McCallum Dennis - Organic Disciplemaking: Mentoring Others Into Spiritual Maturity and Leadership

ORGANIC DISCIPLSHIP:

MENTORING OTHERS INTO SPIRITUAL MATURITY AND LEADERSHIP

Revised Edition

D e n n i s M c C a l l u m

J e s s i c a L o w e r y

Copyright 2006 by Dennis McCallum and Jessica Lowery

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Cover design by David Biederman

International Standard Book Number: 978-0-9836681-0-7

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission.

Visit http://menmbersofoneanother.com/discipleship for bulk pricing and author access.

New Paradigm
Publishing

PRAISE FOR ORGANIC DISCIPLSHIP

The organic disciple making teachings and practices laid out in this book have transformed the lives and ministries of my two children who became part of Xenos while attending university. Both have blossomed into effective disciples, disciple-makers and godly leaders. The many Xenos workers who have joined World Team for cross cultural church planting often have a distinct advantage over other workers who have learned about discipleship but have not experienced it. I encourage you to read this book with thoughtful reflection and critique so that you can apply it as you and your church disciple others to follow Jesus.

ALBERT EHMANN

Executive Director of World Team

Dennis and Jessica are master disciple-makers. Dennis has personally mentored more people into spiritual maturity and leadership than anyone I know. Organic Discipleship is a new classic on the details of what, why, and how to make disciples in the 21st century. It is Biblically solid, theologically sound, and practically effective. Buy it. Read it. Do it.

DR. DAVE EARLEY

Director for the Center for Ministry Training

Liberty Theological Seminary

Organic Discipleship is biblical. It comes out of the life of both a person and a fellowshipXenos Fellowship. The church is a witness to all Dennis is talking about. I know Dennis; I know the church and am always inspired when I go there. I have said many times that this church represents authentic New Testament Christianity. It comes at a crucial time in the history of the church; a time when we are making Christians without discipling them. May God bless this book as it goes out and may it reach thousands and make disciples of them. Because of its subject matter and content, I predict this book becoming a best seller.

DR. JOHN PERKINS

President, John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development

For some time now, those of us in leadership at The Meeting House have known that we should be intentional about learning whatever we can from churches like Xenos. Organic Discipleship has brought those important lessons to our front door. The authors live what they teach and speak personally as well as scripturally. As readers, we are invited to see what biblical principles look like with skin on, incarnated in community. I look forward to increased health at The Meeting House and many other churches because of the influence of this wonderful book.

BRUXY CAVEY

Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House and author of The End of Religion

Christs last command was to make disciples (Matthew 28:18). But what does that look like in the 21st century? Organic Discipleship offers Biblical, practical, and insightful steps to make disciples. Dont expect extra-Biblical formulas or quick-growth strategies. Discipleship takes work and sacrifice, and the authors honestly share their failures and what they have learned from them. I had the privilege of visiting the McCallums home in June 2005. I experienced what takes place regularly at their housea group of University students (both Christian and non-Christian) crowding into the living room to ask questions and explore the Christian faith. The McCallums, like thousands of others at Xenos, open their homes to make disciples who make more disciples. Xenos Christian Fellowship, in fact, has more than two thousand people meeting weekly with their disciples. Pay careful attention to what these authors say about creative disciple-making!

DR. JOEL COMISKEY

Author and President, Cell Church Solutions

Contents:

Introduction

When we entrust our lives to Jesus, God joins us to him in an organic way. Paul says, He who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit (1 Cor. 5:17). This is not an institutional or a legal linkage. When God joins us to Christ, our lives becomes so entwined with his that the link between us a living one.

Likewise, our connection to one another in the body of Christ is organic. In another passage Paul says, We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another (Rom. 12:5 NASB). Here we learn that the body of Christ is not an institution but a living organism. When we understand our mystical union with Jesus and each other, we also quickly discover the cascading implications for other areas of life and ministry.

Christians today are reawakening to the power of an organic approach to ministry; an approach that focuses less on positions in the church and more on relationships. Instead of seeing God working mainly through church programs, organic leaders envision God moving from person to person, creating direct spiritual impact through relational love. Modern westerners may see the church as rows of passive receivers, but God calls us to a community where his life flows through people like blood flows through a living body (Eph. 4:16; Col. 2:19).

Organic growth takes the form of dynamic, multiplying cells as opposed to linear approaches that are limited by schools, degrees, advertising, and buildings. Just as living cells duplicate themselves exponentially, the body of Christ explodes in every direction.

When it comes to ministry, nothing is more organic than making disciples. Disciple making depends more on high quality relationships than any other ministry. As we will see, making disciples is the most natural and relational way to expand and deepen the body of Christ. Indeed, all our aspirations to see Gods church living out our union with Jesus will break down if our disciple making ministry fails. Under the New Testament model, where every member ministers for God, making real disciples is our best hope for maximizing member-to-member ministry in the church today.

For fifty combined years, God has been teaching the two of us about this dynamic approach to expanding the kingdom of God. He began forty years ago.

Dennis: When I was 19 years old, I had just begun to walk with the Lord, and was trying to figure out how to serve him. I didnt know much, and my life was lame by Christian standards. I went to a conference where Dr. Howard Hendricks spoke on personal discipleship. I felt my heart deeply stirred by his stories of multiplication and fruitfulness through discipleship. I was able to attend a lunch with Dr. Hendricks. I told him I had never heard the discipling concept taught before, and how excited I was about it.

He leaned toward me and said, The question is, Dennis, if I come back to Columbus in a couple of years, will there be any little Dennises running around?

I shrugged sheepishly. Then, after thinking about it for a moment, I smiled, Yeah. I think there might be. That was the day I began praying that God would let me find someone I could disciple.

While listening to Dr. Hendricks speak, I sensed that discipleship might be something I could do, unlike more public types of ministry because you didnt have to preach or do anything public. I knew how to make friends, and I even had a few. My friends and I had started a small home Bible study that was growing, but none of us knew where it was headed in the long run. We often wondered what young guys like us, whose hearts sometimes burned with a desire to serve God, should do. Hendrickss stories of how a godly man named Walt had duplicated himself through a Sunday school class of teenagers who later became well-known Christian leaders fired my imagination. The thought hit me: What if I could raise up a few disciples and they could do likewise? Maybe a process of multiplication could break loose and sweep up huge numbers for Christ. Isnt that what Jesus did?