LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Disciple Making In A Healthy Church
Submitted to Dr. Micheal Pardue, in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the completion of the course,
DSMN-500
Discipleship Ministries
By
Andrew Alber
July 17, 2022
Contents
The Body of Christ ………………………………………………………………………………. 1
Peoples Church TAHO ………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Peoples Church Assessment …………………………………………………………………….. 2
God’s Plan For Discipleship …………………………………………………………………….. 5
ii
1
The Body of Christ
All throughout the New Testament of the Bible, the collective totality of believers within
the Church is often referred to as “the body of Christ” (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians
1, 3-5, Colossians 1-3, etc.). This metaphor is used to demonstrate a variety of truths about how
the Church should function and operate. Several of these passages, like Romans 12 and 1
Corinthians 12, refer to how believers each have unique giftings and functions within the body of
Christ, all of which are valuable and needed for the proper functioning of the body. Some, like
Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1, make special note of Christ’s rightful place as the head of the
body and Lord over all. Still others discuss the unity needed in the body of Christ and its
openness to all different people, such as Ephesians 3 and 5 and Colossians 3 respectively.
When it comes to discipleship in reference to the body of Christ however, no passages
come to mind more than Ephesians 4:16 and Colossians 2:19. Each of these verses, penned by
the Apostle Paul under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit, make specific reference to
growth within the body. Ephesians 4:16 says “From whom the whole body, joined and held
together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the
body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:16 English Standard Version,
emphasis added). This is the very purpose of the body of Christ! To bring God glory by being
used by God to build up the body, also known as discipleship.
Peoples Church TAHO
Peoples Church in Pinckney, Michigan is just one of many local church bodies within the
greater body of Christ that is the Church. It is one that I, the author, am particularly fond of,
because it is where I both serve as a pastor and participate as a member. In beginning to assess a
local church and its health as an environment for discipleship, one of the tools at one’s
2
disposable is the TAHO chart, which stands for “traditional, attractional, hybrid, and organic” in
reference to the model that the church uses to accomplish ministry. While Peoples Church does
not perfectly fit into any of these individual categories alone, as most churches will not, the one
that most accurately reflects the model at Peoples Church is the hybrid model. Some of the key
characteristics of this model that line up with Peoples Church are leadership in the form of a lead
pastor with an elder team, preaching that is directed at a wide audience from mature believers to
seekers, and a heavy emphasis on service and programs. However, where Peoples Church is
actually beginning to fall slightly out of line with the hybrid model is the area of discipleship.
Under the traditional model of church, “discipleship” largely takes place as sitting in a
pew and listening to a pastor preach. Similarly, in the attractional model, discipleship mainly
happens in the form of classes and programs. Both of these models, sometimes referred to as
“university models” of church, heavily emphasize getting the right information in order to move
forward in the discipleship process. The hybrid model attempts to combine both of these
approaches, but this is where Peoples Church is beginning to fall out of line, and starting to
actually look more like the last model: organic. In the organic model, discipleship is heavily
pursued in the form of smaller groups of some kind and individual mentorship. At Peoples
Church, we are trying to move to a place where we still do equip people with sermons, classes,
and programs, but where we really emphasize groups called missional communities that are
designed to connect the body and give them opportunities to grow internally and expand
outwardly.
Peoples Church Assessment
Beyond just understanding the model that a church is using, another important factor to
consider when evaluating a church as a discipleship environment is assessing its health as a body.
3
One of the ways to assess the health of a church community is to evaluate the three rhythms of
life that Jesus demonstrated, “Up, In, and Out,” as it pertains to that individual church.1 Like
many modern churches with historical roots, Peoples Church scores very high on the “In”
category for a faith community. This is certainly not a bad thing. Loving the body well is an
important thing that people within the church should be doing. If a body of any kind is not
healthy internally, then it cannot be healthy externally either and it will not grow.2 However, one
key things to remember when considering the internal health of the body of Christ is that it does
not matter how nice its members are to one another if they fail to remain connected to the head,
and that is Christ, God himself (John 15:4-5). This is where Peoples Church begins to struggle a
little bit. While there are areas of strength within the “Up” category at Peoples Church, for many,
there is a lack of real, consistent, personal time with the Lord and individual passion for his Word
and his Spirit to take hold of every area of their lives. Ultimately, this manifests in the weakest
area of assessment for Peoples Church, the “Out” category.
The leadership at Peoples Church has actually been asking the body to willingly self-
assess different areas of spirituality over the past year. One of the key findings is that while
Peoples has a very “mature” congregation in terms of years of faith, most people within the
church have not, or have rarely, shared the Gospel with anyone in the past couple of years. This
begs the question, “why not?” Here in lies the connection between the disparity within the “Up”
category and the “Out” category. All throughout the New Testament, Paul and various other
writers describe their desperate passion to see people come to know Jesus, but no passage comes
to mind more than Romans 9:1-3, which says,
1 Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture, 3rd Edition (Pawleys Island, SC: 3DM Publishing, 2017) 67.
2 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making Is: How to Live the Great Commission with Passion
and Confidence (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2013).
4
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the
Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could
wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my
kinsmen according to the flesh.
If this ought to be the heart cry of a believer, then why do we not see more evangelism in the
church? Because we will not be passionate about other people knowing the transforming power
of the Gospel if we are not experiencing the love of that transforming power in our own lives. In
Revelation 2:4 Jesus is speaking to the church in Ephesus and he says, “But I have this against
you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” I often wonder if that is the case for
Peoples Church and many other churches, especially in the United States. Have we lost our joy
for the Gospel? Have we abandoned our first love?
So how does Peoples Church, and other churches like it, move forward in the deficit
areas of “Up” and “Out” so that people will be transformed more by the Gospel? At Peoples, we
have begun focusing significant attention and energy on personal transformation and sharing
transformation. For personal transformation, we are going back to our roots in nearly every area.
In the teaching, programs, and groups, we are focusing on individual relationship with Jesus
through time in the Word, prayer, and worship, showing people that their relationship with God
is not a Sunday morning entity, but a daily walk. This process has started with our elders, staff,
and volunteer leaders first, because you cannot ask people to do what you yourself are not doing.
In the area of sharing transformation we are both teaching on and creating opportunities for
sharing the Gospel with those around us. It is our desire to both equip and empower our church
to know why it is important to share the Gospel, how to do it, and then provide them with
opportunities and resources to do it themselves. While we still have a lot of work to do, we are
already regularly hearing stories of people beginning to experience powerful and personal
5
moments with the Lord in day-to-day life, and then sharing those experiences of transformation
with their neighbors, classmates, peers, family, friends, and even strangers.
God’s Plan For Discipleship
God, being all-powerful, all-present, and all-knowing, has an infinite number of tools at
his disposable when it comes to making disciples (Jeremiah 23:24, Matthew 19:26, 1 John 3:20).
Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of God’s goodness is that, even without need of us, God
chooses to use us for the task of sharing the beautiful, reconciling power of Christ with the
world. No passage that I have found declares this more clearly than 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 when
it says,
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.
Practically, this plays itself out in the vehicles of the local church, its leadership, and the spiritual
giftings that God has given to believers to help carry out this task. The local church itself is the
community and environment that God uses to raise up disciples, connecting them with one
another for growth and encouragement.3 Within the local church are believers of different roles
and giftings, all of whom God uses in powerful was as they learn to submit more fully to his
direction.
One of the most commonly known “roles” in the local church is that of a pastor or elder.
It is the responsibility of elders to shepherd the church, teaching and providing care and spiritual
direction (1 Peter 5:1-3), but also to help equip the “saints” (other believers) to do the work of
3 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).
6
the ministry so that the church can grow (Ephesians 4:11-13).4 As one might imagine, this is not
a role or task to set about lightly. Scripture makes it very clear that elders and those who teach
within the Church of God will one day give an account for the way that they stewarded their
roles (Hebrews 13:17), and that they will be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1). It is then
the responsibility of all the saints to work together, submitting to one another (1 Peter 5:5), for
the purpose of seeing the Kingdom of God expand! If this sounds like a daunting task, that is
because it is, but thankfully we serve a God who has equipped and gifted his people in different
and unique ways with what we often refer to as spiritual gifts. In his article “Spiritual Gifts for
Biblical Church Growth” Brian DeVries describes spiritual gifts this way,
These gifts of grace from God are to be understood as the equipping and empowerment
of the believing followers of Christ by the Holy Spirit, so that they can participate in
building up the body of Christ. Spiritual gifts are capacities of believers to express and
communicate the knowledge and power of Christ for the purpose of edifying the church
(Packer 2005:145). Every believer in the body of Christ is 'empowered by one and the
same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills' (1 Cor 12:11).5
Part of the brilliance of this understanding of spiritual gifts is that it puts the credit for them in
the rightful place, the Holy Spirit. Of all the things for human beings to stumble in pride over,
spiritual gifts really should be towards the bottom of the list. They are given by God, to us, for
his glory, and the building of his Church and his Kingdom. It is then the responsibility of all the
saints to use their gifts, both as an act of obedience, and as an act of worship (Romans 12:6-8). It
is then with both the work of the Holy Spirit and the obedience of the local church that disciples
will be made of all nations, just as Jesus himself has commanded (Matthew 28:16-20).
4 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Spiritual Formation Is… How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and
Confidence (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 32.
5 Brian A. DeVries, "Spiritual Gifts for Biblical Church Growth," Die Skriflig 50, no. 1 (2016): 2,
http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fspiritual-
gifts-biblical-church-growth%2Fdocview%2F1815404993%2Fse-2.
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Bibliography
Breen, Mike. Building a Discipling Culture, 3rd Edition. Pawleys Island, SC: 3DM Publishing,
2017.
DeVries, Brian A. "Spiritual Gifts for Biblical Church Growth." Die Skriflig 50, no. 1 (2016): 1-
10. http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com
%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fspiritual-gifts-biblical-church-growth%2Fdocview
%2F1815404993%2Fse-2.
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.
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