What is the Missional Discipleship Initiative (MDI)? 

We exists to help local congregations engage intentional-relational disciple-making as well as leadership development by providing them with a set of tools that have proven to be effective and highly transferrable. One of these tools is a virtualLearningHuddle and the other one are Missional Discipleship Groups or MDGs.

What are Missional Discipleship Groups (MDGs)? 

An MDG is a strong discipleship tool. They are groups of two or three people (same gender) that meet on a weekly basis for 1 hour and 15 minutes with the following agenda:

1. Scripture reading
2. Prayer
3. Accountability

MDGs are implemented for 8 consecutive months within the local congregation, after this period of time, they stop for debriefing and to assess learnings. 

What is a Virtual Learning Huddle? 

An MDI Huddle is a coaching tool that brings together a group of 3 to 5 Implementing Leaders (usually pastors) from a particular region of the country for a period of eight-months of training. 

Why does an MDI Huddle work? 

Huddles work because they focus on the following three goals: learning, language and multiplication. 

1. Learning takes place by assimilation of content (information), apprenticeship (repetition) and contextualized practice (innovation).
• Content: Huddles focus on learning information on how to use a particular discipling tool. 
• Apprenticeship: Participants learn how to implement the particular learned tool as learned from the MDI Coach. 
• Innovation: Leaders contextualize learnings to their specific context by innovating on how to use any given tool. 
2. Language creates culture. Participating leaders are slowly learning an agreed-upon discipling language that not only will they be able to teach others but also is shaping and transforming who they are. The language creates a culture of continual maturation as people become more and more like Jesus. They are orienting themselves to becoming lifelong learners of Jesus. 
3. Multiplication is the end goal. From the beginning, Huddle participants know that they will eventually start a Huddle of their own. Disciples make other disciples of Jesus. Multiplication is at the core of why we meet on Huddles. Jesus did it, Paul did it, and we can do it, also! 

What is the end goal of this initiative?

We want Implementing Leaders to learn how to multiply disciples, leaders and perhaps even new churches. It all starts, however, with learning how to multiply new disciples of Jesus, if we fail to do this effectively, we might fail in everything else we attempt!

How do I get involved with MDI? 

The Missional Discipleship Initiative is a congregational tool for discipleship and leadership training. New MDI cohorts are launched every fall and last from October 1^st to June 30^th of the following year. Talk to an MDI coach about signing up as a congregation today!

Next steps

If you have decided to become an Implementing Leader with MDI, please view the following video to learn about next steps.