So, my apologies, I put this thread down and left it there, only now to return. So, for those of you posting :), here is mine. It'll be brief. McNabb said "Laborers are like manure. It stinks when they are all piled up in one place. you have to spread them out to do any good". That was him quoting someone, but boy, I like it. I have a pretty significant need to grow in basically everything in this particular chapter. Later on p165, "This insight that the Great Commission is not just about winning a lot of people to Christ, but discipling people from all different nations and people groups, demands that we bring our little stories into alignment with God's big story." This is very helpful and corrective for us when we get a bit lost in our own bubbles.

His question on p139 sums up a great deal of what I think is the central question here: "If someone came to me and asked me to equip him or her for ministry, could I just respond, "Okay, just follow me around and you will learn most of what you need to know'?" Ya..that's a good question! His other exhortation about gathering a medium sized group of people to do evangelism and then choosing from that group the top most FAT people, is very intriguing to me, and may very well inform future ministry.

What hit me the most on a personal level is the need for life-on-life relationship. I think I fail at this far more often than I tend to think, and this chapter was both convicting on that account and encouraging. Also, I'm challenged by his emphasis on group dynamics more than 1-2-1 discipling. 1-2-1 is my go-to, but this is a real helpful challenge to how effective that is, and how much more effective small group stuff can be. We shall see!

Of course, it's hard for a main reflection to not be "teams". Being a part of a disciple making team is just huge. I think, as a ministry, we tend far more towards 1-2-1 (which is fine in itself), but perhaps often lack the disciple-making team. I'm eager to push into this more.

The reminder that effective disciple making, if begun in one's Freshmen year and lasting four years long, will create 64 multiplying disciples. There's a reason that if this process continues you'll have impacted, through this process, over 22,000,000 people. As I said before, this is just the math, it is as always, the Spirit that moves and saves. But, provided that the Spirit blesses anything remotely close to this, it's an astonishing and exciting truth!

Big thought out of many: "With" vs "Through". This of course is perhaps THE supreme principle by which God operates in the world. He is supremely concerned with his glory, which is why he likes to get it through persistant prayer, for instance. So, our work is so that he might be glorified, and HE can do marvelous things, even through (and because of) fallen, frail creatures like ourselves! Two followup thoughts: "Ask!" from James...we need to ask! And I wrote at the top of one page, "We need a major realignment towards 'disciple-making disciples'". This book has already kicked my but in this way, and I'm eager to talk about it more!

I'd never heard someone state it as "the doctrine of multiplication." I like that a lot. This chapter, though in almost all regards, was review of things we've been teaching for years, it was IMMENSELY encouraging to me. Basically everything, 2 Tim 2:2, Genesis 1:28 foundation of God's nature being one of multiplication, etc. The primary conviction was the last page, "There are really only two things we can do if we are finding it difficult to raise up multiplying disciples. The FIRST is to re-examine our ministry practice and identify the ways in which we have deviated from the Master's model." I want you guys to do this with me. Some serious re-examination would do us some real good, and I think God would be honored in it.