EMQ » April – June 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 2
Zúme Training: Multiplying Disciples
By The Zúme Project
William Carey Publishing, 2022
143 pages
US$12.99
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Reviewed by David Haron (PhD) who serves, with his wife, as the director of Proyecto Puente in Barcelona, Spain, training and equipping Spanish speakers for pioneer ministry among the unreached.
Disciple-making is a lost art. In many churches discipleship is largely dependent on programs organized by local churches and an invitation from someone in leadership (rather than Christ) to step up and make disciples.
But Zúme is helping to train and empower the common believer to actively participate in fruitful, holistic disciple making. This little resource is packed full of content that is easily digestible, intended to be applied, and can have a profoundly transformative impact on the life of any believer- either spiritually young or mature.
The Zúme training book provides a basis for radical obedience to Christ through 10 sessions (broken down into 36 specific lessons) that cover a plethora of essential topics and provide helpful, practical tools in order to be able to apply those principles. The design of the book is excellent, which makes it easy to use and even includes QR codes to offer high-quality video versions of most of the teaching sessions, which makes this easily usable with audiences that prefer visual content over written material.
One of the potential challenges of this training manual is that Zúme sets a very high standard for personal obedience. If a gifted and motivated individual were to faithfully apply one lesson each week, they would be having regular times of Bible reading (13), praying for unbelievers (27), prayer walking (63), sharing with non-believers (various lessons and tools touch on this throughout), leading new groups (75) and discipling those that are coming to faith under them (sessions 7–10 focus on leading and coaching others) within two months.
While these are excellent things to aspire to, the pace of Zúme may be too quick for some believers. There is a specific lesson on pace (9.2, on page 103) which does a good job of helping believers reflect on the urgency of the Great Commission and the potential benefits of multiplying sooner, rather than later. This emphasis can be discouraging, particularly for those who are less gifted or who have become used to a consumeristic mentality of church involvement – however, Zúme has a lesson casting a vision for becoming producers, rather than just consumers (21). Nevertheless, the pace and high expectations of Zúme may leave some believers feeling like failures (especially because of the regular rhythms of accountability).
A strength of Zúme training is that it focuses on the heart (motivation) and the hands (application), but there is little emphasis on the head (knowledge). Certainly, this is a corrective to the focus on knowledge that often exists within Western and other Christian cultures. However, Zúme does not emphasize theological or doctrinal development, leaving someone who is able to complete the course with a significant gap in their knowledge.
What Zúme training does best is provide simple, practical teaching and tools to empower believers (no matter their level of maturity, knowledge, or experience) to live radical lives for Christ and to multiply disciples in whatever context they find themselves. It meets some essential needs within the Church and will help to establish a clear trajectory to active involvement in Great Commission practices. Trainers might need to take it slow and incorporate other resources that help to develop the theological and doctrinal foundations of those being trained. But all things considered, this resource is a must-have for any ministry that seeks to empower believers to make disciples.
For Further Reading:
More Disciples: A Guide to Becoming and Multiplying Followers of Jesus by Doug Lucas (WIGTake Resources, 2019).
EMQ, Volume 60, Issue 2. Copyright © 2024 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
