For several years now Bill Wilks has been encouraging others to “live the D-Life.”
The “D” is for discipleship and he’s been teaching churches across Alabama and other states to use reproducing small groups as a way to make disciples. He’s been helping pastors start a culture of disciple making in their congregations.
But D-Life recently expanded to include D-groups that bring pastors and other ministers together, as well as their wives — and for an important reason, Wilks said.
Legacy and Leadership
“Through this journey, we’ve been meeting a lot of pastors and ministers and realized that many of them have never experienced being discipled themselves,” he said.
So he recently launched the Legacy and Leadership track, a 13-week group for associate pastors and pastors that meets weekly via video through Google Hangouts. The Legacy and Leadership track is a way for pastors to get the experience of being discipled themselves so they can pass it on to others, Wilks said. The topics include “The Disciple-Making Leader,” “The Persevering Leader” and “The Missional Leader.”
He’s currently leading a pilot group for the men, and his wife, Rondie, has been leading a group for their wives.
“Rondie’s goal is to try to connect pastors’ wives to other pastors’ wives,” Wilks said. “I’m really excited about that. Ministers’ wives are often on an island and don’t have as many connections to each other as pastors do.”
He says the pilot groups have gone amazingly well. The next group will start in January, and pastors and other ministers are encouraged to contact him if they’re interested. The hope is that these pastors and wives will then go and start new groups in order to pass it on.
“We’re so excited about this spreading,” Wilks said. “We pray for revival and spiritual awakening, and we’ve got to put feet to that prayer. D-Life is the most pure way to do that.”
And D-Life is spreading in other ways, too.
NorthPark’s executive pastor Stephen Hall recently partnered with church member Chris Bond, who runs Designs for Hope, to train groups of pastors in Kenya on how to start D-groups in their own churches.
Equipping pastors
“Most of the men don’t have small group ministry. They’re dependent on the preaching, on the Sunday morning worship service,” Hall said. “The simple plan of D-Life was something they were eagerly accepting of — just the idea that as a pastor they could disciple three or four or five men and let that group multiply out.”
That’s part of the purpose — to equip pastors to be lighthouses in their community, he said. “We want to empower them to pass the gospel on.”
For more information, visit livethedlife.com. (Grace Thornton)
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