According to Inernationalproject.org, a Discipleship Making Movement (DMM) is “a rapid and exponential increase in disciples making disciples. This movement spreads wide and deep to at least four generations and beyond. This means one disciple makes another disciple, etc. — to the fourth level. And disciples do this with many people and groups of people, who then learn to make disciples who also reproduce. In the West, we often think about discipleship as one believer helping another “to know” some truths and get grounded in the Bible. However, disciple-making movements focus on teaching new believers “to obey” the Bible and make new disciples.” DMM’s are being used extensively overseas these days to reach the lost for Christ.
One former Muslim man in a Middle Eastern country caught this vision … “to obey what the Bible says”… after trying, and failing, to connect with a church in his large city. Every time he tried to connect with Christians, he was rejected, because the Christians were afraid he was part of the local “secret police” who regularly spy on churches and ministries. In desperation, this man started discipling his friends and soon formed “a church”. Finally, when a local ministry decided to follow-up with him, he had 700 in his “congregation”!! This one church had broken out into several smaller churches for two reasons: 1) security…a group of 700 draws more attention and a group of 20 or 30; 2) the DMM momentum grows stronger and faster in smaller groups than in one large church. The one rule in his church: you could not attend unless you brought someone else with you each Sunday! Now THAT is discipleship!