Why do some believers ignite and grow, while others - just as hungry - quietly plateau and fade? More often than you'd think, the answer is not the disciple. It is the environment.

David Thomas began this book in the middle of writing his first, out of a frustration he could not shake. Men in his church were being awakened at a men's boot camp - and then returning to church environments that could not sustain what God had started in them. Some were quietly shut down. When deeper issues surfaced, no one was able or willing to help.

This is not an in-depth study of discipleship. It is a guide to the environment discipleship requires - the kind of church culture in which a Christian is birthed, trained, discipled, and released - and to recognising the kind that slowly extinguishes it.

Three illustrations run through the book:

• The passenger cruise liner and the HMS battleship - two brothers, two tickets, two ships, two journeys, both putting out to sea
• Recognition by DNA - two trees whose leaves look identical, but whose roots are not
• Enablement and empowerment - the entitlement of the nanny state set against a culture that releases people into their calling

From there it asks the question that silenced a table full of pastors at a wedding reception: how long should it take a local church to raise a new convert to maturity? Ephesians 4 gives the standard. David Thomas gives the timeline - roughly three years, from novice in basic training to a deployed, disciple-making veteran - along with the marks of an empowerment environment, chief among them a deliberately activated fivefold ministry.

Whether you are a disciple looking for the right place to grow, or a leader responsible for building one, this book will sharpen your vision, challenge your assumptions, and change the way you read your church, your calling, and your God.