The Trellis and the Vine Family of Resources
Our widely read and highly recommended book, The Trellis and the Vine, was written for pastors and church leaders. But it has a secondary purpose: it also serves as our ‘MMMM’—the Matthias Media Ministry Manifesto.
The book articulates how we think about gospel ministry, and—because we’re partners with churches in growing the vine—it therefore shapes our whole agenda. In fact, when making publishing decisions, we assess all resources according to how well they align with the biblical principles set out in The Trellis and the Vine.
And of course we now have hundreds of resources to engage, evangelize, establish and equip. Resources, in other words, which help move people towards maturity in Christ (Col 1:28):
Indeed, all of our resources do this job—they help disciples make disciples.
But there’s a specific group of resources which do something slightly different and even more vital: they help recruit disciple-making disciples. They convey the Trellis and Vine vision of ministry in such a way that they equip more Christians to get onboard with it and start living it out.
We call this category of resources our Trellis and Vine family. There’s a text-based description below of all the family members, or you can take a look at a more visual presentation. And we add more resources to this family regularly.
Please get to know these family members, because they are at the core of what we do, and—if you share the whole Trellis and Vine ministry ethos—they can be important tools for you in growing a disciple-making culture.
Church-wide leadership
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The Trellis and the Vine is the head of the family. It outlines the biblical shape of church ministry (all ministry really). As Mark Dever said soon after its release: “This is the best book I’ve read on the nature of church ministry.” It is a great reminder that ministry is about growing individuals as followers of Jesus; it’s not about maintaining structures. |
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The Vine Project builds on The Trellis and Vine, further clarifying the foundational convictions of ministry, and outlining a detailed roadmap for the challenging task of shaping your church’s ministry culture around disciple-making. The Vine Project Workshop gives your leadership team a head start on this roadmap, through participation in a one-day workshop together using this workbook and the four video sessions (4.5 hours of valuable content and guidance). |
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The Vine Movement is the latest addition to the family. It explores the sometimes thorny relationship between church and parachurch ministries. As pastors and parachurch ministry leaders, how can we work together to grow the vine even beyond your local church?. |
Small Group leadership
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The Small Group and the Vine is a video-based, five-week course for training small group leaders in how Trellis and Vine principles apply to the purpose of small groups, and how this purpose shapes our role as leaders. It then equips leaders to be able to carry out key aspects of their role. Growth Groups provides more detailed training for small group leaders. |
Small Group members
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The Course of Your Life is a life-changing, video-based exploration of what the Bible says God is doing in the world, and how our own purpose in life fits into that divine purpose. In other words, the course is designed to help people become “disciple-making disciples”. |
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Making Disciples is a set of eight small group Bible studies unpacking the implications of Jesus’ Great Commission for our lives and churches, and again driving us towards being disciple-making disciples. |
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Six Steps to Encouragement is a six-session, video-based course that can be run in small groups. It unpacks this powerful summary statement: God’s word changes us; through us it can change others too. The course gets participants started in very practical ways of pursuing the enormous privilege it is to speak God’s life-changing word into the lives of other people. |
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Six Steps to Loving Your Church is also a six-session, video-based course that can be run in small groups. It revolutionizes the mindset we take with us as we go to church each week. It’s about the part that we all play as God’s people in loving, serving and building each other up, Sunday by Sunday—the ministry of the pew. |
The life of any Christian
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For those who can’t do The Course of Your Life in a small group, you can get a great summary of the content of the course in very readable book form in The Thing Is. The book explores the really important question of our purpose and meaning, doing so from the perspective of God’s big plan for the world and our part in that plan. |
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Busy does a similar job to The Thing Is, but it does it through the ‘felt need’ of our problem as Christians with busyness. In answering the question ‘What should we do with our time?’, this book explores God’s big plan and how we can best align our own plans and priorities with his. |
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Encouragement: how words change lives explores Paul’s vision of a church in which every single member “speaks the truth in love” (Eph 4). |
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How to Walk Into Church helps Christians to discover how they can play their part in church each week—a part that beautifully expresses what church is and why they’re there. |
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The practice of one-to-one Bible reading is by no means the only way to move people to the right. But it does represent an ideal context for doing that: opening the Bible with another person (Christian or non-Christian), reading what it says, talking about what it means for us, and praying for each other. One-to-One Bible Reading provides a definitive, but simple, guide for every Christian. |
Where to from here? (Part 1)
"It didn't really work for us."
