Here are four surprising books that have had a major impact on the way I live on mission and think about disciple making.

I call them surprising because none of them are about disciple making. In fact, they aren’t even Christian books. And yet, each one has deeply shaped how I approach life, leadership, and making disciples. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do the same for you.

The Innovator’s Dilemma – Clayton Christensen
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This is probably one of the most mind-shaping books I’ve ever read.

The basic thesis is this: existing organizations struggle to innovate because innovation often breaks the very systems that made them successful. Christensen distinguishes between sustaining innovation (improving what already exists) and disruptive innovation (creating something fundamentally new).

This framework helped me understand why focused disciple making is so difficult within many churches. Most churches are not actually built around disciple making. They are built around other centers of gravity—facilities, history, personalities, preaching, music, or children’s programs. Disciple making often competes with, rather than drives, the system.

One of the key insights of the book is that real change usually happens by starting something new, not by trying to overhaul something existing. That’s why church plants and alternative expressions of church matter so much for disciple making.

The same principle applies at the small-group level. If you want to move toward focused disciple making, it’s often more effective to start a new group with that purpose than to try to convert an existing inward-focused group. If you don’t, many people who came for reasons other than disciple making will simply look elsewhere to meet those needs.

This book has huge implications for leadership and change—and it connects directly to another book on this list.

The One Thing – Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
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This book is all about focus—which happens to be my Achilles’ heel.

I have lots of ideas, lots of projects, and endless to-do lists. This book helped me see that in almost every situation there is a big domino: one thing that, if you do it, makes everything else easier or even unnecessary.

When it comes to disciple making, what is the big domino?

I believe it’s this: you must personally be a disciple living on mission. The only way disciples are made is when someone can honestly say, as the apostle Paul did, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

That means disciple making starts with your whole life, not just your “ministry,” church involvement, or small group. If someone imitated your life, would they be living effectively on mission? The big domino in disciple making is becoming the kind of person who can say “yes” to that question.

On a practical level, this book also gave me a simple daily rhythm. Each evening I write down:

One win from the day
The one thing I want to accomplish tomorrow that will make the day a success

I aim to complete that one thing by noon. Once it’s done, the rest of the day is a bonus. Simple concepts. Highly recommended.

The Power of Simplicity – Jack Trout
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I bought this book because of the dedication: “Dedicated to the overwhelmed, the confused, who sense there’s a simpler way.” That was me at the time.

This is a deeply contrarian book that challenges many accepted organizational assumptions. Even the table of contents is instructive. The core message is about stripping away complexity and getting back to what actually matters.

This is desperately needed in the Christian world, especially in the West, where we tend to overcomplicate everything.

Think about what we often assume a church requires: a pastor, a building, sound systems, instruments, projectors, charitable status, and layers of administration. The complexity is enormous.

Now ask a different question: What does disciple making require?

It requires a disciple who is mentoring others to live on mission with Jesus. That’s it.

Most of what we consider essential for church is not required for disciple making—the very mission of the church. Let that sink in.

Applying the thinking of this book to your life, your church, or your small group may reveal things that need to be stripped away. The mission Jesus gave us isn’t easy, but it isn’t complicated either.

Leading Change – John Kotter
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This is a true leadership classic. At its core, leadership is about leading change. If change weren’t necessary, we would mostly need managers, not leaders.

Kotter outlines an eight-stage process for creating major change. I won’t walk through all of it here, but the first step is critical: creating a sense of urgency.

People don’t change unless there’s a compelling reason to do so.

Apply this to disciple making. If you want to move a group or a church toward making disciples, what’s the urgency?

The urgency is people without Christ.
The urgency is our general ineffectiveness at making disciples.
The urgency is the ongoing decline of the church in the West.

One exercise I sometimes do is this: take a church’s total budget and divide it by the number of baptisms. While baptism alone doesn’t guarantee a disciple has been made, biblically it’s a minimum starting point. It’s not uncommon for that number to land in the six figures—meaning it costs over $100,000 for one baptism.

Something is clearly wrong. That creates urgency.

Learning how to lead change—especially how to create urgency—has been a major part of my development as a leader and as someone committed to living on mission and inviting others to do the same.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it: four secular books with significant implications for disciple making.

I encourage you to check out one or more of them. You may find, as I did, that God uses unexpected tools to sharpen our thinking and refocus us on the mission that matters most.

Affiliate Links to the Books:
Innovator's Dilemma
The One Thing
Power of Simplicity
Leading Change