Thanks to all of you who have offered to field test my new study. The manuscript has been completed and is off to the publishers, so I am no longer looking for testers. AMG estimates a release in February of 2009. I am hoping they will agree to use the working title, Making Disciples in Community.
The purpose of this study is to discover what Scripture says about discipleship. As the title suggests, I believe Scripture shows and tells us that making disciples is best done in community. I use the outline for spiritual growth given in 2 Peter 1:5–7 as a guide to explore what the rest of Scripture teaches about making disciples. The first chapter focuses on Peter’s experience and writing about discipleship. Each of the following chapters takes one quality Peter lists and studies letters written to a community in the early church concerning that quality. During my research, I was encouraged to find how often the community plays an important role in the Scriptural description of the discipling process.
