Our Vision

Make disciples who love God, love others, and make disciples.

Core began in the desert …

Back in 1988, my wife Suzie and I were members of Scottsdale Bible Church, Scottsdale, Arizona. Gary Smalley and John Trent led our Genesis 2 Sunday School class – a group of about 120 people. Genesis was then broken down into even smaller home groups of 12-16 people who met in homes all over Phoenix. Both of these groups were made up of folks of about the same age, marital status, number of children, etc. And though Sunday’s big gathering, followed by our large Sunday school and the home groups, were incredible, nothing changed my life more profoundly than this next experience. Two guys from our home group invited me to a once a week, 6:00am men’s fellowship. These guys became “older brothers” and helped plant the seed for what became CoreDiscipleship.com and the 3-Strand CORE Discipleship Process.

In 1989, we moved back to our roots in West Texas. There, in what we now look back and affectionately call our “wilderness years,” we were guided by several spiritually mature couples and began serving in various aspects of ministry. That’s also when I knew God called me into helping others follow Christ. During that season, we were also introduced to and inspired by the personal teachings of Jack Hayford, Peter Lord, Bill and Delores Winder, and Sam Soleyn to name a few. Inspired to live a simple and devoted life in Christ, we developed a residential at-risk teen ministry in our home (we had absolutely no idea what we were doing). We also began ministering to the hungry, homeless, sick, and people in prison. In 1994 and in partnership with life-long friend Steve Trafton, we created a discipleship tool for our teen ministry called the Disciple’s Journal. Other resources soon followed.

In 2001, Phillip Hearn, founding pastor of New River Fellowship, Weatherford, Texas listened to my vision about implementing a third strand of discipleship to our existing church educational process. He agreed and I launched what I called a Core Discipleship Group. After 18-months meeting with three other guys and watching those guys grow leaps and bounds, we took the process church-wide. We cast the vision to the church staff, realigned staff around the process, communicated the process to all church leadership (cell group leaders and ministry heads), and finally to the body in a 3-part sermon series entitled “The 4-12 Trilogy” (based on Ecclesiastes 4:12).

Within two years, I was overseeing 28 Core Groups, had developed and published the Core Discipleship manual, and once we believed the process soundly tested and evidenced into the second and third generation, I launched the CoreDiscipleship.com website. Phillip went on to write his doctoral dissertation for Regent University on the findings. You can read and even order the entire thesis here: “The Three-Strand Church: Understanding the Scriptural Values and Structural Venues of a Three-Strand Approach to Discipleship.”

We train, equip, and provide our resources for free.

We give our materials away because, well, in a world where there oftentimes isn’t much of a distinction between ministry and the world, we think we can make a difference. The Lord has apparently chosen to place His mantle of approval on what we do. Since 2001, we’ve provided thousands of free eBooks to churches, ministries, individuals, schools, and prison ministries globally (you can read some of their testimonials here). We are honored to be a small part of helping people grow in Christ.

I know people are looking for deeper meaning. Been there. Somedays and in someways, still there. Regardless of mountain or valley, I can say that life in Christ is so much more meaningful and richer and fulfilling than life without Him. I hope you discover that God truly loves you, that you spend time reading the Bible, and that you grow to become more like Him.

Doug Morrell, CoreDiscipleship.com