VIDEO RESOURCES
Going Upstream:
Why your discipleship program isn’t the problem
40 million people have left the American church in the last 25 years…more than both Great Awakenings and all of Billy Graham's crusades combined.
And yet pastors and ministry leaders have never worked harder on discipleship.
So what's actually wrong?
In this opening session of a 4-Part Track at the National Disciple Making Forum, Brandon Bathauer (CEO of The Bonhoeffer Project) and Bill Hull (Co-founder, author of 35+ books) deliver a diagnosis that cuts to through the noise: it's not primarily a program problem...it's a gospel problem.
The crisis isn't primarily downstream in your curriculum, your small groups, or your membership class. It's upstream. We've inherited a gospel that was never designed to produce disciples in the first place — one that quietly made following Jesus optional. And surprise, surprise: people are opting out.
In this session:
Why the best discipleship curricula hasn't (and can't) solve the problem on their own.
Bill Hull's story: four years of meetings with Dallas Willard and 30 theologians, and what a weeping stranger on a plane revealed about the real issue.
The "river" framework: why we keep applying downstream solutions to an upstream problem.
How separating conversion from discipleship created the nominalism crisis we're living in now.
The unexpected signs of renewal: Gen Z returning to church, Oxford students having dreams of Jesus, and the urgent question: when they walk through the doors of our churches, will they find Jesus?
The Bonhoeffer Project motto: The gospel you preach determines the disciples you make.
The Gospel Americana:
The Six Gospels Shaping disciples in America Today
I preach the gospel."
In America today, that might be the most dangerous sentence a pastor can say, because everyone nods along as if we all mean the same thing.
We don't.
In Session 2 of this National Disciple Making Forum Track, Brandon Bathauer and Bill Hull name what most pastors sense but rarely say out loud: the American church isn't operating with one gospel. It's swimming in six, and each one is quietly shaping the kind of disciples we produce.
The six gospels of Gospel Americana:
The Forgiveness-Only Gospel: be forgiven, but following Jesus is optional. As Dallas Willard put it: we've not only been saved by grace, we've been paralyzed by it.
The Gospel of the Left (old and new): from classic theological liberalism explaining away miracles, to progressive Christianity reinterpreting orthodoxy under cultural pressure. Accommodation to culture. Biblical truth as optional.
The Prosperity Gospel: God as cosmic ATM. Claim it, name it, speak it into existence. Entitlement dressed in scripture.
The Consumer Gospel: Christianity as a service to be shopped. Self-indulgence, impatience, and addiction to desire, but wearing a cross.
The Gospel of the Right: theological swagger, heresy hunting, and the suffocating burden of always having to be right. Leads to exclusiveness and detachment.
None of these are entirely wrong. That's what makes them so dangerous. The real question is: what does Jesus actually call the gospel? Brandon brings it back to the Gospel writers themselves — where Jesus talks about the kingdom of God more than almost anything else — and invites pastors and ministry leaders to be refreshed by what they may have quietly drifted away from.
THE FALSE PROMISE OF DISCIPLESHIP:
Why ‘Getting closer to jesus’ could be the wrong goal
Think about the most committed person in your church. The one who never misses a Sunday, leads a small group, tithes faithfully, serves on three teams, and even listens to every podcast episode. Now ask yourself honestly: is that person the most Jesus-shaped? Do they have a satisfied soul? And are they making disciples?
If the answer gives you pause — this session is for you.
In Brandon Bathauer's favorite session of the forum, he and Bill Hull name something most pastors feel but have never had language for: the goal of "getting closer to Jesus" can actually be working against the multiplicative discipleship we desperately want to see. Not because closeness to Jesus is wrong — but because the Human Paradigm has quietly hijacked this desire.
What we explore in this third track session of The National Disciple Making Forum:
The “church checklist” problem: why doing all the right things doesn't automatically produce Jesus-shaped people
The Human Paradigm vs. the Jesus Paradigm: the difference between striving toward the cross and standing under it
Why "getting closer to Jesus" keeps people on a treadmill: why this results in very little multiplication or reproduction
The Dead Sea vs. the Sea of Galilee: what happens when discipleship becomes a closed loop with no output
Dallas Willard's essential distinction: grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning
The two defining questions that separate the two paradigms: "How am I doing?" vs. "How can you be so good?"
Why the goal of living as the beloved is what finally releases energy outward — and why that's the key to multiplication
This is a paradigmatic shift that reframes so much of what we mean when we say ‘discipleship’ . Not less effort, but effort flowing from a completely different source.
REBUILD EVERYTHING:
When Jesus’ Kingdom Gospel Takes Hold
In this final session of the National Disciple Making Forum Track Sessions, Brandon Bathauer and Bill Hull bring the whole series to a landing, moving from diagnosis to imagination.
What does it actually look like when you stop patching things downstream and let the kingdom gospel reshape everything from the top?
Bill Hull shares a letter from his friend Dallas Willard, written in response to Willow Creek's landmark REVEAL study — the moment one of the largest churches in America admitted its discipleship efforts weren't producing the disciples they'd hoped for. Willard's verdict was both sobering and clarifying: you can't fix this piecemeal. You have to tear it down and rebuild it, brick by brick. Then Brandon walks through what that actually looks like in practice, reimagining every touchpoint of church life through a kingdom gospel lens:
The altar call — is it an invitation to receive a set of beliefs, or an invitation to follow Jesus?
The Sunday service — is it a weekly "how am I doing?" check-in, or a formation environment centered on the question Jesus kept answering: what is the kingdom of God like?
The first step / membership class — are we orienting people to our church brand, or orienting them to Jesus himself? What would an evangelical catechism actually look like?
Small groups — and what happens when community becomes the engine of outward mission rather than another item on the church checklist
Finally — a church planter who went through the Bonhoeffer Project cohort, served at both Willow Creek and Saddleback, and then had the courage to start fresh. Three months in, he shares the story of what it looks like to actually build from the ground up with the kingdom gospel as the foundation.
This isn't theory. Get a glimpse of what rebuilding looks like.
Raising the sail
Learning from Wesley’s Disciple-Making Model
Something unexpected is happening.
After decades of exodus, Millennials and Gen Z are returning to church at rates we haven't seen since 2012. God is stirring something in this generation. But what will they find when they walk through our doors? Will it be Jesus?
Join Brandon Bathauer and co-founder Bill Hull for a critical conversation about this pivotal moment.
In the 1700s, John Wesley faced a similar cultural moment, and his faithful response didn't result simply with renewed churches, it transformed society. Slavery abolished. Prison reform. Mass education. A worldwide movement that changed history.
What can we learn from his discipleship model as we face our own moment of opportunity?
We discuss:
The parallels between Wesley's moment and ours
His discipleship framework and why it created sustainable transformation
Steps for stewarding this stirring in your context
THE DISCIPLE DILEMMA PODCAST
HOW THE BONHOEFFER PROJECT IS TRANSFORMING DISCIPLESHIP
If you were trying to develop or reform discipleship in your church, who could you team up with? That's what The Bonhoeffer Project - named for the World War 2 discipling pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is about.
Is there something wrong with the way Western churches think about discipleship?
What does the Great Commission really mean?
How is modern Western discipling impairing the lives of pastors?
How easy is it to develop a discipling culture in a big church?
What are the obstacles?
How about in a small church?
Is it possible to connect with The Bonhoeffer project as an individual?
WHY BOTHER WITH DISCIPLESHIP?
Cindy Perkins interviews Bill Hull and Dan Leitz of the Bonhoeffer Project on why discipleship matters and why we haven't lost the battle...there is still time to get serious about making disciples!
EXPERIENCING TRUE JOY IN DISCIPLESHIP
Cindy Perkins, Denny Heiberg, and Sandy Mason all shares their stories of finding joy in being disciples who make more disciples. They talk about discipleship lessons from the corporate world, joy in finding your purpose and joy n freedom. We hope you find joy through watching this conversation of people who genuinely love Jesus, love each other and love being disciples who make disciples.
MAKING DISCIPLES IN A DYSTOPIAN AGE
Cindy Perkins and Bill Hull discuss discipleship in our current cultural climate. How do you stand for the truth and stand up to pushback for your beliefs? How did we get to where we are and how do we enter into these difficult conversations in a way that is truly productive?
WEBINAR: BONHOEFFER BACKSTAGE
ALL THINGS 2020
Join us for a conversation about disciple making in 2020 amid all the turmoil with the global pandemic, politics, and churches having to reconstruct their ministry and outreach. What have we learned?
Recorded on Tuesday, December 1, 2020
WEBINAR: DIFFERENT DISCIPLES FOR A DYSTOPIAN AGE
On Wednesday, August 19, 2020, Bill Hull and the National Leadership Team of The Bonhoeffer Project hosted a live 2-hour minisymposium where they discuss why now, more than ever, discipleship is vital. As we all learn to navigate the uncharted territory of these difficult days, we want to help you keep your eyes fixed on the mission of making disciples.
CULTURE & MAKING DISCIPLES
Bill Hull discusses culture and it’s impact on making disciples at the 2020 National Disciple Making Forum.
WEBINAR: REBUILD YOUR GOSPEL
During this webinar, Bill Hull discusses the need to rebuild your gospel. Yes, this is an audacious claim. It is clear, however, that the Gospel Americana has failed us. It has created disciples that do not make a difference and to add insult to injury, it has made disciples who do not believe in discipleship. Can you imagine a church dominated by the belief that making new disciples is optional and not tied to salvation?
There is only one way to correct the problem, repent of our collective sin, rethink the gospel based on scripture, not on systems, and finally rebuild it, brick by brick, by teaching the people we lead and those we live, work, and play with.
WEBINAR: A TIME FOR COUNSEL & CLARITY
The Bonhoeffer family will gathers for a 45-minute coaching session with Co-Founder Bill Hull, National Leadership Member Jim Thomas & Life Coach Daniel Grissom.
Salvation BY DISCIPLESHIP ALONE
Bill Hull from UNBOXED Conference 2018