Become a Disciple Making Church

Yes, it is Discipleshift, not ship. I recently attended the Relational Discipleship Network’s DS1 experience at Providence Church in Knoxville, TN, with our church elders and head deacon. We planned to attend in January 2020, but someone canceled the trip when I was sick with Covid. I was disappointed they canceled because if I had died, they would not have continued pursuing to be a disciple-making church! That is a little unfair, I know. Everyone wants to make disciples, but what exactly is a disciple and how they are made is the issue.

The Father let me live through Covid; he performed a miracle of biblical proportions to keep me alive for what I believe is to continue my disciple-making journey. And that is precisely what I am doing! While this is the first blog in my sight, I have been on this discipleship journey for a long time.

In 2019, I cast a new disciple-making vision for my church and introduced home groups as part of that initiative. The goal was “to establish disciple-making communities that multiply in every neighborhood” in our town, county, and world. I got some pushback from someone saying, “The goal was too lofty and unrealistic.” Nevertheless, my passion was affirmed when I discovered that Providence Church, the host church for the DS1 conference, has been using relational small-group discipleship culture for years to plant over 22 new autonomous churches, some of which are in other countries. One of their South American church plants is now planting churches in the United States! The conference affirmed that I am on the right track and the Holy Spirit is leading.

At Providence, they plant churches by training a pastor in the relational disciple-making culture, and when he is ready, they send him out with anywhere from 75 to 200 of their members to launch a new church somewhere else in town. Then they do it again, and again, and again. I visited the church this past Labor Day weekend, and the previous week they had just launched a new church with over seventy people sent out from their church.

Back to groups. I initially set the groups up as friend-based groups that had sermon-based discussions. To add new members to the group, existing members would all need to agree so that the new people don’t through off the friendship vibe. That requirement for group agreement to bring in new people is probably a mistake but easily corrected moving forward. We want the groups to grow and multiply quickly, so inviting people needs to be easy and encouraged.

When Covid hit the country, like most, our church closed for a few weeks, although we continued our online services. At this point, I knew our groups were essential to continuing the mission because we could not meet in church or in groups larger than ten people. So, I contacted all our home group leaders, Sunday school leaders, and anyone interested in launching a group and commissioned them as micro-church leaders. In short order, they began using Zoom until it was safe to meet in person again. I brought in a friend and mentor named Alan Witham from the Kentucky Baptist Convention to train everyone in storying the Bible. So, we were off and rolling.

Some of our groups made it through Covid and are still meeting today. Others fizzled out. Some have returned to Sunday School, some still meet in homes, and one birthed a new group. My son, a junior in high school at that time, began a zoom group using storying the Bible with some friends from school and church, and Easton accepted Christ. Caleb took a job where Easton worked so he could continue to disciple him. The point is that our vision and structure were solid.

While at the DS1 event, the method of choice for making disciples in relational environments was storying the Bible. I also learned that Providence Church, whose pastor preaches exegetically like me, uses storying the Bible based on the sermon. shortly before attending DS1, Alan told me that the method he taught our leaders was from Jim Putman and the Relational Discipleship Network. So, we have all the elements we need. We have small groups and a sermon-based discussion and storying the Bible. All we need to do is marry the storying method with the sermon-based discussion and fan the flames of small group multiplication. Exciting right? Not so fast.

During DS1, the method for disciple-making only begins in the small group. Real discipleship, growth, and accountability happen outside the group when leaders train apprentice leaders and meet with group members individually or in small groups to talk about Jesus and life. This means that leaders are more than group discussion facilitators. They are disciples who will invest their disciple-making momentum into their group members outside group time. I call this sub-coaching. Yes, investment happens in the group, but true disciple-making, training, and apprenticeship happen outside the group. The group is the fishing pond or catalyst for identifying and training people at a deeper level. Without this outside-the-group discipleship (sub-coaching), groups will only make more facilitators. We want them to make more disciples for Jesus.

As it turns out, I have not formally asked my church’s group leaders to invest in their people outside their group. But those people like Chris and Mary, Caleb, Lawerance, and Cassandra are already doing it without being asked. I am doing it. We are doing it because we love Jesus and people; we are becoming selfless, and we are becoming more and more like Jesus. So, we will need to adjust what we look for in a group leader and what they look for in their apprentice group leaders. We are looking for people who will be a disciple and disciple others when the group is not meeting as well as when it is.

Since 2016, maybe before, several of us have been discipled and discipling others. Alan Witham discipled me; I discipled several others, including Chris and Caleb. Chris has discipled many more. We have been doing personal disciple-making apart from any group structure or church program. It has been a sub-culture or underground movement in our church but a significant part of our lives. We did not want it to be a “church program,” but we want our church to be a disciple-making church. That is what led us to attend the DS1 experience. We wanted to bring disciple-making sub-culture to the forefront in our church without making another program that everyone needs to attend. We want to be a disciple-making multiplying church. We want disciple-making to be who we are not what we do.

During the RD1experience, the Holy Spirit showed me that we are on the right track. We just need to bring the various elements of the plan together toward the goal; we need to align our efforts towards the intentional goal of being and making disciples. We have disciple-makers who are meeting with disciples and helping them grow, but they have difficulty finding people to disciple. We learned their future disciples are in the relational small groups! The storying the Bible method will help our disciple-makers identify people they can disciple.

We are doing it! We have nothing new to start; we just need to make a few minor adjustments and get busy with intentionality. Chris already had his first group since RD1. He has two or three apprentice leaders identified that he will disciple and help them launch their own small groups in 2023. My first home group meeting will be in November, a few weeks from now. I have two couples committed to coming and am working on a few more.

We are excited to see how Jesus has prepared us for this, is building the team, and creating the structure. Now we just need to run the play. Ready, break!