God is Up to Something at NBChurch!

1976 • Faith Week Youth Camp • Eastwood Baptist Church 

God is up to something very interesting at New Beginnings Church. I say, “God is up to something ,” because things are happening, lining up, experiences are occurring that could only be described as either colossally coincidental or – as I see it – providentially Divinely planned.

For example (BTW, this is only 1 of about 15 eaxmples): I met with a friend last Monday for lunch. We grew up together, went to the same church and high school, played on the same football team. But most significant feature of our past was that we were discipled in the same group of boys by the same discipleship leader.

We hadn’t seen each other in six months. We shared mutual reports about family, health, and stories, all the usual stuff. Then the moment took another “God is up to something,” turn. My friend shared with me a story about his new church – Life Church, South Broken Arrow. Then he asked me if I knew a guy named Derek? I told him Derek’s last name. I knew that the new pastor at this new location was a young man who was from Bixby. Derik and his family attended New Beginnings Church when he was a teenaged student. Derek was a year older than my own teenaged kids. In those days, when my kids were students at Bixby, and the church was smaller, I tried to disciple young men the way my mentor discipled me when I was a teen.

My friend shouted, “I knew it was you!” my friend told me that the Sunday before, Derek Jewell, while making an appeal for volunteer workers, mentioned that a guy named “Phil” tried to make a difference in his life when he was a teen. My friend wondered if it was me because he shared the same profound experience of being discipled as a teen. He was curious if I was the same “Phil” because he and I shared the same profound relationship as disciples when we were in middle school and high school.

We made plans to travel to the Oklahoma City area to visit the Youth Minister, the mentor, the disciple-maker that made significant time and energy sacrifices to disciple us. We want to tell him, “Thank you for being a disciple maker,” and “The fruit of your discipleship ministry has taken root, grown fruitful, and is still bearing fruit.”

God is up to something? What is God up to? God is moving our church, even more intentionally that before, toward making disciples. At New Beginnings D-Group is the most effective vehicle for getting us to this destination. Those who are serious about discipleship will be a part of a D-Group.

Imagine if every believing man and woman, not just paid leaders, were engaged in being and making disciples of Jesus. I believe the result would be similar to what we read in the book of Acts.

New Beginnings Church is serious about making disciples and we will both provide and promote D-Groups as the best strategy for making disciples.

D-Groups are different from most traditional bible studies. It is the shift from a lecture atmosphere with one teacher facilitating a discussion of a room full of students to an intimate, accountable relationship with a handful of like-minded people.

In their book The Invested Life, Joel Rosenberg and T. E. Koshy suggest that a discipleship relationship is “more personal, more practical, and more powerful.

A teacher shares information, while a discipler shares life; a teacher aims for the head, while a discipler aims for the heart; a teacher measures knowledge, while a discipler measures faith; a teacher is an authority, while a discipler is a servant; and a teacher says, ‘Listen to me,’ while a discipler says, ‘Follow me.’”

The D Group is a blueprint, sketched by Jesus Christ through His personal example, The D Group is how discipleship is accomplished in the lives of believers, and, ultimately, within the church.

When this plan is followed, those involved will participate in three dynamics that result in growth in their personal lives, as well as in the Kingdom: community, accountability, and multiplication.

• Jesus commanded, “Go and make disciples teaching them to observe everything I have commanded” (Matt. 28:19–20).
• Jesus did not merely ask us to teach everything He commanded. He asked us to teach people to obey everything He commanded, and the difference is absolutely essential. The end result of discipleship is not merely the knowledge of all Jesus commanded but the obedience to all Jesus commanded.
• Jesus never equated knowledge with discipleship.
• The essence of discipleship is transformation not information.
• Are you changing?
• Are you becoming a disciple?
• Are you making disciples?

God is up to something at New Beginnings Church.

Dr. Phil Sallee, Pastor
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