Over the years, I have developed a philosophy of ministry when it comes to discipleship. This isn’t a ministry plan – it’s what I use to create a ministry plan. It encapsulates my understanding of discipleship ministry from Scripture, experience, and lessons learned from others. Yours will very likely be different. This is mine.

Orienting Principles

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.
If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself,
are simply a waste of time.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Discipleship ministry should be guided by several convictions about the nature of discipleship. An effective and godly discipleship program ought to be:

Spirit-led. God is the Great Discipler. He is already working in the congregation in many ways, through both formal programs and informal means. As with any ministry, it is vital to discern where God is already at work and to ensure that any structured activities are moving in step with that work, instead of seeking to achieve merely human goals.

Expected. Discipleship is not an optional extra for those who are especially keen in the faith, or something only for the beginning of the spiritual life; it is essential to the ongoing spiritual health of all believers. This (especially) includes those in positions of leadership.

Broad-spectrum. Genuine Christian maturity is evidenced in growth in three areas of life: relational (a closer relationship with God and a greater capacity to enjoy healthy relationships with others), transformational (increasing in virtue and reduction in vice as well as having one’s inner wounds healed), and vocational (discerning our calling and living it out in humility). As a result, discipleship activities should not be one-sidedly cognitive, behavioral or affective, but rather blend all three of these modalities into a holistic approach.

Matrixed, not siloed. Like missions, discipleship is not one church program amongst others. Rather, it should permeate all other programs. It should be made clear that each ministry team member’s growing in Jesus is of greater importance than their contribution to the ministry program (as valued as that is). This grace-focused leadership style the only way to move the team from working for Jesus to ministering with Jesus.

Measured. Spiritual growth is difficult to measure accurately, but it is possible to measure adequately, especially at the congregational level. Such periodic measurement provides visibility into the success of the program as a whole and can identify areas that need attention.

A Two-Pronged Approach

The command to follow requires that we take a daily journey in the company of other students.
It demands that we be lifelong learners and that we commit to constant growth in spiritual maturity. Discipleship is a call to me, but it is a journey of “we.”

Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity

When establishing (or re-establishing) a discipleship ministry, it can be powerful to establish two parallel activities that use differing modalities, one proactive and the other reactive.

Life Groups

Life Groups are a series of small groups/seminars/workshops offered on Sunday afternoons or evenings. Sundays are chosen because modern society runs on a weekly cycle of busy weekdays and (slightly) more relaxed weekends. So meeting on Sunday evenings leaves weeknights free for other activities. However, a mid-week meeting fits the culture better in some congregations.

Sadly, life groups can devolve into a merely academic exercise, aping a seminary class without taking advantage of the unique growth potential of a church-based group. To avoid this, well-designed life groups will equip their participants in three ways:

  • Cognitive – learning new information and ways of thinking
  • Behavioral – acquiring practical skills and life-giving habits
  • Affective – being motivated and encouraged

Learning how to craft such life groups will be a central part to the training for life group leaders.

Incorporating a shared meal before or after the life group meeting can be a powerful act of fellowship. While it can be a challenge to plan a menu that is nutritious, inexpensive, and allergy-safe, the benefits of a shared meal are worth the effort.

Soul Friends

When the Irish converted to Christianity, they quickly learned the importance of an anamchara, or soul-friend. Similarly, John Wesley (one of the great founders of Evangelicalism) listed “Christian conversation” as one of the five great means of spiritual growth (the other four being: Scripture, sermon, sacrament and service). Therefore, the second part of the discipleship strategy is encouraging people to enter into intentional spiritual relationships. This might take several different forms:

  • Hierarchical or flat
    • A more spiritually mature discipler could guide a less mature disciple, or
    • Spiritual peers could meet for mutual encouragement and admonishment
  • One-on-one or a trio
  • Varying frequency
    • Every day, once a month, or somewhere in between

In any case, the goal is not to work through a curriculum as is the case with Life Groups. Instead, the curriculum is life itself. Soul friends always start their time together with the same question: “How is it with your soul?” and go from there. Other ways of asking this question include:

  • What’s the best thing that happened since we last met? Where is God in it? What’s the worst thing that happened since we last met? Where is God in it?
  • What is hindering you from hearing God’s voice more clearly, or from responding to Him for consistently?

While Christian conversation is vital, soul friends should be encouraged to go beyond gathering to talk. Serving others together is a powerful way of developing and solidifying relationships, as well as an important outlet for and means of spiritual growth. For this reason, existing ministry teams might easily become greenhouses for soul friendships.

This activity would be more difficult to track and monitor than the more formal Life Groups as it is so organic. Therefore, this element of a discipleship strategy would act as a trellis, a structure where spiritual growth can occur naturally. But the goal would be to encourage as many people as possible to meet periodically with a soul friend. Formal aspects to this program might include: supervision sessions for those acting as mentors in more hierarchical relationships, teaching that demonstrates the characteristics of a healthy soul friendship, and a list of “known good” mentors to refer people to.

Getting Started

There is nothing wrong with the church that discipleship will not cure. Nothing.
When you find problems in the church…it is always a lack of discipleship that led to it.

Dallas Willard, Living in Christ’s Presence

In the first three to six months, I would undertake the following steps to begin the implement to the vision described above:

  • Mobilize prayer for revival. Begin praying for a spiritual renewal within the church, and identify and enlist the prayer warriors already in the church to join in this initiative. After all, prayer is not the preparation for the work of ministry; it is the work of ministry. Our activities are merely collecting the spoils.
  • Baseline the church’s maturity. Administer a spiritual vitality survey to the congregation establish a collective baseline for measuring the effectiveness of the discipleship programs to be established. Administer the survey again every two years to measure the church’s progress in spiritual maturity and potentially alter the strategy if progress is not being made.
  • Survey existing discipleship activities. Get to know what is already happening in the church, including both formal programs and informal gatherings. In addition to getting to know the people of the church better, this survey will be attentive for three things:
    • where the Holy Spirit is already work in the church (so we can get behind and push)
    • where human institutions have persisted long after God has left (so we can gently redirect the effort elsewhere)
    • the gaps that exist in the church’s discipleship activities; no church can do everything, but are the gaps ones we are intentionally accepting?
  • Preach and teach a wider and deeper vision of the Christian life. It is vital to show people that there is more to the Christian life than merely being saved and then “holding on ‘til heaven.” Following Willard’s VIM model, cast a vision of what the discipling life could be – and where the undiscipled life leads.
  • Develop a pool of disciplers. Identify a body of potential disciplers and personally invite them to join in a discipleship training program and a supervised ministry of discipleship. Before you can encourage the church as a whole to get a soul friend, you need to make sure that you have enough on hand to help them!
  • Build a clearinghouse for discipleship resources. While a church library is helpful, a curated list of resources – books, videos, study guides, Internet links, etc – with reviews and recommendations by trusted members of the church is more helpful still. This can be a short list that grows gradually over time, so it does not require a large investment of time or money up front.
  • Start meeting with soul friends. As for you, meet regularly with a soul friend, and seek out a pair of trios to mentor.