It’s useful to develop a language that helps identify where a person is at in terms of their spiritual development. A seeker should be at a different place on their journey than a person who has been a Christian for years. And they will probably be at a different place than someone who is in leadership or wanting to plant a church.

As a result it’s useful to be able to develop a language, not to box someone in, but to help understand where they are at and even some important next steps for them.

Jeff Vanderstelt in “180: A Return to Disciple Making”  suggests language around “family” as being useful.

Jeff writes:

“One of the ways we’ve helped churches develop a disciple-making process is by thinking of disciple-making work like a relational journey. We start by helping them clarify their destination: How do they define a mature disciple?

Then we help them map out the journey a person will take to move from a non-believer to a new believer to a mature disciple of Jesus who makes disciples. Some call this journey a “disciple-making pathway.”

Disciple-making is really like spiritual parenting. If we use familial language, we can identify five key stages in the disciple-making pathway: 1) spiritually dead; 2) spiritual infant; 3) spiritual child; 4) spiritual young adult; and 5) spiritual parent.”

So the starting point is beginning with the end in mind and defining what a mature disciple looks like.

Reviewing the article “What is a Disciple” is a good starting step to take to ensure that you are on the right track. This should be the destination your disciple making pathway takes people towards.

Next, bearing this destination in mind, we can look at which stages of the journey people are at. It’s then useful to identify next steps to help create momentum to see them progress on the journey to being a mature disciple.

Next steps for the key stages could be:

• Spiritually dead – next step is to be born again
• Spiritual infant – next step is to establish them in the faith
• Spiritual child – next step is to teach them to love and obey
• Spiritual young adult – next step is to see them become a ministry apprenticeship
• Spiritual Adult / Parent – next step is to form new spiritual families

Developing and using a language that helps to describe where people are at on their journey becoming a mature disciple will help bring clarity, and identify next steps on the journey. It will also help bring greater intentionality and effectiveness to the dislike making process.

Questions for reflection:

How would you describe what a mature disciple looks like?

What language do you use to describe where a person is on their spiritual journey?

Tim O’Neill
National Leader, Exponential Australia