By Floyd McClung

Defining terms:

Develop: to change, to become mature; to develop is not to teach but to model, assist, watch, then leave or hand things over. To develop disciples is more that teaching disciples.

Culture: A culture is an environment. A discipleship culture is a culture of radical obedience and passion to make more disciples. It is a movement environment!

Discipleship: to invest in one another’s lives intentionally with the goal of seeing a movement of fruit bearing, reproducing followers of Jesus Christ

What we are not talking about is measuring our effectiveness by the size of our church or the popularity of our programs, but rather looking for the longing of the majority of the people in our community to be multiplying the life of Jesus in others, and they in turn doing the same thing. We measure success by making disciples who make disciples who do like wise. 2 Timothy 2:2

What is the Secret to Developing a Disciple Making, Fruit Bearing, Reproducing Community?

1. Good soil. Jesus taught his disciples how to identify receptive soil. Read the Parable of the sower in Luke 8 and Mark 4. Jesus taught his disciples the parable of the sower and the soil. He told them this was the most important of all the parables – if they didn’t understand this parable they wouldn’t understand any parable. He said there are two types of soil: receptive and resistant, and the three types of receptive soil (rocky, thorny, and fruitful). He said only one type produces fruit. In Luke 10 he taught the same thing, but in a different way. He taught them to look for the person of peace wherever they went. Four types of soil: hard, superficial, shallow, and receptive soil. If you were a farmer and you wanted a good crop, would you focus on the first three kinds of soil or the latter? You might prepare bad soil if it is not receptive, but you would give attention to the soil that is fruitful.

Don’t baby sit unfruitful people. Love them but focus on those who are serious. This creates a culture of discipleship!

Understanding this parable will change everything about how you think and act:

1. The way you do ministry
2. How you see people
3. What you are responsible for and who you are not responsible for
4. Who you give your time and attention to
5. Motivate you to make disciples who make disciples

What the Bible says about bad and good soil people:

• James 2:5
• Matt. 18:3
• Matt. 7:7
• 1 Cor. 1:27
• Lk. 18:24-25

2. Good seed. Having the right seed is essential. Jesus taught his disciples to sow abundant gospel seed. The sower in the parable of the sower and the seed sows extravagantly, almost wastefully. He scatters the seed everywhere. In every fruit bearing, reproducing movement in the earth today, there is abundant sowing of the gospel seed. If the soil is this parable is the hearts of people, then the seed is the gospel, the good news of Jesus. It is not church, it is not programs, it is not theology or doctrine, it is Jesus. Don’t defend “Christianity,” don’t argue doctrine, sow Jesus! Share him, talk about him, tell people about him, tell your story about how you came to know Jesus. No shame. No fear. Do it in every conversation and every relationship.

3. Willing Sowers. Jesus taught his disciples to sow the seed every where they went. Don’t buy into the relativism, the tolerance of our culture. Raise up people who are culturally engaged, but are radically obedient to share Jesus. Teach people to over come fear. Help them learn how to share their story.

4. Water the Soil. Water is prayer. Praying for the soil allows us to love our city and our generation the way Jesus does. It prepares our heart to believe for a harvest. Prayer releases faith in our hearts. Pray for a harvest. Prayer is essential to see a harvest. It is the water that causes the seed to grow. It is God’s way of inviting us into a relationship of dependence on Him and love for those he is drawing to himself. Develop a culture of prayer. Early morning prayer. Prayer walking. Seasons of 24 hour prayer. Half nights of prayer. Fasting and prayer. Pray in every gathering. Pray in every one on one relationship, in every small group, for people to come to know and reproduce the life of Jesus.

5. Pull weeds and prune the vines. Jesus taught us to cooperate with pruning. Weeds can choke the plant. Teach the word and teach people to teach themselves the word. Teach holiness. Train people to be obedient to the commands of Jesus. His seven basic commands are the truth that produces obedient disciples. Spiritual disciplines are what make people grow and reproduce.

The Disciple Making Process

• Pray – with desperation and focus for fruit bearing disciples who make more disciples
• Connect – with people’s hearts who are hungry to grow and obey Jesus
• Disciple – a few individuals who are willing to study the Gospels with you – ask your disciples to disciple others and then hold them accountable to do so
• Gather – 2 or more of your disciples in a D-Group (discipleship group), and grow together (see http://floydandsally.org/posts/dgroups for a simple three step outline for D-Groups)
• Multiply – train your disciples to start their own D-Groups following the same process you have: first pray for the lost, connect with people who don’t know Jesus, disciple a few individuals, gather them, and then teach them to start new groups themselves

 I love Christmas - the decorations, the tree, the gifts, the baking, the special meals, the surprises for people, the caroles - I love it all. It's truly my favorite time of the year. I even loved the cold weather......and the snow when we had it. In fact, that's one of the things I miss about the Christmas season now that I live in South Africa and Christmas is in summer. After several years, I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around that. I've just had too many years of winter Christmases.

I have friends that don't really like Christmas all that much. I mean, sure they like it because we are celebrating Christ's birth, but they don't like all the other things that I so love. It got me thinking about why I love everything about the Christmas season.

I know it has its roots in my growing up years. Every year my dad and I would go shopping together for the Christmas tree. We always wanted to find the perfect one, and we came close! We had a beautiful fir tree every year. We'd come home and join with my mom (Memaw) and decorate it. Of course she always had special baked/cooked treats to eat while we did that. Then on another day, my dad and I would put up outside lights. We had a two story house, and we got ladders out so we could decorate both levels. It wasn't anything fancy, but those bright, colored lights were so beautiful to me because my dad and I had put them up. I treasure the memories of us doing these things together every Christmas.

Every year my Dad said he couldn't afford any gifts. And every year, just a few days before Christmas, he'd ask me to take him shopping. He had been tucking money away and would buy my mom and me and some other family members special gifts. Of course by the time he got around to doing his shopping things would be really picked over! I learned as I grew up to ask some shop keepers to hold things until I brought my Dad in! Seeing his true generous heart was such a treasure.

My Dad was a product of his generation - one that had a hard time showing emotion and expressing feelings. As a child I often wished he would do that more. I think Christmas is when I really saw my Dad's heart and came to know who he was inside. I treasured that!

Close to Christmas we usually had a family dinner when other members of my family that lived nearby would come over - my sister and her family, one of my brothers and his family......and sometimes others who lived further away would come in. I often joke and say my family talked a lot but didn't say much. We talked about everything, but rarely was it "heart" stuff. Except at Christmas......and then it seemed that people opened up more and shared their hearts. This was another treasure for me.

My mom never had a lot, but she shared everything she had - all the time, but especially at Christmas. She cooked and baked up a storm! She took platefuls of all her special treats (divinity candy, candied grapefruit rinds, Spanish kisses, and delicious pies to name a few) to just about everyone she knew. My friends loved to come to my house and sample it all! Even though I've tried, I still haven't mastered cooking some of her specialties. My family wasn't poor, but we didn't have a lot of extra either. My mother gave out of her gifts and talents because she had such a generous spirit. I treasure that memory so much.

As parents, we want to establish family traditions and make memories that our children can take with them all their lives. I have those special memories tucked away in my heart........and they help make Christmas so very special to me. I love it!

O come, O come Emmanuel...."God with us." Matt. 1:23