The Five Stages and Four Spheres of Discipleship
LeRoy L. Watkins
DSMN 500 Discipleship Ministry
May 29, 2022
Contents
Pages 1-9 Paper
Page 10 Bibliography
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The Five Stages and Four Spheres of discipleship, explained.
The Five Stages
The five stages of discipleship are a great way to explain the growth journey that a person
takes on from the time before the recognize that they need something bigger than themselves or
that something is missing until the time that they themselves can begin to disciple other people.
These fives stages are discussed by (Putman, Harrington, and Coleman 2013) in their
book DiscipleShift and these stages are; “Level One: Dead, Level Two: Infant, Level Three:
Children, Level Four: Young Adult, and Level Five: Parent.” The idea behind these stages or
levels is that once you realize that you are spiritually dead inside and that you need Christ, your
journey begins. The journey is compared by these authors to that of growing up in life and
learning valuable lessons along the way. Each stage you learn more and you begin asking
questions and seek the truth, and you move from glory to glory seeking the Lord.
Stage One or Level One: Spiritually Dead. (Putman, Harrington, and Coleman 2013) say
that this stage is where “people have not yet accepted Christ as Lord and Savior” or they “may
even claim to know Jesus, but do not have the Holy Spirit Living in them.” These folks cannot
change “until they have been made alive in Christ” and such is the beginning of the journey for
them. In this stage, it is very important that we treat them with love and respect and try our best
not to judge them or accidentally stereotype them and make them feel unwanted.
Stage Two or Level Two: Infant. In this stage, the authors describe people “who are like
newborn babies, craving spiritual milk so they can grow in their salvation.” (Putman, Harrington,
and Coleman 2013) These can be Christians that have recently accepted Christ or Christians that
have been stagnant in their faith for a very long time. Time does not dictate advancement
between stages which is something that does help in the natural progression of age. The authors
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Putnam et al also describe this stage as “spiritual infants tend to lack knowledge about what
Jesus taught. They are not unintelligent; they are simply uninformed and in need of the truth” and
“like infants their lives are generally all about them and they don’t know any better.”
This stage can cross many generations if the church is not doing its part in discipleship.
There are many spiritual needs that need to be met in order for these people to progress further,
otherwise they can remain stagnant or worse, digress and even leave the church feeling like they
don’t belong or that Christ isn’t the answer.
Stage Three or Level Three: Child. This phase is where Christians begin to “apply God’s
Word in their lives and are walking with other growing disciples in their spiritual journey.”
However, the authors continue to state “though they are growing, much of their spiritual life
revolves around them, they are still quite self-centered, not yet fully oriented to focus on others
that marks people who are living in maturity in God’s kingdom.” (Putman, Harrington, and
Coleman 2013) Every child still needs a lot of attention from their parents, this phase is an
important relationship building phase. Even though this stage is one where there is still a mess
being made, it is important to get them plugged in to other people that are going through the
same thing. As Proverbs 27:17 NJKV so eloquently put it, we need each other to keep each other
in line.
Stage Four or Level Four: Young Adult. This group is beginning to make the shift from
being “self-centered to being God-and other-centered. They are beginning to reorient their lives
around God’s Word” (Putman, Harrington, and Coleman 2013) and they are doing for the right
reasons. In this season or phase, the young people, and age doesn’t apply, they start to look for
where and how they can serve. According to the website discipleship.org: “At this stage, they
have grown tremendously from where they started. They are eager to serve, think independently,
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and look much like adults; however, they still have much to learn about responsibility and about
how to care for the spiritual needs of others.” At this stage in their spiritual journey, there is
much excitement and joy as most have figured out that God does in fact have a purpose for them.
They love to spread the news and bring others to Christ.
The biggest set back in this area is being in a church that isn’t actively pursuing
discipleship and engaging members with their gifts and teaching them how to use them. This is
an exciting time to be in as long as you are in a community of believers that are building each
other up.
Stage Five or Level Five: Parent. This stage is probably one of the most difficult ones,
just like being an actual parent. The responsibility that comes along with raising good,
responsible children is the same with spiritual children. The authors do state that “theologically,
we believe that God is the one who births people spiritually.” Which goes to say that “we are
spiritual adults” in this category but the implication is that “we want to reinforce the concept of
spiritual reproduction, or spiritually mature people who make disciples.” (Putman, Harrington,
and Coleman 2013)
These five stages should not all fall on the pastor of the church. There needs to be several
spiritual leaders or parents in the church to help take on the role of discipleship and the ongoing
training that is needed. (Putman, Harrington, and Coleman 2013) point out that these discipleship
makers “need to be encouraged and freed to make disciples in the church. They need permission
to develop people to maturity and that they need to be celebrated and honored.” The main or lead
pastor will end up getting burned out if he or she is trying to do all of this while running the
entire church. The pastor needs the ability to delegate and entrust this spiritual training to church
members who can take the mantle and ease the burden of the pastor. The church, as stated in the
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excerpt: Innovate Church: Discipleship “the word church simply means a gathering place of
called out ones.” (Ch. 2) So we are all called out to serve and gather up, so doing life together
and building one another up is part of the mandate that Jesus put on us when He said to love one
another in John 13:34 NKJV.
The Four Spheres of Discipleship
The Four Spheres according to (Putman, Harrington, and Coleman 2013) are
1. In his relationship to God
2. In his relationship with God’s family, the church
3. In his home life
4. In his relationship to the world
These four areas of our life are looked at by the authors as key points that must be given
attention to in order to maintain a relationship with God that is always evolving and growing
from glory to glory. They are listed in order of priority as we must have our relationship with
God the main focus. If that is out of focus, then nothing else will be in focus or even close to
being right.
The first sphere, the authors ask three questions about the body in order to reveal whether
or not you are on the right track in your discipleship process. These areas are: “The head: does
the person I am discipling know what Jesus teaches about growing in relationship to him? Is he
or she willing to surrender to Christ? The heart: are there visible changes happening in this
person’s life? Are they doing the right things for the right reasons? And the last one is the hands:
are they willing to follow Christ in the direction that He is leading them? (Putman, Harrington,
and Coleman 2013)
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The second sphere (Putman, Harrington, and Coleman 2013) state “It can be easy for us
to accept the good news that we have a Father who loves us yet fail to relate to other believers as
brothers and siters, but the two are connected.” These two spheres should flow naturally, if we
are doing life together as a family and growing together, then the church family should function
in love with each other. That doesn’t mean there will not be conflict or issues but what it does
mean is that in any relationship, there will be pain with growth and as long as we keep God our
main focus and help each other along the way, we can overcome any evil that attacks. As Paul
writes in Ephesians 5:8 NJKV we need to remember where we came from and who we are in
Christ.
The third sphere is relationships at home. This sphere is a vital area not to neglect and can
sometimes be one of the easiest one to overlook. In Ephesians, Paul gave very explicit directions
on how the home should look if you are in discipleship with your family. Chapter 6 in the NKJV
in the first four verses give very clear instructions on how children should treat their parents and
visa-versa. This is just a great starting point but we should spend a lot of family time studying
this book in order to know how we should be functioning as a Christian family. The authors
made a great point when they stated “I have always been convicted that it would be my biggest
failure to win the whole world and lose my own children.” (Putman, Harrington, and Coleman
2013) I believe that this is something that most parents fear.
The last sphere deals with our relationship with the world. Paul reminds us in Ephesians
that we are “in the world” and that while we are in the world we are not of the world. (Putman,
Harrington, and Coleman 2013) write that “we represent Christ in what we do, we do not simply
work for other people, we work for the Lord.” This is a great reminder that no matter what job
we hold in this world, that we should do it to the best of our abilities as though we are doing it
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for the Lord. This shift in out perspective can change our outlook with respect to our employer
and what we are doing for the kingdom of God.
The authors of this book sum up the spheres rather well when the look at “a person’s
relationship with Christ can’t be separated from any of the other spheres of life and that you
always come back to the center sphere, which is the most important sphere, their relationship
with Jesus.” [Putman, Harrington, and Coleman 2013]
My Current Stage of Discipleship
This is something that I am having a rather difficult time pin pointing as I can see parts of
my walk in each of the four areas or stages. To be totally and brutally honest with myself, I am in
between the infant and child stages. As much as I would like to say that as long as I have been a
believer, I am further than that with my walk, as a disciple, I am severely lacking. I am probably
more on the infant side than I care to admit. I have been looking for someone to help me in my
discipleship process for a long time and just haven’t found that person. What I haven’t taken into
consideration before is that the Holy Spirit can be that person that I have been yearning for to
teach me.
In looking back, it was October of 2020 and I was at a men’s retreat in Oklahoma and I
heard a message from one of my former pastor’s about being led by the Lord to go when he was
called to go. I had been reading a book by Craig Groeschel called Dangerous Prayers and had
just finished it up prior to this trip and had been dealing with Isaiah 6:8 NKJV and was
struggling with giving in to God and letting go of control and going where He was calling me. I
answered God’s call on my life and re-dedicated my life to God and got baptized and told God
that I would go and go I did. I have been on a journey ever since and until now, I didn’t realize
the path that I have been on needed more direction and what that direction entailed, discipleship.
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Conviction. This word sums up the are of discipleship that I am in as well. I am being
convicted that I am not teaching my family how to disciple one another. As Paul talks about
family in Ephesians 5 and 6, that is missing from my life in a way that needs to be implemented.
Acts 2:42-47 NKJV is also an area that needs to be addressed as I am searching for a church in
an area that we have now lived in for a year and have yet to find a new church home.
This stage all that bad, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “when Christ calls; the disciple
follows.” And “those called must get out of their situations” which is something that I have done.
I have answered the call and gone. I am finding myself asking questions and growing daily. I am
lacking in a mentor; however, I have been privileged to be able to pour into several others lives
that until now, I never would have thought it would count as discipleship.
According to (Earley and Dempsey, 2018) there are three stages of discipleship and I
believe that I am currently in the second stage “Development (Immersion, Abandonment, and
Apprenticeship into Ministry)” which they state “discipleship only occurs as the disciple takes
the next step of dependence upon, obedience to, and abandonment for Jesus.” This is really why I
feel I am still in the infant stage of discipleship, because I haven’t found someone to commit to
learn from, other than Jesus. I know that we are not meant to do fellowship alone. And as (Earley
and Dempsey, 2018) further state “no Christian can grow strong and stand the pressures of this
life unless he is surrounded by a small group of people who minister to him and build him up in
the faith.”
Bonhoeffer’s Steps in Following Christ
The steps that Dietrich Bonhoeffer lays out for following Christ are steps that I have
already been on and can see the relational aspect in. I feel that the sphere that I need to submit to
would be the third sphere, the home life. I struggle with finding a way to relate to my kids with
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the Gospel and finding a way to incorporate a devotional or Bible study plan. This is something
that I don’t know anything about and have no point of reference to. Knowing that I have been
called and leaving everything and everyone that we knew behind to move to a new place and
take a role in full-time ministry was nothing short of a miracle. Being called to discipleship is
something that I am now relying on God to provide for as I have been obedient. As Bonhoeffer
stated “In the first, faith is the precondition of obedience; in the second, obedience is the
precondition of faith.” I obeyed the Lord and had faith that He would provide. He did, and now I
am believing that He will continue to provide as I step out in faith for a church and a mentor to
help guide me along this path that He has set before me.
What does it meant to be in submission to Christ?
The way that I define submission is simply to give over everything that one has to the
authority of someone in a higher position. However, the first thing for me to do is to define what
it means to submit in the dictionary: Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as:
1a: a legal agreement to submit to the decision of arbitrators
b: an act of submitting something (as for consideration or inspection) also : something
submitted (such as a manuscript)
2: the condition of being submissive, humble, or compliant
3: an act of submitting to the authority or control of another
All three of these variations help to sum up what it means to really give in to or completely
submit to an authority other than your own. When I think about submission in the Bible, these
verses come to mind: Ephesians 5: 21-25, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 143:10 Mathew 6:10, Mathew
12:50, John 5:30, Romans 12:2, James 4:15 and Hebrews 13:21NKJV to name just a few.
The key in submitting to the will of Christ is knowing that whatever His will is, that
should be our prayer to be done, not our own will. Just as Christ prayed in Mathew 26:42, we
should pray also. We as humans, especially myself as a man, have a tough time with the word
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submission. Giving up control over our lives is a difficult thing to do. One of the most difficult
prayers that I have ever prayed was from Psalm 139: 23-24. This prayer is one of the three
dangerous prayers that Craig Groeschel talks about in his book. This prayer is also talked about
on the Christ’s Community Church website where the author writes “You see that prayer was
crucial because today is going to be the most difficult and probably the most dangerous of all
three prayers we are going to discuss. In fact, this prayer has the potential to open your heart to
the work of God like nothing else.” The reason that this prayer is so dangerous is that in order for
God to heal you and build you up, He first must break you of any wrong that you have in your
life.
Complete submission also means that I have to give over complete control of my family,
my finances, my job, my heart, my mind, and everything else in between. There came a point in
my life where I realized that my wife and children really are not my own, they are the Lord’s and
He is just letting me borrow them temporarily. To think that He is entrusting me with their care
until He calls them home is a monumental undertaking and that it is a task that I took for granted
for too long. I have learned to be thankful for every breath and every moment that I have with
them. Again, complete submission is knowing that everything I have is God’s and that I am just a
custodian of His treasure. Submitting to God is being a vessel for Him to use wherever He sees
fit and however He sees fit, my requirement is simply to say, here I am Lord, send me.
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Bibliography
Christ’s Community Church. n.d. Cccaog.org. Accessed May 30, 2022.
https://cccaog.org/sermon/dangerous-prayers-2-break-me/.
Definition of SUBMISSION. 2019. Merriam-Webster.com. 2019. https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/submission.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945; edited by John D. Godsey, fl. 2000, Geffrey B. Kelly, fl. 2000
and Martin Kuske, fl. 2003; in Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 4
(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003, originally published 1937), 74-93
Discipleship org. 2018. “The 5 Stages of Growth for Disciples.” Discipleship.org. July 6, 2018.
https://discipleship.org/blog/the-5-stages-of-growth-for-disciples/
Earley, Dave, and Rod Dempsey. 2018. Spiritual Formation Is... : How to Grow in Jesus with
Passion and Confidence. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic.
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Toughest Questions. Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Bibles
INNOVATE CHURCH-DISCIPLESHIP Chapter Two: What is God’s Will for My Church?
Discipleship! (N.K.A., N.D.)
Putman, Jim, Bob Harrington, and Robert Emerson Coleman. 2013. DiscipleShift Five Steps
That Help Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. Grand Rapids
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