Tag: Stephen Smallman
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10 Building Blocks for On-going Discipleship
by Stephen Smallman I went away with our elders for a time apart to re-examine our priorities as a church. The word “discipleship” started as one of many things on a “to do” list, and the more we talked and prayed, the more that word pushed its way to the top of the list. That…
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Gospel Discipling: Gospel & Evangelism
Another area of major concern within the evangelical church today is the ineffectiveness of much evangelistic effort – when it is undertaken at all. I think one key element in this ineffectiveness is the mindset evangelicals have established that concludes that the unbeliever needs an entirely different message from the believer. When there is a recognition…
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Gospel Discipling: Gospel & Renewal
Not only is Gospel discipling the very heart of discipleship within churches, it is also the critical issue in the matter of renewal or revival in the church at large. Dr. Richard Lovelace, in his modern classic work Dynamics of Spiritual Life, asks why the Church must think in terms of what he calls “cyclical…
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Gospel Discipling: Gospel & Adoption
World Harvest Mission was founded in 1983 under the leadership of Dr. C. John (Jack) Miller. Dr. Miller’s ministry had been revolutionized by his own rediscovery of the Gospel through studies in Galatians and the work of Martin Luther, and the results of that revolution became evident in multiple conversions in his church and subsequent interest…
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Gospel Discipling: Romans as a Model
It would be presumptuous to claim that we can discern precisely the approach Paul and the first missionaries would have used under direct leadership of the Spirit. But I would encourage a view of his letter to the church(es) of Rome as essentially intending to take those who already believed the Gospel, and who were…
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Gospel Discipling: The Crying Need of the Church
by Stephen Smallman “Thirty years of discipleship programs, and we are not discipled.” This is the startling assessment of Jim Petersen, the visionary leader of the esteemed discipleship ministry, the Navigators. Petersen goes on in the first chapter of his important book, Lifestyle Discipleship, to ask some very hard questions about the real effectiveness of…
