TransformativeLife
...transformed lives who transform lives who....
Meet the Trainers
I have been in ministry for over 30 years as a church planter, pastor, chaplain, and regional director (Director of Missions). It has allowed me to see the church from the inside out and from the outside in.
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Several years ago I was challenged by the organization I work for to catalyze four churches a year. Although I had heavily endeavored to plant churches in the previous 13 years, averaging about a church a year, I could not see the additional money and resources being there to plant four a year, so I began to research alternative ways. My research led me to read and reread the Gospels and the Book of Acts over and over again. Over time, several ideas began to emerge concerning the first century church. Not only did I realize that church planting was about disciple making, but I also realized that the greatest movement of the church, from Jerusalem to Rome, happened without buildings and budgets. Most of the New Testament is written to the churches and pastors of this movement. This idea freed me and drove me to look closer at the ministry of Jesus as the groundwork for the church of Acts: how the quality of Jesus' ministry laid the foundation for the quantity in the book of Acts. The depth that Jesus demanded created the breadth the disciples in Acts experienced.
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What started as a alternative became my obsession and I was so overwhelmed that I had to get these ideas out of me and onto paper. Thus, my first book Transformative Church Planting Movement was born. In my attempt to answer the questions from this book, I wrote my second book, Creating a Transformative Church Culture. Although I had many positive comments from those who read these books, it became clear that just their heart-felt affirmation was not bringing the change I desired. A way to train individuals was the next logical step, so I created TransformativeLife.org. In short, this website exists to train men and women to be disciple makers and makers of disciple makers and from them create a pipeline of disciple-making church planters.
I have been a ministry partner with Martin for over 30 years as we ministered in existing churches and started new ones. I am the editor for Martin's books and am one of the few individuals in the world who can translate "Martian."
I am a teacher with licensure/certification in Texas and Ohio and homeschooled our three children through high school. For many years I worked in the church as a teacher, preschool/children's coordinator, worship leader, and administrator, some paid positions and some volunteer.
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A few years ago we started our third church plant where Martin served as the church planter and I was the administrator. After pouring so much of myself and my energy into this new church plant, I found myself discontent because of the lack of fruitfulness that I saw. It was a lot of work for little return (in whatever way you want to measure it). Really, what I was going through was burnout with the way we have traditionally done church planting. I was so burned out that even after we moved on to another ministry, Martin couldn't bring up church planting again without my experiencing great anxiety and dread.
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It was only through finding the transformative process that I began to heal. I have found that I am passionate about seeing real transformation happen in the lives of individuals and would rather spend my precious time on meaningful pursuits such as this process rather than on less meaningful activities within the traditional church.
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I have spent the last couple of years mentoring several women with this process and am now seeing a second-generation as one of my former mentorees is now mentoring others. The beauty of this process is that it truly engages people in God's Word with the intent to see changes for the good. I'm all in for that.
Martin Jones
Transformative Disciple Making Trainer
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Karen Jones
Transformative Disciple Making Trainer