Annotated Bibliography

Books By Greg Ogden:

  • Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time (InterVarsity Press, 2003) Ogden argues for an application of Jesus' and Paul's personal investment approach to making disciples by holding the relational model of groups of three or four (triads/quads) as the optimum environment in which disciples are made.
  • Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ (InterVarsity Press, 1998) Discipleship Essentials provides both structure and a curriculum to implement the triads and quads mentioned above. In twenty-four lessons centered around a core truth amplified through scripture memory, biblical study and contemporary reading, an engaging, thought-provoking and personal application makes for a lively interaction. The goal is accelerated transformation with a multiplying effect.

Books by Dallas Willard

  • The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (Harper, San Francisco, 1998): Willard grasps the present life in the Kingdom of God probably better than any living author. Chapter 9 takes you to his outline of "a curriculum for Christlikeness", where he lays out the key theological precepts upon which a disciple builds his life, visually creates a simply model of transformation and then takes you into the key disciplines necessary to put us in the position for the Lord to address our lives.
  • Renovation of the Heart, Putting on the Character of Christ (NavPress, 2002) If there is such a thing as a contemporary classic, this is it. There is more wisdom packed in this one book than in ten others combined. Because of it you must read in small bites and take notes. Willard lays out in detail a model of transformation looking at six component parts that make up the character of a person in Christ.
  • The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teaching on Discipleship (Harper San Francisco : 2006). This book is a compendium of Willard's articles and addresses on the themes of spiritual formation and discipleship. Though somewhat repetitious, it is helpful to get cemented in one's heart and mind the themes to which Willard constantly returns. One example is, "Grace is opposed to earning, but it is not opposed to effort." In this one line, he corrects the overreaction Protestants have had against works because they may be construed as earning salvation.

Books by Bill Hull

  • The Complete Book of Discipleship: On Being and Making Followers of Christ (NavPress, 2006) From soup to nuts, Hull has charted the territory with a great overview from the biblical foundations of discipleship to the marks, environment, practices both personally and corporately for how disciples are made. Keep this book nearby as a great reference guide on the topic.
  • Choose the Life: Exploring the Faith that Embraces Discipleship (BakerBooks, 2004) In typical Hull fashion he gets to the core of the matter. He lays out the unrelenting claim of Jesus upon our lives, the choices we have to make to apply discipleship to every dimension of who we are. After all, discipleship is our identity.
  • The Disciple-Making Pastor (Revell, 1999) This title reminds us both of the role of pastor and how far we have strayed. Is there any other kind of pastor besides a disciple-maker? Unfortunately yes. Hull in his usual incisive and prophet manner, calls us back to a biblical focus and then unpacks the role of disciple-making pastor with specifics that makes it operational.

 

The State and Challenges of Discipleship

  • George Barna, Growing True Disciples (Issachar Resources, 2000). As a Christian pollster Barna both gives us an up-to-date state of discipleship in our ministries and then focuses on five disciple-making models that he touts as holistic approaches. Go to www.barna.org for more up to date data on the state of the church.
  • Lee C. Camp, Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World ( Brazos Press, 2003) Camp goes after a rubber-meets-the-road discipleship by taking on, in particular, the Western church being corrupted by power from Constantine on. The church has never done well in a favored position. How then do we live our discipleship from a position of servanthood as modeled by our Lord who "emptied himself" and "counted equality with God not a thing to be grasped"? This work puts discipleship right in the middle of our current challenges.

Spiritual Formation and Discipleship

The rise of the phrase "spiritual formation" has occurred because of the need to go deeper into the practices (spiritual disciples) that help us shape the character of Christ within us.

  • Dallas Willard. The Spirit of the Disciplines (HarperOne, 1991) Willard lays out the role and practice of spiritual disciplines which he divides between disciplines of detachment and engagement.
  • John Ortberg. The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Zondervan, 1997) Ortberg has described this work as Willard lite. He makes quite accessible in an illustrative and at times humorous writing style, the place that spiritual disciplines have in the Christian. His distinction between trying vs. training to live the Christian life is worth the price of the book.
  • Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us (InterVarsity Press, 2005) Rarely can you get a catalogue of the historical practices that has shaped us in Christ all in one volume. Calhoun gives us a definition, characteristics, and ways to practice 62 different disciplines under seven different headings. This is a reference that anyone serious about spiritual formation and discipleship will want to have on their shelf.

Classics on Discipleship

  • A. B. Bruce. The Training of the Twelve (Kregel Classics, 2000) Though this work first appeared in 1871, its relevance has not diminished. Bruce, like few others, has been able to capture Jesus intent in his focus on a few and lays out the approach that Jesus used to shape disciples under his influence.
  • Robert Coleman. The Master Plan of Evangelism (Revell, 2006, first published in 1963) Coleman lays out 8 stages that Jesus took his disciples through to ready them for the time when he would depart, and they would represent him on earth. This book is full of insight into the biblical text, and memorable sentences that shape the disciple-making vision. One example, "Jesus was not concerned with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men the multitudes would follow."