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1-2-1 Discipleship Christine Dillon Pages: 160 Trim: Trade paperback Isbn 13: 9781845504250 List Price: £5.99 Our Price: £5.00 Released: January 2009 Imprint: Christian Focus Category: Ministry Resources > Adult Ministry Preview contents page (PDF) Preview sample (PDF) Please note that to view PDF files you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader -- click here to download now.

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About Christine Dillon

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Customer Reviews

This book has been a great encouragement in working at discipling people. Christine challenges us to be honest in our own walk with the Lord as we seek to encourage others to mature as followers of Christ. I have appreciated the practical look at different areas of discipling - working out where people are spiritually, how to study the Bible, different learning styles, training in ministry skills. I am working through this book a second time to put it into practice and highly recommend it.

Posted by Heather Bradshaw, Grafton NSW at 10:13 on Monday 14 December 2009

This book emphasises the importance of having a spiritual companion on the Christian journey - and the need to be a companion to others. Practical suggestions help the reader to take the first steps in ‘discipling' others and to recognise when the ‘disciple' has had enough! I thought some of her suggestions would work extremely well while others needed further adaptation to meet the needs of members of non-evangelical churches. But the book is an encouragement to walk alongside fellow Christians and share their journey. She offers useful ways of dealing with difficulties - and sometimes forestalling them!

Posted by Teresa De Bertodano, www.thegoodbookstall.org.uk at 16:24 on Sunday 31 May 2009

I had low expectations of this book. Quite low in fact. My confession is that when I saw it was written by a former student of SMBC (whose name I recognised but whom I don't know) and published by the same company that publishes books by the principal of SMBC, I assumed that he had pulled a few strings and got her into print.

I assume that such arrangements are common place, and that if a book ever comes out with my name on the cover it will be because someone has called in some significant favour. But, having never heard of Christine Dillon other than as a missionary to be prayed for, I expected a book that was more self-indulgent than useful, kind of like a blog!

But this is a great book! And one that I cannot recommend highly enough. Here's why:

1. It's unique. Scan your local Christian book store for a book on one-to-one Christian discipleship and I suspect that, apart from a couple of youth titles, you will probably come up empty handed. Certainly there does not appear to be anything like it written from a reformed perspective, and, if they exist at all, fewer still written from a non-American perspective. Now, an American perspective is no bad thing, and I think Aussie and British Christians have a lot to learn from their American brothers and sisters in many areas, but there is a massive cultural gulf between us and them.

Dillon is an Australian (I think) who works as a church planter in Taiwan. Apparently she wrote this book because ‘good books on the topic seem surprising scarce' (p.8), and by the scarceness I was surprised as well. Perhaps it is little wonder that very few Christians have Christian mentors, and that fewer still have disciples!

2. It's practical. I love thick biblical commentaries and I love systematic theologies (which are all thick, if not 3 volumes). But for a book subtitles ‘helping one another grow spiritually', a slender, practical volume was called for. And this one is immensely practical. I found the chapters ‘Types of One-to-One Discipling' and ‘What is the Goal of Discipling?' to be particularly useful and was particularly helped by their distinctions between formal and informal discipleship, and the suggestion that one of the goals of discipling is to prepare for suffering (p.31). I think that any book that acknowledges the likelihood of Christian suffering is better than the pop-psychology, self-help crap that occupies most of the shelf space at most Christian booksellers, and to include that as a function of discipleship is very helpful indeed. While sections details the steps to discerning who, where and when to disciple at first seem rather too prescriptive, they contain useful information that one would be foolish not to take on board in to some extent or other.

3. It's Biblical. I can imagine many churches encouraging people to disciple others, as modelled in the Bible. There would be appeals to various parts of Scripture, and the obligatory inclusion of the Great Commission. Dillon includes all of that, and the book is grounded in the Bible, but that's not what I mean. The biblical-ness of this book is that it assumes that discipleship will be ‘the process of becoming more like Jesus, as we are transformed by the Holy Spirit' (p.13) and that that will only happen through faithful, diligent study of the Word of God.

Don't read me wrong here; Dillon's view of discipleship is much more that private Bible study, and it is a costly exercise that involves sacrifice, commitment and diligence. She does not say that the Bible be opened at every meeting. However it is clear that the Bible is what is being used to inform and enable Christ-like transformation by the Holy Spirit. To this end, there are a number of useful sections on reading the Bible with your disciple, and teaching the disciple to study the Bible themselves.

4. It's reflective. Each chapter contains opportunities for reflection. Now at this point, a lot of Christian books would have opted for a limp-wristed approach to reflection requiring you to contemplate how you feel, if not express them in some form of journal. Dillon's points for reflection require the reader to think practically and theologically, and to acknowledge deep biblical truths as they prepare to disciple others.

I have very few criticisms of 1-2-1 Discipleship, and as you will see, those that I do have are relatively minor. Firstly, while the cover design is catchy and engaging, the typeface is stupid. Apparently colophon's used to include details of the font so you knew who (or rather which font) to blame. No such details are included, probably for obvious reasons, but it is a font that is difficult to read and should be reserved for wedding invitations and the like.

And secondly, I would have loved to hear Christine Dillon's thoughts on how we create a culture of discipleship. How can it be taught from the pulpit? How can it be facilitated through encouragement and equipping? In many ways it's a difficult thing to for a person to approach a more mature Christian and ask to be discipled. But perhaps it's an even more difficult thing for a more mature Christian to approach another and ask if they would like to be discipled (especially in Australia where the only thing worse than affirming another person is affirming yourself). Either way, it's got to be that more mature Christian who takes the initiative in discipleship, and this book will greatly assist by motivating that response and equipping those that God has called.

Posted by Chris Ashton, http://chrisashton.com.au/ at 13:04 on Monday 18 May 2009

Christine has provided an excellent base for those wanting to actively mentor others in their Christian walk. This book clearly explains the need for discipleship and how to put plans into practice. I have already been able to put a number of Christine's suggestions into practice with great effect. In particular, the illustration of our Christian lives as a chain with many links has been helpful for me when I am not seeing any results - it reminds me that discipleship is all in God's timing!

Posted by Anthony Penn, Sydney, Australia at 00:40 on Wednesday 29 April 2009

This is an excellent book for those who take discipling seriously. Dillon's treatment of the subject is thoroughly Biblical, pastorally sensitive and eminently practical. The chapters on reading, understanding and applying the Bible are excellent. It's not a naive book - it deals clearly and frankly with problems that can arise in discipling others, thus hopefully saving the diligent reader/discipler from some of the pitfalls. It's not just a book about disicpling, it's also about training those we disciple to be disciplers. Dillon's experience in other cultures makes this book more readily usable in different cultural settings.
This book is number 1 on my list of books to use for training people in discipling ministry. I'm recommending it to students training to be disciplers.

Posted by Sam Reeve, Vice-Principal, Bible College of Victoria. at 02:45 on Tuesday 07 April 2009