GROW Series – Multi-Level Discipleship
The GROW Series is a progression of essential discipleship resources designed to develop the individual believer from the inside out. Each level builds on the skills and tools of the previous level, creating a solid framework for personal spiritual formation, intentional investment in the body and, ultimately, disciple-making leadership skills.
While the GROW Series content has always been foundational to our training and resource development, the compulsion to distill its foundational elements to their essence and rebuild them into more flexible delivery formats has been growing in us for a few years. The following is a quick outline of the GROW Series development path:
Level 1: Germinating – Engaging the Spiritual Growth Process
The fundamental concept of spiritual growth is that God designed, called and resourced each of His children for incredible impact for the Kingdom. He also lovingly uses people and experiences as opportunities to refine believers toward that end… to understand His purposes for them and to develop their capacity to invest God-given gifts and abilities in the Kingdom economy. The GROW Series Level 1 content will include the Learning Cycle, the Transformation Cycle and an introduction to Learning Styles. Also under development for Level 1 is a multi-part training section on building a biblical lifestyle, including Bible study skill, developing a biblical worldview and the building blocks of personal growth strategies.
Level 2: Reproducing – Relating for Spiritual Impact
One of the big disconnects in today’s church culture involves the failure to translate personal spiritual growth into building intentional relationships for the purpose of investing spiritually in others. Body life is suffering immensely from this critical breakdown. While many experts tag this issue as an outcome of self-focused culture, we believe it is due in large part to a gap in discipleship training. Building on the personal spiritual growth skills of Level 1, the GROW Series Level 2 content invests forward into building intentional spiritual relationships, helping people see what’s true and helping them do something about it. The eight-part training progression is as follows:
- Learning Cycle Review: How God Uses Experiences to Grow Us
- How to Build a Personal Ministry Strategy
- The Ministry Cycle: Relating For Spiritual Impact
- How to Initiate Meaningful Conversations (OIC) – Video Sample
- How to Develop Meaningful Conversations (FORMS)
- Why Spiritual Diagnosis is Essential
- How to do Biblical Spiritual Diagnosis
- Using Spiritual Growth Plans to Help Others Grow
Level 3: Outfitting – How God Uses You to Equip Reproducers
It is essential for leadership to cultivate an environment that grows and resources reproducers. Sadly, the result of the body life breakdown addressed by Level 2 is a generation of ministry leaders spread incredibly thin by the demands of filling the void themselves. It doesn’t work. It’s taxing. It breaks down quickly. Relationships are replaced with content. But shepherding is shackled. The answer? Flip the equation. Focus on developing and resourcing reproducers. Somehow the idea of multi-level multiplication has caught on in evangelism and in social justice, but not in discipleship. The GROW Series Level 3 training focuses on development of a ministry that “equips the saints.” It’s essential tools build on Level 2 training, adding the Shepherding Cycle, CAST (Integrative Bible Study), Disciple-Making Strategy and the Spiritual Life Cycle of Groups, among other things.
Level 4: Coming Soon!
We are still in the process of converting Level 4 content from our WILD curriculum.
Instructors
Dr. Dennis Wilhite
Dr. Wilhite began teaching at Baptist Bible College in 1991 after 20 years of local church ministry. In addition to classroom responsibilities, he serves as the Dean of the School of Global Ministries. Dr. Wilhite teaches a range of student ministry, discipleship, and leadership courses both on campus and in wilderness classrooms. He also instructs graduate courses for Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary‘s online program and was selected to serve as one of six Academic Mentors with individual responsibility for 30 faculty members in that program.
Dr. Wilhite served as the student ministries pastor, then interim senior pastor at First Baptist Church (North Tonawanda, NY) from 1971 to 1980, then accepted the call to fill the student ministries position at Calvary Baptist Church (Grand Rapids, MI) where he served until 1990. His focus has been discipling people for the work of the ministry both in his years in the local church and in his ministry at BBC.
Dr. Wilhite founded Pilgrimage Educational Resources in 1984 to help churches and other organizations develop aggressive, effective approaches to leadership development. He also serves on the board of Koinonia Ministries.
Dwight Peterson
Since 1985, Mr. Peterson has been an integral part of the mission and ministry of Pilgrimage. After serving for three years as Youth Pastor at Brookdale Baptist Church (Bloomfield, NJ), Mr. Peterson accepted the Youth Pastor role at First Baptist Church (Elkhart, IN), where he served for 14 years. His area of responsibility included junior high, senior high and college ministry along with oversight of the Bible curriculum and discipleship functions at the Christian there. In Elkhart, Mr. Peterson developed training for his youth ministry teams while also making them available in workshop and written formats as curriculum for other youth ministries. Out of this Mr. Peterson created and has continuously developed OnTrack Devotions.
Currently, Mr. Peterson serves on the faculty of Baptist Bible College (Clarks Summit, PA) while also carrying various responsibilities at PER. His goal is to disciple students, whether that be through youth ministries classes, leading a wilderness trip, or coaching. For the past several years, Dwight has been directing the TLC Youth Workers Conference. He also serves on the board of Koinonia Ministries.
