Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover

You already have evidence that God is at work—people’s lives are changing, and a few are discipling others. The opportunity now is to reduce uncertainty by giving your leaders a clear, shared disciple-making definition and method, then adding a simple intentional plan that ministries can align around without creating unnecessary disruption. With a unified pathway and consistent personal application, your church can move from informal pockets of fruit to a more consistent disciple-making culture across the whole organization.

Quick Snapshot

Overall Disciple-Making Strength
0 / 35 · Early
Disciple making is happening in your church, but it’s mostly informal and varies by ministry. Scripture is present primarily through topical passages or studies, and you’re seeing some fruit (changed lives), but you have low confidence that the current approach consistently produces the kind of disciples you hope for.

What's Working Well

Even without a single unified pathway, there are encouraging signs: a few people are already discipling others, and you do see genuine life change. – Replication is happening in pockets (some people are discipling others) – Some “along-the-way” disciple making happens outside meetings (even if only sometimes) – Leaders are engaged enough to recognize the need and the risks of disruption

What May Be Challenging

Right now, the biggest drag on consistency is that there isn’t a clear, shared disciple-making method that ministries can align around, so most groups default to general discussion and mixed application. On top of that, leaders are concerned about disruption, which can slow down needed simplification and alignment. – No defined method (method clarity is none) and only a partially clear definition – Group time is mostly general discussion rather than individual, personal application – No unified pathway across ministries; leadership modeling and alignment are mixed

Why It Matters

When disciple making is informal and discussion-based, you may still get stories of transformation, but it’s harder to reproduce broadly—especially across multiple ministries. A simple, shared approach anchored in Scripture and personal application reduces disruption over time because it gives leaders and groups a clear, repeatable way to help people follow Jesus in everyday life.

— 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 Process is Done Along the Way and The Process is Done Intentionally. 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

Partially Implemented

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

Not A Consistent Focus

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

Not A Consistent Focus

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

Not A Consistent Focus

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

Partially Implemented

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

Not A Consistent Focus

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

Based on what you shared, your church has real disciple-making activity, but it’s informal, uneven across ministries, and leaders are understandably wary of disruption. The highest-leverage move is to clarify a simple, shared disciple-making definition and method that leaders can model and groups can repeat. Pairing that with a clear intentional plan (with a few concrete aims and measures) turns “some good stories” into a pathway that produces consistent outcomes across the church. These two strategies work together: simplicity makes adoption easier, and intentionality makes results measurable and reproducible.

Simple, shared definition and method

Based on what you shared, the lack of a defined method (and only a partially clear definition) is forcing groups to rely on general discussion, which makes personal application and replication harder to sustain. Practical helps: – Write a one-sentence definition of a disciple your church is aiming for (clear enough that two leaders would describe the same target) – Write a simple, repeatable meeting flow leaders can use (example: check-in, Scripture, personal application step, prayer, follow-up plan) – Keep the method leader-led and easy to reproduce across ministries (no specialized training required to start) – Add one “personal application” moment every meeting where each person names a specific next step from Scripture – Pilot the method with a small starter group of 3–4 leaders from different ministries so it’s shared, not siloed – Ask those leaders to model the method publicly (in appropriate ways) so the church can see what “doing it” looks like

Intentional plan with clear aims and simple measures

Based on what you shared, intentionality is currently neither strong nor consistent, and success measurement is only partial—so it’s difficult to know what’s working and to scale it without disruption. Practical helps: – Choose 1–2 clear outcomes you want everywhere (for example: each group has a Bible reading plan, each person takes a weekly application step) – Set one simple, church-wide scoreboard that leaders can track without turning it into reporting pressure – Align ministry leaders around the same pathway language so “disciple making” means the same thing across environments – Identify a small set of leader behaviors to model (e.g., helping each person apply Scripture personally; following up outside meetings) – Build a low-friction handoff: how someone moves from weekend/ministry participation into a disciple-making group – Reduce disruption by framing this as a shared foundation that ministries can build on, not a replacement of everything they do

What Success Looks Like

– Most groups follow the same simple disciple-making method, so leaders and participants know what to expect – Scripture engagement shifts from mainly topical discussion to a consistent Bible reading plan that groups reinforce – Meetings consistently produce individual, personal application steps rather than only general discussion – More people begin discipling others because the process is clear, leader-led, and repeatable

Early Measurable Wins

– Publish a one-sentence disciple definition and a one-page method outline for leaders to try immediately – Start a simple Bible reading plan that every pilot group uses and discusses briefly each meeting – In every pilot meeting, have each person name one specific application step and one follow-up touchpoint – Identify 3–4 leaders to pilot the unified pathway language and share what they’re seeing with other ministry leaders

— 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. 

– Increase consistent space for Holy Spirit reliance (help leaders listen, discern, and respond rather than treating this as implicit) – Strengthen “The Focus is on Individuals” by training leaders to move from general discussion to personal application for each person – Clarify “The Goal is Application” by defining what a good application step looks like and how leaders reinforce it

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!