Inside Story
Discipleship Inside Out™
Establishing, Engaging, Equipping and Empowering Believers
by Mike Smith
Biblically based discipleship tools always played a significant role in The Navigators ministry. Founder, Dawson Trotman developed innovative ways to communicate biblical teaching about discipleship. He created tools to help Navigators pass these truths on to others—one-on-one and in small group settings. In the early days of his ministry, Billy Graham even asked Trotman to develop follow-up tools for his evangelistic events.
Discipleship tools such as “The Wheel” have always been an important part of Navigator ministry.
As The Navigators ministry grew, so did demand for the practical, Bible-based tools they used. For years The Navigators “Materials Department” shipped these illustrations, Bible studies, and Scripture memory tools to staff to facilitate their ministry. But even as the number of tools grew—along with the number of people using them—the emphasis on “life-on-life” ministry remained. In 1975 NavPress was launched as Navigator leadership pursued a vision of a full-blown publishing division to take discipleship tools to a much broader audience.
The product line grew to more than 800 items and included a wide range of Bible studies and magazines such as award-winning magazines Pray! and Discipleship Journal, as well as best-selling books such as The Pursuit of Holiness by Navigator Jerry Bridges and The Message.
Despite the success NavPress achieved, leadership sensed God calling them back to their roots of life-on-life discipleship and follow-up. “There was a sense,” says NavPress COO, Michael Visentine, “that we should strengthen what we were good at. The Navigators have a rich, 75-year history of focusing on establishing believers, engaging them in spiritual disciplines that transform their character, equipping them for service, and empowering them to have a significant influence.”
Those four elements provide the framework around which the ministry of NavPress is built. “When I first came around NavPress and The Navigators,” says Visentine, “the breadth and depth of discipleship tools struck me. At times I thought, ‘which of these 800 tools do we use when?’” Returning to the discipleship fundamentals also helps the NavPress team focus on developing materials for every stage of a believer’s spiritual growth—what they call “Discipleship Inside Out™.”
NavPress COO Michael Visentine wants to build on the rich legacy of Navigator discipleship tools and deliver them in formats that today’s believers are using.
NavPress is also developing materials that help local churches in their discipleship efforts—something they’re pursuing through collaborative efforts with Student Life Ministries (an organization that specializes in Christian teaching events for teens) and Real Life Ministries. These materials will provide church discipleship programs with resources that draw on years of Navigator discipleship experience, but in a format that fits the needs of local churches. “Whether a local church needs six weeks or six years worth of materials,” says Visentine, “we’ll have the platform to deliver it.”
Coming to NavPress from the secular business world, Visentine was initially concerned that Christian publishing might be a little boring. But the landscape of publishing is changing dramatically. “One of our biggest challenges now,” he says, “is developing quality, biblically based materials and delivering them in the way people want to use them.”
NavPress currently has 367 products for Kindle, 99 for the Nook, 97 for the Sony eReader, and more than 60 for the iPad. “Books aren’t going away,” says Visentine, “but the ways people access the information is evolving.”
Regardless of the format that materials take, the goal will continue to be helping Christians live a life of biblical discipleship, from the inside out. “Our vision, our desire, and our focus,” says Visentine, “is to advance the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom into all the nations through spiritual generations of laborers living and discipling among the lost.”
Cover and photo on right by Steve Learned
