Our church has basically followed Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven” model for several years now, but last Sunday our pastor presented a new direction that he would like us to go – he called it “Mission Driven”. No, it’s not a total emphasis on cross-cultural missions…

Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven model uses five purposes (Evangelism, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Worship), which are taken from the Great Commission (go and make disciples…) and the Great Commandment (to love God with all your heart, soul strength and mind).

The Mission Driven model focuses on the basic command directed to the church: “Go and make disciples…”. Instead of breaking that command down into Evangelism (“go and make disciples”), Fellowship (“baptizing them”) and discipleship (“teaching them”), the Mission Driven model sees all of these things as aspects of the same command – to make disciples.

The key to the Mission Driven model is to define what a disciple is, then take all the ministries of the church and focus them on doing what it takes to help people become disciples.

So what is a disciple?

Luke 14:26-27; 33 show us that a disciple must make their relationship with Christ their first priority above anything else. John 15:5-8 shows us that a disciple should be self-feeding and should be bearing fruit that glorifies God. Matthew 4:19 shows us that disciples are “fishers of men” who should be actively sharing their faith. This list may not be complete, but it’s a good start towards defining a standard of what it means to be a disciple – and what our goal is as we “go and make disciples”.

This is still a work in progress – what do you think?