How to Develop a Disciple Making Pathway

An effective disciple making pathway is key to seeing people mature as disciples of Jesus. And it needn’t be complex.

The church in ‘western” countries has not done a good job in making disciples with only an estimates 2% of people attending the average church being what could be regarded as a disciple.

Jesus instructed us to make disciples by teaching them to obey His teachings; not just imparting knowledge or gathering them to an event. It’s pretty common in Australian churches to think that if we teach well enough then we will make disciples. But that rarely happens. There is more to disciple making than great teaching.

The American Society for Training and Development Handbook of Measuring and Evaluating Training contains some fascinating research findings. They found that when a person makes a decision to create a goal, that goal will only be achieved one in ten times. But when relational accountability is in place, the goal will be accomplished 95% of the time!

Information by itself doesn’t lead to incarnation!

A disciple making pathway will take people further along the journey to becoming mature disciples. We talked about this in the article “How to Develop a Language That Helps to Move People to Become Mature Disciples”.

Here are four aspects that a disciple making pathway will typically have:

• Connect Relationally – to apprentice the person being discipled
• Ascertain how the various Relational Spaces (ie weekend services, small groups, individual mentoring etc) will help
• Determine Which Practices / Tools will be used in which Relational Spaces
• Paint a Picture of the Destination (ie what a mature disciple looks like) and provide a map to get there so that there is clarity about the journey.

An effective disciple making pathway will tend to be organic and fit the culture of the church.

One of the traps to avoid is making the disciple making pathway too complex. Simplicity mixed with intentionality is key. Too many steps will likely get too cumbersome.

Another trap is expecting people to follow a linear pathway where they do A followed by B and then move on to C and so on. It’s more likely that a less regimented and more organic approach will work better.

One further trap is when the pathway consists of events or processes in addition to the normal way of doing church. The pathway should be at the core of how church happens rather than being  bolted on as additional events or activities. This may mean that some existing events or activities need to be modified or even dropped.

The aim of an effective disciple making pathway will be to see people growing to be mature disciples as they are shaped by the different components of the pathway, and for this to happen as a natural part of being part of the church.

QUESTION FOR REFLECTION:

What do you think a disciple making pathway should look like?

Tim O’Neill
National Leader, Exponential Australia