"Disciples are made by doing life together, in the wild."

David Achata:

I work as an executive coach. Working in this field has taught me the easiest way to help people grow is to ask questions and listen. Though I make my living in the business world, I give much of my time to the work of the church here at Soma in Tacoma, Washington.

I want to talk about two approaches to disciple making. First, The University Classroom Approach and the second, we will call The Listening Approach.

Before I began coaching executives, I had been working in vocational ministry and was very familiar with the University Classroom Approach. It worked like this: put lots of people through classes and they will learn things. One day, however, I realized the folks going through my own private university were not growing how I imagined. They had learned things, but for the most part, their lives seemed unchanged.

As I thought and prayed on this, I came to the conclusion that the University Classroom Approach to discipleship wasn’t working. This is because disciples aren’t made in tame environments like classrooms. Disciples are made by doing life together, in the wild.

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