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Distinctively Adventist Take on Discipleship, how your church can grow by choosing a uniquely Adventist path for discipleship training. By Dan Day. Book serialization, segment # 2. Word count: 1,850.

Preface: A powerful, new discipleship training

tool for pastors and church leaders
In the last segment, we offered the promise of a discipleship training resource that was for all of us (or for the rest of us), not just those who are spiritual athletes. We also suggested that there were things about the Adventist message and lifestyle that would actually strengthen our efforts to do discipleship training, and make it more possible for an Adventist to become a disciple of Jesus than might otherwise be the case. We admitted this was a bold claim, but continued to argue for its accuracy. In this, we maintained that we were not in any way denying or even diminishing the fact that many of Jesus disciples have never darkened the halls of an Adventist church. We are merely asserting that within the broader mandate of Adventism are ideas, commitments, values and lifestyle elements that support discipleship in exceptional ways. This distinctively Adventist approach to discipleship that weve been discussing is the thrust behind a new resource for Adventist churches in North America, called iFollow. In simple terms, iFollow is a new tool developed by the church for the church, with the involvement of over seventy writers, editors and

 reviewersand it is based on research with local congregational leaders, who told

us this was what they most needed in order to do what God had placed them in their communities to accomplish. Our churches are full of baby Christians, they told us. We need help for putting them on the path to spiritual growth. What a challenge they gave us! It wasnt something we could ignore. But what would it take to pull it off? How could we make a discipleship resource that took full advantage of what others who have gone before us have learned about discipleship, but added elements that would make it distinctively Adventist? The iFollow Resource seeks to address this need. It provides a broad-based set of tools, with several essential componentsdesigned to meet the varied needs of our differing church configurations, with small and large churches, churches in rural and urban locations, and churches with complex facets of diversity. In other words, it has to be a tool we can all use, from pastors who have full-time staff support, to district pastors who have little free time, to small congregations where if discipleship training is going to be offered, it must be coordinated and delivered by lay people. The first component in the resource is an extensive iFollow Curriculum that addresses a broad sweep of discipleship issues, including the issues relative to coming to know God, those relating to establishing powerful growth habits, and those pertaining to becoming a leader in ministry. The entire curriculum is available free at ifollowdiscipleship.org, with nearly 120 training segments. These are complete discipleship studies, with all the supports you could ask for, including PowerPoint slides, links to other resources, and bibliography support. You or your

leadership team can download every part of this extensive Curriculum. It is not free to develop or make available, of course. The North American Division has subsidized its development, and delivered it to every Adventist pastor in North America as part of the Pastors DVD. It is free to you, because your church looks at this as part of what they do to give back for all the years of faithful support and ministry the members of your congregation have given. But thats not the full extent of the iFollow Resource. As we talked to pastors and other congregational leaders, asking them how they envisioned actually doing discipleship training, we quickly came to realize that something more was needed than what was being offered, digitally, in the Curriculum. Historic patterns of how we use resources in the church suggested that an additional, very practical component to the Resource would be necessary. So, iFollow also displays a growing library of book titleslike this oneaimed specifically at supporting discipleship training in a small group setting. At the same time that these books were needed to assist in the training process (some people just like to take a book home with them, so they can make notes in the margins and underline), they also fill gaps in the Curriculum, adding key elements. Some examples are: how to raise godly children in an ungodly world, how to avoid the most common mistakes in your efforts toward spiritual growth, and additional training on what it means to be an Adventist Christian, for new membersto help new members actually become disciples. This book is one, too. And then there is the matter of how distinctive the books are. As you will see when you thumb through this volume, the iFollow Series includes all sorts of built-in

 resourceslike a Bible study in each chapter, targeted quotes from Ellen White,

other quotes and links, discussion questions, group activities, media resources, web links, and much more. Weve created this donut of extra material so members who want to grow in Christ are provided access to a wide variety of components to match any learning style or preference. We call it maximum flexibility. Just flip through the book and youll see what I mean. The third and final component in iFollow is an interactive digital hub, which offers a number of additional elements to the conversation, besides just making the Curriculum available. One of these elements is a group of ebooks, serialized like this one, addressing key aspects of discipleship training. Most of these ebooks will eventually make it into print form. But we wanted to get them to you as quickly as possible. We also wanted to create a way for conversation to begin taking place about the discipleship process, and to allow an ongoing communication between those who are creating the material and those who are using it. All this and more are facilitated on this digital hub. A distinctively Adventists resource Which brings us to this book in the iFollow Series. As we at the North American Division were completing our six-year journey of development of iFollow, we thought we were just developing a requested and much needed resource for discipleship training. You asked for it; we developed it and sent it out. But we soon discovered we were also initiating a serious conversation about how Adventists

 view discipleship in ways that are distinctive and compelling (which ultimately led to this book).

Pastors said things to us like: Ive been attempting to do discipleship training, based on programming and materials Ive purchased from my local evangelical Christian bookstore, but Im getting pushback from my members. Some even went on to say: Theyre finding in the materials ideas and themes that do not resonate with their core Adventist values. Along with these comments typically came the request: So, why cant the church develop discipleship programming that is less distracting and more supportive of my ministrysomething that feels Adventist all the way through? And why cant I have it yesterday. Right. The development of the discipleship resource actually turned out to be a much larger, harder, and longer process than we ever envisioned when we first decided to respond to this request. We didnt really start out to create a distinctively Adventist discipleship resource. We just wanted to create a good one, a discipleship resource that our churches would use. And even when we realized what we were creating, we didnt want the process to be merely reactive. In other words, we didnt want it to be about creating something distinctively Adventist merely because the church didnt have one, or because those out on the fringesand most concerned about using Adventist resources only demanded it. At the North American Division, we knew the problem wasnt merely that the existing discipleship programming, purchased from evangelical sources, lacked a Sabbath context, or didnt emphasize the churchs 28 Fundamental Beliefs. Pastors

could have added that in, with a little effort. No, the problem was more central. The push-back, we discovered, as we probed more deeply, was because the existing materials were lacking a significant number of our basic Adventist assumptions about God and man, and about what God calls His church to be doing in the world, particularly in these end times. But, whatspecificallymight those distinctive and basic assumptions be? How could we shape iFollowboth in content and structure as a discipleship resourceto be sure we were providing the churches with what they were requesting, but not merely pandering to parochial or extreme concerns? These were some of the questions we consideredand the content elements we struggled to balance. Taking a vigorous approach We must admit that, to some degree, A Distinctively Adventist Take on Discipleship has been forced into being a bit more aggressive in this differentiation from evangelical programming than it might otherwise have been, due to the very process were undertaking. First of all, we are describing Adventist views that not everyone in the church is likely to embrace. As with any organization, we have our believers who dislike anything new, along with those who have disdain for anything produced by the church. Another reason were not all likely to agree on this is because many of us havent thought all that much about discipleship, and how it might change our lives.

 Then, in contrasting these distinctively Adventist views with evangelical

perspectives, we may also be pushing some people in the evangelical community out to the edge. Were putting evangelical views into a box that is probably a bit unfair, and that some evangelical writers might scream to escape, shouting: Wait, wait, thats not us! We have a broader view, too. What youre claiming for yourselves, as distinctively Adventist views, are things we hold, as well. Guilty as charged. Im holding out my hand so you can slap it. Evangelical views are broad and differentiated, too. Its even possible that some evangelicals hold views on discipleship more Adventist than many Adventists hold. Also, when we introduce the elements of an Adventist view on discipleship, we are going to be digging deeply in the well of broadly-based Adventist thought and writing, and intentionally choosing to ignore the parochial that is sometimes displayed (not by you or me, of course). In other words, were appealing to the better angels of our Adventist belief system, focusing on areas of broad agreement within the church, the perspectives that reveal most potently the relevant core values that have driven the church from our very beginnings. Were doing this in contrast with the debatable stuff we sometimes descend to, as we fight among ourselves (or with others). Or, rather, as some dogiven that neither you nor I would stoop to such things. In the next segment, well take a look at what some of these distinctive views are, and why they are so important for discipleship training.