Building a Discipling Culture

by Mike Breen

directive style to gathering consensus. Many leaders make the mistake of starting in this phase, trying to have a democratic style from the beginning. This will not work. The followers have to pass through stages one and two before they have the experience and vision to make their opinions worth considering.

THE FIVEFOLD MINISTRIES ARE FOR EVERYONE

The fivefold roles apply to all members of the body of Christ in varying degrees. What Paul is saying is that Jesus, by the gift of his grace, has empowered and equipped each of us for service.

These five gifts of grace seem to be the elements needed for preparing people for service and building up the Church. Each person receives a portion of grace to fulfill a ministry role as an apostle, prophet,

From the Greek apostolos meaning “one who is sent out.” Apostles are visionary and pioneering, always pushing into new territory. They like to establish new churches, ministries, non-profits, Kingdom-minded businesses or initiatives.

• Core question Apostles ask: Are we leading the people of

God to their destiny?

the Prophet foretells and tells forth revelation from God. Often Prophets are able to stand back from circumstances to get a clear picture of what is happening and therefore see creative solutions and develop a vision for situations others don’t see. Prophets understand the times and what people should do.

Core question Prophets ask: Are the people of God hearing his voice and responding appropriately?

One who brings good news and shares the message readily (euanggelistes). Evangelists love spending time with non-Christians and often remind other Christians that there are non-Christians still out there in the world.

Core question Evangelists ask: Are new people entering into the Kingdom of God?

One who shepherds God’s people (poimen), who cares for others with a tender heart. One who sees needs, provides comfort and encourages others. Pastors spend most of their time with other Christians.

Core question Pastors ask: Are the people of God caring for and showing compassion for people?

One who holds forth the truth and is excited by it (didaskalos). The Teacher looks for ways to explain, enlighten and apply truth.

Core question Teachers ask: Are the people of God immersing

themselves in Scripture and incarnating it?

People commented about Jesus that his teaching possessed an authority that they didn’t see in the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees.

Each of us has a base ministry that represents one of the fivefold ministries in Ephesians.

Maturity, at least as Paul is defining it in this passage, seems to be an individual having a measure of competency in each ministry, “so that we will no longer be infants.” What we end up with is a spiritual formation process that leads us from infancy to maturity,

ministry. So we are not all called to be Pastors, but we are all called to care. We are not all called to be Teachers, but we are all called

We have included a tool in the Appendix—the Fivefold Ministries Questionnaire—to help determine your gift. You can also download a PDF version at the 3DM website www.weare3dm.com or go to www.fivefoldsurvey.com to take the survey online. Feel free to use this as you like; it is but one way to determine one’s ministry role.

Pioneers, for example, enjoy change and find the stress of doing new things exciting rather than threatening. Pioneers are committed to flexibility; instability does not frighten them.

In some churches, the pioneers are driven away by developers who do not want to explore anything new

others, pain is caused by pioneers who are not patient enough to wait for developers to catch up with them.

The Person of Peace is someone God has prepared for that specific time. It is no good trying to force open doors that God has not opened, and we must not be distracted so that we miss the doors he has opened. This really is exciting news.

Every Christian community is to be involved in both sowing and reaping. Many of our current ways of doing church might make us uncomfortable with what Jesus is telling us here. Jesus says we should be glad to invest in a harvest even though the benefit of our labor might go to the church down the street.

He focused their outreach on the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:6) and warned them against being distracted by those not ready to receive their message (Luke 9:5 and 10:4). In mission and evangelism we should look for people who are open to us and our message. We should concentrate on these receptive People of Peace, and not force dialogue or relationship where they do not naturally flow.

Welcome you.

Listen to you.

Serve or support you.

It is one thing to form a community. It is something entirely different to form communitas.

When we start with a mission, we always get a community, because we band together for a common goal, because we’ll need to care for one another in the midst of the battle of the mission.

Observe and discern through the Spirit where God is shaping this group of people: a. If they are struggling with Identity, spend several Huddles on the Twin Triangles of Covenant and Kingdom (see Mike Breen’s Covenant and Kingdom: The DNA of the Bible*) b.

We have found it helpful to teach the Circle first, the Semi-Circle second, the Triangle third and, after that, whenever a new shape is appropriate

We strongly recommend you take your first five to six Huddle times to focus only on the Circle. We also suggest dedicating one of these Huddles to teaching the Covenant and Kingdom Triangles after Huddle members are familiar with the Circle in order to see what the kairos moment produces and then take it around the Circle.

resist the urge to view the shapes as curriculum.

So take your time. For example, after the third or fourth Huddle, have one of them teach the Circle to the group as if they were the Huddle leader.

Bring challenge early in the Huddle experience. The longer you put it off, the harder it will be. By bringing challenge early,

aren’t the one talking. When your Huddle is just beginning, very rarely let other people interject with their own thoughts or opinions.

wrong! At the conclusion of a Huddle, make sure each person can answer these two questions: 1) What is God saying to me? 2) What am I going to do about it?

Start actively training your Huddle members to be Huddle leaders. As someone is sharing, ask someone else randomly, “If you were the Huddle leader, what would you say right now?” This wakes everyone else up, but it also gets the wheels turning in their brains about what they would say to each person. This is a big piece of a Huddle:

The only number that Jesus is counting and the only thing he talks about in his last instructions are disciples.