How do we disciple within existing bodies of Believers – churches, whatever the form – to establish the DNA of disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples? When discussing movements, establishing new communities is emphasized often to the exclusion of conversations about what we do with existing communities. Working within existing churches is very difficult; resectioning and re-establishing DNA always is. But, putting the DNA of movements into existing bodies is not impossible. This video discusses 3 elements of leading within existing churches to embed the DNA of disciple making movements.

Sometimes our familiarity with Scripture causes us to develop bad studying habits. Instead of carefully reading every word we skim passages, reminding us of what we already know and believe. Unfortunately, bad habits like this cause us to miss things God wants to show us that are applicable for today. This 4 Column Process is one I use to study God’s Word.

Disobedience is one of the main reasons disciples don’t make disciples and churches don’t replicate churches.  Disobedience is also the reason we don’t see transformation at every level: individual, family, community, city, nation.  Yet when I talk about obeying the commands of Christ, the first accusation I face is, “You are a legalist.”  or “You believe in salvation by works.”  When did simple obedience to Christ become legalism?  When did obeying Christ become a works-based salvation?  The answer is ‘Never.’  I think they are easy smokescreens thrown up by a people who have the trappings of Godliness but none of the transformative power that comes with doing what Jesus said to do.  If obedience isn’t part of church, then we are not church.  If obedience is not part of making disciples, then we won’t see a disciple-making movement.

It isn’t that the existing bodies of Believers in the Western World do not bear fruit – they do – it’s that the fruit they bear often does not have the capacity to become a fruit-bearing vine.  Our bodies produce a higher volume of seedless grapes than grape that have seeds.  A major part of Disciple-making Movement thinking is figuring out what it will take to get our existing vines bearing fruit with seeds and planting new vines with the capacity to bear fruit with seeds from the beginning.  The question is, “What is it going to take to put the vineyards back into seedless grapes?”

When you say ‘church,’ most people have a picture in their head of what church is.  That picture is really a snapshot of a moment of time in the life of a particular body of Believers in a particular culture.  ’What is Church?’ is a difficult question because church is organic…what it looks like and does in its infancy may be quite different from what it looks like and does when that body is over a century old.  An acorn and an oak tree look quite different, but at the genetic level they are the same.  They also have the same purpose – grow and produce more acorns which become oak trees.  When we discuss church, we need to discuss where a particular body is in development as much as we need to discuss what we mean when we say ‘Church.’

Talking about church isn’t easy.  In the USA, we have a culture that has a picture of what church is and opinions about what it should be.  Our conversations about church already have a cultural context.  The accuracy of that context is really not the point…the context is a reality we have to acknowledge and communicate through.  Then you have the Bible and what is says about church.  Obviously the Bible tells us what church ought to be and what we should be and do as part of the Body of Christ.  Culture gives us an partial view of church.  The Bible gives us a complete view.  But, when we are talking, we need to take both into account as they both impact our conversations about ‘Church.’  The question is, “How?”

Adjectives can be helpful.  I admit it, I like knowing the culture of a gathering of believers, especially if it is my first time to be with that gathering.  Words like ‘Baptist’ and ‘Simple’ help me understand the culture of the people in the gathering and that is nice.  But when we set out to disciple people into new bodies of believers, adjectives might actually damage the potential of those we disciple.  We might restrict people to obeying Scripture the way a Baptist or a Methodist might rather than helping them listen to the Holy Spirit and obey the Word as He convicts them.  We might limit their growth because we think a body shouldn’t grow beyond a house when the Holy Spirit may have other plans for the believers in that area.  We might shy away from things because they look complex or structured when the obedience of people might develop something that doesn’t look simple to us.  We might discount something that is small just because we have our sights set on something that is mega.  Adjectives can be great descriptors of what is, let’s not make them limiters on what Jesus has planned for His Body.

Definitions are important for communication.  While many will be based on Scripture, definitions of things like groups, church, disciple-making movements and church planting movements vary.  When you use these terms you need to define them to facilitate better conversation.  When you hear others use these terms, you need to ask them for their definition so you know what they mean.  In this video I don’t say these are the only definitions of these terms or that you should use them.  I want you to know what I mean when I use these terms on this site.  I want you to hold me accountable to uses these terms consistently as we talk about catalyzing disciple-making movements.

Our focus on reaching individuals with the Gospel may be hurting our efforts to establish communities of Believers. What if we focused on discipling communities – families or affinity groups – rather than spending all our time working with individuals and trying to get them ‘plugged into’ communities that are foreign to them? Maybe we could reduce the number of people who seem to get lost in the cracks between personal evangelism and the community of believers. Maybe discipling groups is more effective than evangelizing individuals.

The reactions of other followers of Christ as we do the things required to make disciples is often surprising.  Our focus is on those who do not know Jesus.  Consequently, we spend as much time as we can hanging out with them.  We may go places Christians shun.  We hang out with people Christians fear.  We don’t have the time to spend doing the cultural things many Christians expect ‘good Christians’ to do.  Sometimes we have to commit cultural suicide to be a good disciple maker.