I wrote Saturday about my friend Robert who experienced Jesus’ life change through a Rescue Mission residential program which included a 6am Bible study I was helping lead.

How about a story about transformation through a church that intentionally promoted it?

A highlight about my times in Estes Park is often a conversation with my friend Aaron Dorman, lead pastor at the Christian Church of Estes Park. Two weeks ago was no exception. The church’s tag line is

Be disciples. Build disciples.

Not an unusual goal for a church, but Aaron and his team are actually doing it. He told me they had just had a going away party for a young couple who had been in the church about five years. They were moving for job reasons to North Carolina. (As an aside, Aaron assumes he’ll have his members for 5 – 7 years. Estes Park tends to be a mobile community.)

When this couple came to the church, the wife was a nominal Christian and the husband was an unbeliever. When they left five years later, both were active disciple-makers! I’ve written before about a little tool I learned from Regi Miller’s workplace ministry book About My Father’s Business. Regi puts people into one of five groups:

• A: Apathetic
• B: Beginning to seek
• C: Confessing Christian
• D: Developing disciple
• E: Excelling reproducer

In contrast to some pastors’ goal of “get ’em saved, get ’em baptized” (A to C), Aaron’s couple went from A to E in five years!

How? I introduced the church to the 2:7 Series a number of years ago, and that tool, along with others, is part of their intentional training process.

But it’s not just courses. Aaron structures the Sunday morning services around action. He told me he’s changed his preaching style. He used to preach for “inspiration.” Now he preaches for “application,” and more than just application – “here’s what to do” – he develops ways to help them do it. Aaron implements something I suggested to a discipleship pastor of a large church a few months ago: “What would it look like if you really intended the folks to put into practice what you wanted them to do?” Aaron encourages the folks to commit to a specific action, and then follows up with them a few days later to see how it’s working, for example.

In short, it’s about being intentional. While many pastors won’t invest in people they think will move on and not benefit their church. Aaron delights in training and sending. Kudos, my brother. May your tribe increase. And may all of us minister with the expectation of transformation.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. (Colossians 1.28, NIV)

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, NIV)