Discipleship is a topic that is much talked about but very rarely understood in the evangelical world today. In the early 1990’s and 2000’s it was popular to talk about discipleship as a conversation divorced from doctrine and theology. When discipleship is taken down to only a conversation about how to make disciples something is greatly missed- namely what it means to be a disciple. At the heart of what Jesus taught to His disciples was that being a disciple is to follow after Him in all of life. The Bible doesn’t have a magic formula for discipleship—it has a message that calls people to become disciples of Christ; those who follow Jesus and the teaching of the Word of God in all of life by the grace of God and engage in His mission of making disciples for His glory. A new book Transformational Discipleship following Transformational Church has come out that seeks to help pastors, ministry leaders and lay people understand what discipleship is and how to grow in Christ.
Transformational Discipleship is broken up into three parts. Part one is about the transformational framework off Truth. Here the authors look at three lens: The Gospel lens, the identity lens and the discipleship lens. Part two looks at the transformational framework through the perspective of posture—weakness, interdependent, and outward. The final section of the book looks at leaders and being a transformed discipleship.
What I liked about this book is the emphasis on the Gospel throughout. The Gospel is never assumed in this book but placed at the heart of it in order to help the reader understand that the Gospel is more than just something to the Christian life. The Gospel is as Tim Keller has said the A to Z of the Christian life. When disciples of Christ emphasize their feelings above the Truth of God’s Word they do a disservice to discipleship. Biblical discipleship is to be grounded in the teaching of God’s Word which declares the Gospel. Following the teaching of Scripture—Transformational Discipleship seeks to elaborate on the Gospel without going over people’s head. By combining solid research, biblical truth, and the hope of the Gospel the authors help Christians think through what biblical discipleship is all about in an accessible way for the purpose of God’s people growing in Christ and engaging in the mission of God through the Spirit of God to the glory of God. I highly recommend Transformational Discipleship and pray the Lord will use it to create healthy churches for His glory.
Title: Transformational Discipleship: How People Really Grow
Authors: Eric Geiger, Michael Kelley and Philip Nation
Publisher: B&H (2012)
I received this for free from B&H book review program for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Dave Jenkins is happily married to his wife, Sarah. He is a writer, editor, and speaker living in beautiful Southern Oregon. Dave is a lover of Christ, His people, the Church, and sound theology. He serves as the Executive Director of Servants of Grace Ministries, the Executive Editor of Theology for Life Magazine, the Host and Producer of Equipping You in Grace Podcast, and is a contributor to and producer of Contending for the Word. He is the author of The Word Explored: The Problem of Biblical Illiteracy and What To Do About It (House to House, 2021), The Word Matters: Defending Biblical Authority Against the Spirit of the Age (G3 Press, 2022), and Contentment: The Journey of a Lifetime (Theology for Life, 2024). You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, or read his newsletter. Dave loves to spend time with his wife, going to movies, eating at a nice restaurant, or going out for a round of golf with a good friend. He is also a voracious reader, in particular of Reformed theology, and the Puritans. You will often find him when he’s not busy with ministry reading a pile of the latest books from a wide variety of Christian publishers. Dave received his M.A.R. and M.Div through Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.
