Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover
Journey Church
You already have two powerful ingredients many churches struggle to build: leadership conviction that disciple making is crucial, and a unified pathway anchored in a whole-Bible reading plan. If you focus now on making the definition simple and increasing visible leader modeling in a non-disruptive way, you’ll strengthen unity while raising consistency and confidence in the outcomes.
Quick Snapshot
Your church has a unified disciple-making pathway and a strong commitment to a whole-Bible reading plan, and your leaders agree disciple making is crucial. At the same time, not all leaders are currently practicing disciple making in a visible, reproducible way, which is contributing to medium confidence in the outcomes.
What's Working Well
You already have several high-value foundations in place: a unified pathway, leadership conviction, and a Bible reading plan that moves through the whole Bible.
- A consistent Bible reading plan moving through the whole Bible
- Leaders aligned that disciple making is crucial
- Disciple making does happen outside meetings (though it varies by leader)
What May Be Challenging
No major structural collapse was described, but your biggest constraint appears to be consistency of execution—especially leader modeling—more than vision or agreement. With a high concern about division, the challenge is strengthening what you already have without creating the feeling of a disruptive “new program.”
- Not all leaders are currently modeling disciple making in a visible way
- Several key parts of the process (method clarity, measurement, replication) are still “unsure,” which can make consistency harder
- Concerns about division can make leaders hesitant to push for shared practice
Why It Matters
When leaders share the same conviction but don’t share the same personal practice, disciple making tends to stay uneven from group to group, even with a unified pathway and Bible reading plan. Strengthening leader modeling and clarifying a simple, repeatable method protects unity by making expectations clear and shared, and it raises confidence because outcomes become more consistent.
— 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 Process is Done Along the Way. 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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’re working with a church where leaders agree disciple making is crucial, you have a unified pathway, and people are engaging Scripture through a whole-Bible reading plan. The highest-leverage moves now are the ones that increase consistency across leaders without creating division. That’s why the focus below is on clarifying a simple definition and tightening intentionality, so leaders can confidently model the same process and pursue the same outcomes. Together, these two strategies make disciple making easier to explain, easier to practice, and easier to reproduce.
Clarify a simple, shared disciple definition
Based on what you shared, you already have alignment on the importance of disciple making, and strengthening a simple, shared definition will help every leader aim at the same “end product” and describe it the same way. With definition_clarity currently partial and method_clarity not yet clear, this is one of the fastest ways to reduce variation without introducing a new curriculum or major restructure.
- Write a one-sentence definition of a disciple and a one-sentence definition of “making a disciple” that your leaders can all repeat
- Add 3–5 clear “markers” that help leaders recognize progress (not attendance or information, but visible life-and-character outcomes)
- In leader meetings, practice saying the definition out loud until it becomes natural and consistent
- Build the definition into what leaders already do (small groups, mentoring, serving teams) rather than adding a separate program
Increase intentional leader modeling and shared practice
Based on what you shared, you have a unified pathway and leaders who believe disciple making is crucial, and the biggest opportunity is to strengthen consistency by increasing visible leader modeling. Because not all leaders are currently doing it, intentionality needs to move from conviction to shared practice in a way that protects unity and keeps the approach simple.
- Identify a small starter group of 3–4 leaders who will model the pathway the same way for the next few meetings
- Agree on a simple, repeatable “meeting flow” that any leader can use (Scripture from the Bible reading plan, personal application, brief follow-up)
- Set one clear, measurable aim for leaders (for example: each leader is intentionally investing in a few people using the same approach)
- Keep the emphasis on strengthening consistency, not replacing ministries—frame it as “this is how we do disciple making here”
- Create a lightweight way for leaders to compare notes on practice (what they did, what they’re learning), without turning it into reporting pressure
What Success Looks Like
- Leaders can clearly and consistently describe what a disciple is and what success looks like
- More leaders are personally and visibly practicing the unified disciple-making pathway
- People regularly connect the Bible reading plan to specific personal application steps
- Disciple making outside meetings becomes more consistent across leaders rather than dependent on personality
Early Measurable Wins
- Leaders align on and adopt a one-sentence disciple definition and use it in conversations
- A small starter group of 3–4 leaders begins modeling the same simple disciple-making approach with real people
- Each gathering includes a clear personal application step tied to the Bible reading plan
- Leaders can point to at least a few concrete stories of “along the way” follow-up that connects to application
— 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!
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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.
- The Goal is Application
- The Process Relies on the Holy Spirit
- Making Disciples is Done Intentionally
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!
