Creating a Culture of Discipleship in Your Church
By Rod Dreher
Rawlings School of Divinity
CLED 720: Biblical & Theological Foundations of Education
Genevieve Hamer
July 4, 2022
Creating a Culture of Discipleship in Your Church
There are three foundational considerations for us to look at.
The Conviction that Counseling Belongs in the Church
The drive for training starts with conviction. If I’m convinced I need something, I’m going to
go after it. If the people in my church are convicted that biblical counseling is meant to exist in
the church and that all of us need to participate at some level, they’re going to want to be
trained.
We recognize biblical counseling as an essential element in the ministry of any local church
that desires to be biblical. Now part of that is the Great Commission in Matthew 28.
Christ says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
So first, the biggest issue that every person faces is: Are they rightly related to the Lord?
We have to address that issue by making disciples and baptizing them. And at the same time,
we’re teaching them to follow all that has been commanded. That means that even in our
counseling ministry, we are training people to be disciple-makers.
In the Great Commission, Christ says, “Teach them all that I’ve commanded you.” That’s
part of what you need to teach those you counsel—teach them to teach others all that Christ
commanded. It’s a cycle. There’s a mandate on our lives, we are all commissioned with this
wonderful opportunity to be training disciple-makers.
My dad worked in the furniture business. He served in the Vietnam War, and when he
came back, he went right into a furniture company and he stayed with that company until he
retired. It was owned by a man who owned multiple stores on the West Coast in California. And
there was a larger East Coast company that wanted to buy his stores because they wanted to
expand to the West Coast.
But he constantly refused because he wanted to leave the business to his children. This
went on for a good number of years and his children got older and they matured, and then he
sold to that big company. He did not want to leave it to his children. His children were
not faithful, and they were not good people. And the last thing he wanted to do was leave his
company in their hands.
We have a wonderful Father who looks at us as children. And He gives us this wonderful
privilege of working in His purposes and His will, to accomplish what He wants through our lives
and in the lives of other people. Not only do we get this privilege of being called the children of
God, but we get the privilege of serving our Father in His business of making disciples. That’s a
wonderful privilege.
The Privilege of Discipleship
Part of our training our folks to counsel face-to-face is helping them grab hold of how
incredibly wonderful that privilege is. I’m here today and I’m doing what I do because in
college I got involved in ministry on campus. I had this blessed opportunity of sharing the
gospel with fellow students. I watched the gospel transform their lives, had the privilege of
discipling them, and watched the gospel continue to transform their lives. As a naive individual,
I just asked the simple question, “Can you do this for a living?”
To which they answered, “Yes, you can.” And there began the ministry in the pastorate.
Why? Well because I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend my life than being about the
business of proclaiming the gospel to other people and watching God use His Word to
transform their lives.
One of the best things we can do to train and equip our people for face-to-face ministry is
help them see that it is something that we obligated to do, but we’re obligated as a son or
daughter would be to their loving father. I want to do what my Father does. I want to be a part
of that ministry. I want the people that I’m pastoring to recognize the joy that comes with
ministering His word to the issues of people’s lives.
We recognize that this is expectation of the church in other places within Scripture as well.
In Romans 15:14, Paul says he’s confident that the church is able to admonish one another. And
according to Galatians 6:1, what do we need when we’re in caught in trespasses and sin? I need
a spiritual person. I need a fellow believer. I’m dependent as a child of God within the body of
Christ. I’m dependent that if I’m caught in a trespass, you are the ones who would be
responsible for coming along and restoring me.
And as such we recognize also that we are responsible for coming alongside
brothers and sisters who are caught in trespasses.
In Colossians 1:28, who are we proclaiming? We’re proclaiming Christ. What are we doing?
We’re admonishing, we’re teaching, and we’re warning for the purpose of maturing,
completing, and perfecting people in Christ.
Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” And that’s a plural “you.”
In the South we would translate it, “Let the word of Christ dwell within all you all.” It goes on,
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
A dear brother who is a missionary in Thailand bought me a bag of coffee from Thailand.
That coffee is sitting in my car right now. And when I open my car door later, there’s going to be
this wonderful aroma because coffee richly dwells in my car right now.
When people come to our church, is there admonishment? Is there teaching in all wisdom?
Is there the singing of hymns and songs and spiritual songs all to the praise and exaltation of
the Lord because the Word of God dwells richly in this place?
Your church is already a counseling ministry. The question is not: Are our people offering
counsel to their fellow believers? Everyone counsels. But there are several questions we should
ask of the counsel our church members are giving one another.
Is the counsel focused on the right goal? That goal is the progressive sanctification of the
believer for the glory of God.
Is the counsel biblical? Our counsel is only as good as it is biblical. Does it originate in the
Bible?
Is the counsel heart-focused? In other words, does it eschew the goal of merely solving
problems and address the idolatry of the inner man?
A biblical counseling ministry is not something more for the church to do. Rather, it is
something the church should already be doing. And we must have that conviction and
mindset.
Leaders Equipping the Church
Next we’ll look at Ephesians 4. The theology of God’s work of salvation that we see in
chapters 1-3 of Ephesians leads to chapter 4 where Paul says that we should walk in a manner
that’s worthy of our calling in Christ.
The word “worthy” means axiom. In mathematics, the terms axiom is used when one side
of the equation equals the other side of the equation. Paul has spent a good deal of time
emphasizing how amazing this calling is, so that he could turn and say: Now, let our lives
emulate and reflect the worthiness of that calling. Let our lives equal the value of that calling.
In Ephesians 4:11, he says, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets,
some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work
of ministry.”
And what does it mean for the leaders of the church to equip the believers? It means to
sufficiently supply someone with everything they need to do the task before them.
What is he training them to do? The work of the ministry. Now this is the point where
many of us look at the “work of the ministry” and then we put our heads up in the air, we put
our hands on our chin, and we start thinking, “What are the works of the ministry?”
Most of the times when we’re thinking that, the answer is in the text. And true enough, it is
here. What are the works of the ministry?
Verse 13 says, “for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine.”
We know the works of the ministry are purposed for building up the body of Christ. And
they’re connected to helping believers grow in discernment and maturity in the way of thinking,
maturity in the way of living. So that we’re not gullible, simple-minded, being tossed to
and fro by everything that is said.
Rather we need discernment, maturity of thought, and maturity in our behavior that is
connected to our theology.
And then Paul continues in verse 15, “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all
things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together
by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its
share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
What is the most fundamental, essential work of ministry? Speak the truth in an attitude
and a heart of love, because I care more about the effect of what I’m saying on you, than I care
about the effect of what I’m saying on me.
Speaking the truth in love is speaking God’s truth for the intended purpose of loving
someone so that they are not gullible, not tossed to and fro, but rather they’re strengthened in
discernment. They know how to navigate the different issues that they face in life.
This is what we want to see happen in our church. When each part is working properly, it
makes the body grow so that it builds itself in love.
There’s a mutual relationship between all the people within the church. There’s a mandate
here: The way the church operates is that the people of the church are speaking the truth to
one another in love. As we’re doing that, the body grows.
Ultimately church growth is not so much numeric, as much as it is growing up into maturity
of thought and behavior.
That’s the vision that we want to have for our church.
Ministering God’s Word
A vision that I would often cast to the church was: I want you to know how to minister to a
non-believer, a new believer, a believer facing problems.
Can you open up your copy of God’s Word and explain the gospel message to a non-
believer? I was very clear with my ushers at church to say, “If anyone comes to you asking any
questions about the gospel, do not bring them to me. You take them, open your copy of God’s
Word and explain the gospel to them.” And for those who resisted, saying “I don’t know how to
do it.” My response was, “Great. We have a class next week. Let’s learn how to do it together.”
Part of training and equipping our people for face-to-face ministry is also helping them see
the responsibility they have to minister.
I had the wonderful privilege of serving for a while as the pastor of a church in Southern
California. While I was there, we equipped a number of people in counseling training. I got to
come back a couple years later to preach on a Sunday morning. A person who was visiting that
church came up to me after service to begin talking to me about these issues she was facing.
Obviously, I’m a visiting pastor, so I’m not going to be able to meet with her. And a wonderful,
godly lady came up to greet me, who had gone through all the training we done. And I
introduced the two of them. Now they meet for counseling. That’s what I want to see.
My son is a marine. What do they say about Marines? Every Marine is a rifleman. Every
member of my church is a swordsman. I want them to know how to make use of their copy of
God’s Word and apply that to the non-believer explain the gospel.
Can they open up their copy of God’s Word and explain the fundamentals of what it means
to be a follower of Christ?
And we also know that believers are going to have problems. If a believer is facing
problems, do you know how to help them from God’s Word? It can be a sin issue. It can also be
a seasonal issue where a believer feels like, “I’m going and embarking onto a new season of life
and I’m not sure how to navigate that. Can you help me?” Because in biblical counseling we’re
talking about discipleship for a lifetime as the body of Christ works together.
One of the things I ask of pastors is, “What do you do to equip your church?”
I teach biblical counseling at Boyce College, and I tell students who are looking for churches
that when they are interviewing churches, ask the leaders:
“What do you do to equip me for the works of ministry?”
“What do you do to equip me to speak the truth in love?”
Every church you visit where you have an opportunity to talk to them, ask that question.
Because that’s something that, to a certain extent, every person in our church should expect.
