Commentary: Developing a disciple-making pathway

Matthew Gibbs

Many people substitute evangelism for disciple-making, but there is more to disciple-making than simply producing converts.”

Every church has a process for making disciples.  In other words, all churches are doing something with the hopes of making disciples.  Unfortunately, most churches are not very successful in making disciples.  One reason for this is that they do not have a clearly defined and intentional process for making them.  Additionally, those who do make disciples do not make disciples who mature and multiply.  Consider the following four questions:

• What is a Disciple?
• What is Discipleship?
• What is a Disciples Path?
• What is a Disciple-Making Pathway?

All of these questions have distinct and different answers, yet they are interconnected.  A Disciple is what we hope to make.  Discipleship is the process of making and maturing disciples.  A Disciples Path is the personal path of maturity and growth over the life of the disciple.  Finally, the Disciple-Making Pathway is the strategy that your church employs to make disciples and engage them in discipleship.  Before we go any further, we need to clearly define these terms.

Clarification of Terms

A Disciple is a person who follows and adheres to the teachings, principles, or doctrines of a leader or teacher.  For our purposes, we will define a disciple as a committed, passionate follower of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2:3-6).

Discipleship is the process of following and learning from a mentor or teacher.  It involves a commitment by the disciple to grow in knowledge, character, and practice, embodying the teachings and example of the leader.  For believers, discipleship emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and nurturing faith through study, community, and service. Ultimately, it's about life transformation that leads to Christlikeness.

Disciple-making is the intentional process of guiding individuals to become committed followers of Jesus Christ. It involves teaching, mentoring, and nurturing spiritual growth, encouraging deeper understanding and application of beliefs in daily life. This process often includes building relationships, sharing experiences, and empowering others to share their faith, creating a multiplying effect of discipleship within a community.

A Disciple's Path is the personal journey of spiritual growth and transformation that a believer takes to deepen their faith and commitment to Christ.

A Disciple-Making Pathway is a structured journey or framework designed to guide individuals through the stages of spiritual growth and development as they become disciples.

A Disciple-Making Pathway typically includes various steps or signposts:

1. Awareness: Introducing individuals to the core beliefs and teachings.
1. The Gospel
2. Foundational Doctrines of the Faith
2. Engagement: Encouraging participation in community, worship, and study.
1. Corporate and Private Worship
2. Accountability and Encouragement
3. Exposure to Biblical Teaching and Preaching
4. Personal study, reflection, and prayer
5. Mentoring/Modeling
3. Growth: Providing resources and opportunities for deeper learning and personal transformation.
1. Personal Study
2. Small-Group Study
3. Large Group Instruction
4. Ministry and Service Opportunities
5. Practically living out their faith
4. Service: Promoting active involvement in serving others and applying faith in practical ways.
1. Using gifts and talents
2. Personal Evangelism
3. Ministry and Service Opportunities
4. Godly living in their family and community
5. Multiplication: Empowering individuals to mentor and disciple others, creating a cycle of growth, a lifestyle of disciple-making, and a sustainable process of multiplication.
1. Personal responsibility for disciple-making.
2. Disciple-making and multiplication as a way of life.

Developing A Disciple-Making Pathway

A Disciple-Making Pathway creates a clear, supportive, and intentional environment for individuals to mature in their faith, share it with others, and multiply the experience to foster a community of discipleship and sustainable disciple-making.

A Disciple-Making Pathway is a system for making, maturing, and multiplying disciples. The Pathway is not a program but a strategy for moving individuals through a process of growth that leads to maturity and multiplication.

Daniel Im, in his book The Discipleship Opportunity, states that the pathway is a system of systems where different systems and ministries fit and work together to create a clear and successful pathway of steps for making, maturing, and then multiplying disciples.  He further states that the system also includes beginning steps, next steps, and ongoing steps.  A successful system must also be sustainable and result in the multiplication of disciples who will also multiply more disciples.

As you begin the process of creating, identifying, and clarifying the steps in your pathway, you are at the front end of developing a pathway.  The steps in the pathway must be clear, small enough that they can be easily taken, and they must always lead to the next step on the pathway.  Remember, the pathway is a route to ongoing spiritual maturity, Christlikeness, and a lifestyle of multiplication.

Beginning Steps help make connections with and invite people into the disciple-making process.  There will most likely be multiple beginning steps.  Most churches attempt to establish multiple ways to connect with the community, share the gospel, invite people to church, and into their disciple-making process.

Beginning Steps include such things as:

• Ministry Website
• Community Advertising
• Church Service Live Stream
• Community Outreach
• Community Ministry and Events
• Personal Invitations

Take time to assess and evaluate what current beginning steps are in place.  Ask the following questions:

• What beginning steps are currently in place to invite people to become disciples?
• Are the current steps successful in reaching people? If not, why?
• Are there additional beginning steps that need to be added?
• Are there current beginning steps that need to be terminated, repaired or replaced?

Next Steps are intermediate steps that move people along the pathway and into the next system or on-going step.

Next Steps include such things as:

• Guest Registration Card
• Text to Connect opportunities
• Church Membership Class
• Small-Group Enrollment/Sign-Up Event
• Church Ministry Fair/Volunteer Information/Sign-Up Event

Take time to assess and evaluate what current next steps are in place.  Ask the following questions:

• What next steps are currently in place to invite people to become disciples?
• What next steps are currently in place to move people to membership?
• What next steps are currently in place to move people to involvement in small groups and micro-groups?
• What next steps are currently in place to move people into service opportunities?
• What next steps are currently in place to move people into multiplication?
• Are the current next steps successful? If not, why?
• Are there additional next steps that need to be added?
• Are there current next steps that need to be terminated, repaired, or replaced?

Ongoing Steps are systems that do not stop and are designed to engage disciples in ongoing ministry and spiritual growth.  The disciple is actively involved on an ongoing basis for maturity, serving, and multiplying. Some examples of ongoing steps are Small Groups, Micro Groups, Ministry/Service Teams, or Mission Teams.  These steps are a part of the disciple’s ongoing maturity, service, and multiplication.  These steps allow the disciple to proactively live out their life as a disciple.

Take time to assess and evaluate your current ongoing steps.  Ask the following questions:

• What ongoing steps are currently in place to mature disciples?
• What ongoing steps are currently in place to train disciples to multiply?
• What ongoing steps are currently in place to engage disciples in ministry?
• What ongoing steps are currently in place to engage disciples in missions and evangelism?
• Are the current ongoing steps successful? If not, why?
• Are there additional ongoing steps that need to be added?
• Are there current ongoing steps that need to be terminated, repaired, or replaced?

Map and Evaluate Your Pathway

Take time to create a visual representation of your pathway, including the three kinds of steps mentioned above.  This exercise will help you to identify gaps and needs and to evaluate and hone your pathway.  The map should be a living document.  A living document is a document that is continually updated and revised to reflect current information, insights, or practices.  Regularly evaluate your pathway’s success and make adjustments, additions, and subtractions as needed.

Is Your Discipleship Pathway a SMART Pathway?

Strategic and Sustainable -- Your pathway is carefully designed to serve a particular purpose – making disciples.  The pathway is created to provide a process for ongoing and long-term disciple-making.  Being strategic in this process will most likely mean letting go of some things so that you can focus on the most important things.  It will mean evaluating what your church is currently doing versus what it should and needs to be doing to successfully make disciples who continue to make disciples.  Sustainability means that it will continue to do what it is designed to do until Jesus returns.  This step involves evaluating your current programs and what you are getting as a result of your current programming and ministries.

Measurable – Can you measure the success of your pathway’s objective?  Develop a strategy for measuring your success in all three of the following areas:  making disciples, maturing disciples and multiplying disciples.

Accountable – Jesus held His disciples accountable to the task of making more disciples.  We too must create a pathway with intentional accountability for personal spiritual growth, evangelism, and multiplication as a lifestyle.  Loving accountability is absolutely necessary to accomplish the task of making disciples

Reproducible – Your pathway should be something that you can use over and over, again and again, to accomplish the ongoing goal of making more disciples who make more disciples.  In other words, a strategy that is easily reproducible between disciple-makers and disciple-making groups.

Transformative -- In the end, our goal is to see changed lives, and this is something only God can do.  We have the privilege of partnering with our Heavenly Father in the process of expanding the Kingdom of God by making disciples.  This has always been the mission statement of the church.  In Matthew 28:19, Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples.”  This is not a great suggestion, but the great commission.  It was not simply for the 500 disciples on the Judean hillside that day but for all followers of Jesus Christ in every age until He returns.  In this commission, we must not fail!  Committing to this mission will transform the life of every disciple and the life of every church that chooses to do it.

Make Disciples

Making disciples is the primary task that Jesus has commanded us to do. Many people substitute evangelism for disciple-making, but there is more to disciple-making than simply producing converts. Biblical disciple-making absolutely includes evangelism, and we should be passionate about this and make sure it is a part of our disciple-making pathway, but a person or a church can be evangelistic and still not be intentional about making disciples. Growing and reproducing disciples who make more disciples involves intentionality in the process and the development of a successful pathway. Few things bring greater joy for the believer than disciple-making. There is great joy in seeing an individual that you have poured into eventually mature and reproduce themselves in others as a lifestyle. So, go make disciples as a church and as a way of life.

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Matthew Gibbs is the regional discipleship consultant for East Central Georgia of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. He can be reached at matthewgibbs@gabaptist.org.