Review of INsourcing: Bringing Discipleship Back to the Local Church

Review of INsourcing: Bringing Discipleship Back to the Local Church

In this book, Randy Pope lays out the model of discipleship that he uses at his local congregation. He discusses the most common struggles that pastors face when trying to define and apply discipleship programs.        

Life on Life Missional Discipleship  (LOLMD) is the model Pope teaches.  He explains that real Christian growth and maturity comes from life-on-life investment.  Relationships are the key to being able to really teach and mature new Christians.

The steps presented are:

Directing –> Coaching –> Supporting –> Delegating

Pope explains the dangers from going from “Directing” to “Delegating” without “Coaching” or “Supporting.” It isn’t enough to teach the scripture to someone. They need to be taught how to study the scriptures on their own. Same goes for showing versus telling someone how to live a Christ like life.

Book Description:

Too many of today’s pastors and leaders mistakenly think that thriving programs, lively worship services, and relevant preaching are adequate for developing people into the spiritual dynamos God desires. In many churches, the primary objective of the church—discipleship of people into mature followers of Jesus—has been “outsourced” to programs and large-scale efforts to train and teach. But is that happening? Are people growing in spiritual depth and missional determination?

Twenty-five years ago, the leaders of Randy Pope’s rapidly growing church took serious stock of their own spiritual development and realized all of them had benefitted from a personal discipleship relationship that had helped them grow in their faith and discover where God was calling them to service. As a church, they decided to make personal discipleship their do-or-die aim: applying one person’s real life to another’s to accomplish something far bigger than that single life. Perimeter calls their approach “life-on-life missional discipleship” and Insourcing tells their story.

 

I think this book would be a useful tool to use when looking at ways to start small groups within any group. The same principals can be applied in many settings.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <https://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. 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