- who lead themselves: the self-disciplined, who seek to follow Christ and obey Him.
- who lead their families: Not everyone can or will be leaders of tens, hundreds or thousands, but at the bare minimum we should be leading our families. Husbands and wives are obviously equally responsible for this (but in a family of unbelievers, it may be children initially who lead the family toward the fear of the Lord). (The vast majority of a movement will be in categories 1 and 2 of this list.)
- who lead leaders of families. Small group leaders, DBS hosts, those who help others to read Scripture, obey it. (Less than 10% of any given movement will make disciples who will disciple others, so this number is probably less than 1 in 10 of the total movement size.)
- who lead leaders of leaders. Elders, coaches, mentors, etc. (3rd generation movement, maybe 1 in 100.)
- 4th generation leaders (leading leaders of leaders of leaders, maybe 1 in 1,000). Sometimes full time. Not always.
The important thing: not everyone will be a maker of disciples who make disciples – in the sense of seeing non-believers converted. I know it’s what we want, but the reality is, it just won’t happen. (We want everyone who hears the Gospel to come to Jesus, too, but that doesn’t happen either.) The biggest challenge is when no one makes disciples who make disciples; or, not enough. As an aside: In a sense, those who lead their families do make disciples who make disciples, at least hopefully: but it takes generations (because they raise up children, who raise up children). Another way of looking at it: in any movement, a single individual within the movement should know:
- Spiritual grandparents.
- Spiritual parents.
- Spiritual siblings.
- Spiritual children.
- Spiritual grandchildren.
If you can chart that, you have 4 generations in view. Most of the time there will be significant overlap between family relationships and spiritual relationships. When 4 generations are reached quickly (e.g. in less than 2 years), a movement is probably happening.