Greg Ogden > Quotes

“There is a vast difference between being a Christian and being a disciple. The difference is commitment.

Motivation and discipline will not ultimately occur through listening to sermons, sitting in a class, participating in a fellowship group, attending a study group in the workplace or being a member of a small group, but rather in the context of highly accountable, relationally transparent, truth-centered, small discipleship units.

There are twin prerequisites for following Christ - cost and commitment, neither of which can occur in the anonymity of the masses.

Disciples cannot be mass produced. We cannot drop people into a program and see disciples emerge at the end of the production line. It takes time to make disciples. It takes individual personal attention.

Discipleship training is not about information transfer, from head to head, but imitation, life to life. You can ultimately learn and develop only by doing.

The effectiveness of one's ministry is to be measured by how well it flourishes after one's departure.

Discipling is an intentional relationship in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to teach others as well.

If there are no explicit, mutually agreed upon commitments, then the group leader is left without any basis to hold people accountable. Without a covenant, all leaders possess is their subjective understanding of what is entailed in the relationship.

Every believer or inquirer must be given the opportunity to be invited into a relationship of intimate trust that provides the opportunity to explore and apply God's Word within a setting of relational motivation, and finally, make a sober commitment to a covenant of accountability.

Reviewing the covenant is part of the initial invitation to the journey together. It is a sobering moment to examine whether one has the time, the energy and the commitment to do what is necessary to engage in a discipleship relationship.

Invest in a relationship with two others for give or take a year. Then multiply. Each person invites two others for the next leg of the journey and does it all again. Same content, different relationships.

The invitation to discipleship should be preceded by a period of prayerful discernment. It is vital to have a settled conviction that the Lord is drawing us to those to whom we are issuing this invitation. . If you are going to invest a year or more of your time with two others with the intent of multiplying, whom you invite is of paramount importance.

You want to raise the question implicitly: Are you ready to consider serious change in any area of your life? From the outset you are raising the bar and calling a person to step up to it. Do not seek or allow an immediate response to the invitation to join a triad. You want the person to consider the time commitment in light of the larger configuration of life's responsibilities and to make the adjustments in schedule, if necessary, to make this relationship work.

Intentionally growing people takes time. Do you want to measure your ministry by the number of sermons preached, worship services designed, homes visited, hospital calls made, counseling sessions held, or the number of self-initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus?

When we get to the shore's edge and know that there is a boat there waiting to take us to the other side to be with Jesus, all that will truly matter is the names of family, friends and others who are self initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus because we made it the priority of our lives to walk with them toward maturity in Christ. There is no better eternal investment or legacy to leave behind.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“The road to Easter goes through Good Friday. The road to new life goes through the death of the old. The road to resurrection goes through crucifixion. Jesus calls us to walk that road, the road he walked.”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“Satan causes us to wallow in unnamed guilt, but God’s conviction is focused and meant to lead us to restoration.”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“The church today has been compared to a football game with twenty-two people on the field in desperate need of rest, and fifty thousand people in the stands in desperate need of exercise.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The New Testament pictures the church as an every-member ministry. The “priesthood of all believers” is not just a Reformation watchword but a biblical ideal.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“It has been broadly observed that the first Reformation of the early 1500s placed the Bible in the hands of the people and that the Second Reformation will place the ministry in the hands of the people.”
― Greg Ogden, Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministry to the People of God

“Now in the new-paradigm churches, it is generally assumed that ministry is the province of the laos, the whole people of God.”
― Greg Ogden, Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministry to the People of God

“Bill Hull has prophetically written, “The crisis at the heart of the church is a crisis of product.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Disciple making is not a program but a relationship.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“By reading twenty-five to thirty chapters a week, an appetite for the Word of God is created.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Inductive Bible Study Guide Jesus always lived with a view to the end of his earthly ministry. The preparation of a few who would carry on his ministry after he ascended to the Father was ever before him. This Bible study focuses on the training and transference of ministry to his selected disciples. Read Luke 6:12-16; 9:1-6, 10. What do you suppose Jesus included in his all-night prayer? (See the reading on page 20 for some ideas.) What can you learn about Jesus’ strategic purpose for the selection of the Twelve from 9:1-6? What power and authority was given to the disciples? What power and authority can we expect to receive from Jesus today? What was Jesus’ role with the disciples after their return (9:10)? What questions do these passages raise for you? What verse or verses have particularly impacted you? Rewrite key verses in your own words. Reading: A Biblical”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“Internalization cannot happen through a mass transference to an audience but must occur in an interpersonal environment.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“your heart, that you are true disciples of Jesus? Please raise your hand.” Wilkins says that people are genuinely confused as to what they should do. Most do not raise their hand. Some put it up hesitantly and then quickly pull it down. Then Wilkins proceeds to a second question: “How many of you can say, in the humble confidence of your heart, that you are convinced that you are a true Christian? Please raise your hand.” Immediately most hands go up without hesitation.[10]”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Inductive Bible Study Guide Jesus always lived with a view to the end of his earthly ministry. The preparation of a few who would carry on his ministry after he ascended to the Father was ever before him. This Bible study focuses on the training and transference of ministry to his selected disciples. Read Luke 6:12-16; 9:1-6, 10. What do you suppose Jesus included in his all-night prayer? (See the reading on page 20 for some ideas.) What can you learn about Jesus’ strategic purpose for the selection of the Twelve from 9:1-6? What power and authority was given to the disciples? What power and authority can we expect to receive from Jesus today? What was Jesus’ role with the disciples after their return (9:10)? What questions do these passages raise for you? What verse or verses have particularly impacted you? Rewrite key verses in your own words.”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“Jesus had enough vision to think small. Focusing did not limit his influence — it expanded it. When Jesus ascended to the Father, he knew that there were at least eleven who could minister under the authority of his name, an elevenfold multiplication of his ministry. Robert Coleman captures the heart of Jesus’ methodology when he writes, “[Jesus’] concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes but with men the multitudes would follow.”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“Jesus chose the disciples for what they would become, not for what they were at the time of their call.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“The IRS received the following note: “Gentlemen: Enclosed you will find a check for $150. I cheated on my income tax return last year and have not been able to sleep ever since. If I still have trouble sleeping I will send you the rest.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Galatians 5:16-23 reminds us of Jesus’ description of our relationship to him as branches connected to a vine (John 15:1-11).”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“little girl and her mother were talking as they walked out of church. The mother asked her daughter how she liked church that day. The girl replied that she thought it was good, but she was a little confused. She said, “The pastor said that God was bigger than we are. Is that true?” Her mother responded that it was true. “He also said that God lives inside us. Is that true, Mommy?” “Yes.” “Well then,” said the girl, “if God is bigger than we are, and if he lives inside us, then shouldn’t some of him show through?”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“Robert Coleman’s challenge: “One must decide where he wants his ministry to count—in the momentary applause of popular recognition or in the reproduction of his life in a few chosen ones who will carry on his work after he has gone? Really, it is a question of which generation we are living for.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“We have transformed the gospel into the benefits we receive from Jesus rather than the call to be conformed to the life of Jesus. We want abundance without obedience.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Si tuviera que elegir una palabra para definir el estado del discipulado en la actualidad eligiría superficial.”
― Greg Ogden, Discipulado que transforma: El modelo de Jesús (Coleccion Teologica Contemporanea: Estudios Ministeriales nº 19)

“Eugene Peterson puts this truth cleverly: “Jesus, it must be remembered, restricted nine-tenths of His ministry to twelve Jews, because it was the only way to reach all Americans.”2”
― Greg Ogden, Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ

“Leadership is about instilling urgency.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“What are the elements of transparent trust that will allow us to move gradually into the deep waters of transformation?
• Affirming one another through encouragement
• Walking with one another through difficult times
• Being a reflective listener who assists another to hear God's guidance in life's complexities
• Confessing our sins to one another that we may be healed”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“The scriptural model for growing disciples is through relationships. Jesus called the Twelve to “be with him” (Mark 3:14), for their lives would be transformed through personal association.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The life of Jesus is still being manifest among people, but now no longer through an individual physical body, limited to one place on earth, but through a complex, corporate body called the church.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“As the alternative to the one-on-one model, I propose a threesome that I call a triad as the ideal size for a disciple-making group.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Every Christian must see themselves as the link to the next generation,” writes William Barclay.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Jesus’ thought was, “Give me teachable, loyal people, and watch me change the world.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time