Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover
Doug Burrier
You’re closer than you think: you already have Scripture in the mix through a consistent Bible reading plan (selected books), and you care about real life change. By making personal application consistent and adding simple, repeatable Holy Spirit reliance, you’ll move from informal discussion toward a clear, transferable process that builds confidence and creates real momentum toward replication.
Quick Snapshot
You’re taking real steps toward disciple making, but right now it’s informal: you have some clear steps in mind, yet there isn’t a written plan, application is only occasional, and you’ve got low confidence that it’s consistently producing mature disciples. You are using Scripture through a Bible reading plan moving through selected books, and you’re looking for life change as the main sign of fruit.
What's Working Well
You already have several important building blocks in place: Scripture is present through a consistent Bible reading plan (selected books), and you’re evaluating fruit by looking for real life change rather than just information.
- You can describe your approach (method clarity is reasonably strong), even if it isn’t formalized yet.
- Your group has connection (you see each other at church), which can become a bridge into more intentional “along the way” disciple making.
- You’re aiming for transformation, not just content, even though application isn’t consistent yet.
What May Be Challenging
The biggest constraints you described are that disciple making isn’t yet driven by a simple plan with clear next steps, and your meetings tend to stay at general discussion rather than each person leaving with specific personal application. You also shared that making space to listen for and respond to the Holy Spirit “is not a thing we do,” which limits how much transformation your process can reasonably expect.
- Without a written plan and measurable targets, it’s hard to build momentum or know what to reinforce.
- When application is only occasional, it’s difficult for people to experience consistent life change—and even harder for replication to emerge.
- Since you mainly see each other at church and it’s not intentional outside meetings, growth can remain “meeting-contained.”
Why It Matters
Because replication isn’t really happening yet, tightening the process around personal application and intentional follow-up will directly increase the odds that people experience real change and then naturally begin helping others. When the pathway is simple and Spirit-aware, your confidence rises because you can see clearer fruit and you can repeat the process with the next person.
— 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 Making Disciples 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
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 described disciple making that is happening informally, with a consistent Bible reading plan through selected books, but with low confidence, limited replication, and meetings that tend to stay in general discussion. The two highest-leverage moves are to (1) build a consistent personal-application engine and (2) intentionally bring Spirit-reliant listening and response into the process—because these two together turn Scripture engagement into real-life change that can be repeated and eventually reproduced. As those become normal, your plan becomes clearer, follow-up becomes more natural, and progress becomes easier to measure.
Make Personal Application the Normal Outcome
Based on what you shared, application is only occasional and your time together tends to stay at general discussion, which makes it harder to see steady life change and almost impossible to reproduce a repeatable disciple-making pattern. A simple shift toward each person leaving with a clear, specific next step will raise confidence, clarify progress, and create natural “along the way” follow-up.
- End every meeting with one personal application sentence from each person: “Because of what I read, I will ____.”
- Keep application concrete and near-term (a conversation, a decision, a habit, a reconciliation step), not abstract.
- Ask one connecting question to sharpen it: “What would make that specific and doable before we meet again?”
- Begin the next meeting with brief check-ins on last time’s application to reinforce seriousness without turning it into a reporting loop.
- Capture applications in a shared note (or personal notebook) so progress is visible and repeatable.
Build In Simple Holy Spirit Reliance
Based on what you shared, you said making space to listen for and respond to the Holy Spirit isn’t currently part of your process and you’re not sure how to do that, so this is a major lever for transformation. This does not need to be complicated—just consistent—so that Scripture reading leads to Spirit-led conviction, guidance, and empowerment for real change.
- Start with a short, consistent prayer before reading: asking the Holy Spirit to teach, convict, and guide.
- After reading, take one quiet minute and ask: “Holy Spirit, what are You highlighting for me to respond to today?”
- Pair that with one simple discernment filter: “Is this consistent with what Scripture clearly teaches?”
- Let the Spirit-focus feed application by asking: “What step are You prompting me to take?”
- When someone is unsure, normalize it and keep it simple: choose the clearest next step that aligns with the passage.
What Success Looks Like
- Your meetings consistently end with specific personal application steps, not just general discussion.
- You can describe (and repeat) a simple disciple-making plan that others could follow.
- Disciple making starts happening outside meetings through intentional follow-up connected to application.
- Over time, at least one person you invest in begins investing in someone else in a similar way.
Early Measurable Wins
- Every person leaves with one clear, written application step tied to what they read.
- You begin each gathering with short follow-up on prior application (brief, encouraging, forward-looking).
- You add a consistent “listen and respond” moment that helps people connect Scripture to Spirit-led action.
- You identify a starter group of 3–4 people to practice the process consistently so it becomes normal and repeatable.
— 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.
- Clarify a simple definition of a disciple and what “success” looks like so you can measure progress with more than a general sense of life change.
- Strengthen individual focus by ensuring every person is personally helped to respond, not only the most vocal participants.
- Expand your Bible reading plan over time so it steadily covers more of Scripture (without switching programs or rotating curriculum).
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!
