Now that we have previously discussed how the individual can develop as a disciple, we need to discuss the church’s role in making disciples. Remember that in Matthew 28:16-20 Jesus makes it perfectly clear what the mission of the church should be. It is to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them everything Jesus has done. No matter what their own mission statement is, this is the mission statement that Jesus Himself has given to His church. Everything the church does should be centered around the idea of making disciples otherwise it’s just done in pursuit of someone else’s mission. The question then becomes, “how well does my church make disciples?” Unfortunately, for most churches the answer is probably not well. “A lot of church ministries and things that we do that we call discipleship, honestly, are sort of on autopilot. We’re sort of doing what we’ve seen, or doing what we know, but the thing is, have we really gone back to God’s Word and really drilled down on what biblical discipleship really is in the Scriptures?” ^[1]

What does a church that does discipleship well look like? I believe if every church did discipleship well then, we’d have a different vision of what the church could be. No church would ever face issues with funding any of their ministry programs because their people are great stewards of their money. Churches would be places of refuge for the down and out and would eliminate the need for secular non-profit and governmental relief and care. Churches would be full of people who know and understand scripture and are well versed and knowledgeable about church history and theology. Churches would be pillars of their communities that even the unchurched would appreciate are in their backyards. Churches would be places where people find deeper relationships and that people go to not simply for religious programming but simply for socialization. I think all these things and more can happen in any church that really strives to make building up their people as disciples a priority.

How do we do it, then? Just like in the last post, knowing what a healthy discipleship program looks like and forming one are two very different things. Similarly to personal discipleship, it all starts with changing our attitude. We need to make discipleship intentional in your church. “People are not transformed by accident.” ^[2] This even follows Jesus’ own example of how He created disciples. “Jesus intentionally prepared His followers to go and make disciples.” ^[3] Jesus followed a plan and was intentional about building up his followers into disciples. The question then is does your church have a clear plan to create disciples? For many churches I believe that plan mostly looks like people attending a service, joining a small group, and then they just grow as a disciple. That isn’t intentional enough. The best way to understand if your church’s discipleship plan is intentional enough is to see if any of your members could tell you what the plan is. The plan is for them after all, so if they can’t tell you what the process at their church is for discipleship then it’s safe to say it’s not a very clear or well communicated one. In fact, communicating your plan is the first step of implementing a discipleship plan at all. “Another task of Christian education that needs to be undertaken by leaders in local churches is this: To clarify in the minds of our members what the church really stands for and what it is seeking to accomplish.” ^[4]

Developing a church wide discipleship plan is a long process and that process and plan is going to look different for every church. That’s why I cannot formulate one here in this post, but there are principles and examples that can help you get started. I found an amazing example of how to formulate a process in Frederick Cardoza’s lecture series “Discipleship in History and Practice.” I’ll present some of it here, but it’s worth looking into the class if you’re interested in formulating a plan in your own church. The basis of this plan is set around an apparatus and not a program. Many churches get this wrong by saddling their entire discipleship effort into one program. That may be their small groups, it could be a Sunday school class, or even their Sunday morning service. The issue is that both the unchurched and current believers are extremely diverse and those programs will not work for everyone. If your church’s mission is to create disciples, then everything that your church does, not just one program, needs to be centered around that mission. “We need a number of different approaches. Some of which will be programs, some of which will be events, some of which will be activities, and as I’ve called them before, experiences or encounters…” ^[5]

We start formulating this apparatus by creating a spectrum that everyone in your community you are trying to reach can fall on. It’s important that I emphasize “everyone in your community that you are trying to reach,” because so many churches develop a plan that only focuses on their own people and how to grow them. Jesus doesn’t just say to teach people in the great commission, he also states to make disciples and baptize them which means to reach people who are not disciples and not baptized. A great term for these people is “seekers” and there are different levels of seekers based on their attitude towards the church and God. Let’s start on the low end of this spectrum with what is considered the seeker level 3. This is a person who is either openly hostile or resistant to church. As we move forward we have seeker level 2, which is a person who is generally neutral towards church. They don’t hate it but they feel no real reason to attend. Then we have seeker level 1, which is a person who is generally curious about church and the gospel. They might be currently attending, but haven’t made a commitment to Christ. They could also be a person who would be open to attending if only someone invited them.

The next part of the apparatus would be the actual disciples. Between being a seeker and being a disciple is a response to the gospel. Once the individual responds, they are no longer a seeker but a believer, a disciple. We need to do with actual disciples what we did with seekers. “…as intentional disciple-makers, we need to be able to evaluate where our disciples are on their spiritual journeys.” ^[6] Here I will combine the two approaches to developing this apparatus from both Cardoza and Putman. In this example we’ll have four levels of discipleship which will mirror the levels of seekers. The first level is of an infant. This would be a believer who is very new to Christianity and recently converted. Like an infant, they would not have any real meaningful understanding of their faith. Next would be a child. They are gaining understanding, but it hasn’t yet really changed their worldview. They are still a bit selfish. Third would be a young adult. This is a person beginning to actively live out their faith and is changing their attitude. Biblical knowledge they have gained is finally making a difference. “Knowledge of the Word and of the Christian life must move from the head to the heart, where it genuinely affects our character, and from the heart to the hands, where it affects our actions.” ^[7] The final stage is that of a parent. The term “parent” here is important because it means something different from an adult. “I am purposely using the term parent here rather than adult. As Christians we are called to make disciples—to do our part to reproduce our faith in another. Adults are able to reproduce, but that does not mean they are reproducing.” ^[8] This is a person who is marked not just by spiritual maturity, but by reproduction. They have made other disciples themselves and have executed Jesus’ mission for them.

Now that we have this spectrum where you can place everyone in your community on, you can use it to create events and programs to move people along it. Here’s what that looks like. Say you want to do an outreach event in your community. You take that event and first decide who this event is targeting. If it’s an outreach event, then it should be targeting people who are seekers. Is this event for seekers  who are resistant to church, neutral, or open to church? How you answer that question can change what sort of event you plan. Someone who is open to church may come to a community prayer night while someone who is resistant to church will not. From there the key is to form the event to help move people who attend to the next stage. One great way to do this is to always provide the next step for the people at the event. If your event is specifically targeted for one group of people, then it’s easy to know what next step you should promote at the event. “They’re simply thinking, what is my next step spiritually?” ^[9] This works exactly the same way with your programming for discipleship. Each one of your church’s programs should be targeted at one of these steps and by participating in it should help them develop to the next stage.

Now programming and events are going to vary wildly from church to church. There is no one size fits all solution to discipleship and evangelism for every church. Sunday school works for one church, but not another. A prayer night might be good for one environment, but not another. Even the stages and steps in your ministry apparatus will be different from others. That’s why this framework is so powerful is that you can tailor it to your community to make a plan that works for your people. If you feel like you need five different categories of seekers, then you can do that. Maybe there needs to be a step between child and young adult in your discipleship process, then you can add it. The most important thing is that your church develops an intentional plan that helps people move from one stage of discipleship to another. When you do that then your church truly begins to fulfill Christ’s mission.

 

^[1] Cardoza, ED205 Discipleship in History and Practice.

^[2] Cardoza.

^[3] Putman, Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches That Make Disciples, 37.

^[4] Sheeder ∗, “The Task of Christian Education in the Local Church,” 98.

^[5] Cardoza, ED205 Discipleship in History and Practice.

^[6] Putman, Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches That Make Disciples, 40.

^[7] Putman, 44.

^[8] Putman, 42.

^[9] Cardoza, ED205 Discipleship in History and Practice.