ministry presuppositions

1) The term “discipleship” appropriately applies to any and all phases of the process of taking a person from being a nonbeliever to the place of becoming an effective leader within God‘s Kingdom.

2) Every Christian is called by God to be a leader.

• Informal, non-public leader => call & character
• Formal, non-public leader => call, character, & competencies
• Formal, public leader => call, character, competencies, & charisma

3) Developing spiritual leaders for a church is not accomplished by merely establishing a leadership training class and sending people through it.

4) Developing leaders is about creating environments in which “called people” realize their God-given potential and maximize their impact with that potential.

5) The “ideal way” to raise up leaders is to begin with a clean slate (called a “non believer”) and working with them until they become mature and equipped followers of Christ.

6) A believer is not successful in training a disciple unless that disciple is effective at both making and training disciples. (Read that as, success is when you birth something that can give birth – same principle in small group or church multiplication).

7) Both making disciples and training disciples become far less effective without “life-on-life” laboring in other‘s lives.

8) Churches will not be highly effective at making and training disciples until existing leaders become faithful in commitment to both.

9) A church can not become effective at training disciples without being effective at making disciples.

10) A church will not become highly effective at making disciples who make disciples without:

• A church culture of disciple making
• A specific and effective plan for training people to make disciples
• Accountable structures to encourage believers to identify and build relationships with non-believing people
• A shift from “success” thinking to “influence” thinking

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