Discipleship
Discipleship Groups at OPCC
This journey is all about doing what Jesus said and taught, so that we may see the Kingdom of God in our world and lives. Come and join a community of disciples that love each other, learn to share Jesus with the lost, and be empowered to train others to do the same!
The discipleship model we will utilize at OPCC is all about equipping disciples to make disciples. This model carries distinct elements that allow for disciple making movements to take place.
What are the elements of a disciple making movement approach?
Awareness
Focus
Patterns
Equipment
Vision
Multiplication
Awareness - There is awareness that only God can start spiritual movements, but disciples can follow biblical principles.
That is, to pray, plant, and water the seeds that can lead to multiplying movements. Just like the one in the book of Acts.
Focus - The focus is to make every follower of Christ a reproducing disciple rather than merely a convert.
Patterns - Rhythms create frequent and regular accountability for both obeying what God says to each person and for them to pass it on to others in a loving environment. This requires a participative disciple-group approach.
Equipment - Discipleship groups equip each disciple in comprehensive ways.
Interpreting and applying Scripture
Spurring on a good prayer life
Functioning as a part of the larger Body of Christ
Recognizing those far from Christ in their own lives
To not be merely consumers, but as active agents that advance the Kingdom of God
Vision - This model provides every discipleship group a vision for reaching their friends and family. They also give a vision for extending the Kingdom to the ends of the earth. Disciples prioritize the darkest places with a “no place left” mentality.
Multiplication - Disciples intentionally reproduce as a part of the multiplying disciples process.The power of the Holy Spirit is the only one that can make this happen.
Spiritual DNA - This discipleship model will result in disciples having very similar spiritual values. These are some of the traits that we hope to equip in all of our disciples.
Prayer
Scripture
Obedience
Indigenous Church
Holistic Churches
Churches that Multiply
Prayer - Prayer movements always precede a Disciple Making Movements. Once a DMM starts, extraordinary prayer becomes an important factor. Those coming to Christ are highly aware that only God can birth new disciples and churches. They’re also highly motivated to see God break through the darkness in the lives of their family, friends and neighbors.
Scripture - Our model takes the Bible very seriously. As a result, everyone has to be a disciple of Jesus and sharer of the Word.
Obedience - Every discipleship group is devoted to listening to God’s Word. They obey it individually and corporately. Obedience is expected and everyone is held accountable for it. This is from a position of love and grace, not condemnation.
Lost Focused - Disciples look for those that God has prepared within their relational sphere to receive His Good News. When these people and groups come to faith, they are immediately equipped to reach others through the same discipleship model.
Healthy Churches - Believers focus on obedience to Scripture. This is why they’re compelled and eager to show God’s love to people. The disciples in these movements love those around them, take care of widows and orphans, stand for the Truth, seek to be a blessing to their neighborhood, a light in the darkness, etc.
Churches that Multiply - Just like the early church in Acts, these modern day movements multiply rapidly. Every disciple and church is equipped to reproduce. They’re also taught to rely on the Holy Spirit to empower them. The average church in a movement takes less than a year to reproduce another church. This leads to more than doubling the number of disciples and churches every year.
The Rise of Disciple Making Movement Efforts - For 30 years, there’s been a growing awareness and involvement in efforts to reach the world’s unreached people. Yet, the amount of people without access to the gospel has grown – 1.8 billion with no access in the mid-80s to 2.2 billion today.
In the late 1980s, catalytic teams launched new projects to reach Unreached People Groups.
In these evangelism efforts, some early catalysts accepted a God-sized vision: to see an entire people group follow Jesus.
This concept came from the Great Commission where Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of every ethne.
Due to the the great size of discipling people groups with millions of people, these early catalytic teams went to God in desperate prayer.
They were willing learners as God led them to put aside tradition and use strategies that were based on the New Testament.
God began to start “Book of Acts-like movements” with these men and women who were willing to do whatever God asked them to do.
In the beginning we called them Church Planting Movements. But after giving it some thought, practitioners used the term disciple making movements.
The logic being,
Where you have disciples you always get churches, but where you have churches, you don’t always get disciples.
The resulting Disciple Making Movements are the only complete approach that exceeds population growth and which begins to transform these communities as the new Body of Christ lives out kingdom values.
The Sailboat Analogy
Some steps and methods can “guarantee” a Disciple Making Movement. One way some movement practitioners explain this is the “Sailboat Analogy”.
If you are in a sailboat and have your sails up and ready, unless there is a wind you will not move very far.
In the same way, unless the wind of the Holy Spirit moves, there will be no Disciple Making Movement.
On the other hand, if you don’t get your sails up, even in a strong wind you will not move very far.
We have found through study of Scripture and learning from what the Holy Spirit is doing around the world that there are ways we can be ready for multiplication (sails up) and other ways we can hinder multiplication (sails down).
To go sailing, we don’t control the wind of the Holy Spirit, but we can control if we are ready to go as far and fast as possible when He moves!