Stride: Creating a Pathway of Discipleship

Mike Schreiner grew up in Jackson in the Southeast District. His home church was New McKendree UMC. He graduated from Southeast Missouri State with a major in pre-medicine/interdisciplinary studies, and graduated from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis with a Master of Divinity. His appointment history includes Webster Hills, Kirkwood and Eastwood Memorial (Caruthersville).

He started at Morning Star UMC in 1999 as a new church out of SunRise UMC in O’Fallon. Morning Star has been the fastest growing church in the Missouri Conference, and is also the largest, with an average weekly worship attendance of more than 2,000.

Schreiner’s new book, co-authored with Ken Willard, is Stride: Creating a Pathway of Discipleship for Your Church.

Why did you write this book?

Many people who attend our churches want to grow, but they don’t know how. They need a clear, simple, next-step process.

Who is the book for?

Pastors, lay persons and faith formation/discipleship teams in churches of any size who want to help people in their congregations take the next steps on their spiritual journey.

What will readers gain from it?

This book is all about practical equipping. It is not a theological discourse. Rather, it’s a practical step-by-step manual on how to create a clear path to discipleship.

What was the writing process?

The hard part didn’t have anything to do with the book, it was developing the process. We spent 18 months at Morning Star working on our own Clear Path of Discipleship. Writing the book was simply about walking others through the development process we had experienced. Ken Willard and I spent about six months taking it from an outline to a completed manuscript.

How is writing for publication different than writing a sermon?

Editors tell you stuff they don’t like! Seriously, you write something and send it off to the editor. Then you get it back, and it’s chocked full of red lines.

What recently published book has been most influential to you, and why?

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pastor Pete Scazzero. He addresses emotional and spiritual health in a way that helps us make peace with our past, understand our own story and connect with God through rich spiritual disciplines that make sense in the chaotic pace of today’s culture.

Stride is available online at www.cokesbury.com.