See the wiki page SEND U Training Events for the complete schedule under the topic “Discipleship: Growing Mature Followers of Jesus”.

Course Description
Discipleship is one of the essential core skills of church planting. This training module is designed to assist you in developing necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge to be effective in disciple-making within the context of establishing healthy, relevant, reproducing churches. We will have the benefit of newer and veteran workers learning together, bringing fresh ideas and the wisdom of years of experience.

When you have completed this module, you will have:
* Articulated the essentials of discipleship.

• Considered what reflects spiritual growth in a disciple in your context.

• Compared the Biblical worldview and your host culture’s worldview in order to identify some ways to contextualize your approach to discipleship.

• Identified areas where God is challenging you to grow as a disciple-maker.

• Interacted with the role of failure in discipleship and its necessity in our growth.

• Owned the role discipleship has in seeing disciples and churches multiply.

• Identified barriers to making disciples that reproduce.

Given that the material and instructional method in this course is directed toward western cross-cultural workers, it is assumed that it will be adapted as needed when passing it on to others.

Any field workers and sending country staff, whether currently engaged in direct church planting ministry
 or not, may sign up to take this class. A computer and the ability to connect to the Internet are the only technical requirements necessary to begin.


Discipleship: Growing Mature Followers of Jesus was developed by the training department of World Team, a sister mission. World Team is in the process of making the course agency-neutral and has graciously allowed SEND missionaries in limited numbers to join the course.

Your course facilitators will serve less as teacher and more as guides and resources throughout your online learning experience. Expect your facilitators to read and respond to your posts with encouragement and probing questions. When you have a question about the logistics or are having difficulty keeping up, contact your facilitators. A course administrator manages the technical and logistical aspects of an online course so that learning can take place. They are available to help you be comfortable with the online setup and software. Do not hesitate to contact your administrator if you have any difficulties.

Discipleship: Growing Mature Followers of Jesus includes four weeks of lessons and 3 days for course wrap-up. Lessons are divided into subsections. A subsection may include an article for reading, a short video, a downloadable worksheet, a place for posting your reply or a forum discussion. Each subsection will normally take 15-45 minutes to complete.

You should plan to participate in the course every day (not including weekends). Expect to spend about 4-6 hours weekly. If you finish a lesson earlier, you are encouraged to spend the additional time processing the material, talking to others in online discussions, or by reading additional resource materials. This is an asynchronous course, so there are not specific times you need to be online. Participants will be in several different time zones around the world, so there is not one set time when everyone is on at the same time. The assignments have due dates, but each student decides at what time each day they will work on those assignments.

One of the keys to successful learning in an online course is interaction in online forums with the other participants in the course. It is vital that you faithfully post your responses on time and reply to the posts of other participants. We want you to engage with each other as well as with the subject matter. Don’t be afraid to articulate your unique ideas, think critically, or ask challenging questions of others in a godly manner. Of course, your words of encouragement to fellow participants are always welcome.

You will not receive a grade from your facilitator or from SEND U. Your success in learning will be measured by you and your local co-laborers as they notice your renewed and more strategic engagement in discipleship.

Registration: Please contact Ted Szymczak or Ken Guenther if you are interested in taking the course.

Contact Kim (ksamalca) to get the code for the SEND discount.