Chair 4 describes the fully trained disciple-maker. Luke 6:40 tells us that, “The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.” The word translated “fully trained” is the Greek word katartizo, the same word that can be translated “equipped.” Jesus’s ministry agenda was to birth a movement of multiplying disciples. To make that happen, He needed fully equipped disciples who were capable of making disciples who could make other disciples. This was the laser focus of Jesus in all of His dealings with His disciples: equipping them to become “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19) and then commanding them to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).



Because we want to imitate this focus, Southeast Christian Church (where I currently attend) has defined our training mission as “making disciples who can make disciples.” Even though Matthew 28 tells us to make disciples, we felt it critical to use the phrase “making disciples who can make disciples,” because to most people, disciple-making is just another deeper Bible study. We feel it is important to define success in terms of reproduction.
In fact, we have tried to do away with the word “discipleship” altogether. The term “discipleship” was first used extensively in 1850 by a man named Charles Adams, who broke the phrase “making disciples” into two parts—bringing people to Christ, which he labeled “evangelism,” and then growing people up in Christ, which he labeled “discipleship.” He wrote articles about the two different wings of the airplane: evangelism and discipleship. People began to debate which was the most important. Some denominations even built buildings devoted just to evangelism and others devoted just to discipleship and then fought over which should get the most funding.
I fly a lot, and when I’m 35,000 feet up in the air, I don’t look out the window and wonder which wing is most important. I want them both! Without both wings you will never get off the ground, climb to great heights, and soar. You certainly won’t land without both. And the same is true in making disciples. Both wings—evangelism and discipleship—are critical. Without evangelism you cannot develop fully trained disciples, nor will you have any new disciples. And without discipleship you will not have any equipped disciples to go out and share their faith.
By defining our mission as “making disciples who can make disciples,” Southeast Christian Church is seeking to define the end product of our efforts as reproduction, which includes both “evangelism” and “discipleship.” We measure success by multiplication.
When my first daughter was born, my wife and I began to ask questions we had never asked before. “How do I change a diaper?” “What do I feed my new baby?” “How do I teach her to walk and talk?” These are all basic questions, but we expressed them with new urgency and seriousness. We were parents now, and we needed to know! The questions didn’t stop there. My wife and I continued to grow and learn as we faced the new challenges of parenting children at each stage of development. We had a real family and wanted to see that family grow, be healthy, and multiply.
Moving into Chair 4 means a person has become a spiritual parent. A disciple-maker understands the journey of discipleship and has experienced success along that journey. He no longer is just learning how to be a “fisher of men” but now has seen people come to Christ, has learned how to grow them into reproducing disciples, and is beginning to see a family of seekers, new believers, and growing workers formed under his mentorship. She has now become a parent who is witnessing multiplication. Soon, as the journey progresses, she will experience the joy of being a grandparent and even a great-grandparent. Each step on this path requires new skills and priorities.
Another interesting phrase used in the Bible to describe the Chair 4 person is found in John 15:15. Throughout his Gospel, John shows the progression of the disciples’ growth and relationship to Jesus. They begin as seekers (John 1), then become followers (John 4), then coworkers or servants (John 13). Finally Jesus makes an amazing statement. “I no longer call you servants,” He tells his disciples, “because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). Wow! Like Moses and like Abraham before them, they are now identified as “friends of God” (Exodus 33:11; 2 Chronicles 20:7; James 2:23).
Friendship goes beyond servanthood. We long to meet with friends. We are free at any time to call our friends and pour out our heart to them. Friendship involves a deepened relationship, a freedom to enter into one another’s presence, a security of position. As God’s friends, we no longer strive to please Him because we realize we are accepted and beloved. We enter into a rest and joy in the Lord’s presence. We know the relationship is not about us but about what He has done for us.
My wife and I through the years have had a great privilege of having many good friends. For over ten years we hosted a book club full of godly people. Through the years, deep friendships formed in that group. We have laughed so hard we have cried. At times, we have cried so hard that we had to back up and laugh. We are deep friends and now, even though we are separated by distance, we still meet together. When we do, we immediately pick up where we last left off. We are deep friends who enjoy being together. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and still love each other!
In the same way, after years of walking with the Lord, I can testify to this stage of relationship with Him. No longer striving or trying hard to win God’s favor, I’ve learned that I have His favor due to the Cross. I can be myself. I love to meet with the Lord. I long to be in His presence. I am assured of His love, because I know that He knows more about me than I know about me—and He loves me anyway! We are friends, and I marvel at that privilege. Jesus says that those disciples who reach Chair 4 are His friends. What an honor!

THE PROCESS MODELED
No one passage captures this reality for me better than Luke 10. Almost three and a half years into the ministry of Christ, Jesus is making His final approach into Jerusalem for His last Passover, where He will be betrayed and offered up on the Cross. About six months earlier (see Luke 9) Jesus sent His twelve Apostles out two by two to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. They came back full of joy.
But in Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples. These are the Chair 3 people, the next generation of workers. He sent them to go before Him into every town and place where He was about to go because, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Luke 10:2). After a short time of sharing the Good News, being engaged in fishing for men, they returned “with joy” (Luke 10:17), just as the Twelve had in Luke 9. Jesus Himself was also “full of joy through the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). Three times in the Bible it is recorded that Jesus wept (John 11:35; Luke 19:41; Hebrews 5:7), but only here does it record that Jesus is “full of joy.” What made Him so happy?
I’m convinced the reason is simple. At this moment, after three and a half years of pouring Himself into His disciples, He now knows they are at the point that they can invest in others. His efforts to build a movement of multiplying disciples are now bearing fruit. He knows that 2,000 years later, you and I will also be Christ-followers because His ministry calling was being realized. He had made disciples who would make disciples. Clearly His mission was not to reach the world, as much as it was to make disciples who could reach the world. He was about birthing a movement of multiplying disciples, and this was being realized before His very eyes.
Over four years, Jesus had taken His disciples from seekers (John 1:39) to followers (John 10:27) to coworkers (Matthew 4:19) and then finally to disciple-makers (Luke 10:2). Then He told them to do what He had done with them: to go and make disciples of all nations. Jesus modeled the process by which they must do that. The book of Acts shows the disciples following through with this command. Acts can be outlined according to the Commission given in Acts 1:8. The work began in Jerusalem in Acts 2:5, moved into Judea and Samaria in Acts 8:5, and continued throughout the remainder of the earth in Acts 8:26. The disciples went out and duplicated the process, making disciples who could make disciples.
On my computer is a list of 187 people that I have labeled “people I love.” These are men and women I would do most anything for. They are men who are multiplying their lives into others, making disciples who can make disciples. I pray for them regularly and contact them as often as possible. I claim them as my disciples, even though many people contribute to making a fully trained disciple. Let me tell you just a few stories.
Mark was in my youth group. At the age of fifteen he committed his life to Christ and began to reach out to his friends. Later he worked with me when I led Sonlife Ministries. Now he lives in Costa Rica, making disciples who can make disciples. Mark’s disciples in Latin America are now being sent around the world.
Annette is a good friend and a successful businesswoman. As she moved from being a seeker to a growing believer, God challenged Annette to participate in a mission trip to Haiti. Soon the Lord challenged Annette and her husband to move to Chair 4, to step out in faith and do something they had never done before. God spoke to Annette about building a hospital in Haiti. Annette faithfully raised the funds and began her own ministry, and now the hospital is flourishing and touching lives. People are being reached for Christ, are growing in the Lord, and being sent out to do the same.
Joe was a businessman engaged in a Bible study with me. God was doing a great work in His life and Joe was challenged to give His business to the Lord and use it to expand the Father’s Kingdom. Soon Joe began to challenge others to do the same. Now he urges businessmen to use their business for Christ. He leads a ministry that challenges men to take back the major cultural influencers in the community: the art culture, the business world, the sports arena, the educational system, the religious systems, and the political realm. Joe is bearing amazing fruit as he makes himself available to the Lord.
Bob is another successful businessman. Bob wanted to sell his business after growing it for twenty-five years. But God got ahold of Bob’s life in a fresh way, and Bob began to see that staying in business and leveraging the gifts God had given him could make a Kingdom impact. Now Bob works to give. He and his wife live frugally but give generously. All over the world, Bob and his wife have impacted the lives of young men and women through their generous giving. Many missionaries are on the field because Bob and his wife help send them. They live a Chair 4 lifestyle using the gifts God has given them. And all over the world disciples are being made because of their hard work.
I could tell so many other stories. The names of many different people are flooding into my mind—simple people who serve an amazing God. Using their unique gifts God has given them, they are making disciples who can make disciples. And God is using them to make a multiplying impact on many others.

THE NEEDS OF GOD’S “FRIENDS”
Moving into Chair 4 brings unique needs into a person’s life and ministry. God often calls a Chair 4 person to unique ministry situations. Perhaps it’s turning a youth group into a youth ministry that knows how to make disciples. Or helping a women’s group become focused on making disciple-makers. A Chair 4 person is no longer content with just leading Bible studies or being involved in church activities. They come to understand the mission of Jesus and the mission given to us, and they too want to experience Him fully. They too want to experience disciple-making and building a movement of multiplication.
For over twenty-five years I led a ministry called Sonlife. Our mission was “restoring to the heart of the local church a passion for Great Commission and Great Commandment living.” For the first twelve years we trained youth pastors to develop disciple-making ministries. This was both a joy and challenge. Moving from youth groups to a disciple-making youth ministry often created much fruit but also many challenges. Gone were the days of babysitting church kids or social outings with no greater meaning. Everything became focused on disciple-making and, like in the days of Jesus, this upset some people. Many youth pastors became targets for upset parents who wanted the youth pastor simply to babysit and entertain their children.
Leading a disciple-making ministry can bring attacks from many directions, and the Chair 4 person needs to know how to defend himself or herself. Satan doesn’t mind if we just stay busy with church activities. But when we begin to reach the lost, grow new believers, and then equip them to go and repeat the process, we become targets for the enemy.
As strange as it may seem, I have found again and again that Chair 4 disciple-makers become almost the enemy of the traditional church system. Let me tell you about Tom. Tom began to really grow in his faith and developed a deep burden for his neighbors who did not know Christ. Tom began to pray for them, invite them into a neighborhood Bible study, and then see them come to Christ and begin to reach out to their friends. In time, several Bible studies were started, and many of the people wanted to meet together, not only to study the Bible, but to be baptized and to worship together. Most were unchurched and had no contact with an established church. So Tom began a neighborhood worship gathering at the local community center.
Word got back to the church leadership and they called Tom in. Why wasn’t he supportive of the church’s meetings? Why didn’t he bring his neighbors to the church services? Tom tried to explain that he had invited them, but that they felt threatened by a traditional church and knew few people in the church. The leadership criticized Tom for not being a team player.
In reality, Tom should have been commissioned to go and reach his neighborhood, maybe even plant a new church. Perhaps this local gathering could have sent some people out to help, deepening their maturity and development. But instead Tom began to be labeled as “trying to do his own thing.” The truth is, Tom was just concerned for making disciples where he lived and helping them make disciples of their family and friends.
Tom’s is just one of many stories I could tell you. Annette was never supported by churches in her vision to build a hospital. “That is not one of our church’s priorities,” Annette was told. Bob was questioned for not supporting the missions programs of his church when he chose to support multiple different ministries, which he saw as fruitful in making disciples. Joe was questioned for focusing so much on reaching leaders outside of the church and spending too much time in the political and cultural realm. Questions and criticism can come from many directions, and this is only understandable. But it is often most painful when it comes from within. Jesus experienced push back from those who should have been most receptive to His message and we will often face the same. In John 15 Jesus reminds His disciples, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (15:18). “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (15:20).
The person who moves into Chair 4 and has learned the lessons of Chairs 1 through 3 now knows God can do something amazingly different through his or her life. This person knows how to work and serve, has a heart for evangelism and discipleship, and knows how to make disciples. For this reason, God often calls them to a unique task that He has on His heart. God uses Chair 4 people to launch totally new ministries, often in totally new ways. People like Dawson Trotman, launching a ministry to military men (the Navigators), or Bill Bright being burdened for the college campus (Campus Crusade for Christ), or Jim Rayburn, passionate about reaching unchurched teens (Young Life). God knows He has people whose hearts belong to Him and who follow His voice, and thus He freely uses them in new ventures. This is how multiplication begins on a massive scale—not just the multiplication of disciples, but also the multiplication of discipling ministries.
I love finding these people and helping them succeed. They become powerful tools in the hand of God. They often need help defining the mission God has given them, clarifying the values of the new ministry, and then establishing faith and work goals coupled with an effective ministry/business plan. They often have to learn to navigate the misunderstandings that come from traditional church systems. And while many traditional churches see these people as a threat, they should be championed, commissioned, supported, and sent out. When a church truly gets effective in making disciple-makers, these types of people multiply.
More often than not, they multiply far beyond the church’s ability to support them financially. But there are multiple levels of support. They can be championed from the pulpit as disciple-makers. They can be commissioned and sent out with prayers and perhaps even with other disciple-makers to launch new ministries or plant new churches.

PRINCIPLES FOR MINISTRY TO PEOPLE IN CHAIR 4
1) Our goal is multiplication. Never forget: our goal is multiplication. We want to reach new people (Chair 1), see them grow (Chair 2), equip them as workers (Chair 3), and then send them out to launch new ministries (Chair 4). Multiplication is our goal. We must send them out. We want them to leave. We want them to start their own families. We want them to “go and bear fruit.”
This is almost counterintuitive to the American way. In America we value getting bigger, adding more people, growing in the number of activities and options. Growth is good. But multiplication is much better. Look at it this way. If you attended a church of 100 people and it grows by a healthy conversion growth rate of ten percent a year, your church would double in size every 7.2 years. Within about thirty years, it would grow to include 1,600 people (if no one left or died). But if that same church of 100 people each multiplied themselves into one other disciple who could also make disciples, and if you allowed each disciple three years to reproduce themselves, in ten years that church of 100 would become a church of 1,000. In twenty years it would grow to more than 10,000 people. And in thirty years, this same church would now be over 100,000 people strong, all through the power of multiplication. No wonder Jesus focused on multiplication instead of growth!
2) Chair 4 people may look like the enemy. Because these people are passionate about reaching new people groups and are secure in their walk with the Lord, God often calls them to new adventures and new tasks. Instead of hanging around and helping out, they are often out launching new ministries or recruiting others to do the same. To an established church, sadly, this can look like the competition. In reality, this is what bearing “much fruit” looks like. We need to help these people clarify their calling, define their mission, establish their values, and then commission them to be sent out. We need to prayerfully keep in touch and hear stories of how God is working, sharing in the fruit of multiplication. Rather than seeing these people as our competition, we need to help them clarify God’s call on their life, and rejoice with them in the multiplication of God’s Kingdom.
3) Chair 4 people may look very different from each other. While disciple-making follows a natural and organic process of growth and development, the end product can often look quite different. Because of how God gifts various people, some Chair 4 people may be called to plant a church, others to serve as youth pastor or men’s ministry pastor in the local church. Some may be called to launch a homeless shelter or work with prostitutes in the red light district. Some may be called to launch a food bank or provide used clothing to the needy. Some may be called to reach the poorest of the poor. Some may have a passion to reach the educational community and others may have a passion for the business community. Each will vary and this is how God expands His Kingdom. They will have a variety of ministry callings, but they share a common passion. Reach the lost seeker, grow the new believer, equip the young worker, and then send out the proven disciple-maker. This one mission has multiple results.
After thirty years of training in disciple-making, I’m often asked what is my best description of what a healthy disciple-making ministry looks like? My answer is simple: it is messy. This is the case simply because a healthy disciple-making ministry is constantly seeing new people come to Christ, and spiritual babies bring many dirty diapers. As these babies begin to grow into young men and women in the Lord, they begin to see how much of a mess they really are. As they see sin in themselves and begin to deal with it honestly and faithfully—well, that’s messy too. As we become effective at teaming up with others and reaching out, we begin to build our own family of disciples. And as they grow and become disciple-makers, we move from parenting to grandparenting, carrying the burdens and joys that come with a growing family of disciples. This too is messy. To be honest, I’d rather have this type of mess than the mess that you have when disciple-making is not happening. This often just results in ingrown Churchianity, rather than real Christianity. I’d much rather have the mess of multiplication with lots of new seekers, new spiritual babies, growing disciples, and then multiplying disciple-makers.
The growth from Chair 1 to Chair 4 is God’s great design for disciples of Jesus. This development can only be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are a few obstacles to growth at each point in this journey that the disciple-maker should be aware of. Those obstacles are the focus of the next two chapters.




 4. From your perspective, what are some of the challenges that come with parenting? How might these same challenges apply in “spiritual” parenting?





 5. How does family living differ from just living alone? What are the advantages of family living, and what are the difficulties?





 6. Read 1 John 2:12–14. How do fathers, children, and young men differ in what they have accomplished?






Dann Spader, 4 Chair Discipling: Growing a Movement of Disciple-Makers (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2014).