Disciple-Making Culture

by Brandon Guindon, Bill Hull (Foreword)

A Practical Guide to Help You Cultivate Healthy Church Culture

Church leaders who focus on programs, strategy, and curriculum can easily miss what ties them all culture. Cultivating culture is the difference between churches who flourish and those who flounder at disciple-making. Leaders must cultivate a healthy disciple-making culture. But how?

Author Brandon Guindon’s book Disciple-Making Culture provides a how-to guide for cultivating a healthy disciple-making culture throughout your church. He walks readers through key components of healthy culture, which he has uncovered over the course of his more than twenty years of disciple-making in various contexts. Using time-tested principles, he answers a challenging “How do we actually live out the Great Commission—as a church?”

Learn a relational method for making disciples at your church that is built upon how Jesus and the early church made disciples. Gain the tools needed to transform your church’s culture. Walk away with a reproducible model that’s been successfully implemented by thriving disciple-making churches around the world. Allow the pages of Scripture to become not only words—but also real-life experiences.

Disciple-Making Culture inspires us to develop disciples and brilliantly shows us how to do it.

— Dave Ferguson, Author of Hero Maker

If you want to grow in your understanding of a disciple-making culture, you need to read this book.

— Jim Putman, Lead Pastor, Real Life Ministries, Post Falls, Idaho

Every church leader should read this book.

— Bobby Harrington, Point Leader, Discipleship.org and Renew.org

BRANDON GUINDON is the lead pastor of Real Life Ministries Texas. He holds a master’s degree in church leadership and New Testament theology from Hope International University. He is the author of Stay the Course and co-author of Real-Life Discipleship Training Manual, and he serves on the board of directors of the Relational Discipleship Network.

Genres: Discipleship

202 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 28, 2020

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an amazing book on creating a culture of relational discipleship! I really enjoyed this read. I’m a member at Real Life Ministries in Idaho where the author/pastor speaks of in this book. It was fun to read the content and see all the powerful ways God has used my church in my own life by using this method. I’ve been wildly benefitted by friends, leaders, and pastors who’ve cultivated this culture. And as he has a chapter designated to a “reproducible process”, I now get to be one of the ones who leads others in relational discipleship. Teaching what I’ve been taught. The cycle just keeps going! This was such a refreshing read for me. The language is familiar but still challenged me in new ways! Definitely recommend for all church volunteers and staff.

[Don Story · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brandon was the executive pastor at the Post Falls Real Life when we were there for five years. We got sent to Mexico by that church to teach churches how to make disciples in Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara, and Puebla. So when I read this book, it presented the foundational ideas of how you actually change the direction of a church to be a disciple making church, without simply jumping to programs. No simple solutions here, but great wisdom and insight in how to make a long-term commitment to being a church that makes disciples, that then make disciples. I told my pastor that I was reading this book. He bought it, read it, and then bought copies for other leaders in our church. Our elders are going to read thru it together. I am praying that the tools and concepts presented here will be implemented in our church and forever change it.

[Matthew Loller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the three books on discipleship that I read this last fall ("Discipleshift" by Putman & Harrington, "Replicate" by Gallaty and Swain, and this book), Guidon was the most clear and concise. Very little wasted space since each chapter is to the point. Guidon offers key components to developing a disciple-making culture - that is a state in which disciple-making is part of what and who your church is, not just a program your church is pursuing. This is probably best paired with "Discipleshift" by Putman and Harrington because a lot of the working definitions that Guidon builds off of are well-established in that book. However, Guidon adds to what his friends wrote by offering "boots on the ground," practical components that the church-leader needs to develop a disciple-making culture. And throughout Guidon is specific in his call to action, clear in his intention for your church, and to the point in his reasoning. Guidon is not as systematic in his outline of the discipleship process as Putman & Harrington are in their book, but Guidon's specificity, style, and practicality make his book both important enough for the church-leader to read and accessible enough for the book to be an easy read from cover to cover.

MICROREAD

[Pamela Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if being a Christian was not a nine to five cubical encased job, but an adventure?

Favorite pithy statement: "culture eats strategy for breakfast." Mr. Guindon credits Peter Drucker with coining this statement and uses it to show the importance of Christian culture growing more like the directions that Jesus gave the blooming (exploding) first century Church. Fisher soft men, pick up the book and get hooked.

[Tyler Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book on an extremely important issue for churches. If churches want to accomplish our mission we must take time to build culture. This book will help all that read it understand the importance of making disciples and creating a culture of disciple-making in their church.

[DiAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wisdom and insight for every Christian longing to follow Jesus' instructions to make disciples.

[Jordan Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our Ministry Staff team read this together. While we didn’t always align 100% with the proposed methods, it led to some great discussions.

[James Hansee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic.

[Warty Goblin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very straightforward, insightful, and applicable run through of discipleship, disciple-making, and the need for culture over strategy.