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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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