LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Disciple Making Plan
Submitted to Dr. Micheal Pardue, in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the completion of the course,
DSMN-500
Discipleship Ministries
By
Andrew Alber
August 7, 2022
Contents
Discipleship Passages …………………………………………………………………………… 1
Discipleship Principles …………………………………………………………………………... 4
Discipleship Philosophy ………………………………………………………………………… 6
Discipleship Practices …………………………………………………………………………… 8
Discipleship Proof ……………………………………………………………………………… 10
ii
1
Discipleship Passages
One of my favorite Bible verses is James 1:17, which says that, “Every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no
variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17 English Standard Version). Discipleship is a
good thing, a great thing even, and in making a discipleship plan of any kind I am strongly of the
mind that the first thing to remember is that it is not about me, or even about us. Discipleship is
first and foremost about God himself and what he will do in the hearts and minds of people. Yes,
we can be a significant part of that process, God has called us to be (Matthew 28:19-20), but
when it comes down to it, no amount of planning and scheming can make people become
disciples, that is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23, 2 Thessalonians
2:13).
There are six specific passages in three distinct sections that stand out to me as I consider
building a plan for discipleship. Each section contains two passages, the first two passages being
Jesus’ own declarations on how to grow as his disciple (John 15) and how the world will know
that we are his disciples (John 13). It is incredibly important that we begin right here, with the
words of Jesus himself specifying his methods and goals. In John 15:5 specifically, Jesus says, “I
am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5, emphasis added). In just two sentences
Jesus defines the only way to be a disciple and be fruitful in making other disciples: to abide or
“remain” in him. In verse eight, he goes on to explain that this is how God is glorified, and as
Jim Putman, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman describe, without this spiritual fruit
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there is no evidence of true spiritual formation either.1 Outside of the person and work of Jesus
Christ, we are incapable of saving others, or even ourselves. It is God and God alone who saves.
That said, our actions and attitudes will have an effect on the world, and that brings us to
John 13:34-35. Jesus is again teaching and he states, “A new commandment I give to you, that
you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all
people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35,
emphasis added). The way that the body of Christ treats one another will not go unnoticed by the
world. I, personally, am so tired of hearing some version of, “I like Jesus, but there is so much
hurt and hypocrisy in the church. I just don’t know if I’m interested in that.” Yes, there are those
who will find anything wrong, but there are also a lot of people who have been genuinely
disparaged by “God’s people” and as a result have a bitter taste in their mouth towards faith. If
we want to be effective at going out and making disciples, then it has to start right at home, with
a healthy Church.
The next section of passages has to do with just that, and it includes Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
and Proverbs 27:17. Ecclesiastes, believed by some to have been written by the wisest man to
ever live, King Solomon, but who’s true authorship remains somewhat a mystery, speaks to the
necessity of partnership in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.2
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall,
one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another
to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm
alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him
—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
1 Jim Putman, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman, DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your
Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013).
2 John Walton, “Who Wrote Ecclesiastes and What Does It Mean?,” Zondervan Academic, October 21,
2017, https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/who-wrote-ecclesiastes-and-what-does-it-mean.
3
Discipleship, and faith as a whole, is not a journey that we are meant to walk alone. Just as we
must remain in Christ, holding fast to him as the source of all things, we must also cling to one
another, holding each other up and encouraging one another, especially when we fall. When
someone is doing well, they may not even seem like they need support, but the truth is we always
need it. However, it is when we make mistakes that we need to be encouraged most and lovingly
corrected, rather than torn down further. Proverbs, a book most famous for its wisdom literature,
says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17). These are incredibly
wise words! When we are operating as God has intended, we help each other to grow and be
strengthened in our faith. This is not always an easy process, iron sharpening iron can be quite
rough, but when it is approached with truth and grace it is incredibly beneficial for us. So now
that we know that discipleship starts with Christ, that the way we act as disciples will impact the
world, and that we need one another as we pursue our discipleship journey, where do we go from
here?
In this last section of passages, I am first reminded of our call to mission. While many
people may point to the Great Commission, and rightly so, I am drawn more specifically to 2
Corinthians 5:18-20. In this passage, the apostle Paul writes,
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not
counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore
you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
What a gift from God himself that he would use broken and imperfect vessels like us to share the
blessing and hope of reconciliation with God to the world. It is here that we see that discipleship
is our responsibility, again, not of our own power or goodness, but as a calling and gift from God
himself. Lastly, it is important to recognize what our specific calling looks like for discipleship,
and for me that comes out of 1 Timothy 4:12 for two reasons. Paul wrote 1 Timothy as a letter to
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a young church leader named Timothy, and in 1 Timothy 4:12 he says, “Let no one despise you
for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”
First, this impacts how I view my own leadership as a young pastor. It is not license to demand
respect, but a challenge to set an example, despite my youth, for what faith can and should look
like. It is also a reminder of my specific target audience, young people, and their incredible value
and capacity to be used by God, not just as participants in the church, but as leaders. This is my
focus, to see the next generation of middle schoolers, high schoolers, and young adults at Peoples
Church and in the Pinckney community be discipled, equipped, and empowered to be change
agents for the Kingdom of God.
Discipleship Principles
In my ministry, I have three core values. First, everyone matters to God. In John 3:16,
arguably the most famous Bible verse of all time, Jesus asserts that it was God’s love for the
whole world that drove him to put into action the salvation plan for mankind. This reveals God’s
heart towards us, spoken by God himself in the person of Jesus. The apostle Peter in Acts 10:34
declares that “God shows no partiality” and in 2 Peter 3:9 he reminds us that it is God’s desire
that “all should reach repentance” rather than seeing us perish to eternity without him. I love that
God used Peter in particular to make these big statements, because Peter himself struggled to
love many people outside of the Jews. If Peter can learn to recognize how important all people
are to God, then we can too. Subsequently, if everyone matters to God, then we do not get to pick
and choose who matters to us either, especially when it comes to discipleship. No one is too
annoying, not cool enough, or too broken to be worthy of our time, energy, and love. Instead,
each and every person we come across is a valuable and loved child of God.
5
My second ministry principle is this, that God’s plan is the best plan. There are numerous
passages throughout Scripture that state very definitively that God’s way is the best. He knows
the big picture in a way that we cannot even comprehend and his wisdom is literally infinite. In
fact, in Psalm 18:30 God’s way is described as perfect, but even more exciting than that is that in
Proverbs 3:5-6 we are promised that if we trust the Lord and give him control of our lives that he
will “make straight” our paths. Not only is God’s plan best, but he offers to guide us in it. It is a
good thing too, because Jesus himself makes clear in John 14:6 that not only is God’s plan the
best plan, but when it comes to matters of eternal salvation, his plan is truly the only plan. I often
say that we can make all the plans in the world and have all the most clever ideas, but if we are
not doing things God’s way, and moving according to his Word, then we are doomed to fail in the
end.
The last of my three core values in ministry is that one day, we are going Home. It is an
odd one I will admit, but it probably guides both my ministry and my life more than anything
else. I consider Philippians 1:21-26 to be my “life verses” in many ways. When Jesus rescued me
out of harrowing addiction, violence, and abuse at age fifteen, verse 21 stuck out to me right
away, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21). Because of what my life
had looked like before Christ, I took these verses quite literally. For me, I was only alive because
of Christ, and my only remaining purpose for living was Christ as well. To die now meant going
Home to be with my Father in heaven, away from all the pain and ugliness of this world, and that
really is a gain. However, Paul goes on to explain in the rest of this passage that he recognizes
his purpose in this world, and for that reason must remain set in the task before him until he is
called Home in God’s timing. This resonates with me deeply because it is both an
acknowledgment of the pain and hardship of this world, but also a call to action and a declaration
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of hope. It is this hope that we cling to as believers, and it gives us the strength to carry on.
Furthermore, I believe that God honors this recognition that this world is not our home and that
our hope is in better things to come. Hebrews 11:13-16 eludes to this incredibly poetically when
it says,
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and
greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on
the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If
they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had
opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Wow, what a privilege to have to God of the universe say that he is not ashamed to be your God!
In addition to these things, God promises that one day he will wipe away every tear from our
eyes and that there will be no more mourning, pain, or death (Revelation 21:3-7). These all come
together to offer us a deep and meaningful hope that gives us the strength and courage to
continue on in our mission of discipleship against any and all obstacles we face.
Discipleship Philosophy
The way that we communicate and the definitions that we use within a ministry have a
big impact on the way that a team can function together, or as Dr. Rod Dempsey puts it,
“Language defines culture.”3 Beyond that, within a church or ministry setting, our definitions
need to not just be clear, but grounded in God’s Word.4 A few months ago my Lead Pastor and I,
along with our Discipleship Director, sat down to discuss some of the key terms used at Peoples
Church and what they meant practically for anyone who might be listening. Some of the terms
that we set about defining included, up, in, and out, missions, outreach, and service, and
3 Rod Dempsey, “Putting Together a Disciple Making Ministry Plan” (instructional video), directed by
Liberty University, August 7, 2022, 3:30,
https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/preview/partner_id/2167581/uiconf_id/39959791/entry_id/1_ryo
24tnc/embed/dynamic#t=3:30.
4 Jim Putman, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman, DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your
Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013).
7
missional communities, spiritual parents, and 4:12 Groups. We defined up, in, and out much in
the way that Mike Breen defines them in his book Building A Discipling Culture where he says
that, “Our Up relationship with Jesus is how we abide in him.”5 This hints back to one of my key
discipleship passages, John 15, where Jesus himself describes our absolute need for a healthy
abiding in him. Now while this definition from Mike Breen is a fine one, we took it upon
ourselves to rework the definitions for these three terms to fit what we needed within our
context. To that end “up” is defined at Peoples Church as simply our relationship with God, “in”
is defined as our relationships with other believers, and “out” is defined as our relationships with
non-believers.
Our desire to clearly define missions, outreach, and service largely came out of a desire to
clarify our goals as well. Most churches talk about these three things in one way or another, but
often they overlap in ways that can lead to confusion. In the end, we clarified that at Peoples
Church missions is when we go or send others to another place that our church does not regularly
reach to further God’s Kingdom. For reference, we view this as “Judea and Samaria, and to the
end of the earth” as stated in Acts 1:8. Outreach, on the other hand, is our efforts to build
relationships and reach people with the Gospel in our “Jerusalem,” the community right around
us. Lastly, service is anything that we do to simply be the hands and feet of Jesus. It does not
have to included intentional Gospel conversations necessarily, but is simply how we show the
Gospel to our community and the world by the way that we serve them in tangible ways.
Our final three terms, missional communities, spiritual parents, and 4:12 Groups, are
somewhat specific to Peoples Church and deal directly with how we do discipleship. For us,
missional communities are what many churches would refer to as small groups or life groups, but
at Peoples Church they have a twist. It is our desire to see the “small groups” aspect of our
5 Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture, 3rd Edition (Pawleys Island, SC: 3DM Publishing, 2017) 93.
8
church be not just about community, or even transformation, but being on mission together. So
our missional communities are defined as a small group of believers that meet together regularly
to pursue genuine community, spiritual transformation, and a unified mission, together. Out of
that, our missional community leaders are what we refer to as spiritual parents, usually consisting
of two couples that are working together to gather, equip, and empower those within their
missional community to pursue the threefold goals of missional communities. Lastly, our 4:12
Groups refer to Ephesians 4:12 which says, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for
building up the body of Christ.” These groups are designed to do just that. They are a regular
times set aside for spiritual parents within Peoples Church to come together to be equipped for
the work of the ministry. I am thankful that our team took the time to come up with these
definitions, because without these unified discipleship definitions, we would have no basis to go
about creating a full plan or process for making disciples.6
Discipleship Practices
When it comes to deriving practical methods for discipling others, I believe that the early
church is a good place to start. What did they do? Well we see in Acts 2:42-47 that they studied
the Word of God, they participated in genuine fellowship, they prayed bold and honest prayers,
they praised and worshiped the Lord, and they loved the world around them with the Good
News. It really is that simple. How we implement those things in different and unique
communities is where our specific challenge begins. At Peoples Church, we have some fairly
traditional elements to our structure of discipleship. We study the Word, worship, and pray
together through Sunday morning services, Bible studies, and affinity-based gatherings like
youth group, AWANA, and Celebrate Recovery. We participate in genuine fellowship through
6 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making Is: How to Live the Great Commission with Passion
and Confidence (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2013).
9
some of these things as well, but we really get down into the heart of things in our missional
communities, where we also intentionally love the world around us as well.
In my specific area of focus and responsibility, which is our NexGen ministries, my year-
round plan includes three things: reaching experiences, deepening experiences, and our regular
student nights which includes elements of both alongside group discipleship. Reaching
experiences are events designed to be accessible to students that are unchurched and would
otherwise be uninterested in darkening our doors. They might look like all-nighters, hangouts,
and outreach events of some kind. Deepening experiences fall on the other side of the equation,
designed to give bought-in students the opportunity to focus solely on their spiritual growth.
These are things like prayer and worship nights, mission trips, and focused Bible studies. Lastly,
our regular student nights combine elements of fun and faith, alongside small groups of students
that meet together with qualified adult leaders for deeper conversations and community.
As the pastor overseeing our NexGen ministries as a whole, I see my primary focus
beyond even directly discipling students, as discipling our adult leaders, equipping them to
disciple the students in their group. This looks like weekly prayer and fellowship meetings before
our student nights, monthly trainings during the school year where we strengthen our Biblical
foundation and leadership skills, and an annual leader retreat where we do a deep dive into
community and faith to better ourselves as leaders and as a team. All these things combined are
designed to help us walk together in life and ministry as Jesus did with his disciples, learning to
disciple others as he did.
Discipleship Proof
During my last job search, I was asked by a headhunter what kind of numerical growth I
had experienced in the ministries that I had been a part of leading. His reasoning made me laugh,
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but was incredibly valid. In summary, he said that most people who say it is not about numbers
do not have very good numbers. The reality is that growth matters. As author and speaker
Christine Caine puts it, “Healthy things grow.”7 However, how to effectively track real spiritual
growth as opposed to just “butts in seats” can be a real challenge. At Peoples Church, it is our
desire to track this spiritual progress as closely to how Jesus himself does as possible. Now this
can be tricky, as 1 Corinthians 2:11 tells us that we cannot know the true thoughts of others. Only
God knows all things. However, Jesus does say that we will know people by their fruit, so we
have a few metrics at Peoples to try to understand what our “fruit” looks like, and it is these
metrics that I will be using to track growth for my discipleship plan as well.
First, I believe that most important metric that we can have is decisions made by people
to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior for the first time. While the authenticity of these
decisions is ultimately between God and that individual, these public declarations and decisions
of faith can do a lot to show us if we are being effective in preaching the Gospel and discipling
the lost. A lot of churches grow by way of “shuffling the deck,” just bouncing people between
different churches as a matter of preference, but we want real growth. We want Kingdom growth.
Along this same vein is how many people are publicly declaring their faith by being obedient in
being baptized. This is not just an option, but something that Jesus has commanded us to do, and
so we can confidently measure this as an easy standard of obedience. True obedience and true
belief cannot be fully separated.8 So while we cannot entirely measure someone’s belief, our next
best option is to identify their fruit through their obedience.
7 Christine Caine, “Author Quotes,” AZ Quotes, August 7, 2022,
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1605274.
8 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship: PART ONE: CHAPTER TWO: THE CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP, ed.
John D. Godsey, Geffrey B. Kelly, and Martin Kuske (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003).
11
Beyond these two fairly standard statistics are things that can be seen as largely
subjective, but are an attempt to measure spiritual maturity. Some key factors I will look at
include how often the people that I am discipling are spending genuine alone time with God in
Scripture, prayer, and worship, how often they seek out opportunities to share their faith with
people that do not know Jesus, and how willing they are to give sacrificially of their time,
energy, and resources to see God’s Kingdom expand. Now every person is going to be unique in
the way that their specific relationship with the Lord plays out, but overall I believe that these
things are a good basic understanding for if a person in growing in their faith. Lastly, I will look
at how people that I am discipling handle conflict and correction, specifically with other
believers. Part of the reason why this is so important is because I believe that this is a key
identifier of one of the most vital marks of a believer: humility. In Philippians 2, Paul urges the
Philippian church to be like Christ by following his example of humility,
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in
the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being
found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
This is our goal. This is our standard. If we want to be like Christ, then we absolutely must learn
to humble ourselves and love each other well. Just like Jesus says in John 13, “By this all people
will know that you are my disciples,” (John 13:35a).
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Bibliography
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Discipleship: PART ONE: CHAPTER TWO: THE CALL TO
DISCIPLESHIP. Edited by John D. Godsey, Geffrey B. Kelly, and Martin Kuske.
Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003.
Breen, Mike. Building a Discipling Culture, 3rd Edition. Pawleys Island, SC: 3DM Publishing,
2017.
Caine, Christine. “Author Quotes.” AZ Quotes, Last modified August 7, 2022.
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1605274.
Dempsey, Rod. “Putting Together a Disciple Making Ministry Plan” (instructional video).
Directed by Liberty University. August 7, 2022.
https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/preview/partner_id/2167581/uiconf_id
/39959791/entry_id/1_ryo24tnc/embed/dynamic#t=3:30.
Earley, Dave and Rod Dempsey. Disciple Making Is: How to Live the Great Commission with
Passion and Confidence. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2013.
Earley, Dave and Rod Dempsey. Spiritual Formation Is: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and
Confidence. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018.
Putman, Jim, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman. DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help
Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2013.
Walton, John. “Who Wrote Ecclesiastes and What Does It Mean?.” Zondervan Academic, Last
modified October 21, 2017 https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/who-wrote-ecclesiastes-
and-what-does-it-mean.
