strategy overview

DISCIPLE-MAKING is an essential task for the local church. As the congregation worships the Lord, edifies the church, and evangelizes the world, disciple-making leads to and proceeds from each of these activities. Making disciples is the Lord’s aim. From Genesis to Revelation, the overarching storyline of Scripture is the Lord’s eternal plan to display his glory by redeeming a people for himself out of the world through the work of his Son. Jesus commissioned his disciples to make disciples worldwide and promised to remain with them through his Spirit until his second coming.

Crestview’s philosophy of ministry is infused with the aim of making disciples. Our pastors endeavor to equip every Crestview member to be a disciple-maker.

Fundamental terms for this philosophy:

DISCIPLE: Someone who treasures and follows Jesus in response to being born again. Every believer is to live as a disciple of Jesus.

DISCIPLESHIP: A believer’s personal effort, in faith, to treasure Jesus more fully and to live more consistently as his disciple. Every believer is to pursue maturity as a disciple.

DISCIPLE-MAKING: Taking the initiative to help others treasure and follow Jesus. Every believer is to take an interest in others and be a disciple-maker.

Crestview pursues the mission of disciple-making in five interconnected steps:

  1. Engage Unbelievers

  2. Share the Gospel

  3. Start Discipleship

  4. Develop Leaders

  5. Form Healthy Churches

On the pages that follow, we provide instructions and simple, memorable, reproducible tools to assist with each step.

Primary biblical texts highlighting our disciple-making strategy:

Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Luke 24:44–47: Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

John 13:34–35: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Ephesians 3:7–10: Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

2 Timothy 2:1–2: You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

Luke 10:2 : [Jesus] said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”