One Leader’s Experience with Followers Made
Jason Phelps is a disciple-maker at heart, and our Followers Made Cohort proved to be a solution he was looking for. We asked Jason several questions about his first experience leading Followers Made, and his answers are inspiring. Enjoy!
Jason, how did you learn about Followers Made?
During the pandemic, there were a handful of books that came out from missional Church leaders that I knew I had to read. So I started reading through my small stack and made it to “The Starfish and the Spirit” by Lance Ford, Rob Wegner, and Alan Hirsch in Spring of 2021. This book was like music to my ears and spoke to my heart. There are so many key concepts throughout this book, but one section in particular made mention of an organization called Disciples Made*; the section was about creating a culture for multiplying disciples. The first six chapters in this section were all about creating intentional disciple-making environments made up up five essential ingredients. At this point, Disciples Made was on my radar as I stepped into a new role with a new church as the Discipling Director.
As I continued to share my excitement for this book on social media, I caught the attention of an old college friend and fellow leader in my denominational tribe, Tiffany Danley, who shared with me that they had already begun a partnership with Disciples Made years earlier (I hate that they beat me to the partnership, but given that she’s in Kansas City… I should expect that). So Tiffany and I had a Zoom call with another co-worker of mine, Stephanie. Tiffany shared that she was going to be starting a Followers Made shortly via Zoom and she invited Stephanie to join the huddle. As Stephanie shared stories of transformation with our team, we decided that Disciples Made would be the partner we needed to create a movement of disciple-making in a large prevailing model church.
After making that decision, we had Brian Phipps and Joe Klassen coach our Executive Team through the Breakout Coaching to ensure we started off well. Around this time, several from our Executive Team were also in an Exponential Cohort, which landed us in Kansas City with Rob Wegner and Brian Johnson; which only further solidified we were on the right track. Hearing from them how they are developing spiritual influencers was nothing short of inspiring.
In November of 2022, we launched two Followers Made huddles; one for women and one for men. We just wrapped up our 26-week journey this May and both FM huddles will be celebrating at their graduation huddles in the next few weeks. Disciples Made has given us a clear pathway, the language, and tools with courses and cohorts to see disciples and disciple-makers actually made. I cannot wait to see how we will make a kingdom impact when more followers of Jesus experience significant growth in their character and calling!
What were you candid first impressions about Followers Made when you heard how involved it was?
My first impression of the FM huddle journey, was that it sounded great! I particularly wasn’t thrown off by the length as my previous experience with huddles had been at least a 12 month long journey with no clear end in sight. I was excited to facilitate a huddle experience that had a repeatable process, a predictable rhythm of building habits, built-in triads, book reading, scripture reading plan, and pre written questions to facilitate intentional reflection and conversation to lead us all to specific outcomes in character and calling. I was excited because I could tell how scalable and reproducible the process is that leads to multiplication of disciple-makers.
How close did you follow the prescribed Cohort recruitment recipe? What did you learn in the process?
I followed the recruitment recipe exactly how Disciples Made designed this process to go; starting at T-Minus 6 Weeks. I learned that the first question people ask when you have the ICNU conversations and let them know about the prerequisites tends to be about the time commitment. There were also some I invited that said yes without hesitation, yet didn’t complete the prerequisites. I also had some come to the information huddle that did not move forward in the journey. I’ve learned that having hungry followers of Jesus makes all the difference and cultivates a 6-month experience that is healthy, challenging, fruitful, inspiring, and life-changing. I felt like I was batting 1000 when it comes to the 4 C’s and RAISE Process.
What positive surprises did you experience over the 6 month journey?
One surprise in particular was when one of my FM guys said, “I’m 63 years old, I was born and raised in this church, I have led in almost every capacity, been in a small group for 30 years, served in every ministry… but I have never experienced as much life transformation in all those years as I have in these last 6 months through Followers Made.”
What one memory of this FM experience stands out above the rest?
We were in a week where we were going through the book “Find Your Place” discussion about our personal calling through identifying our gifts, passions, and story… and it turned out that one of my FM guy's sons had to be admitted to the hospital. Rather than canceling our huddle that evening, we all went to the hospital where we got to pray over his son… but not only his son, there were also a couple from our church that had been in a bad car wreck, so we got to pray over them, as well. After we had this opportunity for relational ministry and prayer, we then were able to wrap up the evening going through the H2O questions and go over our book reading to finish our huddle in the hospital waiting room.
What one piece of advice would you give to someone who is considering leading an FM?
Do it. Follow the recipe. It works. It starts slow. Hang in there. Get ready to see lives changed like they’ve never been changed before. Watch ALL the on-boarding videos and have that multiplication map out from day one. The beauty of this journey is that even the leader participates in the reading, content, and habits… you truly are best discipled as you are discipling others.
