All In. On Mission. With Jesus.
My Top Five Disciple Making Books
Foundational disciple-making books for living all in on mission with Jesus, becoming a disciple who makes disciples.
These are some of the books that have shaped my disciple making journey. I would put each of these on the "must-read" list for anyone who wants to grow as a disciple maker.
This book blew me away.
It filled in so many gaps in my disciple-making thinking.
Perhaps the most revolutionary section is Part 2: Contrasts, where Damian compares CAWKI (Church as We Know It), aka the Legacy Church, with actual disciple making movements. He addresses five areas: Who the Church Is, What the Church Does, How the Church is Led and Developed, How the Church Engages With People, and How People Engage With the Church.
Church leaders and anyone passionate about living on mission, making disciples, will be confronted with tough questions about what they are doing in their ministries and what needs to change to become more effective in the core mission of making disciples.
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This book came out just as I was finishing my Bible college years, and I grabbed it early in my pastoral ministry. It was the catalyst that began moving me from doing church to making disciples.
The foreward by Robert Coleman smacks you right in the face: "We have drifted so far from the mandate of Christ that persons who take it as the pattern of their lives are looked up on as fanatics."
Then in the intro, Bill Hull builds the pressure with statements like "The evangelical church has become weak, flabby, and too dependent on artificial means that can only simulate real spiritual power." This was written in 1988- and I don't think it has become less true!
But like a true leader, Hull doesn's just point out the problem, he moves the reader toward solutions, with a focus on the kind of pastor that can actually lead a church that makes disciples.
He followed this book up with The Disciple Making Church a couple years later.
If you are a pastor or leader in a legacy church, these would be a good read after you have been shaken by Damian Gerke's book, In the Way.
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My friend and mentor Tim Beadle, with whom I did the Disciple Making podcast, gave me a copy of this book and I quickly realized this was a seminal book in the current disciple making renaissance.
Simply reading the chapter titles is a graduate course in disciple-making: Disciple Makers Embrace Lessons Taught by Failures; Disciple Makers Deculturize, not Contextualize the Gospel; Disciple Makers Plan the Gospel Rather Than Reproduce Their Religion. And that's just three of the first nine chapters in the first section on The Mindset of a Disciple Maker.
This book is both practical and motivating. A true must read for those who want to live on mission.
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The subtitle of this book is what originally grabbed my attention: Restoring Healing and Deliverance to Disciple Making.
What I love about this book is that Doug anchors what are often sensationalized distractions in the core mission of making disciples. So refreshing and so distinct from a lot of click-baity, trend-following, superficial Christian books today.
The first half of the book on worldview and the historical place of healing and deliverance in the church and ministry WILL shift your thinking if you have any hestitation about the relevance of these topics for disciple making today.
Two of my favorite quotes:
"Care should be taken early in the disciple making process to ensure that Jesus is given broad access to light up every area of darkness."
"I dare anyone reading this book to ask Jesus to give them a personalized, right-sized assignment of releasing his transforming presence to someone who isn’t yet a part of his Kingdom. Then wait and listen for his promptings and respond obediently."
This is a very challenging but equipping book. We buy a copy for any new members of our local 12Church group.
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If you've engaged very much with 12Church you will know about this book. It emerged from a challenge at a Sonlife seminar to clearly define our own DDP- Description of a Disciple Person. Because how can you make a disciple if you don't know what a disciple actually is?
I made a list of hundreds of possible character traits of a follower of Jesus Christ and boiled them down to eight: Lover of God; Lover of People; Holy; Truth-Based; Evangelistic; Persevering; God-Dependent; Focused on Eternity.
This is my personal wrestling through of the question "What is a disciple?
The final section, The Church's Challenge, contains one chapter, A Church the Makes Christ Followers. It was the start of my answer to the question of HOW to make a disciple. And 12Church is my ongoing exploration and answer to the question How do we make disciples in this time and this place? What does is look like to be all in on mission with Jesus?
Get It Here
If you are seeking to live out answers to those same questions, be sure to get on or all of these books and explore more of what we offer through 12Church.
Wisdom and perseverance to you as you seek to be a discple who makes disciples.
Press On!
See an even more comprehensive list of disciple-making and evangelism books HERE
Video Version of this Post:
Daren Wride
Founder, 12Church
In this blog Daren shares his latest learnings, resources and ideas about disciple making and leading on-mission groups of Christ Followers.
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Some pages and posts on this site may contain links to books and other products. As an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases made after you click a link. This means that at no extra cost to you, a commission may be paid out.