Contagious Disciple Making: Leading Others on a Journey of Discovery

199 Pages·2016·1.16 MB·English

by  David Watson

ENDORSEMENTS
Honest, personal, practical, and provocative—Contagious DiscipleMaking
closely examines classic ministry models against God’s kingdom values, and
also against God’s unchanging goals of transformed and reproducing disciples.
David Watson has had a major role in catalyzing more than sixty disciple
making movements across the globe, which is why this book will meet a great
need in the 21st century church. If you really want to radically change your
world, then David and Paul’s book may irrevocably change your life!
—Jerry Trousdale, Author of Miraculous Movements: How Hundreds of
Thousands of Muslims are Falling in Love with Jesus
The best work I’ve seen on creating viral movements for the gospel. Contagious
DiscipleMaking is inspirational, Biblical, and highly practical. This could be the
seismic shift the Western Church needs to move in power through the 21st
Century.
—Erik Fish, Author of Disciple and founder of DiscipleX
This long-awaited book by David and Paul Watson fulfills the promise to
radically impact all who read it. A powerful blend of the prophetic and the
practical, Contagious DiscipleMaking, is rooted in reality. I have personally
encountered the disciples and new communities of faith that have accompanied
the Watson’s ministry and training all over the world. May God use the message
of this book to transform your ministry, as it has my own.
—David Garrison, Missionary and Author
David Watson has simply, modestly and ruthlessly prodded me to de-culturize
my reading of the Bible and deconstruct the theology of disciplemaking that
came with my errant ways. Seeing the activities of Jesus recorded in the Bible
without my western eyes has catalyzed a new way of disciplemaking. I have a
new hope and confidence that the Great Commission can be accomplished. What
a gift to the Bride of Christ to have this book as a guide to this new way of
disciplemaking. Contagious DiscipleMaking should be required reading for
every follower of Christ who is serious about the Great Commission.
—Roy Moran, Author of Spent Matches, Thomas Nelson 2015
In late 2008, David and Paul Watson travelled to Honduras to train our
organization’s missionaries and indigenous leaders. The principles and tactics
that they taught and modeled were transformational in the lives of that small
disciple making team. Those Honduran leaders began to adapt the disciple
making practices they were using with about 25 small groups. David and Paul
continued to serve as mentors to us as our team began to live and practice these
Biblical principles. Today there are about 700 groups and churches that have
multiplied from this beginning, and more importantly, thousands of new
obedient disciples of Jesus Christ in Honduras and some of the surrounding
countries.
Now in this book, Contagious DiscipleMaking, that same training is
available to everyone. This is a book that can be read and re-read. It is the same
practical teaching that our team received. I believe that as people put these
principles into practice, new disciples will be made, new groups and churches
will be multiplied, and new movements of Christ followers will emerge.
—David Parish, President, World Missions and Evangelism, Inc.
Hopefully this new/ancient contagion will go viral! It is the only viable disciple
making strategy that has the potential of fulfilling Christ’s command. No
surprise, since it came from Jesus and his first disciples. David and Paul focus on
its biblical origin; the dominant role of the Holy Spirit and the necessity of
personal obedience. This writing fully documents how mentoring new disciples
results in explosive multiplication. From trial and error they define strategy and
describe how tactics can be developed. A must read for any serious
disciplemaker, whether in Jerusalem or the ends of the earth.
—R. Keith Parks, Retired President, Foreign Mission Board (International
Mission Board), Southern Baptist Convention. Retired Global Missions
Coordinator, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
Most Christians want to make disciples, but do not know how. Contagious
DiscipleMaking shows them how every believer can be a disciplemaker of
disciple-makers. The Watsons do a masterful job of showing how easy
disciplemaking is (everyone can do it) and how hard disciplemaking is (God
calls us to deep changes in our mind and heart and lifestyle).
Contagious DiscipleMaking is a must-read for followers of Jesus who want
to be transformed by God to transform the world. This book is a good mix of
Biblical basis, challenges to self-evaluate, practical application and faith-
building stories of how God is using “ordinary people” to do extraordinary
things.
Find a group of friends and use Contagious DiscipleMaking as a guidebook
to see God do “far more than you can ask or imagine” to reach those living
hopeless lives without Jesus.
—Stan Parks, Disciple and Disciple Making Movements Servant, VP
Global Strategies, Act Beyond (Beyond.org)
I have had the unique privilege of being David Watson’s pastor for the last five
years. Little did I know when I first met David how the stories and ideas
presented in this book (many of which were shared with me over lunchtime
conversations) would dramatically impact my views on disciplemaking. I
enthusiastically recommend this anointed book by anointed men who are seeing
God do miraculous works across the globe.
—Dr. Larry Parsley, Senior Pastor, Valley Ranch Baptist Church,
Coppell, TX
Contagious DiscipleMaking is an incredible book that will help a believer to
discover Christ and have a lasting relationship of following Christ as His
disciple. My journey with both David and Paul Watson in Disciple Making
Movements and training, together have impacted my own world and today, by
God’s grace, we have a record of thousands of disciples who are making
disciples transforming their villages and cities. This is a book to be read by all. It
will change your world.
—Dr. Aila Tasse, President of Lifeway Mission International (Nairobi,
Kenya)
I have been an aspiring disciple maker for 48 years. And I have read just about
every book there is on the subject of discipleship. But David and Paul Watson
have brought together in this one book more insights and more practical wisdom
than most books on this topic put together. This is a must read for followers of
Jesus who want to see the world turned upside-down for Christ.
—Floyd McClung, www.floydandsally.com, Cape Town, South Africa
The Watsons have provided us with an excellent and comprehensive picture of
disciplemaking. This book is a superb guide for every ministry leader. The
principles of making disciples are addressed from depth of experience, making it
very workable. They help us identify and clear out our cultural issues and
practices that obstruct the furtherance of the Gospel, and then they show us how
to help grow new believers, grow existing churches and plant new churches. I
strongly recommend this highly effective and powerful tool to help advance the
Kingdom of God!
—Dr. Doug Shaw, President and CEO of International Students, Inc.

© 2014 by David L. Watson and Paul D. Watson All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for
brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973,
1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com Scripture
quotations marked ESV are from THE ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News
Publishers.
Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962,
1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
ISBN: 9780529112200
ISBN: 9780529112217 (eBook)
14 15 16 17 18 19 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Introduction
PART 1 THE MIND-SET OF A DISCIPLE-MAKER
Chapter 1 Disciple-Makers Embrace Lessons Taught by Failure
Chapter 2 Disciple-Makers Deculturalize, Not Contextualize, the Gospel
Chapter 3 Disciple-Makers Plant the Gospel Rather than Reproduce Their
Religion
Chapter 4 Disciple-Makers Realize How Hard Completing the Great
Commission Will Be for Strategies and Organizations Built
Around Branded Christianity
Chapter 5 Disciple-Makers Realize the Structure of the Community
Determines the Strategy Used to Make Disciples
Chapter 6 Disciple-Makers Realize Their Culture and Religious Experience
Can Negatively Influence Their Disciple-Making Unless They
Are Very Careful
Chapter 7 Disciple-Makers Understand the Importance of Obedience
Chapter 8 Disciple-Makers Make Disciples, Not Converts
Chapter 9 Disciple-Makers Understand the Importance of the Priesthood of
the Believer
PART 2 PRACTICES OF A DISCIPLE-MAKER
Chapter 10 Thinking Strategically and Tactically About Disciple-Making
Chapter 11 Be a Disciple Who Makes Disciples
Chapter 12 Prayer
Chapter 13 Engage Lost People
Chapter 14 Finding a Person of Peace
Chapter 15 Discovery Groups
Chapter 16 Establishing Churches
Chapter 17 Leadership
Chapter 18 Mentoring
Afterword
Appendix
Notes
INTRODUCTION
G
od, I can’t plant churches anymore. I didn’t sign on to love people, train
people, send people, and get them killed.
Six men I (David) had worked with had been martyred over the last
eighteen months.
I can’t live in the area You called me to reach.
The Indian government expelled our family from the country. More than
twenty-five hundred miles and an ocean separated our house in Singapore from
the Bhojpuri people in North India.
The task is too big.
There were 80 million Bhojpuri living in an area known as the “graveyard
of missions and missionaries.”
There isn’t enough help.
There were only twenty-seven evangelical churches in the area. They
struggled to survive. Fewer than a thousand believers lived among the Bhojpuri
at that time.
Take away my call. I will go back to the States. I’m good at business. I will
give lots of money to missions. Let someone else plant churches. Let me go.
Release me from my call.
Every day for two months we had the same conversation. Every day I went
to my office, sat in the dark, and begged God to take away my call. And every
day He refused.
Fine. You have to teach me how to plant churches. I cannot believe that You
would call someone to a task without telling him how to do it. Show me in Your
Word how You want me to reach these people. If You show me, I will do it.
This was my covenant with God. This is what started my part in the work
among the Bhojpuri.