Authored by Jim Britts; published by Church Leaders Press, © 2023 by Outreach Inc
Interesting title, right? It might reveal more about the author than the topic. Little is actually provided about the author, other than that he served for 15 years as a youth pastor and 6 years as church planter in California (pp. 89, 133). He currently “likes” the title of “disciple-making movement catalyst” (p. 133).
This book is designed to be read in 21 days and covers four “habits” with four or five related daily readings. Those habits are: 1. Praying for someone to disciple, 2) Engaging with potential disciples, 3) Meeting with your disciple, and 4) Multiplying disciples.
The author defines a disciple-maker as “one who has made at least one disciple” (p. 15). However, there is no clear definition of a disciple. The author, like others involved in disciple-making movement efforts, seems to consider someone who is not currently a follower of Jesus to be a disciple. And, while he doesn’t say as much, he seems to consider someone to be a successful disciple-maker when the new follower of Jesus has been baptized (in every case mentioned, it was the disciple-maker who did the baptizing).
The first habit (praying for someone to disciple) is really about recognizing the non-believers that are somewhere around you and connecting with them. He also provides a FRANCE sheet, which is really a prayer list for non-believers in your life. (FRANCE is an acronym for: Friends, Relatives, Acquaintances, Neighbors, Co-workers/Classmates, and Earlier in life.) He also suggests putting together a prayer calendar with all of the FRANCE people listed in various days to make the process easier.
The second habit (engaging with potential disciples) is about having various kinds of conversations with the people on your prayer calendar or those you may meet elsewhere. Several times, the author mentions being on a prayer walk in a neighborhood and interacting with someone in that area. He moves the reader from a casual conversation to a meaningful one, then to a spiritual conversation, and on to a discovery conversation (p. 56. These four conversations seem to cover four of the 21 days to become a disciple-maker.
The third habit (meeting with your disciple) really sparked my interest because I know how many people ask about what happens during a disciple-making meet-up. The author has some “standard” thoughts about what to do when meeting with a non-Christian (they still haven’t been exposed to the gospel at this point). But the most interesting part is day 13 entitled, “Don’t you dare teach them” (p. 76). While I understand the focus on letting someone discover things from the Bible themselves, I struggle to emphasize that over Jesus’ Great Commission, which included “teaching them to obey everything I commanded.”
Day 16 is part of the third habit and is entitled “Discipling to conversion and baptizing new believers” (p. 88). The thoughts for this day are classic disciple-making movement ideas. There is a good point within this short chapter, which says, “When we convince people that they only need to say a few words to be saved, their pursuit of ongoing discipleship can be noncommittal (p. 90). Of course, this may assume that people don’t normally hear the full gospel before they come to Christ.
Day 16 also makes the point that, “In every case except one in the New Testament, people got baptized ON THE SAME DAY they decided to follow Jesus” (p. 91). Nothing makes me more frustrated than when a new believer is told they have to go through a baptism training class and wait until the church can baptize them. The author points to an “in-depth study” that concludes “when someone gets baptized very soon after their conversion only 12 percent of the new believers do back to their old life. However, when someone delays their baptism for special classes to be prepared, the number jumps to 48 percent returning to their old way of life” (p. 91). If these statistics hold true, it should give us a better reason to keep the church baptistry (or water trough) full of water rather than fill it once every few months.
The fourth habit (multiplying disciples) is about allowing the newly baptized believer to reach their family themselves, using the same Bible discovery techniques that they were exposed to. This would lead to “disciples making disciples that make disciples” (p. 104). Your understanding of a disciple might vary from a newly baptized believer now telling New Testament-based stories to family and friends, but it’s something worth considering. How can we get new believers to immediately begin to share their faith with others?
One key comment can be found as this book closes. “Those who seek to live out the habits of a disciple maker alone usually end up quitting. You must regularly surround yourself with a few others who want to take the Great Commission as seriously as you do” (p. 112). I’ve found this to be very true. Of those that I know who have embraced this type of disciple-making movement approach, they typically fail because they are left on their own after the primary disciple-maker looks to raise up others.
As an author myself, I feel the need to comment on more than just the content of this book. I read the paperback copy, and I have always considered myself gentle with hard copy books. This book begins to fall apart by the time I reached page 25. The cover was coming loose, and some pages had more than enough glue holding them together.
There is evidence of poor editing in the book (that’s my opinion, so take it or leave it). I simply emphasize that when a subtitle reads, “Who should read this book,” the answer should probably come before the last sentence in that section and should probably be more robust than “every Jesus follower (pp. 8-9).
Pages: 133 Target audience: all Christians My rating: 3 out of five stars
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