I am currently in a PhD program, and as a result, read tons of b
ooks that are assigned to me rather than chosen by me. Fortunately for me, the program at SBTS (which you can learn about here) has me usually reading things that appeal to me. One of the books I recently read, however, turned out to be much better than I anticipated. Academic books are usually the norm, but in this case, I was presented with a book that is very practical and is a must read for anyone is pastoral ministry or who seeks to grow discipleship in their local church.
Real Life Discipleship by Jim Putman is a book that everyone interested in creating disciple-making churches needs to read. Putman is the pastor of Real Life ministries in Idaho which has 7,000 of their 8,500 persons in weekly attendance engaged in small groups for discipleship. In this book, Putman has written a practical how-to guide to help you transform your church into a disciple-making machine.
For them, the process revolves around simplicity and reproducibility. Many would immediately assume that to be simple, the process must not expect much from it’s leaders. The opposite is actually true. The expectations of this church on its leadership (that produces most of its staff from within) are immense, but they are clear and simple. This high-expectation and simple model creates reproducibility because leaders can know what is expected and they can actually DO what is expected.
Their small groups ministry reproduces regularly and they have adopted a form of storying as their curriculum to remove the fear many associate with becoming a “teacher.” Storying is effective, even in a North American context because most people are not using reading as their primary means for absorbing information anymore.
The greatest strength of this book is probably the spiritual stages of growth that he charts and expounds upon. Churches would do well to seek to implement similar tools in evaluating discipleship in their own contexts.
I still disagree with Putman’s downplaying of preaching and corporate worship, but I do believe that is simply an overreaction from him to churches that do worship well and completely ignore one-on-one discipleship. Regardless of whether you agree with storying or some of the other things Putman presents in this book, you can’t argue with an orthodox church producing disciples at the rate they are experiencing. You will do well to read this book. If you find you don’t have time for all of it, at least spend time in the first 60 or 70 pages. It will change the way you look at discipleship in your ministry. You will also be well suited to see his appendices. His spiritual stages of growth in appendix a and his resources for discipleship in appendix b alone make the book worthwhile.
See also my review of Putman’s, Church Is A Team Sport
