Glossary

What happens when disciples make disciples leading to churches planting churches, and at least four traceable generations of this.

This is an important one because church means so many different things to so many people. In essence though when I speak of church I speak in the simplest way possible: a community of disciples committed to living out the commands of Christ together. So — it has nothing to do with a building, a sound system or a ruling, professional clergy when I speak of it.

Someone who loves Jesus and chooses to follow and obey Him in all that they do.

It's a precursor to church that flows out of the values and principles of the DBS Model. In essence it's a group journeying together to decide if they want to be disciples and then church.

A specific model for small groups that incorporates the core DNA of church (things like building community, worshipping together, building an understanding of God together, committing to grow as disciples together, etc). It easily facilitates individuals and communities to grow as disciples and can be contextualized into any context.

Someone who carries a value for movement into all that they do. Typically outsiders to the culture or community engaging as catalyst, their focus is on finding indigenous movement leaders and serving and resourcing them however possible. It's worth noting specifically here that "outsider" does not mean Western or American. In fact, I would venture a guess that the best movement catalysts are indigenous movement leaders in other contexts; as an example, an East African movement leader I work with also engages in a Southern African context as a catalyst.

Sometimes written as indigenous movement leader, it is someone who directly leads in movement settings. They are typically responsible for the establishment of leadership teams, for training and ensuring that the movement is growing in healthy and sustainable directions (to the best of their abilities). Indigenous is an important qualifier as the best movement leaders are from the same culture (or occasionally a very near culture) to the culture being reached. Some people might refer to them also as the spiritual mothers and fathers of movement as they are typically the first disciples made and where the initial generational growth is ignited.

When I refer to a leader more generally I mean anyone able to influence others broadly. In the terms of movement and mission it's focused on influencing others to make disciples and establish discovery groups more often than not. Important in my usage of the word is the understanding of leadership as influence rather than leadership as control.

I tend to use this word in the place of the word "missionary." If you see it, that is probably what I mean (rather than someone going to a 9 to 5 office job).

I use this as a prefix anytime I'm talking about someone from the culture they are engaged in. I specifically use it based on conversations with indigenous leaders; they prefer it over a word like "local" because they've experienced outsiders taking over the "local" moniker and misusing it to describe themselves. Indigenous, then, provides more direct clarity over who we are talking about.