What is your plan for making disciples? Do you have one?
The reason I ask is because as I lead churches through church health assessments, the one challenge that continually comes up is, “Our church does not have a clearly-defined discipleship process for moving a person from salvation to spiritual growth to significant ministry.”
Why is that important? In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus commanded the disciples to go and make disciples, and that same command applies to the church today. Yet, most believers and churches are not doing it.
Why are we not making disciples? I believe part of it is because we have never been discipled ourselves; therefore we are not sure how to disciple someone else. This is why I am convinced there needs to be a plan for making disciple-makers.
I remember hearing this quote, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” There are a lot of implications to that statement that we already experience in life, such as developing a savings plan, a fitness plan, a vacation plan, and even a retirement plan. Yet, for some reason we don’t equate the need to plan with disciple making.
I hope you’ve heard my conviction as to why I believe this is important, and maybe some of you are saying “YES, we need a plan”, but you aren’t sure where to start. Here is one solution I’d like to recommend to you.
LifeWay Christian Resources recently released a series of studies called Disciples Path.[1] It was created by a group of pastors and other leaders, focusing on instilling the doctrines, biblical understandings, principles, and practices of discipleship that are needed to help equip the local church in making disciples who would make disciples. I recognize that making disciples is more than reading a series of books, but this is a starting
point by providing believers with the resources needed to teach one-on-one and in groups, the principles and practices of Jesus. It’s an intentional discipleship plan.
If you don’t already have a clearly-defined process for making disciples, check it out! If you’d like some additional help with developing a discipleship process for your church, I or any of the consultants from the Healthy Churches Team would be glad to assist you. Let’s be intentional about making disciples that make disciples!
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