In my first year as your DOM, I spent a lot of time asking you to reflect upon the subject of Church Revitalization.  In the second year as your DOM, I spent a lot of time asking you to reflect upon the subject of Church Polity.  In this third year as your DOM, I would like to begin a series of articles for your reflection on the subject of Church Discipleship.  Today is Part 1 of this new series.

Since May 2019, the Executive Team has approved five Advisory Papers.  The fifth paper was approved this month.  The purposes of our Advisory Papers vary.  Some of the papers are the ET advising the churches how to do something or to consider something.  Other papers are the ET advising the churches how the ET is going to function in some arena in which the ET has authority and responsibility.  Our first four papers approved were:

1. Safety Measure for a Local Church (9 May 2019)
2. Church-Yoke Relationships (9 May 2019)
3. Conflict Resolution in the Local Church (11 Jul 2019)
4. The Process for Dismissing a Church from the DVMBA (8 Aug 2019) 

Below is the fifth Advisory Papers approved by the ET:

In my first year as your DOM, I spent a lot of time asking you to reflect upon the subject of Church Revitalization. In the second year as your DOM, I spent a lot of time asking you to reflect upon the subject of Church Polity.  In this third year as your DOM, I would like to begin a series of articles for your reflection on the subject of Church Discipleship.  Today is Part 2 of this new series.

Part #2:  Understanding the Fundamental Nature of Discipleship
Dr. Lance Cole in his dissertation on discipleship seems to extrapolate his definition of discipleship from the text of Matthew 28: 18-20 (the Great Commission).  He defines discipleship as follows:

...our working definition of discipleship will be “teaching Christians to understand and follow everything that Jesus commanded.” p 30.