One of the challenges with building a discipleship movement is forming groups. Most churches today leverage a programmatic approach to discipleship, which uses pulpit announcements, bulletin announcements, posters, marketing, web pages and sign-up sheets to recruit people for groups.
This type of sign-up process can lead to groups that don’t work well together, with members who have differing levels of commitment or spiritual needs. For instance, a group composed of a young adult who is eager to grow, a young mom who just needs encouragement to get through a year of sleep deprivation, a professional who travels often, and an empty nester that is also a new believer may not work very well.
This is not to say that every group member needs to be on the same spiritual level, but it hopefully highlights the importance of strategically selecting people who want to make the same level of commitment to growth.
In contrast, a Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship movement approach involves leaders who strategically select and invite people to join their group. This process often starts when a leader relationally evangelizes to non-believers or encourages hungry believers. When some of these people are converted, they become great candidates for the leader to select. A leader is also active in encouraging new, young, and even experienced believers in the faith.
In this article, we will explore five Scriptures that define the five major principles of selection. Jesus was very intentional about the way He selected and challenged His disciples to follow Him. We, too, can be intentional about how we select and challenge people to a Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship relationship. We will consider some very practical ways that a leader can challenge someone for discipleship, which sets the model for how that disciple will one day select others.
Here is a summary of the 5 Major Principles of Selection:
- Share the gospel
- Pray, Pray, Pray
- Trust God’s sovereignty to show you the people to disciple
- Be with people and minister to them
- Look for F.A.I.T.H. believers: people who are Faithful, Available, Interdependent, Teachable, Hungry
Let’s get started:
Pray, Pray, Pray
Source Scripture: Luke 6:12-16 (ESV)
One little-known fact about Jesus’ ministry is that He had ministered to many for the first 16 months of His public ministry. In Luke 6, we see Jesus spending a whole night in prayer. What do you think He was praying about?
We get a hint from what happened in the morning. It is likely that Jesus was praying to His Father about all the people He had spent time with that previous year and a half. He was thinking through men like James, John, Simon, and Andrew. He was also praying through men like Joseph, Micah, Samuel, and Jacob [fictional names of people that he did not invite].
In that night of prayer, the Father confirmed to the Son whom He should challenge to be apostles and build an incarnational kingdom proclaiming movement around. So, we see that Jesus’ method was informally spending time with many after much prayer, and He selected some of the many to be with Him as He would prepare to send them out. The principle of selection could be summarized by saying, prayer is the foundation of the selection process.
Trust God’s Sovereignty to Show You Who to Disciple
Source Scripture: John 17:6 (ESV)
In Jesus’ high priestly prayer recorded in John 17, we see that Jesus prays for Himself, the men God gave Him (the apostles), and for those who would someday believe and follow Jesus through them.
Jesus told His father, “I have manifested Your name to the people whom You give me out of the world.” (John 17:6) Jesus trusted His Father’s sovereignty in whom He should invest His life.
Jesus recognizes that the Father gave Him people to disciple. The principle of selection that emerges from this passage is that, when God gives us people to disciple, we should trust God’s sovereignty and invest in them.
Jesus also recognizes that the people he has invested in will someday invest in others. This is another helpful thing to look out for when inviting people to join a group–even if they are not ready today, do you think they would someday be willing to lead their own group?
Be with people and minister to them
Source Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:1-7 (ESV)
Paul practiced wise selection and taught his spiritual children to do the same. Paul told Timothy to be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. All progress in discipleship will take place by the power and desire provided to us through grace!
Paul tells Timothy to entrust the gospel to faithful men who will be able to teach others. These faithful men will most likely be the spiritual leaders of the church. Now a question must be asked. Is this “entrusting” and “teaching” mostly formal or informal in presentation?
We must be careful not to impose modern thinking of a classroom approach. The example of how Paul and Timothy spent time together is the clue to answer this question. Because of rising persecution of “The Way,” many Christians had to secretly meet in homes.
It could be said that the most effective ways to disciple others is not in the classroom but in the informal and incarnational ways that we see in Scripture. A humorous way to look at the less-than-effective classroom approach to discipleship is “masses in classes produces flashes and ashes.” Paul uses the metaphors of a soldier, athlete, and farmer to describe the qualities of a leader.
Look for F.A.I.T.H. believers: people who are Faithful, Available, Interdependent, Teachable, Hungry
Source Scripture: John 1:35-51 (ESV)
Some of the common qualities among great candidates could include: faithful, available, interdependent, teachable, and hungry. A person who has the F.A.I.T.H. qualities is the type of person we want to invest in because they will probably become a spiritual soldier, athlete, and farmer in the kingdom!
This doesn’t mean the person has to be spiritually mature or that they have fully developed in any of these qualities. You are looking for evidence of these qualities, not perfection; these Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship groups are designed so a believer will be matured and equipped. It is best that those who do not know Jesus personally are not challenged to a group, but obviously we want to keep sharing the gospel with them and living it out before them.
These are the people we see in John 1, when Jesus invites the disciples to follow Him. They are not spiritually mature or fully equipped, but they are faithful, available, interdependent, teachable, and hungry. They leave what they are doing to follow Jesus and learn more about Him, and over time they grew in their spiritual maturity.
What’s next?
One helpful tool to use in the selection and challenge process is called The Journey Orientation. This is a great tool to share with the person you challenge to join your discipleship group – it makes the expectations very clear and gives them something specific to pray about.
The Journey Orientation gives an overview of Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship and covers the following topics:
- What is Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship?
- What Life-on-Life is not
- What is a disciple?
- What is spiritual maturity?
- What is The Journey curriculum?
- An overview of The Journey
- The value of being in a discipleship group
- Perspective on discipleship and grace
- One-year commitment
- Expectations and reservations
- Journey Group Member Covenant
- My Spiritual Journey
Another great resource for potential group members is this article, Should I join a discipleship group?
If you truly want to start a discipleship movement at your church, then it is important to have multiple leaders in a church all use the same process. Not only will this help the quality of the groups to be stronger, it will also provide a foundation for the reproduction of new groups.