Discipleship in the Local Church
Obstacles and Four Keys to Success
Blog post by Justin Nash
What is discipleship?
Discipleship is the ongoing process of growth toward Christ-likeness.
Discipleship is something that primarily takes place in the context of a local church. Discipleship can simply be defined as “the ongoing process of growth as a disciple.”[1] Unfortunately, many churches have never developed a culture of discipleship. Discipleship is, as Andrew Davis says, an “infinite journey” because we will never arrive at perfection this side of Jesus’ return. Discipleship is a holistic process that conforms the entirety of our lives – actions, attitudes, and affections – to those of Jesus Christ. It is to live in union with Christ in this world.
Discipleship is to be cyclical and intentional.
The end goals of any discipleship efforts should be two-fold. First, the believer is to continually mature into greater Christlikeness. Second, the believer is to facilitate this growth in other believers. This kind of discipleship is to be cyclical and perpetual in the life of a church (2 Timothy 2:2). One important key to success is that good discipleship practices are intentional. People do not drift into Christlike maturity. Godliness comes only through disciplined intentionality.
Four obstacles to discipleship
1. A lack of good practice in the life of the church.
The obstacles to successful discipleship practice in churches are numerous. First, no clear discipleship practice or ethos has ever been developed in the life of most churches. Making disciples has always been an aspirational value, not an actual value, in these churches. Everyone agrees that making disciples is a good thing, but they have never given any real thought or effort to the task.
2. Most church leaders haven't been discipled themselves.
Second, most of the leaders, including the pastor, have never experienced being part of a formal discipling relationship. They have never been discipled themselves, so it is difficult for them to know how to disciple others. Much of discipling is caught rather than taught. Modeling is a key element in disciple-making. If pastors haven’t been discipled, they do not have any experience upon which to draw in their attempts to disciple others.
3. Knowledge of discipleship has been textbook.
Third, the churches have understood discipleship primarily in terms of education. If someone participated in a class, they were considered to have been discipled. A more holistic view of discipleship as including character development, spiritual gift development, life skills development, wisdom, etc., has never been a part of any discipleship attempts. Discipleship is not less than education, but it is certainly more than that.
4. Discipleship wasn't taught to be duplicated.
Finally, any previous discipleship efforts did not include an expectation that those being discipled would one day disciple someone else. In many churches, discipleship classes are presented as a means of personal spiritual growth, but that is where it stops. There is seldom an admonition to go a teach someone else who will then in turn teach others. Many people don’t feel qualified to disciple others so they leave that up to the professionals or more mature believers because they have never been taught that making disciples is the privilege and responsibility of every believer, no matter their level of spiritual maturity.
Four keys to a successful discipleship strategy:
There are myriad discipleship resources available today. Many are free. The challenge is shifting through them all to find one that will work well. A successful discipleship strategy must have four core characteristics. It must be personal, simple, holistic, and reproducible.
1. Discipleship must be personal.
Any discipleship process must be personal. Every person is unique and should not be treated as just one cog in a discipleship machine. Disciples are not mass produced. This means that how each person is discipled must be personalized to their unique history, personality, and life situation.
2. Discipleship must be simple.
Second, the process must be simple. If the discipleship process is too complex, it will eventually breakdown and effective implementation will fail. Simple is easier to remember, to communicate and to execute.
3. Discipleship must be simple holistic.
The discipleship process must also be holistic. That is, it must seek to develop the entire person. It must be more than mere information transfer. One way to think about it is that a discipleship process must develop the head (knowledge), heart (character), and hands (skills) of a disciple.
4. Discipleship must be reproducible.
Finally, the process must be reproducible. The end goal is for the discipleship process to be to reproduced over and over again in the lives of the church’s members. This is yet another reason the process must be kept simple.
Justin Nash, “Discipleship in the Local Church,” Blog post, Winter 2020
[1] Michael J. Wilkins, Following the Master: A Biblical Theology of Discipleship (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 120.