Discipleship Impacted by the Power of the Gospel

While attending the National Disciple Making Forum earlier this month, I attended a breakout session entitled, “How to Use the Power of the Gospel Daily to Bring Transformation in Discipleship” led by Monte Starkes and Charles Hooper of Perimeter Church in Atlanta. They recommended what they called the Gospel three-step waltz:

• repent,
• believe,
• obey.

These steps repeat and flow from one to the next with obey flowing naturally into repent.

Charles and Monte mentioned these two-step failures which need to be addressed/avoided:

• focusing on obey and repent only can lead to moralism,
• focusing on repent and believe only can lead to licentiousness, and
• focusing on believe and obey only can lead to legalism.

They gave credit for their thinking to Bob Flayhart and his Gospel-centered mentoring along with his dissertation.

Could discipleship be as simple as leading those we mentor to dance the Gospel waltz?

If you were designing a strategy based upon these three flowing steps, how would you go about ensuring practice while avoiding potential failures listed above?

During the conference, I recommended that the heart (center of the three steps) should be the word, “encounter.” What I mean is that the Holy Spirit is needed to help guide repenting, believing, and obeying. When we open God’s Word and meet Him in Bible study, He draws us into a relationship with Him, others, and ourselves that changes everything. Without an encounter the circle becomes shortcircuited.

For more ideas about a disciple-making strategy and resources, check out these blog posts:

• Boldly Go Where Others Have Gone Before Us
• Ten Disciple-Making Questions for Churches
• The Disciple Maker’s Handbook
• Review of a Disciple’s Day
• The Source Book for Disciple-Making
• Jesus as Disciple-Maker, Part 1
• Jesus as Disciple-Maker, Part 2