Growing Up Book, By Robby Gallaty

A pastor friend, Robby Gallaty, releases a new book this month on making disciples. I’m impressed with Robby’s story and want you to know about his work. Here’s a quick interview with Robby about Growing Up Book:

Robby, why you are so passionate about making disciples?

In 2002, I experienced a Paul-like conversion after surrendering my life to Christ. The Lord set me free from a three-year battle with drugs. For several months, I wandered aimlessly in my Christian life, uncertain of how to proceed. My upbringing did not promote Scripture reading, memorization, or unrehearsed prayer.

Then one day my life changed forever.

What was the turning point?

Two men took the time to invest in my life: David Platt—author of Radical and Follow Me, as well as the Foreword of my book—and Tim Lafleur. Since then, I have read nearly every book on discipleship, searching for answers to my questions. Although I have read a lot of great books that describe the philosophy and theory of making disciples, I have often been left wondering after reading, “Now what?”

After being discipled, I thought to myself, “If I had a manual for making disciples that was easy to understand and simple to implement, I would not have wandered for so long.” After a decade of research, I wrote Growing Up: How to Be A Disciple Who Makes Disciples as a way of sharing my findings. The information in the book has been tried and tested in a church setting. At Brainerd Baptist, the church I pastor, we have seen the amount of people involved in discipleship groups grow from a handful in 2008 to over 1,000 expected this January.

My book takes the guesswork out of growing closer to the Lord and equipping others to do the same.

Why is Growing Up different than other books on discipleship?

The book contains a step-by-step process for growing in your faith and leading others to do the same. Here are some of the topics covered in the book:

• Three essential relationships every believer must be fostering;
• How to begin, lead, and reproduce a D-Group (i.e., discipleship group);
• Why a D-Group of 3-to-5 is more effective than an 1-on-1 relationship;
• A proven method for HEARing from God;
• One spiritual discipline that every disciple should be practicing;
• The single, fastest way to end laziness in your discipleship group once and for all;
• The difference between an addition and multiplication strategy, and how it applies to your context;
• How to begin a simple discipleship ministry in your church without adding another program;
• Answers to commonly asked questions about disciple-making.

I also have included eleven appendices outlining the entire discipleship process.

For anyone who orders the book before November 15th, I am giving away $250 of discipleship resources:

• Digital copies of the manuscript in Kindle, iPad, and .pdf formats;
• My new e-book: Subtle Threats that May Devastate your Discipleship Ministry and Three Immediate Solutions;
• Three live online training sessions (one hour each). My Replicate Team will disciple you as you disciple your people;
• Growing Up Almanac e-book, a leader’s guide that will outline the weekly meeting time;
• 25% off the Discipleship University Course (Spring 2014);
• All eleven printable appendices.

You can visit growingupbook.com for more information.

Thanks Robby, for challenging us to make disciples, and giving us great tools to do so!