a movement, the team that is facilitating and catalyzing the movement must look beyond merely growing their church, their organization, their denomination, or their ministry. It must be about multiplication of disciples to Jesus, and to the growth of the Kingdom, not any particular sub group. All the groups that really are involved will see growth, but it cannot be limited to our group. It is about Souls, God's Glory, and the Kingdom. If this is not the mindset, then you may have some success, but your work will fall short of a movement.
Stage Two: Personal Spiritual Principles (Prayer and Obedience to the Word and the Spirit)
In this stage, the facilitators focus on their own personal walk with Christ. You cannot spread a virus by talking about it. Only the infected are contagious! Likewise, the sincerity of the facilitators in the walk with Christ is vital if we are going to see a disciple making movement happen. So Prayer is Key....both personal, and team prayer...and development of a prayer base to cover the work. Then the Obedience to Scripture as total authority (as illustrated in a 3 Column Bible Study lifestyle) is vital. Once this is in the lives of the facilitators, these principles can be authentically mentored into the followers and disciples that we work with.
Stage Three: Develop Your Access Strategy
How will you engage with the people in your target group, city, region etc.? What are their felt needs? Realizing that we are not engaging with traditional preaching/evangelistic methods, we must find a way to develop Relationships with the people we want to reach. This is called Access Strategy.
Stage Four: Find Persons of Peace
Based on the teaching of Luke 10:1-12, this Jesus Strategy begins with moving beyond our initial Relationships with the people, and looking for a Person of Peace. This person will be willing to study scripture with you...and will be able to influence his/her family or friends to be a part of the study.
Stage Five: Begin and multiply Discovery Bible Studies (DBS)
Evangelism happens through a natural process of studying the Bible together. A DBS is not a Bible teaching that is conducted by the facilitators. It is a shared experience of studying the Bible Together. Information about this process can be found at our website at: http://worldmissionsevangelism.com/discovery-bible-studies/
Stage Six: Transition to Church Life and Develop and Multiply Groups of Believers
This is the Critical Stage in Moving from a mere Disciple Making Movement to a Church Planting Movement. How are new churches developed from new multiplying groups of believers?
Stage Seven: Train and Mentor New Leaders as the Groups and Churches Multiply.
Ongoing Leadership Development and Multiplication is Critical as a movement takes hold in a nation, region, city or people group.
So here are the 7 Stages of a DMM/CPM. In the next teaching blog, I want to deal with Stage Six. One of the key, yet most challenging stages seems to be the transition from group to church. Many people that we have trained in more traditional church settings see this stage as the one they have the most questions about. So we will look specifically at that in the next teaching blog.
Comments