Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover

First Church of Whoville

Created for Doug Burrier
You’re in a strong position: leaders are engaged, the pathway is unified, Scripture and application are central, and you’re measuring progress with a defined maturity pathway while seeing replication. The most strategic next step is to protect what’s working by removing a few “unsure” areas—so that every leader delivers the same core moves with the same clarity, and every disciple experiences personal application and steady encouragement along the way. These are strengthening adjustments, not a reinvention, and they can increase consistency while lowering the risk of division.

Quick Snapshot

Overall Disciple-Making Strength
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Your church has an active, unified disciple-making pathway that leaders are participating in and that you’re highly confident is producing the kind of disciples you hope for. Your process is grounded in a consistent Bible reading plan moving through the whole Bible, with a weekly highlight/review format that drives clear application. You also have a defined maturity pathway with measurable steps, and you’re seeing replication as people you’ve discipled disciple others.

What's Working Well

You have several high-strength foundations already in place: a consistent Bible reading plan through the whole Bible, clear application focus, measurable markers, and a unified pathway that leaders model. – Leaders personally make disciples, so the pathway is visible and reinforced from the top. – Clear measurement (a defined maturity pathway) strengthens focus and follow-through. – Replication is already happening, which shows the process is transferable.

What May Be Challenging

The main constraints you described aren’t about whether the process works—they’re about protecting unity while strengthening a few elements that still feel unclear or not consistently defined across the whole system. You noted uncertainty in a few diagnostic areas (intentionality, individual focus, along-the-way, and Holy Spirit reliance), and you also shared that leaders would worry most about division if change were required. – Some important elements are currently “unsure,” which can create variability from leader to leader even inside a unified pathway. – The fear of division can make it hard to introduce small, healthy upgrades—even when those upgrades are simply clarifying and strengthening what you already do.

Why It Matters

Because you already have a working, unified pathway and leaders are engaged, small clarifications can create outsized impact—more consistency, easier replication, and fewer gaps as new leaders step in. When a church is highly confident in outcomes, the goal isn’t to replace what’s working; it’s to protect it by making the core moves unmistakably clear and consistently practiced. Done well, these adjustments actually reduce division risk because everyone knows what “we do here” and how to do it.

— SEVEN SUCCESS STRATEGIES —

WHAT DOES SUCCESS
LOOKS LIKE?

Contrary to popular belief, the best measure of success is not multiplication because if you multiply immature disciples no one wins. The best measure of success is life change (transformation)—which oddly enough always results in healthy, big multiplication.

Making disciples is a “get to” not a “have to” or “should do.” It’s a natural result of being a mature believer. It’s the BE comes before DO principle. Healthy people do healthy things. Here’s your best measure of disciple-making success,

The disciple does the right things for the right reasons, navigates the unknowns of life, and makes disciples long after your influence fades.

The quickest pathway to  success is to stop making makers and focus on making individual healthy followers.  Jesus did not come to make makers, he helped individuals follow and then called them to make. And the most efficient way to do that is to implement the Seven Success Strategies!

You + The Seven

Every successful disciple making effort leverages three or more of seven success strategies. Highly successful disciple making systems leverage five to seven of the strategies. The more you implement, the greater your success—which means the disciples succeed! Your top success factors are The Fuel is God’s Word and The Goal is Application. Based on our conversation, you can see (in red) your depth of implementation alongside each of the seven strategies. 

The Fuel is God's Word

Strong Alignment

Disciples read the entire Bible, cover-to-cover being exposed to all scripture which is useful to guide, correct, direct and prepare them for good works.

The Definition is Simple

Strong Alignment

Disciple makers know exactly what it means to make a disciple, what the end product should be, and how to know when they have succeeded in making a well-made disciple.

The Process Relies on the Holy Spirit

Partially Implemented

Disciple makers embrace the truth that it is the Holy Spirit that sanctifies, renews, and transforms making space and helping disciples hear from Him.

The Focus is on Individuals

Partially Implemented

The process is focused on leading disciples individually even in groups helping them find and apply immediately useful, relevant truths that transform their lives.

The Goal is Application

Strong Alignment

Disciples makers embrace Jesus’ call to help disciples obey (apply) God’s truths to their decisions focusing on transformation not education.

The Process is Done Along the Way

Partially Implemented

Disciple makers model following Christ and make disciples inside and outside weekly meetings over the course of several years giving disciples time to fully mature.

Making Disciples is Done Intentionally

Partially Implemented

Disciple makers embrace disciple making as the primary work to reconcile the world, have a plan to make disciples, and set specific, measurable disciple making goals.

— ONE BITE AT A TIME —

HOW DOES STRATEGY
BECOME SUCCESS?

Strategies are big objectives, big concepts, and the key to implementing them is to align what you “do” with the seven strategies. Your “dos” are your methods.

If you’re just getting started or are ready to try something new, you can implement all seven strategies right from the start. Just build your disciple making plan to incorporate them or adopt some proven methods that achieve the seven strategies.

But when you are already making disciples, implementing all seven strategies can feel overwhelming. In a church setting, moving too quickly can feel a bit too disruptive.  Your leadership might not even be open to a total overhaul! So what do you do?

You figure out which two strategies could use the most makeover and focus your work on them.

As those two strategies become consistently present in your disciple making, then you pick another strategy to work on. Before you know it, you’ll see even more success than ever before!

You’ll find your top two makeover strategies (with some practical steps and “how tos”) below.

And we’ll help you pick your next next
strategies in the last section.

Your First Makeover Strategies

You shared that your church is actively making disciples, has a unified pathway, and is highly confident it’s producing the kind of disciples you hope for—so this makeover isn’t about changing direction. The highest-leverage opportunity is to remove “unsure” areas that can create inconsistency across leaders, especially as new leaders develop and as replication increases. That’s why the focus below is on tightening intentionality and strengthening individual focus in a simple, non-disruptive way. Together, these two strategies help you keep the pathway unified while making the results more predictable across every leader and group.

Intentional goals and a simple plan

Based on what you shared, you already have a defined pathway and measurement, but intentionality still sits in an “unsure” space—meaning the plan and goals may not be equally explicit at every level (leader to leader, group to group), even though the overall system is strong. Practical helps: – Put the pathway “aim” into one sentence every leader can repeat (what you are aiming to produce and how you’ll know). – Add one simple, shared next-step question leaders use to set direction (for example: “Who am I helping move to their next step, and what is that next step?”). – Standardize a light-weight “plan for the next few meetings” template for leaders (Bible reading plan portion, highlight/review flow, application step, and one relational follow-up). – Make the measurables you already have visible at the leader level (what gets checked, when, and by whom) without turning it into a reporting loop. – Identify a small starter group of 3–4 emerging disciple makers and ensure they can explain the plan and run it the same way.

Individualized application and personal follow-up

Based on what you shared, your weekly format strongly emphasizes application, but “individual focus” and “along-the-way” both landed in an “unsure” category—so the core question is whether every person is consistently being helped to apply Scripture personally (not just generally) and whether follow-up is happening in a consistent, leader-led way. Practical helps: – In your highlight/review, require a personal application step stated in first-person (“I will…”) rather than a general takeaway. – Train leaders to ask one short individualizing question each meeting (for example: “What is one decision you need to make differently because of what you read?”). – Define what “along-the-way” means in your context in one sentence (a brief touchpoint outside the meeting that encourages the person toward their next application step). – Give leaders a simple follow-up pattern that fits your culture (one message or short conversation focused on the person’s application, not a scorecard). – Align the maturity pathway steps with personal application prompts so the pathway stays concrete at the individual level.

What Success Looks Like

– Leaders across ministries can describe the disciple-making plan and goals the same way, and they run the weekly highlight/review with consistent expectations. – Every participant is regularly naming a clear personal application step connected to the Bible reading plan. – Along-the-way follow-up happens consistently enough that people feel personally shepherded, not just included in a meeting. – Replication increases because newer leaders can copy the method with confidence and clarity.

Early Measurable Wins

– Leaders begin using one shared “next-step” question to set direction for specific people (not just the group). – Each participant states a first-person application step during the highlight/review, and leaders record it for follow-up. – Leaders complete at least one brief along-the-way touchpoint with each person (message or conversation) focused on that application step. – The maturity pathway measurement you already use gets tied to one concrete action for the person before the next gathering.

— THE BIG FIVE —

HOW WILL YOU
MEASURE SUCCESS?

Most of the methods we research have one of five focuses and naturally measure success based on  that focus. We call them the Big Five.

  • Education (Success = Participation and Knowledge)
  • Assimilation (Success = They Stay and Look Like Us)
  • Behavior Modification (Success = They Fix Their Problems)
  • Multiplication (Success = They Get Others Involved)
  • Leadership Development (Success = They Lead Something)

The Church has been doing the Big Five for, well, forever. We do them because that is what we know. We do them because they are easy and easy to measure. Done well, they will result in some spiritual growth but normally the Big Five just produces “dos.”

The problem is the Big Five only work for 20% of all believers because all five are actually the outcomes of transformation, not the cause.  

Whether you adopt or design an overall plan, your best bet is to pick a method focused on discovering and applying all of the truths in God’s Word that measures effectiveness by transformation. Something like,  

The disciple does the right things for the right reasons, navigates the unknowns of life, and makes disciples long after your influence fades.

Don’t settle for anything less because when they get transformed, they will be smart, be a part of the body, fix their stuff, make disciples, and lead! Remember, healthy followers do healthy things—naturally. 

The team at Sustainable Discipleship uses the
highly Predictable PathwayTM to measure success.
You can learn more below

Ideas + Resources for You

The ideas and resources on this page have been curated based on your Makeover answers and, like your previous “how to” ideas, are based on the Sustainable Discipleship Method—a model that’s fueling a global disciple-making movement.

Our single-minded goal is to share what God has shared with us. But let’s be clear—there are many ways to make disciples. Whether you are evaluating methods or designing your own, we hope these customized ideas help. But definitely check out the Makeover Meetups!

print your makeover report

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Future Strategies to Consider

Once you get your first two makeover strategies going, you’re ready to work strengthen the rest. Based on your makeover answers, here a few next steps that will increase each disciple’s transformation. 

– Clarify and reinforce what it looks like to rely on the Holy Spirit in your process so it becomes consistently practiced (not assumed). – Strengthen shared language around intentionality so it stays unified as new leaders are developed. – Ensure your unified pathway remains the “default” even as other on-ramps and options grow.

Seven Success Strategies ➞ How To Methods

The Fuel is God’s Word

The Goal is Application

God designed us from creation to understand the Bible. Brain Powered Bible reveals a reading method that will have folks engaged cover-to-cover, getting immediate value working with God’s learning design rather than against it. It’s like Bill Nye the Science guy meets the Bible!

The Definition is Simple

Making Disciples is Done Intentionally

Even if you are designing your own disciple making model, the proven “how tos” in this book may give you ideas that will supercharge your disciple making. The principles and methods have fueled thousands of disciple making efforts for individuals and churches.

Disciple Making Focuses on Individuals

Making Disciples is Done Along the Way

This free ebook introduces the  Predictable Pathway. It’s fourteen, highly predictable steps that every believer takes as they mature. The beauty of the pathway is that you can know exactly where someone is and know exactly what to give them to get to the next step. It’s the simplest way to measure success and boost transformation.

Makeover Midday Meetups

Want to talk about your makeover plan? Join us (and others!) for a one-hour Makeover Meetup the first Tuesday of each month at noon. 

  • Want to go over your makeover report with a team member?
  • Want to be greater at the one thing God called you to do?
  • Are you an independent maker who needs a tribe?
  • Just want to talk disciple making?
  • Looking to get tips and tricks before you change things?
  • Trying to get leadership buy in for something new?
  • Need to avoid disrupting what's already working?

Makeover Meetups are for you! One of our experienced team members will be there to help you with whatever you’re working on—not to pitch you! See you there!

Welcome to your

Disciple Making Makeover

Your Makeover Webpage is permanent. You may want to save a bookmark so you can revisit or share with your staff or fellow disciple makers.

You can also print a version if you want a pdf or actual paper to mark up. There’s a print button in the last section!

If you have questions or encounter a problem, feel free to reach out to us by email. We do our best to answer the same business day!

You're Important to Us!

We’ve trained this model with thousands of tests to do exactly what we do in a live Makeover. We’d love to know…

How helpful was your makeover?

We understand that sometimes things just don’t go as expected. If your makeover didn’t meet your expectations, we’ll meet with you personally. And if we can’t make it right—we’ll refund your investment!