Enjoy WikiChurch: Making Discipleship Engaging, Empowering, And Viral Constructed By Steve Murrell Publication
is the story of how Victory Church in Manila, Philippines went frompeople to,in attendance, Murrell uses Wikipedia as a model for how the church is to make disciples, In its earliest state, Nupedia, Wikipedia's predecessor, relied on only experts to write articles, As a result, it only hadarticles andunder review in, However, by empowering novices, Wikipedia had over,articles after one year, In a similar fashion, the church must choose to empower "novices" to make disciples Wikipedia model as opposed to relying on a few experts i.
e. pastors to do the work of ministry Nupedia model,
The author's two main contributions to the discipleship conversation is both his simple definition of discipleship and his laying out of a proven process of discipleship.
Murrell defines discipleship as a call to follow Jesus, fish for people, and fellowship with others pgs,. He then shares his process of discipleship called, "theE's:" "Engage the culture and community, Establish with biblical foundations, Equip believers for ministry, and Empower disciples to make disciples.
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Murrell is a pragmatist and shoots for simplicity and clarity, He has succeeded in setting forth a discipleship process that is "so easy a caveman could do it.
" It's hard to argue with what God has done at Victory Manilla,
Awesome material on discipleship Engage,
Empower,
, . . and Go Viral!
Jesus told His followers that He would build His church, and then He told them to go and make disciples.
Its that simple. We make disciples, and He builds the church,
But today we often get this exactly backward, We work hard to build our churches with programs and promotions while continuing to neglect the essential practice of discipleship.
And we wonder why we struggle, In WikiChurch, Steve Murrell shows you how anyone can make disciples through the simple process of
Engaging culture and community
Establishing spiritual foundations
Equipping believers to minister
Empowering disciples to make disciples
Imagine if every believer, not just leaders, was actively engaged in your ministry.
Thats the Book of Acts, Thats a WikiChurch.
A recommended book to read, Steve Murrell, the cofounder of Victory Christian Fellowship, talked about the strategies of their church on how they do discipleship in their church.
From its humble beginning until to their growth today here in the Philippines, An eyeopener on how a church can be done, a way that puts Christ at the centre instead of the humans leading that church.
Some quotes can be found in my reading progress, When you acquire an inorganic item, it is good to get it as far away from the creation date as possible.
For example, early computers are not very useful today, Remember how proud you were of what is now considered unbearably slow speeds
When you acquire an organic item, it is good to get it as fresh as possible.
The closer to ripe the better,
Steve does an excellent presentation of the organic and inorganic components of a local church ministry.
Becoming
and making disciples is both as ancient as the early church and as fresh as tomorrow's bread right out of the oven.
Keep developing inorganic systems that aid the organic discipleship processes is what Steve brings powerfully home in this work.
I highly appreciate the sense of humility that I perceive in the author,
Enjoy this fantastic read, Wikichurch is a good treatise on discipleship as understood and implemented by Steve Murrell and the Victory Christian Fellowship in Manila.
It yields interesting insight on how to start, and sustain a movement of making disciples of Christ.
Steve is also a very humble pastor who shies away from taking all credits for himself, Instead, we see a man amp his wife obeying the call of the Lord to minister to students and eventually to thousands of people in Manila.
This book is also of important interest for me, because I'm seeking to understand why a lot of our youth and young adults in the United Methodist Church are flocking to VCF.
I found some answers and more questions, too. But I will reserve some of those reflections in a series of blogposts and status updates MetodistaThoughts, This unexpectedly broke some wrong mindsets I have regarding discipleship, Wow. This book is a paradigm shifting book for me, It is jarring to my approach to how I think about church, Great thoughts from someone with a proven record, This is a good book that reminds us that the focus should always be on disciple making, I was skeptical when I picked this book up, but Steve Murrel does a wonderful job of reminding us all that the prime directive of the Church is to "make disciples of all nations.
" Christ said he would build the Church if we make disciples, but so often we try to build the Church and forget about discipleship making.
A great reminder, and a simple, easy read, It was exciting and inspiring for me, An eyeopening book that realigns us with the purpose that Jesus calls us to, There isn't a leader I respect more than Steve Murrell, and there isn't a church whose story is more fantastically inspiring than Victory.
The beauty of it all is the simplicity of it, The same things, pursued with passion, persisted at faithfully, believed in fully, transformed hundreds of thousands of lives.
Steve's deep belief in God's power to use ordinary people before they are fully prepared is a breath of fresh air.
His humility and his wisdom will come through in this great, accessible, worthwhile read, A must read for ministry leaders in my opinion, Few books have been as clear as this about how to make disciples, A mustread piece! This is one of the most important books Ive ever read, As a follower of Jesus it challenged and encouraged me into a lifestyle of disciple making, As a Pastor it was an invaluable correction to the way I was viewing ministry and discipleship, Well written and simple. I highlighted half of the book! Recommended by our church and Steve Murrell spoke at one of our conferences last year.
I finally got to reading it and really like the principles in it for growing his church in Manila.
It doesn't mean we can use it anywhere, but it's a great foundation, This is now one of my top books on discipleship, What God has done through Steve and his church in the Philippines is incredible truly book of Acts type growth.
What a great encouragement to keep it simple and make disciples who make disciples, I really like Pastor Steves conversational style of writing and honest, upfront, humble approach to ministry, at times I felt like the book did the thing I hate where it overexpounds once the points been made, but the content was great.
Inspirational and challenging.
I picked up this nonfiction work, because the pastor who wrote it is a key part of why the church movement I am connected to, has grown across the world.
This church is EveryNation, and this book is about the concept of how one key Every Nation church in the Philippines, has grown into a megachurch.
Therefore this is as much a book which is about the history of a movement, and lessons that can be gained from it, as it is an instructional tool for church leaders and members.
The key argument that Steve Murrell makes is one that I agree with: western Christianity has been doing it all wrong.
Why Because the Church is built around the great commission the idea to go out into all the world and make disciples.
Not to go and become members of parliament that influence laws and regulations, not to go and become a pastor of a mega church and not to go and become a successful businessman.
Now, sure, these are not bad things and any Christian who gains them is not to be criticised but they should be tools to an end.
There is a reason that Christianity is about 'counting the costs', Because the cost of Christianity is a/commitment to discipleship and to God, It's not a Sunday only thing it's about the relationship you have to the people around you and the way you live your life.
It's a lifestyle choice as much as mere belief and too often the Church around the world has been drawn into making big churches for the sake of having a big church that screams out the success of the pastor and leadership team.
But as Steve Murrell explains, this is not always the case, Success is not defined in the church by size but by growth, As he says, the church is an organisation that exists for its nonmembers or should,
Why 'wikichurch' Well Steve Murrell explains the phrase quite clearly, noting that Wikipedia actually began as a system called Nupedia which was to feature many articles edited and created by professional academics.
However after a couple of years there were only aroundarticles that had been created, Wikipedia, which had been created as the backup for Nupedia, allowed nonacademics like how Goodreads works to create articles.
The thing is after a few years there were thousands of articles, with the same if not better quality than thearticles on Nupedia.
And now Wikipedia has millions of articles and we all know how useful it is, The point being made is that in the Church, too many people assume 'ministry' us solely the work of a pastor or the staff.
However, ministry is the job of everyone re, the Great Commission. And therefore discipleship is what the Church should be about not merely growing itself for growth's sake,
Now of course, this might sound like merely zealous talk, I personally feel that it's necessary to have a touch of zeal passion for Christianity, Too much of the Church is dead and not living the lifestyle it should, Too much of the Church cares what the people around them think about what is politically correct and what won't cost me anything.
Why should you care so much when you believe it to be the truth That's why I'm not ashamed to write reviews openly about what I believe and why if anyone asks me, I explain the truth I believe in.
Of course, this is a book more for the Christian than for the seeker or other spiritual people.
It is a book that challenges the Church and certainly challenged and enthused me, That said there are messages in there about leadership and methods of growth that really do have business and leadership applications.
Ideas such as keys to success existing in learning to perfect the 'same boring techniques' and that leadership does not depend on age, experience or necessarily maturity as much as people think.
So if you are a Christian I definitely recommend this as a read, A great book which is inspiring and challenging as well as easy to read a fact that belies the importance of the topic it deals with.
With short divisions it is ideal for the busy person who can read bite sized portions and still retain the thread of the material covered.
Strongly recommended for every Christian but particularly for pastors and other church leaders, Steve is cofounder and president of sitelink Every Nation Churches Ministries, a family of churches focused on church planting, campus ministry, and world mission.
Steve serves on the board of the sitelink Real LIFE Foundation, a Christian non profit with the vision of seeing thousands of marginalized Filipino youth educated, gainfully employed, and uplifting their communities.
After living in the Philippines for twenty four years, the Murrells now split their time between Manila and Nashville.
Their three adult sons were born and raised in the Philippines and now reside in the United States.
When in Nashville, Steve serves on the sitelink Bethel Franklin leadership team, Steve is cofounder and president of sitelink Every Nation Churches Ministries, a family of churches focused on church planting, campus ministry, and world mission.
Steve serves on the board of the sitelink Real LIFE Foundation, a Christian non profit with the vision of seeing thousands of marginalized Filipino youth educated, gainfully employed, and uplifting their communities.
After living in the Philippines for twenty four years, the Murrells now split their time between Manila and Nashville.
Their three adult sons were born and raised in the Philippines and now reside in the United States.
When in Nashville, Steve serves on the sitelink Bethel Franklin leadership team, sitelink.