As a Partnering Church Catalyst with CRU Church Movements, my calling is to counter the lack of disciple-making within struggling churches by helping shift culture and spark action. I serve as a resource, providing contextualized leadership workshops, experiential training, and long-term relational follow-up; all with the goal of seeing healthier, disciple-making churches. Toward the same end, I strive to foster collaboration within the Body of Christ by acting as a bridge between local churches and leaders. Lastly, we believe Jesus calls us to be disciples worth multiplying, so I will strive to faithfully reach the lost in our community.

New Hampshire is currently considered one of the least-reached states in the U.S. The Church here has been declining for the last 20 years and if we continue on this trajectory, NH will be considered “unreached” (less than 2% Christ followers) within two generations. Why is this? A Barna research study found that while 52% of church attenders said, "Their church is doing a great job discipling people," only 1% of church leaders agreed. In a different study Barna concluded about 5% of Christians in the US are actively discipling someone else. Nearly every pastor I have met says the Great Commission is a top value, and as well-intentioned as they are, nearly all of them struggle to see their ordinary members engaged in disciple-making.

The Opportunity: This is the opportunity to which I believe God has called me to devote my life, and it is why I joined Cru Church Movements. The vision of Church Movements is that every man, woman and child would know the gospel and experience the love of Jesus Christ. To accomplish that, our focus is to make Jesus known, develop missional leaders, and multiply the church. At the heart of that is seeing a culture of disciple-making among the ordinary people in our local churches. Reaching every man, woman, and child depends on our ability to mobilize ordinary believers to reach those in their daily lives.

Developing this kind of culture starts with local church leadership and grows organically within the congregation. With this in mind, I aim to lead by asking thoughtful questions and actively listening to understand the church’s current reality. My goal is to first assess our alignment in mission and convictions, then identify practical barriers to disciple-making that we can help overcome, and explore ways the church can support others in doing the same.

My Experience: Before joining Church Movements, I was leading a Cru movement at UMass Amherst. I started at the beginning of Covid and saw God wipe our numbers to nearly nothing, rebuild, and multiply them to nearly a hundred. Things took off at the end of year four, once we began to see four generations of disciple-making. I invested deeply in simple and scriptural ways (2 Timothy 2:2) with Dave, Troy and Caleb. Caleb, a senior at UMass began to do the same with two freshmen Enoch and Andreas. Andreas followed suit with his two roommates and a teammate from high school. Dave and Troy’s communities followed a similar pattern. 

I share this because, with the rise of post-Christian culture, I have found that while many will not step foot into a church building, nearly all will step into the living room of someone they trust.

A mentor of mine was involved in the great move of God across the Middle East. He testified of roughly 5 million converts from Islam to Christ. It was not through some new program but as a result of believers counting the cost of being a disciple and choosing to obey Jesus. One of the most encouraging things I’ve heard recently was him saying “New England now resembles Pakistan in those early days. The harvest is ripe for a great move of God."

In two years, success would look like this:

1. Coming alongside three struggling churches, seeing a disciple-making culture emerge within each. 

2. Helping launch 9 sustained, multiplying, disciple-making communities which involve 50 inactive believers becoming engaged in the mission of God (committed to Sent 6:7 or some other long-duration equipping and follow up).