The spiritual formation of men is the primary and final commandment from the lips of Jesus before he ascended.
Acting on this was easier because the very recent experience of those who lived with him had been trained and loved by Jesus. And when the 12 became the 72 disciples, they also were hands-on with Christ, in learning and practicing that behavior.
It was the hub or roundabout of all activity and the measurement and affirmation of Christ’s Spirit’s presence in their local Body. The function of the varying members and gifts of the Spirit flowed from a discipling engine. Testimonials, a celebration of Communion, baptisms, and the life-giving culture flowed from the individual’s timeline of conversion through the gradual maturing of the Believer until the day he died. Though very much sidelined for much of the last 2 millennia, the content and urgency of the original command is the same today.
Unfortunately, this “making” included loving new potential converts into their decision to step into the miracle of regeneration-conversion, was not an end in itself, but only the beginning of a disciples life. The Novitiate was considered in the boat and thus the stage of development and education automatically was seen to by the church family. within a few hundred years, the professionals were held responsible for the discipling process from the beginning of the newly saved disciple, discipling of young disciples by more mature disciples most churches today around the world have lost their understanding of what it means to embrace this core paradigm of a normal member of the church. All authentic followers of Jesus in “normal” church back then were discipled to become “disciplers” of others and so forth. There was no other “Believer” or “Christian” category. It definitely was not the demographic of nominal or worse–“the Christmas-Easter only Christians!”
“When we let go of the loving and often sacrificial stewardship for ALL members to MAKE disciples, and abdicated our vital post into the hands of a select few paid professionals, the operational “Church” as we know it, ceased to exist.”
Art Hobba, Core 300 founder
The incubation of the first church wasn’t a tame Bible Study, it was a full-on military clean-up mission after the invasion of Christ to set up his Kingdom on Earth. It included a plan to move from tribe to tribe throughout the Middle East, and then to install Kingdom governance and values. These men and women were in constant danger from Roman and Jewish haters, as the birth of a new Empire took hold and shook the foundations of everything these young followers grew up to believe was true. Here is the Discipleship process:
I do and you watch
I do and you help
You do and I help
You do and I watch
You do and a new disciple watches . . .
-Confucious 510 BC
Do you think you would be a more committed disciple if you heard His words and saw the stuff He did? Maybe your walk has lost a step or two…or maybe you have been totally sidelined with stuff like divorce, serious indebtedness, or whatever Baal or Asherah you serve, you and the majority of people in churches today became irrelevant to the Advance of the Kingdom.
Stopping the insanity
Core 300 is not a program to “feed me more so I can eat more.” Men want to win. . .and they want to act in service to God for others like Jesus. And we are all called to go beyond our own journey to that of one who serves as a spiritual catalyst and guide to others for their own spiritual formation. But God will NOT let you succeed in that quest alone. Our 3-semester curricula deliver both by leading and equipping men through concrete, but often hidden, biblical processes that will make men’s disciples a force of transformation in their home, church, workplace, and community.
Hidden in the story is the Process – Like Jesus’ pattern and process for training the 12 men, and then later the 72 disciples during his 3-year ministry, our Three Years of men’s discipleship curricula (The Warrior; The Priest; and The King) was designed with the initiative, guidance, and inspiration of God’s Spirit. And it is successful and growing on four continents.
Each year sequentially builds up the man and calls him to a new level of leadership. Then we deploy him into ministry.
Find out more about each of our Core 300 3-year discipleship:
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