Issue 19 – Growing great disciples: a beginner’s guide

 

Dear Ray

You ask about how to grow great disciples—because you’ve got many people in your church who’ve started following Jesus. But they aren’t growing as fast as you’d like them to.

We start with the two words we’ll often use in this Letter.

The first is ‘disciple’—and quite simply, a disciple is someone who’s started following Jesus. They’ve accepted his claims and teaching, put themselves under his authority, and made him their Leader and Saviour. A disciple therefore is someone who has signed up to become an apprentice to Jesus.

The other word is ‘dynamic’, rather than ‘great’; because it best conveys the kind of disciples we want to grow. Dictionaries use different words and phrases to capture the meaning of ‘dynamic’—like active, very energetic, forceful, lively, vigorous, high-powered—and any driving force instrumental in growth or change (esp. social).

So although we don’t use the word ‘dynamic’ very often in conversation, it’s a powerful word—and when we put it alongside the word ‘disciple’ it gives us a very clear picture of what a follower of Jesus should look like.

This brief Letter focuses on what dynamic disciples look like and how we grow them—and because many others ask the same question it’s written to you and the whole church.

Dynamic disciples–what they look like

Disciples are people who’ve started following Jesus—so they’re a work in progress.

They may be very undynamic at the start and even well into their faith journey, like the flawed NT Corinthians. But as they travel on with Jesus, they become more like him and more dynamic—like the early and later Peter. 

So although disciples come in all shapes and sizes, there are several very obvious (often inter-related) things we can say about them—which we’ll look at very briefly.

A. They’ve started following Jesus

Some were born into Christian homes and came to Jesus while they were very young; others, like the man who wrote Amazing Grace, were a long way from God when they decided to follow Jesus. Some were wealthy while others were poor. Some were highly educated while others could barely read or write, if at all. And once they start the journey, some have few struggles travelling with Jesus while others have many.

But all of them, like the men and women who followed Jesus when he was here, have started following him—and intend to keep following him till the day they die.

A disciple is someone who has started following Jesus—and a dynamic disciple follows him enthusiastically.

B. They’re strongly linked to their local Church

Dynamic disciples, as distinct from less dynamic ones, are strongly linked to their local church.

1. Dynamic disciples attend church regularly—as the Acts 2.46a Christians attended the temple activities daily.  So they don’t buy into the myth that we can walk away from ‘church’ and still be strong Christians. Jesus didn’t (Lk 4.16). The NT Christians didn’t (1 Co 16.2). And we can’t because God forbids it (Heb 10.25).

Dynamic disciples are at church on Sunday—except in exceptional circumstances like old age, work, or illness.

2. Dynamic disciples are in life-changing small groups, like the Acts 2.46b Christians—except in exceptional circumstances, or when it’s difficult for them to attend for a season.

As we saw in Letter 17 (on small groups), Rick Warren says putting people in small groups is the best way to close the back door of our church, because the relationships people form in small groups are the glue that holds the church together. And he frequently says that good small groups help members grow in all of God’s purposes—worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism (i.e., they’re the stuff dynamic disciples are made of).

The strongest churches in the country have high Sunday attendances (for their situation)—and a high percentage of their adults and young people in small groups.

Dynamic disciples are very committed to their small groups.

3. Dynamic disciples get behind their church’s efforts to bring people to Jesus. They build relationships with those who don’t yet know Jesus, invite them to special services that may interest them, and use their spiritual gifts to best advantage in their church’s outreach ministries. Best of all, many become disciple-makers themselves.

If you haven’t yet resourced your people to reach others, download and use the March/April 2002 Beginner’s Guide in the World Vision Leadership Letters, listed below our Letters on this website. So to get started, print these Letters and give them out with your weekly newsletter. Better still, preach on the Ten NT Gates to Jesus and explain how people can use this simple resource to reach their families and friends for Jesus.

Dynamic disciples are very passionate (remember the dictionaries’ definition!) about reaching people for Jesus!

4. Dynamic disciples are strongly into serving in their church and community—where possible, serving in the area of their spiritual gifts, but glad to help wherever the need arises.

I talked with someone over Easter who attends a large Sydney church; and he mentioned how much more meaningful church is now that he goes along to both worship and serve. In serving, he’s becoming like Jesus (Mt 20.28; Lk 22.27).

Dynamic disciples find great joy in serving.

5. Dynamic disciples take their financial responsibilities to the local and wider church very seriously.

Churches’ expectations of their people vary across the denominations. Some teach tithing and some don’t; but all expect their committed Christians to give sacrificially to advance the gospel in their community and overseas.

Dynamic disciples believe that what they do with their money is one of the best indicators of how serious they are about following Jesus.

So to wrap up this second point, dynamic disciples are passionately devoted to their local church—because they believe that the Christ their church preaches and worships is the hope of the world!

C. They’re developing a strong devotional life

When you get to know dynamic disciples, you discover they’re very serious about getting to know Jesus better—so they’re developing a strong devotional life.

Of course they can’t see him, and that’s something younger disciples may struggle with for a while. And dynamic disciples also reflect a wide range of personality types and devotional styles; but all of them are doing their best to connect with Jesus—although in this life they cannot see him (1 Pe 1.8).

Some are introverts and some are extroverts. Some are intellectuals and some are strong ‘feeling’ people. Some pour their hearts out to God in torrents of prayer and some write their prayers. Some get closest to Jesus when they’re outside somewhere surrounded by the wonderful things he made, while some get closest to him when they’re studying a Bible passage with a pile of books around them. But all of them are following Jesus—because devotional lives come in different shapes and sizes, like disciples themselves.

Many things have helped me get closer to Jesus. Devotional aids (like Our Daily Bread, The Word For Today and Words Of Life—all available from Christian Bookshops) help me get started with Bible reading. But the aids are not a substitute for Bible reading; just a manual choke to warm our spirits for the Bible itself.

However, the thing that’s helped me most is discovering the devotional pathways, which I first heard about at a Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Put simply, we’re all wired differently; so we get closest to God when we use the method or pathway that matches our personality.

Some get closest to God when they meet devotionally with one or two others on a regular basis; they come by the Relational Pathway. Some get closest to God when they wrestle with profound and difficult questions; they come by the Intellectual Pathway. Some get closest to God when they’re helping others with God’s work; they come by the Serving Pathway. Some get closest to God when they spend long periods of time on their own with him; they come by the Contemplative Pathway. Some get closest to God when they’re charging into battle to lead great causes or grow great churches; they come by the Activist Pathway. Some get closest to God when they’re surrounded by the natural splendour of creation; they come by the Creation Pathway. Some feel closest to God when they worship God with their whole being, like David in the Bible; they come by the Worship Pathway.

Many use several pathways—often linked to one primary one. But to find out more about the devotional pathways, click on the Nov/Dec 2002 World Vision Leadership Letter on our website—and especially the brief Reflections article linked to it (which you can copy and give to interested people).

But whether or not dynamic disciples use the pathways, they’re developing a strong devotional life so they can travel more closely with Jesus—and much of what makes them ‘dynamic’ flows from their relationship with him.

D. They’re increasingly making courageous decisions

As dynamic disciples travel on with Jesus, they start to make courageous decisions about their lives and their involvement in society—i.e., they start to live counter-culturally.

At a personal level, they’re no longer happy to swim with the tide, stay in the rat race, and keep up with the Joneses—because they’re picking up a different set of values from Jesus. And the longer they travel with him, the more his teaching shapes their values and decisions and how they spend their time and money.

Indeed as they travel on with Jesus, they think less and less about themselves and more and more about helping others, as Jesus did when he was here—leading to the next very obvious thing we note about them… 

E. They’re becoming involved in the world’s pain

Somewhere early in their journey with Jesus, disciples stumble across Lk 4.18-19 which was the Magna Carta of Jesus’ ministry—and they may struggle at first to get their minds around these verses.

But as they check them out they come to see that the gospel is for five groups of people—although some explain these verses differently.

The ‘good news’ of the gospel is for those who’ve missed out on life’s good things—the poor; it’s for the casualties of society—the prisoners; it’s for the victims of tragedy—like the blind who were so numerous in Jesus’ day; it’s for the victims of injustice—the oppressed; and it’s for our whole human family who so desperately need the Lord’s favour. And when dynamic disciples grasp that, they can never be the same again.

In fact, it has such an impact on them that we’ll devote a whole Leadership Letter to it later in the year.

F. They’re becoming more and more like Jesus

When you follow the story of dynamic disciples over a number of years, you see very big changes taking place.

Years after they began their journey, they’re still following Jesus and deeply involved in their local church. They’ve worked at their devotions and look forward to them every day. They consistently make courageous decisions and have become more and more involved in helping the poor—in their community and overseas.

And if, after reflecting on all this, you mention to them how they’ve changed, they’re quick to tell you it’s all happened since they started following Jesus. Of course they’ll never tell you this, but you know they’re also becoming more and more like Jesus. And you aren’t surprised because your own Bible reading led you to expect these changes.

When you read the Gospels, you spotted the connection between disciple and Master (Mt 4.19). You noticed that soon after Jesus went back to heaven, people saw the connection between him and his followers—and called them ‘Christians’ after the Christ they followed (Ac 11.26). And when you first battled your way through Romans, you were stunned to read that ‘God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son [yes, like him!], so that his Son would be the firstborn with many brothers and sisters’ (8.29 NLT).

You expected these changes—and especially their becoming more and more like Jesus. Indeed, it’s this growing likeness to Jesus that is the outstanding feature of dynamic disciples.

So pulling together the many strands of their maturing character, the total picture comes to this. Whenever you see disciples growing strongly in their faith in God through Christ, growing noticeably in their love for people, and growing significantly in their awareness of God’s plan for his created world … whenever you see these things coming together in people’s lives in the way that I’ve explained, there you have dynamic disciples!

Dynamic disciples–how do we get them?

However, if that’s what dynamic disciples look like (remember the dictionaries’ definition!), then clearly there aren’t very many around at the moment (but this Letter is written to you and the whole church to correct that).

Research shows that 97% of Christians can’t share their faith confidently (cf. the Christians in Acts!), 57% rarely read their Bible (more than half!), and only 21% read it daily. Indeed, the late Brian Hathaway told me before he died that discipleship is the greatest challenge the NZ Church faces—and this troubled him greatly.

So how do we get these dynamic disciples?

We get them when we go back to the things that grew disciples when the Church was strong—and leaders, this is especially for you, because as go the leaders so go the churches. For better or for worse, we grow churches in our own image and likeness.

So here are three things to get you started on growing dynamic disciples.

A. Reconnect your people with the Bible–Urgently!

Several years ago, J.I. Packer noted that today’s Christians are neglecting the Bible more than any generation since the Reformation. So years after people start following Jesus, they may know very little of the Bible and still live by society’s values. We should do three things to correct this.

First, we should give high priority to getting all our committed people reading their Bible daily—and enjoying it. Work at this till your people cry with Wesley, ‘O give me that book: At any price give me the book of God!’

Second, as I mentioned in Letter 17, we should work at getting a high percentage of our adults and young people into life-changing small groups—where ‘the Word’ slot in their meetings is a high point of the gathering.

And third, we should return to imaginative Biblical teaching and preaching on Sunday mornings to save our seekers and grow our Christians—so years later we can say with Paul, ‘I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God’ (Ac 20.27).

People need that counsel—because it’s the Word that makes the Church grow, it is the Word that contains the ‘all things’ that Jesus commanded in Mt 28.20, and it is the Word that saves and sanctifies us (Jn 17.17).

It was rediscovering these things that led Willow Creek Community Church (Letter 18) to return to Biblical teaching and preaching at weekend services—to the delight of their seekers and the joy and blessing of their Christians. And we should do the same.

To get a large crop of dynamic disciples we’ve got to reconnect our people with the Bible.

B. Model what you teach and preach

Connecting your people with the Bible is just the first step.

The second step is to show them what dynamic discipleship actually looks like in real life—especially when the pressure is on. And who better to show them than you and your leaders—because you’re the ones teaching and mentoring them; so you naturally become the ‘commentary’ they read along with their Bibles.

This was how Jesus worked with his disciples; he modelled what he taught—as he did in the famous foot-washing incident in Jn 13. Paul did the same—as Php 4.9 reminds us.

So model what you teach – and people will be keen to become as dynamic as you are.

But if you don’t model it, all your teaching and mentoring will be in vain.

C. Prioritise discipleship in every area of Church life

When it comes to growing churches, you reap what you sow.

If you’re just trying to keep everyone happy and balance the books you won’t make dynamic disciples. But if Matthew 28’s Great Commission moves you, you’ll put your whole ministry focus on growing a large number of dynamic disciples.

Here are some tips on how to do this.

1. Put huge focus and energy into growing and empowering your leaders in every area of church life—because they’ll multiply your disciple-making ministry phenomenally. So teach them, coach them, grow them to Christian maturity, mentor and monitor them, vision cast into their lives, and empower and release them.

To get many disciples you must grow your leaders.

2. Take the discipleship challenge frequently and passionately to all your people—preaching it imaginatively from the Bible, illustrating it with great Christian stories from the past and present, and focusing on it in your small groups. In a word, develop such a discipleship culture in your church that every new person joining you knows from the start that you exist to make disciples—dynamic ones!

Whatever else you do or don’t do in your ministry … prioritise discipleship!

3. When you set your budget each year, prioritise disciple-making in all its parts—from reaching those who don’t yet know Jesus, to growing those who’ve started following him, to empowering and releasing maturing disciples to go and reach others.

The golden rule of church budgeting is to put our money where our mouth is. You’ve rightly been telling your people how important discipling is; now you’ve got to put your money into getting a large number of disciples.

Do these things and you’ll grow many dynamic disciples.

Growing dynamic disciples

Ray, you’ve made a wonderful start to getting many people following Jesus; but you’re rightly concerned that your young disciples aren’t growing to maturity, as they should.

To help you get them moving forward, I’ve given you a quick sketch of what dynamic disciples look like so you know what you’re aiming at. And I’ve suggested some practical steps you can take to then grow them to full maturity in Christ—so they reach others also.

May God bless you as you now lead your church through this next challenge—and may all your dreams for your church come true!

We’re praying for you.

Goodbye.

Gordon Miller
Territorial Church Growth & Development Consultant

To discuss at leaders meetings

• Very roughly, how many disciples do you think you have in your church—and what percentage of them are already dynamic?
• If the numbers or percentages are low, what aspects of dynamic discipleship are missing—and what steps will you now take to correct these deficiencies (write them down and put action dates against them)?
• And without going into personal details, how do you feel you leaders measure up to dynamic discipleship—and what steps will you now take as leaders to model it to your people (write the steps and dates down)?
• Given the challenge to grow as many dynamic disciples as we can, what steps will you now take to reconnect your people with the Bible and prioritise discipleship in every area of your church’s life (write the steps and action dates down)?