What does First B Jackson teach about disciple making?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on disciple making that Norris Williams has brought repeatedly starts with a clear division of labor. God's job, drawn from John 6, is to draw people to Jesus. The Holy Spirit's job is to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. That leaves the disciple with two responsibilities: loving God and neighbor, and making disciples. When those roles get confused and believers try to do God's work for Him, Norris has said, ministry stalls. The commission is not for professionals or specialists. It belongs to ordinary people who obey what they learn and pass it on inside their own natural networks.
The method Norris has described in detail is the Discovery Bible Study, built around a short set of questions: what does the passage say, what does it mean, what will I do in response, and who else can I tell so another group can start. The homework is immediate obedience and immediate replication. Because some of the people using this in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia cannot read or write, everything is taught orally, and nothing is handed to a team that they cannot turn around and do themselves the same day. The goal is that people learn to hear from God on their own rather than becoming dependent on outside expertise or imported materials.
Norris has grounded all of this in his own experience as an orchardist. Peach trees only bear fruit on new first-year growth. Cherry and apricot trees left alone grow tall and nearly fruitless. To produce fruit, branches have to be bent, pruned, and stripped of the suckers that drain energy without producing anything. He has applied that picture directly to John 15, saying it is not just a metaphor but a farming reality. The same pruning God does in people, and that people have to be willing to do in their own schedules and habits, is what makes multiplication possible. The evidence he points to is not theoretical: over 200,000 Muslims coming to faith across thirteen Middle Eastern countries, Bible studies running among Hezbollah fighters in southern Beirut, a Syrian refugee woman who set a goal of fifty new discovery groups in a year and reached it by February.
Taught from John 6:45 · Matthew 28:19 · John 15:8 · Matthew 22:37-39 · John 16:8
The passage taught · Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- March 31, 2019 Kingdom Work - Traditional Missionary Norris Williams shares how God is building disciple-making movements across the Middle East, Nigeria, and beyond through ordinary people willing to pray and obey.
- March 31, 2019 Kingdom Work - Contemporary Missionary Norris Williams shares how ordinary people praying and obeying God are sparking gospel movements across the Middle East, Nigeria, and beyond.
- September 25, 2016 Bear Much Fruit Missionary Norris Williams shares how disciple-making movements are bringing thousands of Muslims and refugees to faith in Christ across the Middle East and Africa.
- September 25, 2016 Bear Much Fruit Norris Williams shares how ordinary believers across the Middle East and Africa are multiplying disciples and planting thousands of churches through simple, obedient faith.