AMES, Iowa—A group of Iowa churches have been working for more than two years to improve their discipleship ministries, focusing on the biblical command to “make disciples of all peoples.” Pastors and church leaders have met at regular intervals to develop training strategies for their individual churches.
John Murray, a campus missionary with Campus Baptist Church, Ames, Iowa, explained that the process started with an intensive study of the New Testament by the whole church to give a purely biblical definition of discipleship. The process studied by these churches included everything from inviting an unbeliever to consider God to confidently launching of a person trained for service to do that service elsewhere, knowing that they will reproduce themselves again wherever they go.
“The principles gleaned from this exercise have yielded some wonderful results within our church,” said Murray. “We have seen both numerical and spiritual growth as we have begun to implement the principles we gleaned from the Bible study.” Murray also said that the new focus helps the church staff as they discuss plans, direction, and scheduling.
“We are seeing people ministering in new roles as they are trained to minister. Probably the neatest point is this process is not a staff program, but an all church product as everyone in the church contributes to the process and, thus, has significant buy-in.”
