Mission and Vision
With initiatives launched in East, West, and Central Africa, Discipling Marketplace Leaders is helping the Church reclaim and realize the redeemed marketplace through the local church.
Our Vision:
Discipling Marketplace Leaders envisions every local church discipling every member to be the church in every marketplace so that all may flourish.
Our Mission:
Discipling Marketplace Leaders educates, equips, and empowers the local church to establish a ministry that disciples every believer to live out work as worship and mission.
In many parts of the world, churches have moved from being a powerful spiritual force of transformation in their communities to being simply a series of programs in their buildings.
The Biblical Foundation of DML
Three Great Directives from God
1. Churches teach the Great Commandment
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39
Who is our neighbor in the marketplace?
2. Churches teach the Great Commission
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” Matthew 28:19
Who are we discipling in the workplace?
3. Churches often forget the Great Commitment
“God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky.’” Genesis 1:28
Being fruitful and multiplying the resources of the earth is what we are made to do. The Great Commitment existed before there was a need for the Great Commandment or the Great Commission.
When all three of these are taught, a quadruple bottom line is met.
- Commitment: Economic and Environmental Bottom Line
- Commandment: Social Bottom Line
- Commission: Missional Bottom Line
“As pastors, we need to seek forgiveness for not equipping our members to be the Church from Monday to Saturday. We need to disciple our members to this important purpose if we want the world to change!”
Pastor, Tamale, Ghana
What Does This Look Like?
It begins when churches make a decision to have a ministry focused on the marketplace. This requires prayer, discernment, and listening to what God is doing in their community, and when this decision is made DML is ready to step in and help.
The church and DML then spend four weeks participating in a “30 Days in the Marketplace” course, with preaching and teaching specifically focused on faith and work.
Finally, using DML’s curriculum, community business people begin meeting together in small groups to learn best practices, and discover how to do business to the glory of God – followed by mentoring, advocacy, and ongoing discipleship.
Churches, Let’s Disciple to Purpose!
When we disciple Christians to purpose and commission them to be Marketplace Ministers, churches are unleashed, communities are transformed, and the world is changed – all for God’s glory!
“DML taught me that the work that I am doing is good and holy. I learned that I have been made on purpose and for a purpose, even in my small business.” Business Owner, Kenya