{"id":827160,"date":"2024-05-01T05:00:36","date_gmt":"2024-05-01T10:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=827160"},"modified":"2024-04-29T11:54:42","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T16:54:42","slug":"a-starting-point-for-strengthening-your-churchs-discipleship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/a-starting-point-for-strengthening-your-churchs-discipleship\/","title":{"rendered":"A Starting Point for Strengthening Your Church\u2019s Discipleship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a way to strengthen your church\u2019s discipleship efforts <\/span>today.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In my book, <\/span>Disciple<\/span><\/i><\/a>, I write that many churches have a discipleship strategy that looks like a bunch of puzzle pieces lying on the floor, with nobody working to connect them. That is, a church may have the right pieces to have a good discipleship strategy, but nobody\u2019s ever really put the pieces together to create a strategy. The result is often a church filled with activity, but few disciples.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my experience, though, some churches trying to address this issue still fail because they do one of the following things:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
      \n
    1. They try to put the puzzle together without having clearly defined what a \u201cdisciple\u201d is.<\/b> Churches who want to make disciples but who have never defined a \u201cdisciple\u201d are aiming for something nebulous. They, too, will have activity that leads to no prescribed ending.<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. They try to put the whole puzzle together too quickly, and the pieces remain only loosely connected.<\/b> Yes, the church has a discipleship strategy, but the members don\u2019t always know how the strategy works. Ministries \u201cfit\u201d in the strategy, yet they remain siloed and isolated.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    3. They try to adopt somebody else\u2019s strategy and force it on their congregation.<\/b> That strategy may be a good one, but that\u2019s not a guarantee it\u2019s the best one for every congregation. At a minimum, we need to consider how we might contextualize any strategy into a particular context.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    4. They try to do something to address the issue, but without praying much about it.<\/b> This problem, of course, is a fundamental problem. To plan without praying is to say, \u201cWe can handle this issue on our own. We don\u2019t need God\u2019s guidance or His blessing.\u201d Prayer matters.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    5. \u00a0They establish a plan, but then put the wrong people in charge of some of the puzzle pieces.<\/b> Even the best plans can go awry with less-than-the-best leadership. And, it takes only one bad leader of one puzzle piece to weaken the church\u2019s entire process; thus, it\u2019s imperative to prayerfully seek the best laborers for our churches.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    6. They decide not to do <\/b>anything <\/i><\/b>with discipleship until all the puzzle pieces are in place.<\/b> That is, they work hard on developing their strategy, but they give little attention to discipling while they\u2019re creating that strategy. Even if they don\u2019t do it intentionally, they put discipleship on hold regardless of how long it takes them to complete their work.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      It’s this latter issue, actually, that gives raise to this blog post. While you\u2019re working on putting the pieces together, there is a way to keep discipling during that time. In fact, it\u2019s a fundamental way to disciple that leaders ought to be doing anyway: mentoring 1-3 other believers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Every church leader, beginning with the pastors, can recruit one or more believers for personal discipling. I\u2019ve been working with a group of three young guys recently, and it requires only about 1.5 hours of my time each week\u2014though I trust they are still getting something that helps them walk with Jesus. It might be, in fact, that the 1.5 hours are some of the best use of my time each week as I teach believers who can then teach other believers (2 Tim 2:2). And, to be honest, I\u2019ve learned that you can handle a lot of negative stuff leaders face when you know the Lord is using you to change just a few lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Pastor and church leader, you can strengthen your church\u2019s discipleship <\/span>today <\/span><\/i>by investing in somebody personally. I challenge you to prayerfully seek someone ASAP\u2014and let mentoring be one of the pieces of your church\u2019s discipleship puzzle.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a way to strengthen your church\u2019s discipleship efforts today.\u00a0 In my book, Disciple, I write that many churches have a discipleship strategy that looks like a bunch of puzzle pieces lying on the floor, with nobody working to connect them. That is, a church may have the right pieces to have a good discipleship…","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":827163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,183,184,175,192,177,191,14796,180,18470,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-827160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-discipleship","category-grow","category-how-to","category-lead","category-mind-body-and-spirit","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-prayer-grow","category-preaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Starting Point for Strengthening Your Church\u2019s Discipleship | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here\u2019s a way to strengthen your church\u2019s discipleship efforts today. 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