Making Progress Toward Disciple-Making Communities
Written by Alan Rathbun, EPD Director of Development
In the first half of this year, our team had Disciple Making Communities (DMC) Dashboard conversations with church leaders from 35 of our Eastern PA churches. It was a joy and honor to interact with these leaders as they sought to discover how their church could become more fruitful in making disciples who are so changed by Jesus that they can’t keep it to themselves.
You may remember that there are two objectives we are aiming for in our DMC Dashboard conversations:
We want to help our churches gain valuable insight on how they can become more fruitful with Jesus in making disciples.
We want to discover how our district team is doing in developing our workers for increasing gospel impact.
To sum it up, we want Eastern PA Alliance churches to be fruitful in making disciples, and our district team to be fruitful in equipping workers for the mission of Jesus. And in my role, the last thing I want is for our cohorts and coaching to miss the mark and not be helpful to workers.
So this fall, we are offering four cohorts based on what we have learned in 35 DMC Dashboard conversations.* We believe these development cohorts will prepare you to equip your people to be fruitful with Jesus in making disciples. Each cohort will meet for a shorter duration of time than the ones we have offered in the past, and they will include a heavy dose of practice and collaborative workshop time. We will follow up with times of coaching in the winter.
Here are the Fall 2025 Development Cohorts:
Gospel Conversations That Lead to Transformation
The first cohort will focus on gospel conversations. Often, the small groups and classes we offer in our churches are focused more on people gaining information than on people experiencing transformation with Jesus. This cohort will equip you to help your people not only learn what Scripture teaches about who God is and about the blessings He has given us in Christ, but also to live like every bit of it is true. Participants will gain knowledge and skills to equip their people to integrate the truth of the gospel into the everyday circumstances of their lives.
EPD Multipliers Cohort
The second cohort is modeled after the Exponential Learning Communities that some of our workers have participated in over the last five years. During this cohort, led by David Dixon, participants will develop a clear definition of a disciple and begin developing a disciple-making pathway. They will accomplish this in collaborative workshops and by meeting with leadership teams of churches in our district who have wrestled with disciple making in their context.
Healthy Feedback & Correction
The third cohort, led by Nate Howard, will train participants to equip their people to practice healthy feedback and correction. Through our DMC Dashboard conversations, we discovered that church families need help speaking the truth in love to each other. This cohort will help participants develop a culture in their churches that is safe and loving for people to spur one another to love and good deeds and to have the hard conversations that are sometimes necessary on our journey of following Jesus. Please note that this cohort has some pre-cohort prep work and will start immediately after our Business Conference in September, so if you are curious about it, check it out right away.
Building a BLESS Culture in Your Church
The final cohort will equip participants to build a BLESS culture in their churches so that it becomes more and more normal for people in their congregations to share Christ with the non-believers God has placed in their lives. For those not familiar with BLESS, it’s an acronym for practices that give people intentional and practical ways to share the good news of Jesus. Participants will learn how to use these simple practices to shape the culture of their churches so evangelism becomes a regular part of the everyday lives of their people.
You can view the full descriptions of each of these cohorts and sign up for them on our website. Check them out soon and pray about which one is best for you as you seek to equip your people to be fruitful with Jesus in His disciple-making mission.
*To discover more of the lessons our team has learned from the DMC Dashboard conversations, check out the recently released bonus episode of our Essentials Podcast.