Multiplication Ministry - Eden Prairie Discipleship Group

Two.

Leading 5.

Leading 13.

Leading 75.

Reaching hundreds with the gospel of Christ. 

It’s multiplication at its finest, and it’s what FCA is all about.

Two coaches at Eden Prairie High School are working through a discipleship study on Jesus’s parables with five core FCA student leaders. Those five student leaders will do the same with the remaining thirteen leaders. Each of the eighteen student leaders will then be assigned a small group of students for the year and will work through the same study. Those seventy-five students, having been equipped in community and growing in their faith, will set out to reach their schools with the truth about Jesus.

Discipleship has always been at the core of FCA, and there has been a push in 2020 to ensure all programming reflects that core. Staff, huddle coach, and student training has centered on discipleship, and more huddles are looking for ways to go deeper. 

FCA defines discipleship as personal transformation and public multiplication.  The vision of FCA is to see the world transformed by Jesus Christ (public multiplication) through the influence of coaches and athletes. Its mission is to lead every coach and athlete into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ  (personal transformation). Like Jesus’s disciples, disciples make more disciples. 

However, human nature doesn’t always embrace change and it is especially difficult to change something people like. The Eden Prairie FCA huddle was successful, fun, and meaningful. Everyone enjoyed the large group huddle times, and they were growing in their walks with God and reaching other students on their campus. But God was calling them to more. The challenge for Coach Schild, Donna, and the student leaders was knowing how to make a shift that seemed drastic but would yield eternal results.

The Pandemic Forces Change

Sometimes change takes years, but thanks to Covid (those words probably haven’t been said many times in 2020), state and national guidelines and hybrid learning - where all students are not at school together - have made it impossible for the group of 75 students to meet in a large group setting like it had done for years. But they are allowed to meet in groups smaller than ten, which is exactly what Donna, Coach Schild, and Ian had been hoping to move the huddle toward. 

Students will have the opportunity to sign up for a small group with others who have a similar school schedule. They will meet to study Jesus’s parables and grow deeper in their relationships with Christ while doing life with others in their small group. The potential for growth is huge. And it isn’t only personal faith in Jesus that will grow because growing disciples make disciples.