Brandon Park has a heart for making disciples and believes every follower of Christ should do this.
Park, who serves as pastor of First Baptist, Raytown, led his church to develop a disciple-making app called LifeCoach. Not only did the church create the app, but they offer it to anyone without cost.
“I’ve always had a passion to help create disciple-making in our church. There was so much else I saw in disciple-making, and there is some great material, but it wasn’t all reproducible. I thought, ‘What if we combine the material and technology?’ The app is free for all. I wanted there to be no barrier for someone in the faith.”
“We do this in three ways – captivating media, a daily devotional, and discussion questions,” Park said.
The app includes 50 truth-illustrating videos, 13 that were filmed in Israel. It took one-and-a-half years and $50,000 for writing, development and travel.
Here’s how it works: People agree to be Great Commission disciple-makers and open a free account. They check in daily (five times per week) reporting their progress. A chat feature offers multiple person discussion with response-driven conversation. After one week is completed, the following week’s session on the app is automatically unlocked. The full course information is on the app and on the website, ilifecoach.org
Participants start at the ground level of knowing they are saved. “The first two weeks we are making a solid foundation,” he said.
After week 10, class members become disciple makers themselves,
“The app morphs itself to a coach mode,” Park said. “The power is not in the content I wrote, but in the power of the word of God and interactive coaching relationships,” Park said.
A companion workbook may be purchased. It has QR codes and URL links so people may watch videos on a smartphone. The info is stored in “the cloud.”
When Park told attendees at the 2015 Missouri Baptist pastors’ conference it was available for free for them, there was a ”tremendous response” with over 50 churches immediately signing up.
Why is First, Raytown, giving this away?
“We want to invest big in the kingdom growth,” Park said. “We developed this for the church at large, with no mention of our church. We wanted it to be free.”
Park is currently training 100 church leaders to be disciple-making coaches. “The end goal is that I want to see them each find someone to disciple. It is intentionally perpetual.”
“There are four things people need – leaders with a heart for discipleship, intentional relationships, followers who want to grow and be all they can be in Jesus, and an exponential process. It’s simple, biblical, and transferrable.”
Written by Dan Steinbeck. This article was re-printed with permission from The Pathway
