Your Church Is in the Disciple-Making Business

Your mission has different words than the church down the street, but at its core, your church is called to reach the unreached and support the growth of the found. To use Paul’s language in Romans, we want to help with the mind-renewal process.

The Spectrum of Discipleship

One of the most common issues in discipleship is our propensity to view spiritual formation as a post-conversion experience. Supporting the faith growth of believers is part of discipleship, but so is helping unbelievers lean in, become curious, like a Christian (or even a few), and discover Jesus.

When pastors and church leaders work to build a discipleship pathway or spiritual formation framework, we must create a journey. Faith journeys begin well before one possesses faith in Jesus and continue until one is face-to-face with our Heavenly Father.

What All Journeys Have

Call it a path, journey, or steps. Either way, the experience involves moving from one stage to another. When I worked at North Point, we called this “Think Steps, Not Programs.” The big idea was to ensure everything we created would function as a step in the discipleship process, not just a random program or experience.

Steps are the secret to great discipleship pathways. Each step can move people slightly closer to Jesus. Some of these steps may be massive leaps, but most will be small and incremental.

How To Ensure Every Discipleship Step is Effective

If you’re a strategic church leader, you’ve already discovered the necessity for steps, not programs. You’ve realized that faith is a journey and spiritual formation is a process.

Too many of us still miss this: We create steps, but we don’t inspire the next steps.

To say it another way, we can become too focused on current steps, not next steps.

If I were leading a church today rather than coaching churches and leaders, I would adopt the value “Think NEXT steps, not current steps.” Or “Think next, not now.”

Let me explain.

When we design a discipleship pathway, we think about creating experiences and opportunities (steps) that grow people in a category. Each of these steps is typically designed with a category of person in mind. For instance, at Woodstock City Church, where I served as the lead pastor for 13+ years, we offered a “step” called Starting Point. This small group experience is designed for faith seekers, starters, and returners. Every Starting Point group met for six weeks. At the end of each group session, the tendency was to celebrate the ending of the group.

That’s not the ending if next steps are the goal, though.

Every step must end with a next step inspiration.

I wish the path were linear. It’s not that simple. But that shouldn’t keep us from creating logical and incremental next steps that many people in a current step may want to take next.

If next steps are the goal, then every current step must end with next step opportunities.

A Quick Guide to Designing a Step-Based Discipleship Pathway

If you’re ready to think next steps, not just current steps, here are some strategies to get you there.

1. Determine Who You Want to Engage in Discipleship

This may seem like a silly beginning, but too many churches relegate spiritual growth to believers. As we mentioned, a spiritual journey begins well before a person places their faith in Jesus. So, with complete clarity, determine how far from God your church hopes to reach. This is your beginning category.

NOTE: I have a six-session course on discipleship that’s available to all Church Accelerator Partners. Check out the options if you’d like to add coaching, community, and content to your church leadership experience.

2. Design a Path

As I mentioned, it won’t be definitively linear, but it will progress in a somewhat linear fashion. If faith were a number line and “zero” were the point of conversion, we hope to encourage and support people as they move from -3 to -2 to 0 to 1 and beyond.

When you think about your path, it’s important to consider what steps (programs, environments, digital content, experiences, etc.) are most helpful and profitable for each group on the number line. Start with the person at -3 and ask, “What can we offer to engage this person?” Then, move forward along the line, asking the same question for each category.

As you design the path, ensure each potential next step is easy (incremental), obvious, achievable, and profitable for the person looking forward.

This article may help you understand this in more depth.

NOTE: Again, I explain this in much more detail in the course mentioned above.

3. Consider On-Ramps and Exit Ramps

We’ve stated that discipleship is a series of steps. When a person takes a step, they are exiting a previous step and entering a new step. With every step we create, we must consider categorically who it’s for, where they may come from, and where they might go next.

Back to my Starting Point example. Nearly every person who participated in a Starting Point group came from only attending church services. Because we knew that, we were able to adjust our language when we inspired people to consider this step. When a group was nearing the end, we had a few next steps that we believed were most viable for these people. By week 5, we’d begin encouraging the next steps of Community Group, joining a volunteer team, or beginning a New Testament Bible reading plan.

4. Proliferate the Verbiage Throughout the Church

Most people don’t take a step without some encouragement. People are constantly asking, “What’s in this for me?” When it comes to your discipleship pathway, you must consistently talk about “next steps” in every step (program, church service, etc.). Make next steps the expectation and you’ll see people rise to what’s expected.

This is Our Primary Job!

We are in the disciple-making business. Jesus gave it to us individually and corporately as the Great Commission.

The better we’re able to make disciples, the more on-mission we’ll be.

One More Thing…

If you found this helpful, please pass it along to anyone in your circle of influence who would benefit.

If you’re too busy working in your church to work on your church, the Church Accelerator Community is for you. Our network offers coaching, community, and content designed with church leaders like you in mind. Learn more HERE.

Leading WITH You,