The American church is in decline. Although many leaders recognize the trend, few can clearly identify its cause. This book offers a direct diagnosis: the church has stopped making disciples.
Discipleship in Action: A Mission-Oriented Framework for Restoring Humanity introduces the Mission-Oriented Community-Based Discipleship (MOCBD) model-a theological and empirical framework grounded in Scripture, tested in ministry, and supported by the testimony of congregants whose lives were transformed. Drawing on forty years of pastoral ministry in West Africa and North America, as well as five years of original doctoral research involving thirty-three congregants at a growing Assemblies of God church in Philadelphia, Samuel Kweku Tigah, Ed.D., explains how four dimensions of organizational church climate-Providence, Presence, Personality, and Power-generate the spiritual resources needed to form authentic disciples and revitalize declining churches.
The field evidence is compelling. In northern Ghana, one mentoring relationship led to the establishment of seventeen churches, the development of nine pastors, and the formation of a new denominational district over three decades. In Philadelphia, an urban congregation increased its annual attendance from 601 to 848 over four years, focusing more on discipleship concepts and marketing strategies.
This fully revised and expanded edition features a prologue, eleven chapters, a practical self-assessment tool, a small-group discussion guide, and an afterword addressed to the author's celebrated mentee. The foreword is written by the Most Rev. John T. Goodwin, President of LifeCare Ministries International and a board director of Discovery Ministries, Inc. A second-generation missionary whose family's ministry in Ghana dates back to 1937. Rev. Goodwin has witnessed the MOCBD framework in practice throughout several decades of shared ministry with the author.
This book is for pastors, church planters, seminary students, and Christian leaders who are asking why their churches are not growing-and who are prepared to consider an honest answer.
