The founder of the modern disciple-making movement was Dawson Trotman, born March 25, 1906 in Bisbee, AZ. He became a Christian at the age of 20 and early in his walk with Christ, he made a major discovery. If he spent personal time discipling a new convert - the quality of that man’s spiritual life was greatly affected. He would be radically different from Christians who were simply given a quick hand shake with no follow-up. For this reason, he developed friendships with new Christians and showed them how to listen to God’s Word, read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it, and apply it to their lives.
In 1934, he founded a para-church organization called “The Navigators.” Today, this is a global ministry. His vision was to equip dedicated men and women to carry out the Great Commission.
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19)
Billie Hanks Jr., founder of “Operation Multiplication,” was born on May 24, 1944 in San Angelo, TX. He was reared in a ranching family and at the age of 10 received Jesus Christ as his Savior. In his teenage years, he recalls - “Every summer I would go to revival services at church, ‘go forward,’ and mark the box saying I wanted to re-dedicate my life to Christ. People must have thought I was very worldly! The truth is - I wasn’t - I was just crying out in the best way I could to let them know that I genuinely wanted to grow deeper in my faith - the problem was, I needed someone to show me how.”
“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)
In 1954, Billie and his family were vacationing in Scotland and several members of the Billy Graham team “happened” to be staying at the same hotel. Billie met Billy Graham and Grady Wilson (Billy Graham’s associate evangelist) on that occasion and they became life long friends. Grady discipled him for over 23 years until he went home to be with the Lord.
At the age of 20, Billie became BGEA’s first intern. He traveled throughout the world with the Billy Graham team learning crusade evangelism and soon became a successful evangelist in his own right having preached in 29 countries. Later, when Billie was 35, he also served as a “minister at large” for BGEA. In this capacity he equipped several thousands of disciple-makers to minister to new Christians.
As a freshman in college, he read two books that would change the focus of his ministry forever. One was Born to Reproduce by Dawson Trotman and the other was The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman. Realizing the importance of one-to-one training, he began discipling men who had a passion for carrying out the Great Commission. Together, they developed disciple-making materials for churches to use throughout the world. Billie graduated from Texas’ Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity Degree, and received honorary doctorates from California Baptist University in Riverside, CA and Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO.
In 1972, The International Evangelism Association was born and today it guides the highly effective ministry of “Operation Multiplication.” It implements the life changing New Testament disciple-making process. His goal has always been to work through churches, colleges, universities, and visionary seminaries.
Billie has personally discipled many godly leaders along the way. Some of these men are outstanding educators and businessmen. Others are pastors. Among that number is Rick Warren who wrote The Purpose Driven Life. In Rick’s biography, A Life With Purpose written by George Mair, Mr. Mair mentions the impact of disciple-making on Rick‘s life:
“During Rick’s time in California, he was influenced greatly by two people: Billie Hanks Jr. and W.A. Criswell. Meeting these two individuals would play a large role in determining the direction Rick Warren took, and would lay the groundwork for what would one day would become Saddleback Valley Community Church.” (pages 51 & 52)
Billie Hanks Jr. continues to minister widely throughout the world and the “Operation Multiplication” strategy and friendship based equipping process is now available in several languages. Dr. Hanks has followed in Trotman’s steps and is teaching thousands of pastors from over forty denominations how to close their “back doors” and begin to multiply spiritually.
