Discipleship Bands: A Practical Field Guide
By Mark Benjamin and John David Walt
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About this ebook
A discipleship band is a group of three to five people who read together, pray together, and meet together to become the love of God for one another and the World.
Mark Benjamin
Mark Benjamin is the author of two books - one, in an adult urban fantasy series, The Royal Blood Chronicles; and the second, a short story. Devouring all books he could get his hands on from an early age, he managed to ruin his eyesight by reading (when he should have been asleep) under his bedcovers with a torch (video games had no say in his bad eyesight...okay, maybe a little). His love of books translated to a passion for writing, which he began aged ten (he still has his first juvenile novel to this day). Currently working for a national bank, his dream job is to be a full-time author, a path he fully took when he sent a sample of his work to a ten-week introductory fiction course funded by an American foundation and conducted worldwide in 2010. Out of the 15 available slots, one was his out of hundreds of thousands of applicants (okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration, but it was advertised in the national dailies). When not writing his third book or planning literary world domination, Mark enjoys spending time with his wife, entertaining his under one-year old daughter, playing on his Playstation (AnnA) and reading (obviously).
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Discipleship Bands - Mark Benjamin
Resources
QUICKSTART GUIDE
We created this section in case you are one of those kind of people who likes to start putting things together before reading the instructions.
A discipleship band is a group of three to five people who read together, pray together, and meet together to become the love of God for one another and the world.
The quickest and easiest way to get started is to visit discipleshipbands.com and follow the breadcrumbs. You can also go to your smartphone’s respective app store, search for discipleship bands, download the app, and get on board. No fees. No ads. No sharing of your information with other businesses or organizations. We will do our best to inspire, encourage, and equip you from there.
To be clear, downloading the app doesn’t commit you to starting a discipleship band. It just gets you to the place from which a lot of good things can happen next. Give it a try. You can always graciously bow out later, but by giving it a try you will at least know about the incredible opportunity.
By now you may have decided to read on and learn more about this opportunity. That’s why we created this short field guide.
WHY DISCIPLESHIP BANDS?
In a post-Christian world, the content of the gospel will have little impact on unbelievers if people do not see it actualized in the relationships among its believers.
In his final hours, Jesus prayed specifically for us, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me
(John 17:21).
Jesus prayed for the relationships between his followers to be of the very same character of the relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Further, he prayed that our relationships would themselves find their home within the relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Finally, note why this matters so much. Our relationships with each other will either lead people closer to God or further away.
Why discipleship bands? Because banded discipleship creates the context for the supernatural love of God to become real in our lives and through our relationships for the world. Discipleship bands all at once create space for inward transformation and outward mission.
The great tragedy of Christian discipleship is it has come to mean so many things it can mean next to nothing. To be sure, there are complexities to discipleship, but at the core we must have deep clarity. In his final instructions to us, Jesus made it clear:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of