LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Disciple-Making in the Local Church
Submitted to Dr. Anderson,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
DSMN 500
Discipleship Ministries
by
Christian Wilson
November 14, 2019
Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................1
How Disciples are Made in the Local Church and Christian Community...........................1-5
Overview of the Body of Christ.................................................................................................5-6
Analysis of Current Church Structure Based on TAHO Chart.............................................6-7
Current Church Assessment of Health.....................................................................................7-8
Role of and Importance of the Body of Christ and His Parts...............................................9-10
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................11
ii
Introduction
This paper seeks to give an overview of the modern-day church in contrast to its original
purpose and vision. This will be done through the careful analysis of what the spiritual growth of
the twenty-first century church member looks like, as well as the writer’s personal examples of
church model and development. Each piece of this work will clarify why believers should be
plugged into the local church, how to be developed by the local church, and what is the end goal
of the church.
How Disciples are Made in the Local Church and Christian Community
In order to explain the local church, a recap of who is a disciple is needed. In order to
start on the life long process of becoming a disciple someone must decide to leave their old way
of life and follow Jesus. When someone does this they are considered a convert to the faith,
meaning, a person is moving one direction, becomes convicted of sin, turns the other direction,
and comes to Christ.1 This is not a choice made so that we can have the easy life, rather Jesus
says, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will
find it.” (Matt. 28:19 [NIV]).2 Meaning, whoever seeks to live their life for themselves will lose
the purpose of their life, but those who would live for Jesus would find purpose and fulfillment.
This is an act of obedience, surrender, and faith.
This is what it takes to be considered a disciple, a believer, and a person of great faith.
The question remains, “How are disciples made in the context of the local Church and Christian
community?” To begin, a key role of the local church is to raise up Great Commission
Worshippers. These are people who are “so much in love with Jesus, so committed to worship of
1 [Jim Putman (2019). (p. 44). DiscipleShift (Wordsearch Version): Five Steps That Help Your
Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. Retrieved from
https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
2 Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced are in New International Version
1
Jesus, and so devoted to being obedient to every command of Jesus that he simply cannot
restrain himself from telling others about his incredible relationship with the Son of God.”3
These zealous believers when cultivated together are supposed to make up the local church,
which in turn, helps to make up a part in the body of Christ. The local church ensures the
creation of these zealous Christians by taking care of them mentally, physically, and spiritually.
The book Disciple Making Is… describes the believer as being an active part of the body of
Christ. Therefore, if one member of the body is not preforming well or is not being used
properly, bad things could happen. An example of something bad would be, a person becoming
stagnant in their faith, or worse someone who turns to disbelief. Everyone wants their body to
work properly. To ensure the proper exercise for the believer the church must provide the pure
gospel, encourage all to seek community, teach the congregation the command to serve, and to
show them that Godly fruit reproduces itself. When a church body is able to facilitate these
exercises in their congregation they are better equipped to produce disciples.
Another key role the local church plays is by leading with God ordained leadership. This
leadership team grows their local church by equipping “his people for works of service, so that
the body of Christ may be built up” (Eph. 4:12). This is disciple making in basic form. This team
of pastors, teachers, and elders are responsible for developing a system and process that guides
first time visitors as well as the routinely attending congregation member.
The leadership team must then demonstrate servanthood evangelism. This is best
described by David Wheeler in his book, Servanthood Evangelism Manual.
Servanthood evangelism involves intentionally sharing Christ by modeling biblical
servanthood. It is the simplest, most transferable, and yes, most fun approach for moving
3 [David Wheeler and Vernon M. Whaley (2012). The Great Commission to Worship. B&H
Publishing Group. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
2
believer’s closer to a biblical lifestyle marked by consistent witnessing. With all that said,
Servanthood Evangelism is also the most biblical approach, as it is Christ who first
exemplified this lifestyle of reaching out to an unsaved world. 4
When done effectively, a leadership team that demonstrates servanthood evangelism to a first-
time visitor, or regular attendee, will successfully develop a disciple. But, this definition is not
meant to be simply delivered from a stage and expected to be followed. That would not create a
disciple.
This is a process led by the way the leadership follows this through in their personal and
private life. Discipleship must be a one on one process from the leadership team to their support
teams, to the volunteer teams to the attendees. This is the most valuable part that the local church
must adopt in order to produce reproducing disciples. Paul, when writing to Timothy suggests
that, “so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you
not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (1 Thess. 2:8). This was to encourage Timothy
and other believers connected to the church body. It was important to not only share the gospel as
a leader in the church, but to also share their lives as well. This helps clarify that it takes more
than a leader at church communicating truth of the gospel, the leader has to actually live it out
with the people. This is how to create disciples in the local church. The writer’s church has a
simple saying to communicate the local church’s job in believer’s lives: “Everybody’s Welcome,
Nobody’s Perfect, Through Jesus Anything Is Possible.”
The role that the Christian community plays into making a disciple is huge. This role is
creating sticky faith. Sticky faith is a concept we can view in the early church. This is where the
verse, “so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with
4 [David Wheeler (2018). (p. 1). Servanthood Evangelism Manual. Retrieved from
https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
3
you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (1 Thess. 2:8), comes into play once again.
This may have been a strategic move from the leadership in the early church, but it was also a
strategic move for the community to adopt with fervor. More people in their community would
come to know Christ, if they simply did life with one another. The local church was the
ambassador of Christ and His way. Modern day church plays more of a consumer role.
Strategically churches are attempting to use small groups, grow groups, growth tack, and many
other community based settings in order to create true disciples. This should reveal the power the
Christian community has in making disciples and keeping disciples.
As stated above a disciple is someone who obeys God, has surrendered to God, and has
faith in God. The mark of a disciple can be found for their desire for community. The desire is
best described by Jim Putnam, in his book Discipleshift: Five Steps That Help Your Church To
Make Disciples Who Make Disicples, when he states “A disciple is a person who is doing life
with others. He has made all he has available to others in the sphere of relationships. He is
focused on working together in a small group to serve some need in the community. He wants to
right a wrong in the culture in the name of Jesus.” 5 Disciples care for the needs of others in the
community and is not content with the people they do life with not knowing the good news of
salvation.
The Christian community is responsible for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore,
they should be the biggest engine of disciple making. This is not just the non-profit corporate
building’s job, but it is the individual believer’s responsibility to spread Christ to all nations. The
proof of this is the verse recorded in the gospel account of Matthew, “Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
5 [Jim Putman (2019). (p. 43). DiscipleShift (Wordsearch Version): Five Steps That Help Your
Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. Retrieved from
https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
4
Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with
you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20). When broken down, disciples should
create disciples. Disciples should be made organically and not forced. There should be no bait
and switch tactics used by believers, because they should not have to convince anyone of
anything. A believer in the community need only to share their faith story. This accompanied by
a pure picture of the gospel will illuminate the darkest and hardest hearts. Dave Earley says it
like this, “People need enough information about Jesus to believe in him and commit their lives
to him. Salvation is the result of believing certain truths.” 6 This is how the Christian community
plays the largest role in developing disciples.
Overview of the Body of Christ
The body of Christ is a string of terms often used and pulled from first Corinthians
chapter twelve. The verse says, “There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts
make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so,
we are formed into one body” (1Cor. 12:12-13). This was told so that disciples would understand
that although everyone on Earth has been created uniquely, we are unified under the uniformity
that is Christ. Believers exist in spirit under His authority. This means that as many believers
they all make up one body, as stated above. Their gifts and abilities were given in order to unite
the body of Christ for the great commission.
Further proof of this comes from the scripture in Romans, “so in Christ we, though many,
form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to
the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your
6 [Rod Dempsey (2018). (p. 222). Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion
and Confidence. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
5
faith” (Rom. 12:5-6). A part of discipleship is to get all believers to see that their faith, their
abilities, and their inabilities are what make up the body of Christ. Again, since everyone has
been gifted differently no one is exactly the same, which allows for the body of Christ to be
diversified in order to be all things to all people (1 Cor. 9:22). This is the make-up of the body of
Christ.
Analysis of Current Church Structure Based on TAHO Chart
The current structure of the church I serve in would fall under the Attractional Model on
the TAHO Chart provided. Our church dichotomy would meet each criteria of the Attractional
Model, except for one. That one is that we are led by an elder board and not by one single elder.
We have an Elder President, but we have ten other men on the board who give our Senior Pastor
oversight. Other than this we meet all other twenty-four guide lines.
We have your basic “seeker friendly” branding, “Everyone’s Welcome, Nobody’s Perfect,
Through Jesus Anything is Possible.” As well as, our systems and structures are designed to
build up Sunday, leaders, and the name of Jesus. The language the authors use to describe the
amount of new people we see and the need for them to understand our church’s culture is best
written in these words, “Due to this rapid, and often sustained, influx of new people, the church
sponsors routine “membership” classes.” 7 We are currently attempting to move our levels of
engagement of saints from consumer, to contributor. We fully understand that since we are seeker
friendly we are highly challenged to move all our seekers on in their faith towards deeper levels
of spiritual maturity.
To continue, our Church is designed off of the multisite model. We attempt to reach
multiple communities in central Florida for the cause of Christ. Our budgets to maintain these
7 [Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey (2013). (p. 231). Disciple Making Is . . .. B&H Publishing
Group. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
6
campuses have to maintain simplicity, because we only have certain budget line items to spend.
This multisite model enables us to lean on developing leadership pipelines to get our
congregation members into serving. This Attractional Model is not perfect, but in this day and
age of community I believe that this is working in order to reach the local community.
Current Church Assessment of Health
When comparing my current church to the assessment and giving it a grade I scored us at
a 3.45. This is not a score we would be proud of or content with. When pulling the questions
from the reading the following were our results. Our overall score was a 69. This was the total of
our assessment on a scale of one to five on each of the twenty questions.
When diagnosing our lowest score, I identified that we scored one, “one.” This was on
question eleven where it says, “Where a majority of the saints are using their gifts “properly”
(according to God’s design).”8 I gave us this score, because at the time of my hire our church
had recruited volunteers and saints by a needs basis. This is an inappropriate use of disciple’s
gifts and abilities. We as a church should want more FOR people than FROM people. We should
have asked people to serve based on their gifting not their availability. In order to recover from
this mistake, we have implemented a spiritual gifts test (as of the last week) to help our disciples
serving understand their abilities more clearly. My suggestion to help this score go up is to
continue to “right” the “wrong” reaction based recruiting mentality for our future ministry. If our
goal is to make sure each disciple knows they have access to at least one spiritual gift, as proven
in scripture “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good,”
then we must help people unveil what God designed in them to do in their life (1 Cor. 12:7).
8 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey (2013). (p. 215). Disciple Making Is . . .. B&H Publishing
Group. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
7
When looking at what needs the most attention in our church, I believe we must focus on
making sure we never again use people for what they can do for us. This is the most important
thing for the disciples we shepherd, because they need to receive from their church body the true
ask of what it means to be a disciple. That call is, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down
one's life for one's friends” (John. 15:13). This call asks all disciples to lay their life down for the
one. But, we will short change this call if we ask of our disciples and attendees only to serve with
part of their life and part of their heart. If we are the church body then we must allow all of its
parts and people to be allowed the freedom to exercise. Our plan to increase the health of this
area is to make sure we lead each potential volunteer through their spiritual gifts tests in order to
see where God has given them talents and strong personality traits.
When diagnosing our highest score, I see we excel in a number of these assessment
questions, but have to say our biggest strength is “Where new churches are being planted as a
result of effective discipleship and effective leadership development.”9 I graded us as achieving a
five on this question. Our church does an incredible job of making sure we have the margin in
our ministry to plant campuses and support our partner churches. This is done through excellent
leadership provided from our Executive Pastor team. I believe that this only gets better by
bringing on more leaders. My suggestion is that if we invite more leaders onto our church staff in
order to build more margin so that we can continue to encourage our congregation, our
community, and our leadership team under us. By doing the following we will be able to increase
our church’s overall capacity to love the community.
Role of and Importance of the Body of Christ and His Parts
9 [Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey (2013). (p. 217). Disciple Making Is . . .. B&H Publishing
Group. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
8
The role and importance of the body of Christ is to do one thing prophesied in Isaiah,
“everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made"
(Isa. 43:7). The church body and all of its parts are designed to bring God glory. This starts from
the broadest levels down to the most specific.
The role of the local church is stated in Matthew, “You are the light of the world. A town
built on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matt. 5:14). The local church plays the role in shining the light
of Christ into every community. The importance that has for everyone inside of the church and
outside is to show that, “Christians are to love our neighbors. To do so, we must display the
gospel. But we must also declare it.”10 Christians that gather in a church home must then go out
and declare the gospel. Therefore, the local church is essentially a hub for understanding and
growing in evangelism.
When we look closer we see that the leadership inside of the church plays a pivotal role
in guiding the local church. We see in the book of Titus, “The reason I left you in Crete was that
you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed
you” (Titus 1:5). This shows that the leadership in the church matters. Where those elders led the
church is where it ended up. Where pastors in the United States lead their churches,
congregations will follow. These men and women have a responsibility to lead well. Those that
are selected or called are to raise up other leaders with the truth of Christ and are responsible to
then set them to flourish. The importance of this role is the reproducing system of discipleship
lead by modern day pastors as the main leadership engine.
Evaluating even closer we find the saints or disciples in this body of Christ. The
importance of this group cannot be overstated. When this group of people understand the
10 [Rod Dempsey (2018). (p. 218). Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion
and Confidence. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
9
spiritual gifting that God has placed in them they are an unstoppable force. When believers find
fellowship, God moves. An example of this is found in Acts 2:42-47
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs
performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in
common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day
they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes
and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all
the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
The role that believers can play is based on their level of commitment and surrender to God.
Believers that live out this level of devotion to God are able to reproduce many disciples because
they are overflowing with the Spirit of God. Again, this group of people is who Christ died for.
He did so, knowing that it was better for the world and its people to become the change they
wanted to see. Christ gave His people the power to partner with the Kingdom of God in
discipleship. Therefore, all disciples should be someone’s disciple and seek to disciple. This
advances the kingdom. This equips the saints to plow the harvest field. This allows for Pastors to
move on and develop more leaders for the Kingdom. All of this is to bring glory to God.
Bibliography
10
Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey (2013). (p. 217). Disciple Making Is . . .. B&H Publishing
Group. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com
David Wheeler (2018). (p. 1). Servanthood Evangelism Manual. Retrieved from
https://app.wordsearchbible.com
David Wheeler and Vernon M. Whaley (2012). The Great Commission to Worship. B&H
Publishing Group. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com
Jim Putman (2019). (p. 43). DiscipleShift (Wordsearch Version): Five Steps That Help Your
Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. Retrieved from
https://app.wordsearchbible.com
Rod Dempsey (2018). (p. 218). Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and
Confidence. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com
11
12
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