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The Navigator movement in local churches started with a question,
“How can we help churches disciple people?”
It’s 1970. The Navigators is an established worldwide disciplemaking movement on college campuses, military bases, and in business settings. But there was one place the movement had yet to take root — in the local church.
A group of Navigator staff gathered to pray and plan how to take the disciplemaking lessons learned through our campus and military ministries and transfer them to a local church. What happened from this discussion?
The original five-book Bible study drew together our best disciplemaking resources and practices into one tool to use in a local church.
It’s fifty years later and over two million people around the world have been discipled through the 2:7 Series.
Praise God! But there’s more to our story.
Another group of staff prayed and planned. We wanted churches to be intentional and strategic about disciplemaking. From this gathering of leaders grew the Intentional Disciplemaking Church Process (IDC).
Churches large and small needed help in developing a practical disciplemaking strategy. The IDC strategic planning process helped churches develop vision, values, and mission for disciplemaking. We were growing, we were learning, and we were adapting.
We soon discovered that a strategic plan is only as good as its leader. Time after time, we saw disciplemaking disappear as leadership changed within a church. Churches needed more than a strategy; churches needed a culture. Disciplemaking must become part of a church’s DNA.
Cultures move disciplemaking from the margins to the mainstream. Over time, the ministry of a few disciplemakers becomes the ministry of the many. A culture of disciplemaking outlasts any one leader or group of leaders.
We gathered again to pray and to plan. We looked at our past successes and failures. We explored the Scriptures. We captured our best disciplemaking practices. We researched culture building. Out of this time of refinement emerged the GiDC Process – Growing intentional Disciplemaking Cultures.
Cultures are marked by what they share — a language, values, history, and practices. The GiDC builds a disciplemaking culture from a core team of trained disciplemakers to a shared culture of disciplemaking to a gospel strategy to impact a community. The GiDC process moves people from inside the church walls to friends, neighbors, and co-workers through a whole-church evangelism strategy.
A language, values, history, and practices.
The GiDC builds a disciplemaking culture from a core team of trained disciplemakers to a shared culture of disciplemaking to a gospel strategy to impact a community. The GiDC process moves people from inside the church walls to friends, neighbors, and co-workers through a whole-church evangelism strategy.
Our staff has grown, reproduced, and remained fruitful. Our goal has stayed the same: to be faithful to Jesus’ Great Commission and true to the principles of our founder, Dawson Trotman. Like Trotman, we believe in the power of the few multiplying into the many — one disciple helping another disciple who helps another disciple (2 Timothy 2:2). We teach and model intentional, relational, and generational strategies for disciplemaking.
We won’t sell you a disciplemaking “franchise” but we will invite you into a relationship and a process. Our trained staff are prepared to come alongside your church to coach, teach, model, and train people in disciplemaking and in culture-building.
We are 125 staff strong, scattered throughout the United States, ministering in churches large and small, in many denominations, and among many ethnicities.
All of our staff men and women are practitioners. They include former pastors, missionaries, veteran Navigator staff, and everyday disciplemakers. No matter where you are in the United States, we can help. We can train locally or from a distance.
We invite you to download and read Crockpot Disciplemaking — a narrative illustrating how we build a church culture. We invite you to download our church assessment to discover how your church is doing in discipling others. If we earn your trust, contact us to discover what the right next step is for your church.
We’re committed to helping you build a disciplemaking culture in your church. Our journey started with a question, maybe yours does, too.
Are you ready to start building a culture of disciplemaking in your local church?
We can help. Contact us today.
We help pastors and church leaders move disciplemaking from a ministry of the few to the heart of a church's culture
Certified Coaches help leaders and laborers focus on the "Core 4" of Life Plan, Ministry Vision, Ministry Plan, and Priority Management
In the spirit of Jesus’ compassionate call to pray for “laborers in the harvest,” we help establish and equip ministry workers for exponential Kingdom impact
