The Discipleship Mirage – Part 1: What is the Discipleship Mirage?

Back in the day when most churches had regular church programs on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and Wednesday evenings, there was a predictable pattern regarding attendance. The largest attendance was in the Sunday morning worship service, with the next largest being in the Bible study program that happened prior to…
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Cheeks in Seats Is Not Enough for a Church

For the most part, all entertainment venues are concerned about are cheeks in seats, heads in beds, fans in stands, and feet on streets. They want to fill their theaters, arenas, hotels, and stadiums in order to keep their operation going. Churches, too, are interested in filling their auditoriums, but…
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Making Your Church a Lay Seminary – Part 2

According to Scripture, it is God’s purpose for every human being to live in relationship with Him. In fact, this was His purpose for creating mankind in the first place. Sadly, not everyone chooses to do that, but that is His purpose. As a part of that relationship, God has…
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Making Your Church a Lay Seminary – Part 1

Probably one of the most difficult things for most churches is to develop a top notch discipleship training program. This would be a program that prioritizes the essential foundational elements every Christian needs in order to confidently and effectively express their faith in modern culture. But simply having a program…
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What Is the Difference Between Building Programs and Building Disciples?

I love church. I love gathering together and sharing fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. And I especially love gathering together with my fellow believers and worshiping God together with them. And as one who has been a pastor myself, I appreciate, more than most, the effort pastors…
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Discipleship Training – The Church’s Stepchild

Surely you are familiar with the “Cinderella” fairy-tale. In that story, Cinderella goes to live with her evil stepmother and her three evil stepsisters. Since she is not part of the “real” family, they all treat her very badly. It seems that back in the late 1600s when the story…
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What Can Johnny Appleseed Teach Us?: The Parable of the Soils from a Worldview Perspective – Part 1 – Tal Davis

For several years after my retirement from the North American Mission Board, along with my work with MarketFaith Ministries, I pastored a small church in Ellijay, Georgia. That area of northwest Georgia is well known for growing delicious apples. Before that time I did not know there are so many…
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How to Organize Discipleship Training – Part 6 – How to Defend the Faith

Part 1 – http://www.marketfaith.org/2020/07/how-to-organize-discipleship-training-part-1-grasping-the-big-picture
Part 2 – http://www.marketfaith.org/2020/07/how-to-organize-discipleship-training-part-2-the-need-for-a-worldview-paradigm
Part 3 – http://www.marketfaith.org/2020/07/how-to-organize-discipleship-training-part-3-a-biblical-worldview-as-a-foundation
Part 4 – http://www.marketfaith.org/2020/07/how-to-organize-discipleship-training-part-4-interacting-with-non-biblical-worldviews-in-the-world
Part 5 – http://www.marketfaith.org/2020/07/how-to-organize-discipleship-training-part-5-how-to-share-a-christian-witness Over the years, I have had a lot of different people attack me because of the content of various articles and videos I have posted on social media and the…
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