: What does the lack of spiritual leadership produce?

Lack of spiritual leadership among men leads to biblical illiteracy and ungodly lifestyles among believers as the following quote indicates:
"The greatest threat to the church today is the loss of disciple-building ministries through which mature, spiritually transformed Christians are multiplying themselves through other men and women. If increased attention is not given to building disciples, the number of members will drop and evangelism will wane " (Gene Mims, president of Lifeway Christian Resources).

For years we have been exposing Christians to scattered, random bits of biblical knowledge through our church services and Christian education classes. They hear a principle here and read a truth there, then nod their head in approval and feel momentarily satisfied over receiving this new insight into their faith. But within the space of just a few hours that principle or truth is lost in the busyness and complexity of their lives. They could not capture that insight and own it because they have never been given a sufficient context and method that would enable them to analyze, categorize, and utilize the principle or truth. This inability to systematically apply Scriptural truth produces a spiritual superficiality or immaturity that is reflected in behavior.

A recent conference concluded "our faith is a mile wide and an inch deep." Many profess a Christian faith, yet their lifestyles do not reflect that faith. Consider these statistics:

: What other facts show the spiritual need in America?

The church culture is rapidly dying out. The following are percentages of people attending church on a given weekend in America:

: How must the mindset of the church change?

Church does not need a methodological fix, but a "missional" fix. Current evangelism style (selling church-membership packages) is very similar to what the Pharisees did. We target our own members and their needs rather than the needs of the community. The church uses a "come and get it" approach; Jesus, in contrast, had a "go and give" mentality.

We need to see North America as our mission field (third-largest mission field and largest English-speaking one in the world). We must understand the culture, not to mimic it (and lose our message in the process) but so we can build bridges to people. The church must understand how the shift from modernism to postmodernism is affecting culture. In this religiously pluralistic society, we must realize as Paul did in his day, that only a vibrant relationship with Jesus will prove attractive (Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church, Jossey-Bass, 2003).

: What is the overall environment to most effectively multiply disciples into the world?

According to the book of Acts, prayer and the word of God under the leadership of the Holy Spirit are the key ingredients in establishing the church so it can make disciples in all the nations.

The church continually devoted themselves to united prayer with one mind under the leadership of the Holy Spirit (Act. 1:1-26). It resulted in evangelism (2:1-47) and ministry of healing (3:1-26). The infrastructure was small groups founded upon the word of God, fellowship, worship, and prayer, which led evangelism. Boldness in preaching stirred up spiritual warfare leading to persecution from authorities and disunity within the body (4:1- 5:42).

As the priority of prayer and the Word of God were maintained among its leaders, the word of God kept on spreading, number of disciples increased, and unchurched (priests) were coming to faith (6:4-7). Using the Old Testament Walk Through as a teaching foundation, the church expanded geographically under the leadership of the Holy Spirit (6:8-8:1a).

The building and testing of the church caused believers to be scattered around the world as new leadership was being developed to prepare for further expansion (8:1b-12:25). The church continued to increase as it enjoyed peace while being built up in the fear of the Lord and comfort of the Holy Spirit. The word of the Lord continued to grow and be multiplied (9:31; 12:24).

Trained leaders were sent out by a group of multi-ethnic leaders in the community (Antioch) in response to the Spirit's leading after a time of united prayer and fasting. Leaders were sent out to plant churches in strategic cities, build up new leaders and establish churches so they could function on their own quickly to further the gospel where Christ was not named (13:1-28:31). The disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit (13:52). The churches were being strengthened in the faith, and were increasing in number daily (16:5).

Paul served as a bold example in communicating the gospel in every circumstance of life (Phil. 1:12-13, Rom. 15:18-21).

: Describe the key strategy to promote discipleship in believers

The key infrastructure for discipleship is small groups. The components of healthy discipleship of believers are found in Acts 2:42: "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer," which led to evangelism. From this passage, we see that knowledge, relationships, therapy, devotion and service were developed consecutively and simultaneously in the context of small groups.

The Holy Spirit fueled the life of church as seen earlier in Acts 1:8: "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." The effectiveness of a church is hindered if it over-emphasizes one of the following components:
1. Knowledge (rational): over-emphasis leads to intellectualism
2. Relational (transparency): over-emphasis leads to instability
3. Therapeutic (reflective): over-emphasis leads to self-absorption
4. Devotional (prayer): over-emphasis leads to escapism
5. Service (evangelism): over-emphasis leads to busyness

However, there is a natural progression from theory to practice or moving from knowing, to being, to doing in each of the above components (Acts 2:42):
1. Knowledge (apostles' teaching): listening to truth (knowing)
2. Relational (fellowship): sharing with believers (knowing)
3. Therapeutic (breaking of bread): listening to God (being)
4. Devotional (prayer): interacting with God (being)
5. Service (evangelism): interacting with world (doing)

When a church is listening to truth from small group leaders, sharing with other believers, listening and interacting with God through prayer and spending time with unbelievers, the results will be similar to the first-century church:
1. Supernatural Working: Acts 2:43
2. Unified Mind-Set: Acts 2:44
3. Sharing Money With Others: Acts 2:45
4. Sharing Time Together: Acts 2:46
5. Lifestyle Evangelism: Acts 2:47

: What structure will multiply the number of disciples?

Jesus could have poured His life into the multitudes, but molded the character of 12 men instead so they could multiply themselves into 12 more individuals (men work with men, women with women, couples with couples and youth with youth). The number 12 symbolized government, as there are 12 months to a year, days are governed by 2 periods of 12 hours each, 12 tribes in Israel and King Solomon appointed 12 governors.

Beginning with a church in Bogota, Columbia, which started with 12 people in 1991 and has multiplied to 30,000 cell groups, G-12 has been established to win souls and make disciples so they can be sent into the harvest fields of the world.

Paul embraced this same mission starting with 12 men in Ephesus and then training them in the school of Tyrannus so that in 2 years, all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord (Acts 19:7-10). Extraordinary miracles occurred when people abandoned their magic arts, burned articles of witchcraft and forsook the worship of Artemis. As a result, the word of Lord was growing mightily and prevailing (Acts 19:11-20).

: What are the key features of the Guide?

Because of the current situation in the body of Christ, the need exists for a resource to help develop a Christian faith that is 'authentic' - deeply-felt, energetic, and an active part of daily life. The Guide is a three-phase process to evangelize and establish secularized people in Christ so they can be entrusted with ministry to extend the gospel into the world.
It connects the Old and New Testaments through small group Bible study and discussion so one comes to know God, experience inner healing, and wage spiritual warfare. It is designed to penetrate individuals' lives like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus when their hearts burned as Christ opened the Law, Prophets and Psalms to them (Luke 24:27,32,44-45.)

The Guide is accessible not only to mature Christians, but also to new believers, and even 'seekers' who are still looking for spiritual direction. It contains 12 modules, equally divided into three phases, for anyone above the age of 14. Each module takes six weeks, and each four-module phase lasts two semesters, for a total of six semesters.

As group members honestly share their feelings, sin, and inadequacies in a safe environment, they attain integrity and spiritual maturity. Participants fill out a self-measurement questionnaire after completion of a module to measure growth in spiritual intimacy (phase one), authentic godliness (phase two), and fruitful ministry (phase three.).

A teacher and student's guide is designed so the average person can easily lead his or her small group. Individuals study Scripture verse-by-verse and answer open-ended questions. In accordance to 2 Timothy 2:2, each person has a traveling companion from his or her small group, to reinforce learning during the week, so new groups can be started.