Stephen Smallman has served for over forty years in pastoral ministry and was the executive director of World Harvest Mission (now Serge). He currently teaches for CityNet Ministries of Philadelphia and is an assistant pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
This book brings the challenging task of making disciples (Mt28,18-20) to the local church (the proper agent of disciplemaking; not parachurch organisations) and integrates evangelism with bulding up believers.
It explains the disciplemaking task in 10 key building blocks for the local church. It concludes with next steps for the leadership of the church, because the leadership needs to have a common vision and speak the same language.
For far too long, churches have wedged a false and harmful gap between being a believer in Christ and being a disciple of Christ. As Smallman states in this booklet, every believer is also a disciple. The main function of the church is to make disciples—not just in terms of conversion, but in life-long growth in Christ. He lists ten building blocks that detail how this disciple-making process works, then adds some suggestions for application.
Solid discussion of discipleship - not a higher level of commitment for the special few but the normal way of Christian obedience. Good resource for any church or Christian.
This is a very helpful tool for people in church leadership to give people a clear understanding of what it looks like to make a priority of making and nurturing disciples of Christ.