A comprehensive discipleship strategy for your home, work, and church. You’ll benefit greatly from reading this book with your discipleship group or church staff. — Robby Gallaty, pastor and author of Replicate
A long-overdue call to us as leaders to humble ourselves before the Lord and the people we lead. — Ed Litton, pastor and president of the Southern Baptist Convention
This incisive book is provocative and well worth the read. Show MoreClose
— Carol M. Swain, PhD, editor of Be the People News
The Revolutionary Disciple has me in a state of anxious introspection. The hardcore Left has fallen under spiritual evil that requires us to perform a counterrevolution. This book lays out the way to the only lasting revolution. — Todd Herman, regular guest host for The Rush Limbaugh Show
Harrington and Putman expertly blend story and Scripture with practical tips. The result: wisdom for how to develop single-minded loyalty to King Jesus. — Matthew W. Bates, professor and author of Gospel Allegiance
Jim Putman has done it again, this time in partnership with Chad Harrington. Their five spheres framework provides a breakthrough construct to guide believers into being disciples. — Randy Frazee, pastor and author of His Mighty Strength
A much-needed case for a discipleship path that fully integrates all of our relationships and every area of our life. — Larry Osborne, author and teaching pastor at North Coast Church
A gift the post-pandemic church needs to embrace. — Shane J. Wood, professor and best-selling author of Between Two Trees
The Revolutionary Disciple was designed to be used by leaders for a church-wide teaching series campaign. We’ve created a suite of resources that help leaders:
Plan a six-week discipleship sermon series through Ephesians around this book
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The free suite of resources includes:
An outline for a six-week teaching series through Ephesians based on the outline of the book
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You can adapt this for as few as five weeks and as many as twenty-two weeks, but the sweet spot for a church-wide campaign is a six-week series: In six weeks, your church or group can teach or preach through the major sections of this book (as outlined here).Then, plan your series in detail!
Seismic culture shifts leave Christians wondering how to effect lasting change. While the Bible calls disciples of Jesus to humility, they often display pride. Pride is the enemy of discipleship on every level, and it keeps disciples from making an impact for the kingdom.
What is the way forward?
In The Revolutionary Disciple, Jim Putman and Chad Harrington offer clear guidance for navigating cultural changes with humility. They walk readers through the Five Spheres of Discipleship and unveil their four core practices of humility along the way. A tapestry of Scripture and stories, this book uncovers the path to ultimate peace for Christians who want a cultural revolution.
Take ground for your church, your family, and the kingdom.
Bridge the gap between the call to follow Jesus and the commission to make disciples of Jesus.
Join the revolution.
Learn to walk humbly with Jesus in every area of life.
We wrote this book as a guide for walking humbly with Christ in all of life. We write not as leaders who have “arrived” but as fellow travelers with you. We invite you to walk with us and learn the humility of Christ as we travel through what we call the Five Spheres of Discipleship:
Abiding in Christ
The Church Sphere
The Home Sphere
The World Sphere
The Spiritual Realm
These spheres cover every area of life and frame the discipleship journey for disciples of Christ. In this book, we will walk with you as we describe each sphere and unpack what humility looks like in each one. Leading up to the spheres, we will share with you our understanding of what humility looks like in the first place. How can we walk humbly in the face of massive cultural changes? That’s what this book is about.
You might wonder why we’re focusing on the theme of humility. We decided to tie together the five spheres with this theme because it’s largely missing from discipleship conversations today. Many people have written about discipleship as well as humility, but we have not found a book, at least in recent years, that addresses both discipleship and humility together. Perhaps this book can help start necessary conversations to address this hole in discipleship discussions today. Even so, we readily admit that what we’ve written here is just one voice in the conversation.
We’re passionate about the theme of humility because we know the intense damage pride wreaks on discipleship, and we’re desperate to see the church succeed at her core mission on earth—making disciples. We’ve seen it time and again: without humility, discipleship is dead in the water. Pride keeps would-be disciple makers passive by luring them to think they are above the call to make disciples. Pride also makes disciples in our churches “twice as much a son of hell” as their disciple makers (Matt. 23:15). But that’s only when pride takes over. While pride kills discipleship, humility makes it sing.
I (Jim) have been on a personal quest in ministry to lead our church toward maturity in Christ by making discipleship our main goal in all we do. In fact, we have also made discipleship the goal of the Relational Discipleship Network, which trains disciple makers to shift their church culture toward disciple making. I have found the five spheres language we use in this book immensely helpful among leaders.
The idea of walking humbly in these areas is not ours, though. It comes from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as he describes following Jesus in every area of life (what we call the five spheres). As we’ll see, Ephesians provides a solid map to navigate our journey through the spheres. I (Chad) have treasured Paul’s letter to the Ephesians over the years because I believe it provides a unique message for the church that all generations need to hear. For these reasons we’ve selected Ephesians for this book because more than any other of Paul’s letters, it provides the clearest roadmap for understanding God’s heart about the church and how we are to live as God’s people within the church. As we’ll see, Paul progresses seamlessly from sphere to sphere, touching on every major area of life.
Why do we need to address this issue of humility today? Because most Christians have been converted but not discipled. Even for those who were discipled, their discipleship experience seldom goes beyond doctrinal training or information transfer. Biblical maturity in Christ, however, is something we live out in every area of our lives. Pride gets in the way, so we must walk “with all humility,” as Paul says in Ephesians 4:2 (ESV).
I (Jim) worked with my team to develop the five spheres framework from training disciples and disciple makers with leaders in our church and around the world. I have increasingly used it in recent years when I train leaders in our church and beyond because more than any other framework, it transforms the way people view the scope of following Jesus. Christians can easily compartmentalize their lives and limit Christ’s work to certain spheres, but in Ephesians we’re called to all humility. This means God gets total control. God wants us to love him with everything we are, in all areas of life. Through the five spheres framework, we’ve seen God open people’s eyes in powerful ways, and we believe God can use it powerfully in your life too.
In this book, we will share with you what we’ve learned from other leaders, authors, and disciple makers, but most of what we’ve learned comes from God himself. He has formed us, and as you’ve already witnessed, it hasn’t always been pretty. We’ve fallen short time and time again. So just like our lives are flawed, we know this book is not perfect. But because we anchor our words in the Word, we believe our message can reliably help you walk through the tumultuous times of today with strength.
We’ve written with Christian leaders in mind, but the principles of this book can help all disciples think clearly about their progress through each stage of the discipleship journey. We hope this book will help you take significant steps as a disciple of Jesus. Pride presents a real-life battle for all of us, which is not just “out there” but in our hearts, in our families, and in our churches. If we can win on these fronts, then by God’s grace we can win on all fronts.
JIM PUTMAN is the senior pastor of Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho. He holds degrees from Boise State University and Boise Bible College and is the author or coauthor of various discipleship books, including Church Is a Team Sport, Real-Life Discipleship, and DiscipleShift.
CHAD HARRINGTON is the owner of Harrington Interactive Media and a teaching deacon at Harpeth Christian Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He holds degrees from Ozark Christian College and Asbury Theological Seminary and is the author of Your Spiritual Formation Plan and a coauthor of Dedicated.
The Revolutionary Disciple is an amazing wake up call to every person who prays for wisdom and discernment. To live a life of humility is to realize we all fall into the pit of arrogance and it needs to go so the Holy Spirit can work in us to His fullest capacity. If you think this book is for someone else, it’s definitely for you. Great flow in the writing snd structure and amazing content.
