Interview with Phil Downer

BMC: You've been the president of CBMC and subsequently started Discipleship Network of America four years ago.  Before that you were an attorney. What inspired you to leave corporate America to minister full time and eventually start a discipleship ministry?

PD: When I was practicing law, I encountered some guys who really took 2 Timothy 2:2 seriously and it made me consider how I might be able to make an impact on future generations. I began to disciple guys right where I was, in my law practice. I would meet with clients, judges, other attorneys, and found that the context of the legal practice was perfect for connecting with guys struggling with life challenges. Over time, my mix of activity changed and I began spending more and more time discipling men all across the country. That's been the calling of my life.  [Ed note: to read a more detailed account on his web site, click here.]

BMC: A lot of guys in secular vocations who have a strong desire to enter ministry are wondering how or if they should make the change, as you did. So talk about that process. What was the catalyst for that change?

PD: You don't wake up one morning deciding you're going into full time ministry. You wake up one morning and decide you're going to follow Christ: in your contacts, in your strategic position and in your gifts and abilities. So the reason I was able to start a ministry is that I was already doing it, just at a law practice. So the first thing I'd ask a guy who says he wants to start a ministry, is "what are you doing today?" And if his answer is, "I'm not doing anything today," then I'd suggest that the best way to start a ministry is to begin doing ministry right where they are.

My ministry was in making disciples, doing outreach meetings, speaking at conferences but I was only able to do some of that because I was also working 70 hours a week as a lawyer. One time on vacation, my wife and I were in England sitting in Hyde Park on a blanket with a ham and cheese sandwich and a bottle of Coke. I said to her, "wouldn't it be great if we could travel and speak and teach and do ministry together?" She looked at me with a blank look and said "Phil you only get three weeks of vacation a year." That was the beginning seed for a change.

BMC: So how did that final decision occur when you decided that you needed to do it full time?

PD: It happened when I could no longer look at the work on my desk. I was at the top of the heap, running litigation as one of senior partners in our DC law office which had grown into a national practice. I walked into my corner office one morning, quietly closed the door and sat at my desk in quiet desperation, feeling unable to do anything. I hated what was on my desk. God absolutely changed my heart.

BMC: What happened next?

PD: Well, in the process of losing my passion for what I was doing, I was spending a lot of time away from home trying cases. My wife Susy said, "Phil, you have to stop teaching Sunday School. You have to stop the Monday night home group with young people. You have to stop meeting with so many guys in discipleship because you're going to kill yourself." I said "Honey, if I have to stop those things, I'll have to stop everything, because I'm doing all the rest of the stuff so I can disciple my kids, so I can teach. That's what drives me. That's my passion. That's my life." And she just looked at me and said "You mean this is really what you love to do?" "Absolutely."

BMC: It sounds like God had that in mind for you all along.

PD: I really encourage people to look at what they're doing. If you want to know what a man's going to do, look at what he's done. Look at what God has already done in your life.

BMC: When you talk to a group of men only, and you have an opportunity to encourage and challenge them, what's the one thing that you want to leave with them? Is there a consistent theme that God has given you to impress upon the hearts of men?

PD: Yes. There's one thing that I can ask a man, and if he honestly can say "Yes, that is in my life", then I know a lot of things are working well in his life. If I ask him and he honestly says "No, I am not doing that," then I know that there are some issues that we can talk about in his relationship with the Lord, his wife, his family, his kids, his motives, his passions, his points of view, his strategies, his goals, and so forth.

That one thing is, "Are you making disciples?"  If so, then you are in the scriptures and trusting the Lord. If you are making disciples, you don't have yourself on the throne. If you can show me new fruit; a man in this city who can come up and say "Phil Downer, impacted my life." Further, if he can say that he's doing that today, then I know that a lot is going right in his life because disciples cannot be made in the flesh. You can't make disciples for very long if you're running over your wife, if you're slothful at work, if you're stealing from the till, because discipleship requires intimacy, transparency and a godly, biblical approach to life. So that's the test.

Show me a man making disciples and I can show you a man that is humbling himself before the Lord every day. That's why we're working so hard to encourage and equip men to make disciples in every church in America.