Repairing the Missional Breach: Why the Church Isn’t Making Disciples and How We Can Fix It

Making disciples is the primary calling of the church; however, in the past decades of American evangelicalism, there has been a breach of Christ’s Great Commission (as found in Matt 28:19-20). Much of this failure can be attributed to the doctrine and practice within three modern church movements. The book offers a history and critique of modern American evangelical church movements, including the Church Growth, Emergent Church, and Missional Church movements. Each of these movements did not result in disciple making multiplication. In this book, you will find an analysis of disciple making in these movements as compared to the methods and model of Jesus. Informed by these critiques, formative ministry adjustments are presented as a faithful path for future missional approaches.

Kevin Blackwell is the assistant to the president for church relations and director of the Ministry Training Institute at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the co-author of Cultivate Disciplemaking: Growing Disciples Who Make Disciples (2023). He received a BA from Samford University, an MDiv and DMin from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and a PhD and MTh from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is married with four children and lives in Alabama.