We are exploring the mDNA component -disciple-making or discipleship from Alan Hirsch’s forthcoming book and how it applies to Northern Community. The other posts in the mDNA series are here

Approaches to disciple-making (continued)

5 phases of movements

Steve Addison has discerned five stages in the transmission of ideas and therefore the discipleship practices in missionary movements. This is not an actual discipleship approach but rather a review of some of the most effective missionary movements in history and therefore is illuminating of some effective disciple-making approaches.

Hirsch documents the five phases that he presented to forge at a forge intensive.

White Hot faith, by which he means a direct and personal encounter with the living God, followed by social renewal. Whether this be a Paul, Wesley, Francis, Luther, a Wimber, Mother Theresa, or any other great Christian leader who founded a movement, it all inevitably starts with a direct and transforming encounter with God.

Commitment to the Cause: that people who are touched in such a way by God, give their lives to the cause as articulated by the movement. Commitment levels tend to be significantly high and catalyze a certain type of synergy that comes through mutual cooperation and commitment.

Contagious Relationships: Ideas travel like a virus. Powerful ideas like the gospel are passed on from one person to another. For movements to extend themselves beyond a narrow network or people and a single generation there needs to be a network of relationships that become ‘contagious’.

Rapid Mobilization: there needs to be an apostolic type of leadership and organization that develops to be able to coordinate and maximize the efforts of the adherents of the movement.

Dynamic Methods: it is significant that movements tend to use new, innovative methods and techniques to communicate their message.

Each of these five stages contains lessons for the development of a discipleship strategy for Northern. The challenge is to cultivate an environment that will follow these five phases. It is unclear if Addison is indicating that these five phases happen sequentially and I would assume it is more chaotic than stepping through the phases. This cultivation challenge could easily be seen as a key leadership task. However, it is also one that is at the heart of the discipleship task. Discipleship should not be seen as simply an individual endeavour but it also has organizational implications.

Concluding thoughts on the different discipleship approaches

The different discipleship approaches can be categorized into several areas; those that are short-term and designed to occur either immediately before or after a faith decision, others that are short-term intensive times to educate, and others that are ongoing commitments that actually transform the expectations of the faithful. I believe that the last one holds the most promise for our current missional context. The established church needs to review the way it transforms people into being followers of Jesus and this will require a re-assessment of the ongoing and long-term commitment required.

This review and re-assessment will not be without pain – as is any change. Some groups such as UNOH have offered a way forward as they re-examine what it means to be a follower of Jesus in their context. However, for many this strict regime will be a higher cost than they are prepared to pay. It is my hope that we can discover a way to claim the benefits of such a long term discipleship task in a way that can also be integrated into established churches. Some of the principles of a missional order could possibly raise the bar of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and be connected to a local church.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 10:09 am by phil and is filed under mDNA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.