Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

Counter Small Group-based Discipleship 2010-02-12

Reviewer: MasterAP

Greg Ogden goes against the mega-church grain by promoting a discipleship plan based on one-on-one meetings instead of small groups.

He wants to see church leaders making disciples a few at a time instead of trying to churn out groups of people who have sat through a class.

First, Ogden describes what went wrong and with with The Discipleship Deficit and getting to the root causes.

Next he explains how to use the Bible as a method book in making disciples.

In part 3, he gives us church-based strategies to make disciples.

He is not shy at expressing his disdain for the current fad of Small Groups and he seems to come in conflict with a popular discipleship book called Simple Church.

Within Transforming Discipleship, Ogden explains how the Paul/Timothy model shouldn't be used in churches as that was a special case. Instead, we should employ the Paul/Barnabus model in which we grow together, taking turns.

One of the bright spots in this book came at the very beginning when Ogden explained how our pastor's are too busy doing the work that others should be doing.

Biblically, pastors should only worry about instructing and equipping the church goers; the visitations, pastoral care, etc... should be left up to those who are built up within the congregations and turned out to lead.

Good Ideas 2009-12-29

Reviewer: Jason Chamberlain

In this book Ogden lists his ideas for how to develop disciples. He eschews large group formats such as Sunday morning preaching as the primary method for training disciples and instead recommends "triads" of three people who meet regularly and grow together. He does not see the need to discard the large group formats, but he does see the need of these very small groups for people to grow best.

My only concern with this book was the biblical support he tried to lay out for this model. My impression after reading this was that he found something that worked and, therefore, it is something that should be done. He also had to do some interpretive gymnastics to discount the one-on-one model that Paul used with Timothy.

However, as a member of a large church I see the need to give Ogden's method a try. It pains me that the pastors at my church are more administrators than shepherds of the flock. I read this book for a class in seminary. I'm in seminary because I want to be part of helping people move from idolatry to worship. I am definitely going to at least try out Ogden's model if I get a chance.

Over-reaction to expository preaching 2009-07-03

Reviewer: Jeremy Wright

Ogden has a discernible disdain for expository preaching in his emphasis on community relationships as the main vehicle for discipleship. What he sees as a threat to building self-feeding, multiplying disciples is actually the God-ordained means of seeing individuals grow in grace and love for one another. The preached Word ought to be the meat which our discipleship relationships help to digest, understand and apply. The preached message ought to be central to what we are doing in community with one another.

Must Read on Disciple Making 2009-06-09

Reviewer: Edward Choy

Here is a simple and yet transforming book on discipleship that every pastor needs to read and pass on to his leadership team, practice, and live out day by day.

Great Foundational Book on Discipleship 2009-04-01

Reviewer: J. Tucker

Ogden's message is clear: maybe our focus doesn't have to be evangelizing the world, but evangelizing the Church first. In America we are so focused on evangelism that real spiritual maturity is seldom seen. Jesus' own focus was not on numbers, but on investing Himself into a few men who would continue when He left. Jesus ministered to many, but focused on a few. But we have done the opposite by focusing on crowds.

This book is wonderful for people who are new to the idea of mentoring/ discipleship. Today we have assigned disciple-making as the responsibility of those specially trained and paid to give organized lessons and sermons. But Jesus meant for all disciples to be disciple-makers, regardless of what we do for a living. Ogden helps put that in clear perspective. Then he offers some tools and principles to go about doing it.

This book lays a clear groundwork for the problem we face today as well as principles from Jesus' ministry to fix those problems. Then he goes into a step-by-step process for implementing this into a local church setting.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. What it was lacking in was personal stories in discipleship (other than the first chapter) as well as some practical advice for disciple-making outside of the weekly meeting. But for the size and purpose of the book, this is a great read.