4 Chair Discipling · Teaching Workspace

4 Chair Discipling

A self-paced course on Dann Spader's 4 Chair Discipling (Moody, 2014), built for one purpose: to equip a mature believer to teach and preach Jesus's disciple-making pattern. The Bible is the authority; the book is the framing. Open a lesson below and begin.

The four challenges — the spine of the course

Jesus issued four challenges as He developed people, each at a distinct phase of His ministry, each moving a person one chair over. These four scriptures are the load-bearing memory of the entire course: build toward quoting them from memory, in order.

Chair	Challenge	Scripture	Moves a person…
1 Lost	“Come & see”	John 1:39	Curious → convinced
2 Believer	“Follow Me”	John 1:43	Infant → growing
3 Worker	“Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”	Matt 4:19	Receiver → worker
4 Disciple-Maker	“Go and bear fruit — fruit that will last”	John 15:16	Worker → multiplying disciple-maker

The full map — chairs mapped to the four soils (Mark 4), the four fruit levels (John 15), and the barriers between chairs — lives in the master reference.

Lessons

Long-form deep dives, each ending with something you could turn around and preach. Sorted by lesson number.

#	Lesson	Focus	Scripture anchor
1	Why Jesus Had a Method	Mission and motive; the grammar of the Commission; the chronology warrant	Matt 28:18–20; 22:37–40; Luke 1:3
2	The Full Humanity of Jesus	The kenosis, the God card, and the four shared resources that make the pattern reproducible	Phil 2:5–8; John 5:19; 14:12; 15:5
3	Chair 1: The Lost	Dead not sick; Spiritual CPR (cultivate / plant / reap); the friend-of-sinners diagnostic	Eph 2:1–5; John 1:39; 4:36–38; Isa 28:23–29
4	Chair 2: The Believer	Nēpios vs teknion; pearl-stringing; the six priorities; the five-fold child-development map	2 Cor 5:17; Matt 3:17; John 1:43; 1 John 2:6
5	Chair 3: The Worker	The four transitions; Capernaum; the worker profile; katartizō; Romans 7→8; cross-bearing	Matt 4:19; Luke 5:1–11; Rom 8; Phil 3:10
6	Chair 4: The Disciple-Maker	The intimacy ladder (friends); Luke 10 joy; multiplication vs addition math; the cost	John 15:15–16; Luke 10:1–21; Acts 1:8; 2 Tim 2:2
7	The Four Soils	No life / no roots / no fruit; the 75% statistic; D-S-T-A-P and D-D-D-D remedies; fruit inspecting	Mark 4:3–20; Isa 28:23–29; 1 Thess 2:7–11
8	The Vine	Four fruit levels; three barriers; airō (lift not cut) and menō (abide); bitterness the Chair 3 trap	John 15:1–8; Matt 9:6; Heb 12:11–15; Col 1:29
9	Full-Orbed Disciple-Making	Linear + circular; "disciple" vanishes after Acts 21:16; the five-part definition; "give me names"; commissioning	Acts 21:16; 1 Cor 11:1; 2 Tim 2:2; John 15:16

Reference

Compressed, print-friendly pages designed to pin beside your desk while preparing talks.

• The 4 Chair Discipling Map The whole framework on one page: chairs, challenges, stages, soils, fruit levels, and barriers.
• Glossary Recurring terms and the key Greek words the book relies on (mathētēs, akoloutheō, katartizō, airō, menō, diatribō, kathexēs, idou).

Course materials

• MISSION.md — why each lesson exists; what “done” looks like
• NOTES.md — learner profile, preferences, source map
• RESOURCES.md — knowledge sources, scripture anchors, communities
• Source/4Chair/ — the book: 11 chapters + appendices (primary canon)
• learning-records/ — key insights and mission shifts

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