Showing titles in Discipleship

Most of us want to know the Bible better, but few reach our goal, often because we’re too busy or we don’t know where to start. Core 52 removes both barriers, offering a common-sense solution that fits into our busy lives. Respected Bible professor and teaching pastor Mark E. Moore developed this proven process from 35 years of helping people grow deeper in God’s Word. Each week features a brief essay, memory verse, Bible story, trajectory verses, and practical ways to put what you’ve learned into practice.

In Rooted, Banning Liebscher takes us to the life of David to show how God expands our root system in the hidden places to leave an impact on the visible world. It was in a field of prayerful devotion, a season of serving, and a cave of community that God prepared David for his crown - the same way God prepares us. Take a look at your own life. Are you embracing God's process, the sometimes painstaking and maddening process?

A battle rages within every one of us every day. It's the clash between our sense of stubborn self-sufficiency and God's call to recognize that we're really nothing without Him. It's pride versus humility. And it's a fight we can't win without looking repeatedly to Christ and the cross. C. J. Mahaney raises a battle cry to daily, diligently, and deliberately weaken our greatest enemy (pride) and cultivate our greatest friend (humility).

The book of John is foundational to our relationship with Jesus. This eight-session study through the Gospel of John will uncover who Jesus is, His love for us, and invite us to respond.

Over the last 30 years, many influential church leaders and church planters in America have adopted various models for reaching unchurched people. An “attractional” model will seek to attract people to a local church. Younger leaders may advocate a more “missional” approach, in which believers live and work among unchurched people and intentionally seek to serve like Christ. While each of these approaches have merit, something is still missing, something even more fundamental to the mission of the church: discipleship.

The journey toward deeper faith and spiritual maturity is a lifelong pursuit, with plenty of stops and bumps along the way. Inevitably, there comes a point when Christians - new believers and veterans in the faith alike - find themselves asking, "What do I do next? How do I stay motivated to grow deeper in my relationship with God when I feel complacent, intimidated, or confused?" In Now What?, Chris Hodges reveals the four steps to spiritual maturity: knowing God, finding freedom, discovering purpose, and making a difference.

In this groundbreaking devotional book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day, Peter Scazzero introduces the ancient spiritual discipline of the Daily Office. The basic premise is simple: We need to stop intentionally, to be with God more than once a day so that we truly practice of the presence of God.

What Christians believe about God is visible in how they exhibit thankfulness for all he has done on their behalf. Pastor Sam Crabtree offers a practical resource to encourage believers to express glad-hearted thankfulness for God’s unending provision. This book provides insight into daily practices that exemplify thankfulness, such as speaking a word of thanks to a neighbor, serving others in a practical way, or thanking God for his many gifts.

This work by John Owen offers a practical and biblical plan for understanding the power of the enemy and the strategies of sin and temptation. By helping Christians understand the nature of sin, Owen reveals a path to victory through communion with and reliance on God. While sin works to pull Christians away from God and from obedience to him, this powerful guide demonstrates how to combat that and instead grow closer to God.

John the apostle must have thought he had seen everything. Having been with Jesus all the years of his ministry, John witnessed more miracles than he could count, saw more displays of power than he could comprehend, and experienced more love than he could fathom. And one unforgettable morning young John outran Peter to his Savior's empty tomb. Just as Christ took John on a lifelong journey into the depths of His love, He will do the same for you.

Deep Discipleship equips churches to reclaim the responsibility of discipling people at any point on their journey.

Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” But how many of us know what this looks like in daily life? Does loving God mean going to church, tithing, having regular prayer times? Is it a feeling in our hearts?

A few years after Chuck Colson became a Christian, he realized that the more he learned about God’s love for him, the more he wanted to know how to love God. This book is the masterpiece Colson wrote after searching Scripture, history, and his own difficult experiences to answer his deepest question. He discovered that loving God is obeying God - rarely easy, sometimes inconvenient, often painful, and entirely satisfying. When we love God, we know the pleasure of living out our true calling.

Billy Graham considers Loving God “one of the most spiritually satisfying books I have ever read.” Joni Eareckson Tada refers to it as “the complete volume on Christian living.” With fascinating stories and engaging theological insights, Loving God has been bringing people closer to Jesus for over 30 years. In this hour of opportunity for the church and for our own spiritual lives, Loving God will inspire you to love God with your whole being. It’s what you were created to do.

"Every believer in Jesus Christ deserves the opportunity of personal nurture and development," says LeRoy Eims. But all too often the opportunity isn't there. We neglect the young Christian in our whirl of programs, church services, and fellowship groups. And we neglect to raise up workers and leaders who can disciple young believers into mature and fruitful Christians. In simple, practical, and biblical terms, LeRoy Eims revives the lost art of disciple making.

Every day and everywhere, everyone can live a powerful life of Kingdom impact, Jesus-style! One ordinary life making a powerful difference - that's God's amazing 'Plan A' on display. Using real-life, riveting stories and a contemporary scriptural lens, Dwight Robertson shows how God's exciting kingdom-building plan takes life - literally - in ordinary individuals.

The church needs sold-out, all-in Jesus-followers. Disciples and disciple-makers. But where do you find them? How do you develop them? Look no further than how Jesus did it. The greatest leader and mentor of all time poured into 12 guys for a season. Those lives multiplied to build the church to over two billion who declare their belief in Christ today.

Based on case studies of 400 American churches, authors Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger prove that the process for making disciples has quite often become too complex. Simple churches are thriving, and they are doing so by taking these four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus. Each idea is examined here, simply showing why it is time to simplify.

Being a genuine disciple of Christ flows out of a relationship with him. It's about experiencing God's grace, not earning his love through performance. A real relationship with Jesus Christ will produce a follower whose life looks progressively more like his life. Romans 12 provides a relational profile of an authentic disciple: someone who is surrendered to God, separate from the world's values, sober in self-assessment, serving in love, and supernaturally responsive to evil with good.

How important is holiness to you? How much thought, attention, and effort do you devote to the pursuit of holiness? Is it your priority and mission to be holy? Nancy Leigh DeMoss teaches that we must make it our constant, conscious ambition to be holy. Just as an athlete sets his sight on winning an Olympic gold medal, so we as believers must focus on the pursuit of holiness. And the reward that awaits us brings a depth of joy that far outweighs a fading gold medal; it is the humble pleasure of hearing the father say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Writing with humor and candor out of his own experiences, and incorporating Scripture, literature, and accounts of others who have doubted, Dominic Done argues that not only is questioning normal, it is often a path toward a rich and vibrant faith. Rather than viewing trust and doubt as incompatible, When Faith Fails provides listeners with a way to wrestle and ask questions while growing ever closer to God.

Have you joined a church or small group in hopes of experiencing real life change, only to be disappointed? Have you sat through inspiring sermons about what is possible when Christians gather together in mutually edifying relationships, only to recognize how cynical you have become after many failed attempts? Community may be one of the most over-promised, under-delivered aspects of the Christian life today. Individuals remain selfish and stuck in their ways.