Our Vision

Our vision is to help people know God and make Him known by reaching and equipping believers both locally and internationally in their part in fulfilling the Great Commission. Pastors and disciple-making ministries need our support. Our ongoing work will help mentor, counsel, guide, provide resources, and help fund other like-minded ministries both locally and internationally.

 Our Mission

We are committed to the Great Commandment to love God, love our neighbors, and the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. We will empower, train, and equip people by:

1. Providing proven discipleship resources for churches and individuals for free or at cost.
2. Funding like-minded ministries around the world. As our ministry partners, we will also assist them in developing sustainable, fair-trade businesses in their communities through our artisan program. Through our partner ministries, we will import quality, handmade crafts from artisans and we will then market those products in our thrift store and online.
3. To help generate funds and create a place for community outreach and fellowship, we will operate a unique thrift store where people in our community can donate appropriate stuff and shop for gently used items as well as handmade crafts from our artisan partners from around the world.

I’ve had the great opportunity to visit with hundreds of pastors around the world regarding spiritual growth. I share your passion in wanting to become more like Jesus. I also know what it feels like to experience spiritual “growth spurts.”

I’m just a guy who’s been saved by God’s incredible grace. I’ve experienced my share of ups and downs, but I can tell you that God really does love you and has a remarkable plan for you.

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 more than 500,000 free eBooks to churches, ministries, individuals, schools and prison ministries around the world (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