February 24, 2026

Aligning Your Church for Disciple Making

2 hours 14 minutes

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Aligning Your Church for Disciple Making: Five Shifts, One Mission

This session is on aligning churches around Jesus’ method of intentional, relational disciple making. They share personal ministry journeys and describe the challenge of shifting established, often attractional church systems toward obedience-based disciple making rooted in the Great Commission (Matthew 28) and maturity in Christ (Colossians 1). Using an iPhone vs. Android operating system metaphor, they argue disciple making can’t be added as a side program but must reshape the whole church. They present research findings that fewer than 5% of U.S. churches have a culture rooted in Jesus-style disciple making and outline four core practices seen in exemplary churches: convictional leadership, a contextual and reproducible model, high expectations, and cultural alignment.

00:00 Welcome & Why Disciple-Making Alignment Matters

04:03 Jeff Story: From Slogans to a Disciple-Making Culture

08:23 Paul: Leaving Membership Metrics for Making Disciples

13:24 Training Process Overview + The iPhone vs. Droid ‘Operating System’ Metaphor

18:59 State of Disciple-Making in North America + Jesus’ Intentional Relational Method

21:40 The Great Commission Explained: ‘Make Disciples’ and Obedience-Based Faith

27:09 Beyond ‘Evangelism’ vs ‘Discipleship’: One Mission—Salvation to Maturity

32:38 Bobby’s Journey: Coleman, Church Systems, Disciple Shift, and Renew’s Theology

41:07 Research Findings: Why Most Churches Aren’t Disciple-Making Churches

44:57 The 4 Core Practices: Convictional Leadership, Model, Expectations, Alignment

50:09 Why Revelation’s First 3 Chapters Matter Most (Jesus & the Churches)

52:38 Legacy Church Challenge: Shifting to a Discipleship Culture Without Blowing It Up

54:05 Defining a Disciple: Follow Jesus, Be Changed, Join the Mission

56:01 Personal Discipleship Story: Learning to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples

57:24 Why People Struggle to Disciple: The Baseball Analogy

01:00:15 Early Momentum & Staff Culture Change: Baptisms, Next Steps, Monday Stories

01:02:01 The Discipleship Mandate ‘Cumulative’: Jesus, Church, NT, Leaders, Gathering

01:11:43 Alignment Killers: Competing Agendas, Wrong Metrics, Instant-Result Expectations

01:13:36 10 Levers to Use (Not Demonize): Large Church, Sunday, Pulpit, Tradition, Doctrine

01:23:20 Five-Part Roadmap: Missional, Theological, Philosophical, Organizational, Relational

01:27:57 Break, Then Missional Alignment Deep Dive: Love God, Love People, Then Make Disciples

01:32:38 Avoiding Counterfeit Missions: Tradition, Buildings, and Other Substitutes

01:33:20 C.S. Lewis on the Church’s One Job: Make Disciples

01:34:12 Mission-Driven vs Member-Driven (and Keeping Jesus’ Mission Central)

01:35:04 Theological Alignment: Why Clarity Is Kindness

01:36:52 Beyond ‘Essentials/Non-Essentials’: A Better Doctrine Framework

01:42:29 A Replicable System for Teaching Core Doctrine (Catechism DNA)

01:44:35 Micro Groups & ‘Trust and Follow Jesus’: Simple, Proven, Reproducible

01:47:42 Philosophical Alignment: The Jesus Way—Intentional, Relational, Transformational

01:52:29 Organizational Alignment: Leading Change Without Blowing Up the Church

02:00:26 Relational Alignment: Love, Conflict, and the Messiness of Real Discipleship

02:11:31 Next Steps & Final Charge: Join the Alignment Training + Keep Making Disciples

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