Urban Discipleship Articles
Practical, field-tested thinking and experience on discipleship, mission, and what it means to partner with God in the city. Written by practitioners from across the global learning community focussed on the unique challenges of the urban harvest field.
Losing The Fig Leaves - Leaning In To Relational Authenticity
Relational authenticity isn’t a performance. When leaders drop the fig leaves, something opens in community.
A practitioner reflects on what genuine honesty between generations actually builds.
The Fields Are Dead Because We Stopped Planting
A young man stranded in Kabul told the missionary who'd spent weeks with him: "I really like your Jesus, but I can't stand you."
That line has stayed with Marko for years — and it gets at a potentially uncomfortable reality. The lack of harvest in our cities may not be from a lack of care or vision. It may be because we never stopped to ask what we needed to become.
Field Notes From Asian Cities: Patterns in the Harvest
The same Spirit, working across wildly different cities. Practitioners from East Asia to Central Asia keep reporting the same patterns — brokenness opening doors, simple obedience producing fruit, youth moving without waiting for permission.
These aren't coincidences, and they aren't models to copy. They're fingerprints. What does it mean when God's methods look this consistent across such diverse contexts?
Three Questions That Change Everything For Urban Discipleship
Most disciplemakers are wrestling with two hard questions: what stops people from engaging with those far from Jesus, and what stops discipleship from taking root?
But there's a third question that most practitioners never ask — and it transforms the other two. If discipleship can't replicate without you, you may have built dependence, not disciples.
Stretched By God’s Vision? Simplicity Is The Key To Saturation In Our Cities
The gap between God's vision for our cities and the reality in front of us is vast — and it refuses to close no matter how much we programme, engineer, or expertise our way toward it.
Sixty urban disciple-makers across Asian cities sat with that tension together, and what emerged wasn't a better strategy. It was a return to something far simpler — and far more reproducible.
The Gospel as a Mosaic, Not a Single Message
Have you ever felt the pressure to pack the entire gospel into one coffee session? Let’s look more closely at the message that Jesus asked the disciples to share and how “showing” one bit at a time could be more powerful than “telling”.
Just Start Conversations: Three Things I've Learned About Evangelism
Evangelism may seem intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. What if we just need to start conversations instead?
A Pathway to Joy in Community: Immersion, Imitation, and God's Story (Discipleship!)
We know that it doesn’t have to be all work and no joy. But how do we “get” or “find” joy? There is a reliable pathway. Join me on this journey… joy is just down the road.
Evaluate It
What else is left to do?
In the final article of this current series, David shares a critical step that sets up his team to keep learning and growing in effectiveness.
Live It To Sow It
The joy was drying up… there was a disconnect between what David and his team were living and what they were trying to sow.
They needed to take stock and recalibrate. What did they learn?
What If You Don't Need to Start Something New?
I need to tell you about something that shook me during our last gathering in our city.
What shook me was not someone sharing a revolutionary new strategy, but because I finally saw what was already there.
Coaching Keys to Developing Urban Leaders & Disciple-Makers
In the last blog we talked about adopting a coaching posture to empower urban mission. In this article we’ll dive into some practical ways our team is learning to do this.
“We Don't Want Your Baton”: Rethinking How We Release Workers & Leaders for Urban Mission
How can we best serve across contexts and between generations?
Here are three powerful principles that are catalytic and collaborative.
Called to Serve? 5 Secrets to Starting and Finishing Well in Mission
What are the things we can cultivate now that will serve and sustain us in the long race of life and ministry?
Our posture could be more important than what we do or where we go.
Catch It. Live It.
As we wrestle with the complexity of cities, what insights can we gain from the early Christians? What about other significant movements throughout church history?
What's Your Mission Assignment? 17 Questions to Help You Discern
We’re surrounded by infinite possibilities to join in what God is doing. So what is that unique assignment that God has given us for this season?
Here are some questions that will give you greater clarity as you discern.
Multiply Disciples by Serving in their Love Language
The idea of ‘love languages” could apply to those whom we serve.
See how we can imitate Jesus who spoke to unique groups of people and individuals about God’s kingdom in a way that they understood.
Three Powerful Questions That Unlock Urban Mission
Our cities are huge. Where do we begin?
Urban leaders in Asia are discovering the ability of powerful questions to open up fresh perspectives and possibilities.