If you are a pastor reading this blog post, you would love to have reproducing, disciple makers in your congregation. Even better, you would love to see a culture where the expectation and practice is that a maturing Christian is one who makes disciples as a lifestyle and you are experiencing the momentum of disciple makers reproducing to the fourth generation. If this were the case the forward movement would be off the charts. I know, I have seen it and felt it. People now leading disciple making groups after being participants move to a new different level of ownership and passion. It takes time and sustained focus to get this place. But most churches never get here because of two fatal errors: You try to move too fast: By far the number one reason disciple making movements don’t even get off the ground is attempting to move too fast. I can’t count how many times I watched pastors catch the transformative power of a micro groups only to shoot themselves in the foot by tryi

  How do micro groups implement Jesus’ relational model? When Jesus instructed us to “go and make disciples”, He did not leave us wondering how. Jesus modeled this principally by growing disciples formed in a relational setting. A strategic moment occurred in His ministry when Jesus formally gathered His inner circle around him. A approximately six months into his public ministry Jesus called the twelve to “be with him.” (Luke 6:12-13; Mark 3:13) How important was this decision? How vital was it to accomplishing Jesus’ mission? Luke signals the importance by telling us that Jesus spent all night in prayer. The next day he brought together a group which included twelve who had been following Him. “And when day came, he called his disciples, and chose twelve of them, whom he named apostles…” (Luke 6:13).   What was Jesus trying to accomplish by giving himself to this smaller band? At the time of Jesus’ selection of his leadership team, he was in the thralls of public adulation. But J

  What qualities come together in a micro group to create an ideal transformative environment? At GDI, we like to say that micro groups are “hot houses of the Holy Spirit”. What does that mean? In other words, just like a “greenhouse”, the environmental conditions are just right for accelerated growth into Christlikeness and multiplication of disciples. What are those environmental conditions? 1. Relational Transparency: A major reason the groups are kept to 3 or 4 (triads/quads) is to develop an atmosphere of self-revealing trust. Here is the principle: The extent to which we are willing to reveal to others the areas of our life that need God’s transforming touch is the extent to which we are inviting the Holy Spirit to make us new. The seed of God’s word can only take root in tilled soil. The tilled soil (our openness) creates cracks and crevices in our hearts. It is these cracks and crevices that reveal our areas of needed transformation. As we articulate the awareness of our b

  What are the critical elements for a success disciple making journey?  As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” What does it take to complete a successful journey? As pictured above, the success journey is to grow a movement of “disciples who make disciples?” A movement implies that a culture has formed in your church or ministry where there is momentum and energy because the value of making reproducing disciples has become a way of life. I am not talking theory, I have witnessed it firsthand.  There are three critical elements for a successful journey: 1. Vehicle (Relational Environment): To travel you need a vehicle, which is the relational environment. We keep the groups small (3s &4s) because the most important element in the relational environment is transparency and openness built upon radical trust. Transformation through the power of God’s word occurs when we lay our lives out before God and each other and apply truth to our growing edge. Without ap

  Where do micro groups fit in the larger picture of church ministry? This could certainly be listed in the category of the top 5 questions we get at GDI. The question also comes in another form: What role do traditional small groups have in a church that wants to move toward micro groups? The best way to answer this question is to show how different spaces can and should co-exist together. Joseph Myers first popularized the concept of making room or seeing the value of spaces in his book Search to Belong and is expounded on in Bobby Harrington’s Discipleship that Fits . I will describe the spaces in thumbnail fashion in this shorter blog.  The four spaces are public, social, personal and transparent or intimate. Public Space (50+): In the church public space is associated with the gathered community in worship. A person identifies with a group and considers themselves associated at some level. If asked, “Where do you go to church?”, a person would give a specific community, no mat