A Clear and Personalized Path for Discipleship
Discipleship can feel like a meandering journey―we don’t know what we want, and none of the programs offered seem to get us anywhere.
We need something to orient ourselves, and something to direct our steps toward a clear destination. Simple Discipleship, with its companion assessment tool, offers a plan for discipleship that is tailored to your real life and your personality, and clearly pointed in the way of Jesus.
Most discipleship resources are designed as mass productions―efficient for touching many, but often failing to see individuals grow in Christ. This is the best of both worlds―an assessment tool for your entire church, combined with an achievable, personalized discipling strategy.
The church exists to make disciples. Dana Allin issues here a desperately needed invitation to embrace our assignment with urgent grace and eager hearts. Listen and heed the sound of the trumpet. (John Ortberg, pastor and author)
Helpful discipleship books are being published every month. But this one is different and rare. This book is linked with a very useful instrument that looks at your spiritual growth through the eyes of yourself and others―a 360-degree view. Defined qualities (eight) and character-istics (twenty-one) of discipleship are listed. Through this book and instrument, a person can begin to assess the strong and stunted areas and find joy in serving and in growth. The best chapter might be the one on how to coach someone through the discipleship process. Don’t miss this one! (Jim Singleton, director of mentored ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)
As a US denominational leader during a critical time for the church in this nation, Dana fully understands the strategic significance of discipleship for the credibility and authenticity of the movement that claims Jesus as Lord. He knows that the nondiscipleship of the church under-mines everything we seek to do. We must correct this deficit or continue to decline. Pay attention! (Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways and 5Q)
In Simple Discipleship, Dana Allin brings together two of my favorite topics: coaching and discipleship. His thesis in this book―that discipleship happens primarily through life experiences and relationship rather than listening to sermons and reading books―is absolutely right. He also gives the reader practical tracks to run on: specific qualities and characteristics of a disciple, tips for creating a personalized disciple-making plan, and a path to implementation. Dana is clearly writing from a wealth of experience, and our churches would all be stronger if we followed his lead. (Bob Logan, coauthor of The Discipleship Difference and Becoming Barnabas)
If it bothers you that the church in North America is overprogrammed and underdiscipled, start reading this book today. Dana Allin delivers on a clear and compelling way forward in a tool that will invigorate and accelerate real disciple making in your church. (Will Mancini, founder of Auxano and coauthor of God Dreams)
Discipleship continues to be one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first-century church, both in the West and in the East. Simple Discipleship is a clear, passionate, and very practical account of who a disciple is and how to go about making one. It is a beautiful and timely gift to the church of the Master Disciple Maker. (Rev. Dr. Mehrdad Fatehi, executive director of Pars Theological Centre)
Christ’s mandate to the church is this: Make disciples. Do you have a method? Dana distills years of Christian leadership into a simple process. This book is a gift to any who wish to live their lives in the likeness of Jesus Christ or help others do the same. (Tim McConnell, lead pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado)
