We all know we should obey Great Commission and that the Great Commission commands we make disciples, but beyond the personal  spiritual significance of that command, it’s easy to forget the practical power of disciple-making in church growth. Building disciples isn’t only what we are supposed to be doing, it’s how to grow people and churches.

Discipleship ministry at first appears to take excessive time to develop a few people when aggressive outreach marketing seems to reach many more people much faster. But first appearances can be deceiving as this article will show you.

It’s important to read this article before getting into the practical nuts and bolts of creating church communications. The purpose of The Five Steps is to fully fulfill the Great Commission and that means to make disciples. If discipleship is your goal, if fully fulfilling the Great Commission is the measure of success in your church communication process, you will approach your communication ministry much differently than if success is measured by how many people you get in the door on Sunday or how impressed visitors are with your website.

Why discipleship is essential for the church to survive —and why your communications are essential to develop disciples

Today we have aggressive atheists who are the darlings of the popular press. When men like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris slander and malign the Christian faith in a way that is not only false, but nasty and vicious, their mockery is quoted and promoted without question throughout the internet and across the globe.

Church leaders who are exposed to public scandal are reported in the in press and individuals Christians don’t fare much better. Studies frequently show Christians behave no differently than non-Christians in morality and that many people who call themselves Christian have little or no understanding of what the Bible says and how it teaches them to act (which is probably why their behavior is no different than that of their unbelieving friends).

I could bore you with reams of studies and statistics, but you know in the quietness of the your heart and the turmoil of your mind that the Christian church is losing ground, so let’s skip the statistics and get to solutions. [Read more...]