Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover
Jaime Lewis
You’re in a strong place: Scripture is central through a whole-Bible reading plan, the Holy Spirit is intentionally relied upon, and replication is already happening. If you protect the clarity of application and make your pathway measurements consistently visible, you’ll strengthen transferability and keep momentum as more people step into disciple making.
Quick Snapshot
You’re actively making disciples with a clear method, a clear definition of what you mean by “disciple,” and a consistent Bible reading plan through the whole Bible. Your confidence is high, your disciples are already discipling others, and you’ve built intentional reliance on the Holy Spirit into the process.
What's Working Well
You have a strong disciple-making system that is already producing replication and maturity, and it’s anchored in Scripture and personal application.
- You’re using a consistent Bible reading plan moving through the whole Bible, not just isolated passages.
- You’re aiming for personal application “to their own life,” which keeps disciple making practical and transformational.
- Disciple making is happening beyond meetings, and disciples are discipling others.
What May Be Challenging
No major structural weakness showed up in what you shared; what you have is strong and working. The main opportunity is to protect what’s already working as you keep multiplying—especially around keeping measurement clear and consistent and ensuring “application” stays central and transferable as more people facilitate discussions.
- If the pathway measures aren’t consistently defined and reviewed, it’s easy for progress measurement to become more assumed than verified.
- As replication increases, different leaders can unintentionally emphasize different things unless the application and measurement pieces stay very explicit.
Why It Matters
Because you’re already seeing disciples disciple others, small gains in clarity and consistency can compound quickly—helping your Bible reading plan, application focus, and Holy Spirit reliance transfer cleanly to more people without drift.
— 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 Relies on the Holy Spirit. 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 already actively making disciples with a clear method, strong Scripture foundation, and real replication, so this is about strengthening and protecting what’s working as you keep multiplying. I selected these two strategies because they most directly increase transferability and consistency across leaders without changing your core approach. Together, they keep your disciple making anchored in practical life change and aligned around measurable progress. If you reinforce these in the next few meetings, you’ll make your pathway easier to reproduce and easier to lead.
Make application unmistakably specific and repeatable
Based on what you shared, you’re already aiming for application to each person’s real life; the highest leverage next step is to make that application step so explicit that any leader (and any disciple) can carry it consistently and pass it on.
- End every meeting with one concrete application decision each person will act on before the next meeting
- Ask for the “when/where” of the application so it’s not just a good intention
- Keep application tied directly to the Bible reading plan and the passage(s) you discussed
- Encourage a brief midweek check-in that focuses on encouragement and help, not reporting
Clarify and standardize how progress is measured on your pathway
Based on what you shared, you have a clear pathway and you measure progress against it; strengthening the clarity and consistency of those indicators will help you scale without drift as more people disciple others.
- Write down 5–7 clear pathway indicators that you look for (in plain language)
- Define what “progress” looks like for each indicator so measurement is consistent across leaders
- Review one indicator briefly at the end of meetings (rotating) to keep the pathway in front of people
- Invite disciples to self-assess against the pathway and identify one next growth step
What Success Looks Like
- Every disciple can clearly state their next application step and follows through in real life
- Multiple leaders facilitate the same process with consistent expectations and outcomes
- Pathway progress is observable and discussed naturally, not assumed
- Replication continues with clarity—new disciple makers can explain the method and pathway simply
Early Measurable Wins
- Each person leaves with one specific application action tied to the Scripture discussed
- You document (even briefly) the pathway indicators you’re using to measure progress
- You review one pathway indicator together and have each person identify one next step
- You see at least one disciple begin using the same application + pathway check with someone else
— 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.
- Reconfirm that your written disciple-making plan includes specific people by name and clear next steps
- Ensure every discussion stays anchored to the Bible reading plan so the group doesn’t drift into general spiritual conversation
- Keep “Holy Spirit reliance” explicit (space to listen, discern, and respond), not just assumed
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!
