Transforming Discipleship Quotes

“There is a vast difference between being a Christian and being a disciple. The difference is commitment.

Motivation and discipline will not ultimately occur through listening to sermons, sitting in a class, participating in a fellowship group, attending a study group in the workplace or being a member of a small group, but rather in the context of highly accountable, relationally transparent, truth-centered, small discipleship units.

There are twin prerequisites for following Christ - cost and commitment, neither of which can occur in the anonymity of the masses.

Disciples cannot be mass produced. We cannot drop people into a program and see disciples emerge at the end of the production line. It takes time to make disciples. It takes individual personal attention.

Discipleship training is not about information transfer, from head to head, but imitation, life to life. You can ultimately learn and develop only by doing.

The effectiveness of one's ministry is to be measured by how well it flourishes after one's departure.

Discipling is an intentional relationship in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to teach others as well.

If there are no explicit, mutually agreed upon commitments, then the group leader is left without any basis to hold people accountable. Without a covenant, all leaders possess is their subjective understanding of what is entailed in the relationship.

Every believer or inquirer must be given the opportunity to be invited into a relationship of intimate trust that provides the opportunity to explore and apply God's Word within a setting of relational motivation, and finally, make a sober commitment to a covenant of accountability.

Reviewing the covenant is part of the initial invitation to the journey together. It is a sobering moment to examine whether one has the time, the energy and the commitment to do what is necessary to engage in a discipleship relationship.

Invest in a relationship with two others for give or take a year. Then multiply. Each person invites two others for the next leg of the journey and does it all again. Same content, different relationships.

The invitation to discipleship should be preceded by a period of prayerful discernment. It is vital to have a settled conviction that the Lord is drawing us to those to whom we are issuing this invitation. . If you are going to invest a year or more of your time with two others with the intent of multiplying, whom you invite is of paramount importance.

You want to raise the question implicitly: Are you ready to consider serious change in any area of your life? From the outset you are raising the bar and calling a person to step up to it. Do not seek or allow an immediate response to the invitation to join a triad. You want the person to consider the time commitment in light of the larger configuration of life's responsibilities and to make the adjustments in schedule, if necessary, to make this relationship work.

Intentionally growing people takes time. Do you want to measure your ministry by the number of sermons preached, worship services designed, homes visited, hospital calls made, counseling sessions held, or the number of self-initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus?

When we get to the shore's edge and know that there is a boat there waiting to take us to the other side to be with Jesus, all that will truly matter is the names of family, friends and others who are self initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus because we made it the priority of our lives to walk with them toward maturity in Christ. There is no better eternal investment or legacy to leave behind.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“The church today has been compared to a football game with twenty-two people on the field in desperate need of rest, and fifty thousand people in the stands in desperate need of exercise.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The New Testament pictures the church as an every-member ministry. The “priesthood of all believers” is not just a Reformation watchword but a biblical ideal.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Bill Hull has prophetically written, “The crisis at the heart of the church is a crisis of product.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“We have transformed the gospel into the benefits we receive from Jesus rather than the call to be conformed to the life of Jesus. We want abundance without obedience.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Pastor Bill Hybels says that seekers might look at our lives and ask themselves, “If I become a Christian, am I trading up or trading down?”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“We must acknowledge that the climate in the Western world makes any traditional form of sharing the gospel more difficult than in the recent past.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The concern this raises, as Berding highlights, is that there is a famine of God’s Word even in the church; we are starving ourselves to death. Instead of following the admonition to meditate on God’s law day and night (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2; 119:97), we take a haphazard approach to internalizing the Word in our lives.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Followers of Christ are often called “the people of the book” because we believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the unique written revelation of God; the reality is that believers’ knowledge of Scripture is woefully inadequate.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The implication is that the church is not an optional afterthought for those who name Christ as their Lord. The church is central to God’s plan of salvation.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The life of Jesus is still being manifest among people, but now no longer through an individual physical body, limited to one place on earth, but through a complex, corporate body called the church.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Si tuviera que elegir una palabra para definir el estado del discipulado en la actualidad eligiría superficial.”
― Greg Ogden, Discipulado que transforma: El modelo de Jesús (Coleccion Teologica Contemporanea: Estudios Ministeriales nº 19)

“Leaders get rewarded for the three Bs: budgets, buildings and butts in the seats.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“your heart, that you are true disciples of Jesus? Please raise your hand.” Wilkins says that people are genuinely confused as to what they should do. Most do not raise their hand. Some put it up hesitantly and then quickly pull it down. Then Wilkins proceeds to a second question: “How many of you can say, in the humble confidence of your heart, that you are convinced that you are a true Christian? Please raise your hand.” Immediately most hands go up without hesitation.[10]”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Internalization cannot happen through a mass transference to an audience but must occur in an interpersonal environment.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The scriptural model for growing disciples is through relationships. Jesus called the Twelve to “be with him” (Mark 3:14), for their lives would be transformed through personal association.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Instead of equipping the saints to do the work of ministry, those in pastoral leadership do it themselves.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Leadership is about instilling urgency.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“John Kotter in Leading Change says that a primary reason why change does not occur is that there is no sense of urgency.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“To be a follower of Christ is to understand that there is no such thing as solo discipleship.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“The Scriptures picture the church as an essential, chosen organism in whom Christ dwells; the reality is that people view the church as an optional institution, unnecessary for discipleship.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Disciple making is not a program but a relationship.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship

“Every Christian must see themselves as the link to the next generation,” writes William Barclay.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Robert Coleman’s challenge: “One must decide where he wants his ministry to count—in the momentary applause of popular recognition or in the reproduction of his life in a few chosen ones who will carry on his work after he has gone? Really, it is a question of which generation we are living for.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Jesus went about his ministry with a relaxed urgency.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Leroy Eims a generation ago asked, “What then is the problem today? Why don’t we see more of this [disciple making] going one? Why are fruitful, dedicated mature disciples so rare? The biggest reason is that all too often we have relied on programs or materials or some other thing to do the job. The ministry is carried on by people, not programs.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“What a remarkable thing it is to recall that Jesus literally turned the world upside down with fishermen, a tax collector and a terrorist (religious zealot).”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Jesus’ thought was, “Give me teachable, loyal people, and watch me change the world.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Jesus chose the disciples for what they would become, not for what they were at the time of their call.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

“Scripture memorization has a number of benefits. We become what we place our minds on.”
― Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time