DEVELOP INTO A DISCIPLE MAKER AND HAVE A LEGACY WITH AN ETERNAL IMPACT

GARDEN OR FACTORY?

An Introduction To Our Discipleship Method

Some years ago I read about an interesting study involving cat food commercials in Iran. Apparently cats are a popular pet in the country, and so cat food commercials are a common occurrence on tv. Researchers took random people off the street and asked them to create the idea for a cat food commercial. The point for the researchers was to see what it took to spur on creativity. Despite using something people were familiar with, the ideas the researchers received from the participants were poor quality when accessed by professionals. Again the researchers took people off the street and asked them to create a cat food commercial, but this time they gave the participants a few common outlines from professional cat food commercials. Amazingly, the level of creativity and innovation skyrocketed. It wasn’t just that people were plugging and playing with the outline, but having something to work from seemed to actually free the participants to express themselves with greater levels of quality than the original participants.

There tends to be two broad methods when it comes to discipleship. On one hand are those ministries who try to make the ministry the discipler. This approach typically looks curriculum heavy with “leaders” largely acting out well rehearsed and defined roles. The leaders in this approach to discipleship are not the ones making disciples, but rather the ministry itself is seen as the disciple maker. The leaders in this case are acting as a conduit for the ministry. These ministries can and often do have a meaningful impact in the lives of many of their people, with the quality of what is shared being high for those who go through it.

Typically in the Find, Fight For and Feed breakdown that Chi Alpha often uses to define the progression of discipleship, these ministries are highly attractional for their finding approach with fighting for people being systematic if at all, and feeding being programmatic. Another complication is that people rarely walk away being a disciple maker themselves after they leave the ministry. While the programmatic approach to feeding can sometimes be replicated, it typically takes a similarly structured ministry to work, and those ministries typically have their own program of feeding. Also because these ministries do not work foundationally from a leaders' relationship with the people they are trying to disciple, meaningful relationships may never become part of the discipler paradigm. While that may be ok where the desire for Biblical impartation is strong enough to drive their world’s participation in the ministry, it rarely works outside of cultures highly open to a Biblical worldview. The experience of outreach to the leader’s larger world, pursuit of those who would not otherwise pursue their ministry and dexterity in how to disciple people in the nuances of their life situation are a few challenges with this approach.

On the flip side are ministries who work as a platform for disciple makers to launch from. These ministries often use the concept of being a garden instead of a factory as a metaphor for their philosophy of ministry. To be perfectly frank up front, this is the default approach our ministry works from. With these ministries the leaders are seen as the disciplers and the ministry is there to serve the leader in their finding, fighting for, and feeding. The convictions and capacities of leaders with this more holistic discipleship approach typically run high. Leaders' who leave this kind of ministry often express discipleship as a lifestyle long after the student graduates. The potential for the ministry to see the multiplication effect of disciple makers who make disciple makers tends to also run higher as their whole approach to finding people to disciple rests in the leaders reaching into their world instead of depending on the ministries ability to gather from the world around them. As a result there is also typically a more diverse demographic of beliefs and spiritual maturity within these ministries as the relational approach to a leader is a stronger and more dexterous tether to most cultures.

On the flip side these leader centric discipleship ministries can have a hard time keeping leaders bought into the process if the leaders do not experience early success. As a young leader is charged with going out and creating a discipleship community around their life, it can be a steep learning curve that burns out those who are not ready for the responsibility. These leaders at times may even be pulled away to other ministries as the ease of the ministry centric discipleship approach is attractive over the feeling of failure in responsibility. These ministries can also find the quality of their leaders' impartation, within those who do succeed in creating community, wildly divergent depending on the maturity of the individual leaders. As sophomores and juniors in college are thrown into an impartation methodology that encourages adapting their discipleship approach to the individual in front of them, they can regularly find themselves uncertain with how to minister given the breadth of situations they quickly find themselves leading in.

I just came back from a trip to Oregon that took me and my family out of town for a couple of weeks. When I returned our garden was overgrown with weeds, and a number of the plants that we have planted have a hard time taking root in the arid environment of northern colorado no matter what we do. In seeming contrast to our limited gardening success, I can see the lights from one of the university's greenhouses from my front yard. A greenhouse utilizes the natural organic nature of its plants by creating an environment that allows them to thrive until they are strong enough to be planted in the natural environment outside the greenhouse. While the greenhouse is a garden type environment there are lots of aspects of the greenhouse that are synthetic and dare I say factory made. The difference is that the factory synthesized environment of the greenhouse is for the purpose of supporting the plants organic nature instead of supplanting the organic goal. It is the difference between the factory that makes fake plants and the factory that makes the tools of gardening, synthesizes the fertilizer, and creates the components of a greenhouse. One serves an organic objective while the other seeks to supplant it.

The goal with these resources is not to restrict but to create the framework, the outline if you will, that all small group leaders can work from. Far from trying to be the discipleship factory, we want to be the disciple maker greenhouse with enough structure and support in the disciple maker's life that they can express more creativity and innovation in the nuances of their small group members' needs. We want the disciplers experience in Chi Alpha to be the greenhouse that prepares them for not just faith after they leave the university but a faith that will carry with it the convictions to make disciples wherever they go. This is my attempt to create the outline to serve the relational discipleship approach for our leaders. I hope it serves to help empower you to reach the potential you have in transforming your world for Christ as you develop a legacy with an eternal impact!

WHAT IS A DISCIPLE ANYWAYS?

Defining a Disciple

While there are a number of good descriptions of a disciple that can help get to the heart of what it means to be a disciple we see Jesus' description in Matthew 28 after the command to make disciples as a good baseline of understanding. In verse 19 He says immediately after the great commission "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Within those two charges we see Jesus unpacking discipleship. Baptism is an expression of accepting God's offer to make you one of His children. The acceptance of God's offer through the expression of baptism we call salvation. Now expressing obedience to the commands of Jesus He would say is based on the motivation earlier in Matthew 22: 37 "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." In this passage Jesus lays the groundwork to understand the motivation behind God's commands in the Old Testimate and His charge He was about to make to obey Him. It is a way to express love to God.

As it is sometimes said "All relationships have rules of the relationship" but as Winkie Pratney would expound in His writings "There is a difference between rules and conditions." Rules are things that focus your motivation, where conditions are things that have to be met before you can even express your motivation. Think of an example of a guy who wants to date a certain girl. A condition is that she is single, where a rule is that he finds something she likes to do for their date. Where her being single needs to be a condition of dating her, figuring out what she likes to do is the boy finding a way to express his motivation to express his interest in her. In obedience to Jesus commands we are expressing rules of relationship with Him. Namely we are learning to love Him, not make ourselves worthy of being loved by Him. So as we accept salvation expressed in baptism, and express the rules of relationship through obedience to Jesus' other commands, we express our motivation to Love Him.

So where does this lead us in our original question of "What is a disciple"? A disciple is someone who is motivated to Love God and learning to express that first by accepting His gift of salvation and then ongoing as His child. Said simply being a disciple can be defined as "Leading people to be motivated by and to express love to God as one of His Children".

SO WHAT IS A SMALL GROUP (SG)?

So what is a Small Group (SG) anyways

A community around your life who you are taking responsibility for as they learn to lean on each other in the pursuit of Jesus

How our SG method is distinct from the typical SG strategy

Most small groups are based around a meeting or a curriculum. While these are great components in a small group community, they are insufficient as an understanding of what we are called to as disciple makers. If Jesus called me to make disciples then a weekly meeting or curriculum can be a great tool I use as I make disciples in my life however the emphasis is always on me taking responsibility in my life as my life is the method Jesus will use to push people to Him.

If in contrast the weekly meeting is at the center of our discipleship method for example then I am not charged to make disciples so much as the meeting is charged to do it.
So often the modern church has disconnected people's lives from the charge to make disciples. This has often been due to a fear of evangelism and a desire by the congregation and the clergy alike for the ministry to disciple and people to serve the ministry instead of the ministry serving the disciple as they take on Jesus' great commission.

This leaves Jesus' method disconnected from His message as we try to impart the convictions of the Kingdom of God into people's lives but wholly disconnected from how He did it. While it is true that methods must morph to better serve the message we lose the message that Jesus was trying to impart through his method if we disconnect our approach from a relational ethos. The Kingdom of God is built on relationship as God is intrinsically relational both within His triune self and as His expression to us in redemption. Jesus ministered by drawing disciples close to his life and while he would bring them to things like temple and synagogue anyone doing a cursory look at His life would see a different focus from these institutions as the means of his discipleship. He drew people close to Him so he could draw them close to His Father and our method should do the same.

Give scripture or scripture examples related to the principle

• Matthew 28: 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
• John 17: 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
• Do a study of Jesus Discipleship method with His disciples
• Do a study of Jesus' disciples relationship with each other after His ascension

Maxims that describe this kingdom reality

• What God does in you He wants to do through you
• Being a disciple maker means finding, fighting and feeding people
• Stop praying God use me and start praying God make me useable
• Over my dead body am I going to let you live a stupid life

HOW CAN SG TRANSFORM OUR CAMPUS?

EVERY STUDENT RELATIONALLY CONNECTED WITH SOMEONE WHO IS FIGHTING FOR THEM:

We see a day when every student on campus is relationally connected to someone who is fighting for them. We want a christian in every atheist's life challenging their rebellion from God. We want a christian expressing the love of Christ in every agnostic's world when they go through a crisis. We want a christian relationally tethered to every prodigal showing them the way back home. On that day we could say we are transforming the campus because everyone on the campus would be fought for

HOW DO WE THINK THAT MAKING DISCIPLE MAKERS WILL TRANSFORM THE CAMPUS?

In Chi Alpha we have a concept we call the approach of the FAITHFUL DISCIPLER VS the SUPER EVANGELIST.

The Faithful Discipler takes a couple people who he disciples. Over time those people go out and become faithful disciplers for other people. While the approach seems much less impactful at first than the approach of the SUPER EVANGELIST after a few years you suddenly see the multiplication effect of the FAITHFUL DISCIPLERS approach over that of the addition of the SUPER EVANGELIST.

STRIVE TO REPLICATE TWICE BEFORE YOU GRADUATE

A practical way that we see small group leaders having a legacy on CSU's campus is for a small group leader to replicate twice before they graduate. While this can be seen as the fruit of ministering that can be hard to predict, Jesus' command to make disciples and other teachings such as the parable of the talents communicate God's expectation that we will ultimately bear fruit as we partner with Him in His mission. While replicating twice before leaving our ministry should not be the primary focus of a small group leader, it should be a vision they seek to strive for. If a small group leader replicates two disciple makers through their small group than they leave the witness on campus stronger than when they arrived. In contrast if they never replicate than when they leave the campus they leave the chances weaker that a future student will have someone to fight for them.

This concept requires understanding that

A PRACTICAL SCENARIO

A practical breakdown of this principle is to take 65 small group leaders on day one. Now say that your 65 small group leaders are students and so have on average 2 years as a small group leader with your ministry. Now say each of your 65 small group leaders disciple on average 2 people before they graduate who are ready to turn around and disciple others. Aka they make 1 disciple maker a year. At the start of year 7 you would have 740 small group leaders, or roughly enough disciple makers to say that every student on a campus of 30k is relationally connected to someone who is fighting for them.

PRACTICALLY HOW DOES THE SG LEADER HELP TRANSFORM THE CAMPUS?

1. CREATE A VIBRANT SMALL GROUP COMMUNITY BY CREATIVELY EXPRESSING FUNDAMENTAL BEHAVIORS & IMPARTING KINGDOM CONVICTIONS THROUGH CONVICTION CREATION PRINCIPLES
2. REPLICATE TWICE BEFORE YOU GRADUATE

Give scripture or scripture examples related to the principle

• 2 Timothy 2:2 (NIV) 2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

Pro Tips:

• Use the resources from this page to think through how to create a small group that is producing disciple makers
• Give prospective LTC students experiences in Finding, Fighting For and Feeding during the late fall & early spring semesters and make it memorable
• Encourage prospective LTC students to do a missions trip over Christmas Break that will give them a fun experience in responsibility
• Look at the "feeding responsibility" fundamental behaviors section for a more in depth look at imparting responsibility to those who are ready

Questions you may have:

Shouldn’t I just minister to who God gives me and let the numbers fall as they may?

You will find that often God gives us what we are fighting for if it is in His character. If we pray that this campus would be transformed and we believe that relational ministry is critical for many people to come to love Jesus then we should make plans and goals to reach that vision. David had a heart for a temple so he worked to prepare for the day that it could be realized. This is not the definition of success for a small group leader but it should be part of our hearts desire so we can see the day when our campus is truly transformed for the cause of Christ.

Maxims or Quotes related to this behavior

• May the lamb who was slain receive the reward of his suffering
• There is grace but no excuses when it comes to fighting for the kingdom of God

Reading & Other Resources

• Dawson Trotman sermon: Christians were born to Reproduce

• The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman

• Discipleship by Design by Harvey Herman

3 MEASURES OF SUCCESS FOR A DISCIPLE MAKER

A premise to understanding Biblical success

No conversation about success or effectiveness from a Biblical perspective can begin without understanding the Biblical idea of identity. We live in a world where we are taught to find value through what we experience success in. As we grow up seeking value in our lives we find it in forging an identity for ourselves from what we experience validation in. The athlete is successful in their sport and so finds value in their life by holding onto that identity as an athlete. In the same way the professional, the parent or the individual at play often find validation in their life from their different identities.

The problem with this approach to value is that nothing other than God's spoken identity over us is forever. The world's tethering value to what identity we forge for ourselves keeps us constantly striving to keep our identity, in which case we are not expressing selfless love but need fulfillment. This is why so many are left devastated in our humanity if we ever lose an identity in our lives. The athlete who gets injured, the parent whose children move on and the professional who gets laid off lose themselves if their value comes from created identities. This also leaves the conversation about success in ministry convoluted because while we realize when we come into the Kingdom of God that our value is in God's identity freely given to us, we often think that striving for success is in competition with abiding in our value as God's children. We are still tethering success to value but now because we realize value is not in success we think striving for success is wrong because the only motivation we have ever known for striving was wrong.

The Bible reverses this thinking by saying you're valuable not because of what you do for God but because of who you are to God. The parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 highlights this idea as the Father never stops loving the son even after he ceases to be part of the Fathers household and quickly reinstates the son's identity even though the son has done nothing to deserve it. As a result we strive out of our value not in the pursuit of it. We as followers of Christ don't strive for success to create value in ourselves but out of the value we have found in Christ seek to express our gratitude to the God who has done it all already.

Success As An Internal Motivation: LOVE

• Matthew 22: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

• I Corinthians 13: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

• Matthew 7: 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

This is the highest form of success in ministry. While you can produce a sense of fruitfulness without love the Bible would say it will do nothing for you to be effective unless the motivation is love. On the flip side if you express love in your heart to God then no matter the external fruitfulness you can identify you are being "successful" in your ministry.

Success As An Internal Metric: DO WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

• Ezekiel 3:17 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 18 When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. 19 But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.

• Matthew 13: 18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

• James 2: 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

This is the middle form of success. You can have external success but if it isn't tethered to you expressing your identity as a witness of Christ then it isn't an expression of love. In the same way you can love God but if you aren't expressing it to the world the Lord has called you to reach can you say your love is meaningful? If however you are striving to Find, Fight For & Feed people in practical ways than whether they accept your testimony, or reject you & Jesus, you have expressed Love to God and so have succeeded in doing what you can do as an expression of your motivation to express Love to Jesus.

Success As An External Metric: MAKE A DISCIPLE WHO ULTIMATELY MAKES DISCIPLES

• Matthew 9: 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

• Matthew 25: 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

• Matthew 21:18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

• Matthew 28: 16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

This is the third and most controversial form of success. While we cannot control what people do we do see in the above scriptures, as a sampling of scriptures related to this topic, that God expects we will be ultimately fruitful and effective in making disciples if we are striving to do so. Some people will balk at this metric of success citing the first and second forms of success as the only ones we need to be concerned with and leave the effectiveness up to God and the person. On the other side are those who focus on the third form of success stating that if we are not being fruitful then we are not being as loving as those who hold themselves to the expectation of replication. Both sides tend to highlight abuses or potential character flaws of the other side.

The need for all three in tandem

Love as motivation is essential for the other two forms of success because it gives us a resilience in our expression and effectiveness that other motivations in our life can't match. If I am expressing love then I am driven to express it even if it pushes me past my fears and comfort zone. Love also keeps me motivated when I would otherwise give up striving to see external success through my ministry. Without love as our motivation we have failed no matter the result in our ministry but with love we are far more likely to see the effectiveness that our love longs to express.

Without expressing the love in our hearts in a practical sacrificial way our love for God will wane with time. We will also be tempted to either leave the great commission up to God or water down the Gospel in an attempt to see external metrics of success more readily.

External success gives us purpose to our love and expressions of love that would fail to exist unless we focus on the hope of effectiveness they provide. I could say God I love you so I will beat my head against this rock as an expression of that love. Obviously this fails to connect with us or God because there is no purpose or goal that we can see that would serve God's heart. Jesus said that the second greatest commandment was to love our neighbor and the practical objective to see them discipled gives purpose to that command. External success as a focus also refines our expressions of love in a way that wouldn't happen if we weren't striving for effectiveness. For example if you "Find" lots of contacts who you could "Fight For" but you never get to "Feeding" them because they never join your small group than its a good idea to think through how you can "Fight For" people more effectively. Maybe you see that you were getting somewhere in the friendship when you stopped by their dorm periodically but you could have been better about asking them questions when you were hanging out. The external ques of effectiveness focus and refine the internal metrics of success that are motivated by Loving Jesus.

We need all three forms of success to express effectiveness in the Kingdom of God because in the partnership of focusing on all three we find we are most successful in loving God. It can be common for us in ministry to focus on one or two forms of success at the rejection of the others. Oftentimes one or two forms of success are rejected outright or minimized as less "spiritual" to us or not needing attention in our ministry. At times we may not focus on an area because we do not think we are being very successful in it so we focus on the ones we can find validation in. That suggests that we need to go back to abiding in the identity we have with Christ so that we can strive more effectively both in our metrics and motivations of success. While each form of success is served by the others and in part are a fruit of the other two, each of the forms of success need attention and focus if they are to grow in our lives. While we can love Jesus without all three we are most effective at love as we strive to give attention to all three.

Questions To Pose

1. Which of the three areas of success do you have in your life now and which is less successful?

2. Is there one of the three forms of success that you don't give focused attention to?

3. How does your life reflect or not reflect any of these forms of success?

4. How can the forms of success you are experiencing effectiveness with refine the other forms of success?

Maxims or Quotes related to this behavior

• May the lamb who was slain receive the reward of his suffering
• "Stop praying God use me and start praying 'God make me useful'"
• Success will challenge your character, but failure will refine it
• If you can’t handle failure at your level of responsibility than your character can’t handle more success

Resources

• Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller

• Dawson Trotman sermon: Christians were born to Reproduce

• The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman

• The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller