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The Disciple-Making Pastor - Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

Author:	Bill Hull
Published By:	Baker (Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Pages:	317
Price:	$16.99
ISBN:	978 0 8010 6622

Reviewed by Alun Brookfield.

Bill Hull is a prolific author of books about discipleship, a subject perhaps not as well addressed by UK writers as it might be. This book was first published in 1988 and is now republished in a “revised and expanded” edition (he says that he has changed his mind on some things and discovered some new things, but without a copy of the earlier version, I’m unable to comment further). It’s aimed specifically at ministers and leaders who have grasped the basic notion that our job is to make disciples.

He defines a disciple at the outset as someone who does what he’s told. He quotes George MacDonald approvingly: “Ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because He said, Do it; or once abstained because He said, Do not do it. It is simply absurd to say you believe, even want to believe in him, if you do not do anything he tells you.”

There are three stages to discipleship: Deliverance (conversion); development; deployment. But this book is all about us in Christian leadership; about helping us to make disciples, not just converts, without burning out. Some readers may not be comfortable with Bill Hull’s American evangelical language, but this slightly liberal reviewer found it not overly intrusive, and found myself being caught up in the breadth of his vision and its achievability.

I recommend this book. As a parish priest with some “disturbance in the force” at present, I found chapter 2, identifying the nine forces which militate against the making of disciples, especially encouraging!