The main message of Dave Buehring’s A Discipleship Journey: A Proven and Practical Tool for Making Disciples of Jesus is to make disciples by learning the character and ways of God. Ultimately, readers of this book are going to develop a comprehensive understanding of the character of God, which is key to making disciples. So it’s all about the character and ways of God, and discipling people through those over the course of 48 weeks.
Alex Giannetti’s Review
I interviewed author, real estate agent, and disciple-maker, Alex Giannetti about Dave Buehring’s book A Discipleship Journey. This post comes from my interview and offers his three biggest takeaways, and how he advises you use this book in a discipleship group context, along with my compilation of vital information, a theological screening, key benefits of the book, and the best places to purchase.
Alex’s Three Biggest Takeaways from A Discipleship Journey
1. The way we see God affects how we live our daily lives.
A Discipleship Journey helped me to have a really good view and better understanding of who God really is. Our relationship with him, our love for him, and our understanding of his love is critical to how we live.
Dave’s book challenges readers to study Scripture more to discover who God is. Each and every week of this journey, you’re diving into the Word and the workbook. Through this process, you’re seeing God for who he is. God comes alive through the examples in Scripture.
This book also helps the reader live with the perspective that every person we interact with is a child of God. Sometimes we don’t stop to contemplate that enough, and this book makes it really impactful.
2. The Holy Spirit is going to meet you where you are.
The best part about A Discipleship Journey for me is that if you’re shallow in your faith, the Holy Spirit can meet you there; and if you’re deeper in your faith, the Holy Spirit can meet you there.
Whether you are completely brand new to the faith or you’ve been a believer for decades, the meat of this book comes from two major questions:
- What did the Holy Spirit reveal to you this week as you studied God’s Word?
- What are you going to do with that to apply it to your life and in your vocation?
As a result, when you use A Discipleship Journey in a group setting, the conversations are phenomenal. Sometimes you have a brand-new believer who asks a question or makes a comment, and everybody’s jaws drop because amazing wisdom came out of this seemingly new believer. But I’ve seen how God also uses it to help the experienced believer grow.
For example, there was a gentleman in my group who is a pastor—a man who is trained and whom I go to for guidance on the Word. And I was a little nervous about having him in the group I was leading. I was the student teaching the master. But at the end of the journey, he came up to me and talked about how powerful A Discipleship Journey was and how much he grew from it.
I thought that was awesome. That really solidified for me that it doesn’t matter where you are in your faith walk—the Holy Spirit is going to meet you where you are and help get you to where he wants to take you.
3. A Discipleship Journey can have an amazing effect on your faith.
I started my journey because I was invited to attend a discipleship journey group at a local church by a friend of mine. So I went, and I thought “This is amazing,” and we weren’t even halfway through. So I decided that I needed to lead this at my church.
A group of guys and I got together, and we put together a group at my church. It was just men, 15 of us getting together at 6:30 every morning for 48 weeks to do A Discipleship Journey.
As soon as that was over, we started again, and this time my wife—who would sit there and watch me, pouring into the Scripture, doing my homework, taking notes, just engaged with this—clearly saw a transformation in me as well. The Holy Spirit was working in my life.
I spoke to her about it and said, “Let’s do a group for couples,” because the first two groups I went through were men. Now, she and I are actually leading a group through A Discipleship Journey, and our transformation is clear.
Alex’s Recommendation for Using A Discipleship Journey with Your Group
I think eight is probably the perfect group size, but you can have larger groups. I wouldn’t go more than 12 because then people can hide, and it takes more facilitation skill to make sure that everybody gets a chance to speak.
It’s going to take at least a year to go through this book. It’s 48 weeks, so you meet every week, and there’s holidays and other breaks that get mixed in. You can probably count on this taking maybe 13 or 14 months total to go through.
If you wanted to make it a men’s group, you could make it a men’s group. Or you could do it for women, couples—you name it. It really works in various contexts.
Even if you wanted to do it for youth, it’s also great for youth—both high schoolers and middle schoolers alike. You’ll have to navigate certain topics: For example, there’s a chapter on spiritual warfare, and the topic of sexuality comes up as well. Maybe a leader can skip some topics, if necessary, but you’re not going to take it out of the material. The kids are going to have the book in their hands, so you’ll just need to play that one by ear.
I think that A Discipleship Journey is good for anyone who’s serious about their faith. Our kids are getting exposed to a lot of stuff, and I think it would be awesome for them to get exposed to the right stuff.
A Discipleship Journey is a powerful tool for any church that’s serious about making disciples who will continue to make disciples.
Vital Information about A Discipleship Journey for Groups
- Chapter Count? 48 chapters (12 sections with 4 chapters for each section)
- Weeks of Study? 48 weeks (budget 12–14 months, accounting for holidays)
- Recommended size of group? 6–12 people
- Age of target audience? Youth and Adult
- Gender specific? No
- Reader difficulty? 5 out of 10
- Appropriate for New Believers? Yes
- What level of maturity does A Discipleship Journey assume? A new or seasoned believer can work through this and gain immensely from it!
- Discussion questions in the book? Yes
- Homework required? No
- Video series available? Yes, teaching videos are available here
Theology of A Discipleship Journey
- Theological red flags? No
- Denominationally specific content? No
- Author’s preferred Bible translation? ESV
- Publisher? Nashville, TN: Lionshare Publishing, 2021 (first edition, HigherLife Publishing, 2011)
What can A Discipleship Journey accomplish for your group?
- Gives you a clear view of God’s character
- Prompts the question, “What is the Holy Spirit saying to you?”
- Levels the playing field for untrained and trained leaders
- Promotes effective and fruitful disciple-making
- Provides real-life application for scripturally sound methods
Recommended Purchase Links for A Discipleship Journey
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