The Discipleship Down-Low

Defining Discipleship

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:18-20)

All Authority: Discipleship is about a Kingdom Gospel — extending Jesus’ rule of heaven and earth over humans and their constructed world.

Go: Discipleship means mobilization.

Make Disciples: Discipleship intentionally creates life-long learners who will follow Jesus by being like Jesus in his practices and way of being (Luke 6:39-49).

Baptizing Them: Discipleship immerses people into the full identity of God.

Teaching Them to Observe Everything: Discipleship trains people to complete all the commands of Jesus, including his instructions about missions and ministry (not just morality).

Behold, I am With You: Discipleship is about abiding with and walking with the living and present Jesus.

Story | From Events to Relationships

I met Sal and Alissa Vasquez and we all started hosting open-mic nights in Staten Island as an outreach event. Sal was from a youth ministry background and Alissa was an involved church volunteer and both had been believers for a few years, but though they were active in their faith at church, no one had invested in them life-on-life to look like Jesus. Sal had a background doing international Hip-Hop outreach events, so it was easy to plan and promote the open mic. It was a powerful way to reach people and start conversations, but with all the work, only a few people came to know Jesus and few if any of those people shared their faith any further.

Over the years, our understanding of discipleship shifted. We started to prioritize the actions Jesus took in the Bible to be in people’s lives. Instead of attracting people to events to eventually hear presentations on Jesus, we came to understand events may attract people, but they don’t disciple anyone. It’s relationships that disciple. Although this takes a real commitment — vastly simplifying all our events and streamlining lifestyle to spend the most time with people — it has born tremendous fruit. In the last three years, Sal and Alissa have reached and baptized over twenty people and these people are now starting to disciple friends and family as well.

How Am I Doing? How’s Our Church Doing?

Our real definition of discipleship isn’t an academic thing: it’s revealed by our actions, attitudes, and how we spend resources like time and money. Becoming 5ive has built a useful framework for thinking about our individual and corporate culture of disciple-making:

Subtracting: Adding the same or fewer people than we loose through attrition. Individuals consume church resources and add distractions to complete with mission. Churches focus on survival and keeping the exhausting show running through dedicated staff and loyal but stretched volunteers, but don’t have capacity to get out of the spiral.

Adding: Adding more people than we loose. Individuals work together to attract people by supporting programs that serve people, eventually integrating them into participation. Competition for resources required to maintain quality programming is a constant challenge and a stubborn growth limit.

Multiplying: Reproducing disciples that produce more disciples. Individuals follow Jesus into the lives of friends, family, and strangers with little need for resource-expensive programming or attractional events. Churches focus on resourcing relationships and maintaining culture through a community of practice. Main challenges are building capacity in pace with relationship expansion, orthodoxy with a high population of new believers, and persecution.

Q: All of these models are working and have challenges. Which model seems to be working like Jesus and the Apostles with the same challenges?

Becoming 5ive Assessment Tools

Becoming 5ive has a variety of individual and church assessment tools and a free e-book on their website:

Blocks To Discipleship Multiplication

Camp is working hard to apply discipleship and multiplication thinking to our ministry program:

1. First, we want each staffer and camper to know The Story of Jesus as a redemptive and active world-changing narrative.
2. Then, we want each staffer and camper to be equipped to live like Jesus and follow him on mission at camp and at home with friends, relatives, and neighbors.
3. We want to keep collaborating as a community of practice, including churches and families at home, to remove blocks to multiplication.

(Notice these are basically the “positions” on The Journey Map, simplified for the Camp audience.)

What Does It Take?

It’s obvious that making the switch to multiplying disciples and movement thinking isn’t easy. If it was, there would not be less and 1% of all churches and believers multiplying Jesus followers who create more disciples. When it does happen there’s one key factor in play:

Discipleship by multiplying leaders produces multiplicative discipleship.

Books can help, but they don’t produce it. Programming (like courses and events) can generate excitement and buy-in, but they don’t produce it. Only relationships with people who are doing it produce it. Period. It’s what Jesus did. It’s what works.

Are you ready to start with a coaching relationship?