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Five Ways To Make Disciples

Depending on their training and inclination, leaders typically advocate one or more of three intentional means of making disciples: the preaching and teaching of God’s Word, the practice of spiritual disciplines, and the use of a small group and/or mentoring relationship.

Vital means for disciple making as currently practiced often lack the impact they could have. Barna, for example, found that the average church member could not remember the topic of a sermon after 2 hours. This makes application and life change difficult. Assessing the effectiveness of typical programs, educator Ted Ward declares, “Christian education is neither.” The percentage of Christians consistently practicing spiritual disciplines tends to be small. Also Barna found that most small groups do not effectively form disciples. Consequently, we need to learn how to enhance these traditional means, so they can contribute to making disciples.

These intentional approaches, however, do not exhaust the ways believers develop spiritually. God also works through the circumstances of our lives, especially when we cooperate with His Spirit and respond rightly. These include the daily choices we make in the situations we encounter. Even hardship, doubt, and guilt can contribute to growth if we respond appropriately.

Finally, spiritual growth and personal maturing influence one another. A person cannot continue to grow spiritually while remaining personally immature. Because of this, leaders need to develop approaches to discipleship that foster growth in both areas.

Too often we put people through a program or curriculum and call it discipleship. At the heart of growth in discipleship, however, are relationships of trust, commitment, and vulnerability, in which we receive encouragement, support, correction, and challenge. This requires us to change our churches from those that engage in superficial relationships to having genuine biblical community.

Stephen Lim, Springfield, Missouri