Nazarene Discipleship International:

A Journey of Grace

The mission of Nazarene Discipleship International (NDI) is to carry out the Great Commission to children, youth, and adults in preparation for a lifelong journey of being and making Christlike disciples in the nations.

Discipleship is a journey of grace with Jesus as our guide and companion. Christian discipleship helps believers grow in the Lord Jesus Christ as they are equipped by His Holy Spirit, who resides within them, to overcome the pressures and trials of this present life and become more and more Christlike.

Disciples and disciple-makers share this journey of grace by:

Witnessing: Every disciple of Jesus is called to share the story of God’s grace in his or her own life with others. As we make disciples, we must tell and retell the story of His grace in our lives and the lives of others.
Walking: God doesn’t make Christlike disciples in a moment. The journey of grace spans a lifetime. Christ calls His followers to a journey with others from no faith to new faith to mature faith. It takes patience. It takes love. It takes grace!

Learn more about NDI

View/Download Journey of Grace Resource Materials

God prepares the path before us. His hand reaches out and beckons us to Him, drawing us into a deeper relationship with Him. This grace both precedes and enables our response.

Jesus rescues us from sin and leads us into the truth that sets us free. We receive the gift of saving grace by believing in God. He redeems us, makes us a new creation, and adopts us into His family.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to live a life fully consecrated to God. Sanctifying grace begins the moment we experience salvation. Initial sanctification is followed by spiritual growth in grace until, in a moment of full consecration and complete surrender on our part, God purifies and cleanses the heart.

The purpose of NDI is to assist local churches in reaching non-believers for Jesus, establishing new believers in their faith in Christ, and walking with believers to a fully surrendered, heart-cleaned, fruit-bearing, and Spirit-filled life.

NDI promotes the following Core Principles that are essential to the discipleship process: fervent prayer, compassionate outreach, comprehensive Bible learning, intentional mentoring and equipping, and authentic relationships. As we live out these core principles in the life and ministry of the local church and in the practices and behaviors of every Nazarene, we will accomplish the mission of making Christlike disciples in the nations. We recognize that culture shapes our discpleship methodologies, but our global mission and purpose remain the same.

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Fervent Prayer

In its purest form, prayer is comminicating with and responding to God. Intentional and consistent prayer nutures and develops our relationships with both God and ohers, enabling us to see and experience God’s activities through His provenient, saving, and sanctifying grace.

Prayer is the bedrock upon which all other ministry efforts are built. Through intentional, specific, and consistent prayer, the body of Christ becomes the eyes, hands, and feet of the Savior.

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Compassionate Outreach

Compassionate outreach reveals God’s love for humanity. God is continually reaching out to prepare people’s hearts to receive salvation. It is a disciples care for non-believers, both local and global, that places a face and hand to God’s grace and love.

Every disciple, faithfully living and loving like Jesus, is to be engaged in nurturing genuine relationships with others. When disciples are in relationship with non-believers, they are obeying Jesus’ command to go into all of creation to proclaim the Good News. (Mark 16:15)

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Comprehensive Bible Learning

When we study the Word of God, which is active and living, we uncover who God is, how God loves, and how we are to love others. In doing this, we allow God to speak to us, mold us, and sanctify us.

Being actively engaged in the systemic study and application of the Word of God is a catalyst for spiritual transformation and growth. As we grow and learn, we begin to fully understand and obey God’s mission for his disciples to go and reach out to unbelievers with God’s love.

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Intentional Mentoring and equipping

Jesus’ method of discipleship was through personal mentoring and equipping of a chosen group of individuals. Mentoring is a loving way to teach accountability and introduce non-believers to the full knowledge of Christ. All disciples are challenged and continue to grow and become Christlike when every disciple is providing and receiving mentorship.

To become all that God has created us to be as Christ’s disciples, we need to be willing to grow and to help others grow as Jesus did.

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Authentic Relationships

In the same way Jesus gathered traveling companions around Himself, we are called to journey together as members of the Body of Christ. The core of our faith and life is to love God and love others. This unconditional love knows no culture, generational, or structural bounds, and is made possible only through the working of the Holy Spirit.

When we deeply care for one another, we discover just how rich our identity is in Christ, resulting in spiritual growth. Relationships help us walk the path of holiness because we receive both encouragement and loving correction.

Worship & Discipleship Reporting Policy/Procedure

Our mission is making disciples that make disciples and planting churches that plant churches.

We keep score of our actions and their outcomes tied to making disciples in the local church and report them monthly because it focuses us on the important things that lead us to accomplish that mission and tells us how we are doing.

Monthly reports are due on the 2nd Monday of the month. Please submit this form according to the guidelines available for determining discipleship numbers and weekend worship averages.

Discipleship: Lead Measures

Lead measures are those important things that, if we focus on and do well, will naturally lead us to accomplish the overall mission.

# of People in One-on-One Discipleship

Report the number of people involved, at the moment, in one-on-one/life-on-life discipleship including the person doing the discipling and the apprentice being discipled.

This disciple apprenticeship should include an intentional focus on the essentials of a walk with Jesus and a relational connection that last 8 weeks or longer.

# of People that have Repented & Received Jesus

Report the number of people you can identify as having received the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus and who have turned from their old way of life. This can include salvations that happen in services, life groups, or the discipleship efforts of people in their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, or family.

# of People Baptized

Report the number of people who have been baptized that month as an act of obedience and a confession of faith in Jesus.

# of New Missional Communities/Preaching Points/Churches

Missional Community/New Church
A Missional Community is led by a person or team, who is called to take the gospel to the schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, prisons, nursing homes, or other places with the clear mission vision of reaching them with the gospel. This is a missional outpost that is connected to your church but has been formed with the main purpose of reaching new people groups with the saving gospel of Jesus.

Note: The difference between a MINISTRY of a local church and a MISSIONAL COMMUNITY is that a ministry serves those who already attend the church with the intent make missional disciples

Preaching Points
This is a missional community or the start of a new church, that reaches a stage where people have come to know Jesus, are being discipled, and someone from the sending church begins to preach and teach those gathering to equip and strengthen them for service and life.

Churches
This is a new campus or church plant that has a recognized mature leader (may or may not be a pastor at this point), has come out of a sending church(es), and is able to function as a fully organized body.

Discipleship: Lag Measures

These indicators always “lag” what’s happening in the church and are hard to control or impact by themselves, but give you indications that you are focused on the right lead measures and doing them well.

Total # in Discipleship

Report the total average number of people who are actively participating in discipleship of any kind for the month; including people involved in one-on-one discipleship, life groups, sunday school, or missional communities.

Worship Attendance

Please use the following guidelines for calculating your weekend worship numbers. Churches should report onsite, online live streaming, and on-demand attendance separately when reporting monthly worship attendance.

Average Weekend Online Worship Attendance (Livestream)

Please use the following guidelines for counting online attendance:

A team member should be available to serve as an online host and be engage those who are watching.
Provide an opportunity for viewers to fill out a virtual connection card for the purpose of engaging them in the life of your church.
Provide a way for people to respond to the service by sharing prayer requests or setting up a time to connect with a staff member in the following weeks.

Check the stats for each platform by the end of the weekend for each service you have.

Church Online Platform: Peak concurrent number of devices x 2 = total viewers
Streaming Provider (embedded website platforms such as Churchstreaming.tv): Total concurrent viewers during service times x 2 = total viewers
Facebook: Peak live views x 2 = total viewers
YouTube: Peak concurrent views x 2 = total viewers
Other: If your platform does not provide peak concurrent views, count the users that remain connected at least 50% (or 30 minutes) of the livestreamed gathering.

Take the total number from each platform you offer to calculate your average weekend online live-stream worship attendance.

Keep in mind that we're trying to capture the number of people who watched and/or participated in a service online during your service times. Please do not report the numbers of those who watch/re-watch on-demand during the week.

How to find Facebook and YouTube Peak Views

Facebook Peak Views
Go to Meta Business Suite > Content (on the left-hand side) and then select Live in the “Post type” drop-down menu.

Use the three dots button on a Live video and click Edit post.
This will take you to the Live Producer page for the video.
Click Insights in the left navigation and Peak Viewers is the middle block in the top row.

YouTube Peak Views
Log in to your account

Click on your account circle and pull up YouTube studio
Click 'Content' on left side
Go to the 'Live' tab and hover over the title for each Sunday’s service
The 2nd image is video 'analytics'
Find 'concurrent viewers' about halfway down page

# of People Viewing On-demand Videos (Not Live)

This category is designed to celebrate the ministry impact churches have beyond their weekend services, including wherever services are watched (or listened to) outside of your normal, weekly livestream.

Formats include--and are not limited to--social media and podcasts such as Spotify, Apple, Anchor, etc. Once again, we're looking for users that watch/listen to at least 50% (or 30 minutes) of the recording.

Numbers should be collected no later than a week after your livestream or podcast. (Example: Views for a recording from Sunday's service would be counted through the following Saturday.)

Disregard using this category if your platform does not currently provide the number of views after the livestream.

Special Events/Annual Services

We want to celebrate the creative and special ministries and events churches utilize in order to minister to their community. These are outreach events that do not happen on a weekly basis and may only happen once a year (i.e., Christmas and Easter-related events like Christmas Eve services, Maundy/Thursday services, Vacation Bible School or Adventure, Revivals, New Years Eve, 30-hour famines, and special creative events).

# of New Missional Communities/Preaching Points/Churches

Missional Community/New Church
A Missional Community is led by a person or team, who is called to take the gospel to the schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, prisons, nursing homes, or other places with the clear mission vision of reaching them with the gospel. This is a missional outpost that is connected to your church but has been formed with the main purpose of reaching new people groups with the saving gospel of Jesus.

Note: The difference between a MINISTRY of a local church and a MISSIONAL COMMUNITY is that a ministry serves those who already attend the church with the intent make missional disciples

Preaching Points
This is a missional community or the start of a new church, that reaches a stage where people have come to know Jesus, are being discipled, and someone from the sending church begins to preach and teach those gathering to equip and strengthen them for service and life.

Churches
This is a new campus or church plant that has a recognized mature leader (may or may not be a pastor at this point), has come out of a sending church(es), and is able to function as a fully organized body.

Small Groups | Life Groups | Bible Studies | Sunday School | Missional Communities

Report the monthly average of those who attend a Life Group, Small Group, Bible Study, Sunday School, or are in a Missional Community.

Share the Wins. Share any other Highlights/Victories for the Month

Please share the wins you are seeing in the church – highlights, victories, the mission advancing - that tell the part of the story that number can’t.

Don’t limit it to one – share whatever God is doing through the church that shows God is at work.