I want to tell you about a course I just attended in Post Falls, Idaho that deserves your attention. The course is called Immersion, and it is an intense 2 day experience in small group discipleship. Jim Putman founded Real Life Ministries in 1999 with 4 families, and the church now has over 8,000 attenders. But it’s not just another mega-church that is all about the “event” – that is, the weekend service. They believe (and practice) that everyone in the church is to be making disciples of Jesus Christ through the ministry of small groups. I have seen other churches doing this – notably Antioch in Waco, Texas when I was in college. The thing that is so cool about RLM is that they have taken the model and made it into a reproducible process for making disciples who truly go and make more disciples. The multiplicative effort produces fruit in the form of new converts to Christ, and existing believers growing in their faith.
Why is the church in America not making new disciples of Jesus? Our churches grow but many are just swapping members rather than growing through new converts. These folks seem to be on to something here. There is a way to grow churches by truly deepening one's walk with Christ and bringing new converts along the way. At RLM, it happens in the context of relationship in small groups with a strategic purpose - to make disciples. I would highly recommend Jim Putman’s book - Church is a Team Sport – or attend an Immersion.
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