Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover
Marissa Dereka
You’re not starting from zero—you’re already investing in people through mentoring and real-life conversations, which is a strong foundation. The next step is to add a simple, repeatable pathway that consistently moves from Scripture to personal application, with clear indicators of growth, so you can lead with confidence and make it easier for others to reproduce what you’re doing.
Quick Snapshot
You’re actively trying to make disciples, and you already have mentoring and real-life conversations happening beyond meetings. At the same time, your current approach is hard to reproduce because it’s mostly discussion-based, mostly general (not personal), and you don’t yet have a clear method, measurements, or a Spirit-reliant process you can repeat with confidence.
What's Working Well
You have real relational touchpoints that many people never build—disciple making is not confined to a meeting, and you’re already investing through mentoring and everyday conversations.
- You’re actively engaged in disciple making (not just thinking about it).
- You’re using Scripture (even if primarily through topical passages).
- You already have contact outside meetings where real life can be brought into the conversation.
What May Be Challenging
Based on what you shared, the main constraint isn’t your desire—it’s the lack of a simple, repeatable pathway that consistently moves people from Scripture to personal application, with a clear definition of success and a way to tell if growth is happening. Because your conversations stay mostly general and you don’t yet have a clear way to measure progress, your confidence stays low and replication is unlikely to happen naturally.
- No clear measurement of whether it’s working over time.
- No defined method you could clearly explain and hand to someone else.
- Intentional reliance on the Holy Spirit isn’t yet built into your process.
Why It Matters
When disciple making is active but not clearly defined, it can quietly drift into good conversations that don’t reliably produce growing disciples who can disciple others. A simple, Scripture-anchored, Spirit-reliant, application-forward plan will raise your confidence because you’ll be able to see progress, repeat what works, and make it easier for someone else to follow the same approach.
— 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 already actively trying to make disciples and you’re having mentoring conversations in everyday life, but your confidence is low because you don’t yet have a clear, repeatable plan or a clear way to know if it’s working. The two strategies below were selected because they create the most leverage for your situation: they turn good intentions and good conversations into a simple pathway you can repeat. Together, they make disciple making easier to lead, easier to measure, and easier for someone else to reproduce.
Make the process intentional and measurable
Based on what you shared, you’re already doing disciple making but you don’t yet have a defined plan or any clear way to tell if progress is happening, which is a major reason your confidence is low.
- Write a one-page “next few meetings” plan with the same basic flow each time (Scripture, application, follow-up, next steps).
- Choose 3–4 simple indicators of growth you’ll look for (for example: consistent engagement with Scripture, one clear personal application each time, reconciliation/relational repair where needed, serving/mission steps, or initiating spiritual conversations).
- At the end of each meeting, have each person name one specific next step they will take before you meet again.
- Begin each gathering by briefly revisiting what happened with last time’s next steps (not a report loop—just a short check-in for learning and encouragement).
- Keep a simple private note of each person’s “next step” and what you’re seeing over time so you can shepherd them intentionally.
Clarify a simple definition and a repeatable method
Based on what you shared, you do have a basic definition (“a follower of Jesus”), but it feels incomplete, and your method clarity is currently none—so even good meetings can stay general and be hard to reproduce.
- Write a one-sentence definition of a disciple that you can say the same way every time, and that clearly points to what changes in a person’s life.
- Define 3–4 outcomes that describe “what you’re aiming for” (for example: follows Jesus in daily decisions, engages Scripture through a simple Bible reading plan, applies what God says, and helps others take the same steps).
- Choose a simple meeting flow you can repeat (for example: read a passage, each person shares what stands out, each person chooses one specific application, pray, and plan one along-the-way touchpoint).
- Shift discussion from general to personal by building in a consistent moment where every person answers: “What will I do because of this?”
- Keep the method lightweight so you can use it both in meetings and in mentoring conversations outside meetings.
What Success Looks Like
- You can clearly explain your disciple-making process in a few sentences, and someone else could follow it.
- People regularly leave with specific, personal application from Scripture—not just general discussion.
- You can name clear indicators of growth and see progress over time, which raises your confidence.
- The first signs of replication begin to appear as someone you’ve invested in starts investing in someone else.
Early Measurable Wins
- Establish a repeatable meeting flow and use it the same way each time.
- Every person leaves each meeting with one specific personal application step.
- You document 3–4 simple growth indicators and begin noticing patterns over multiple conversations.
- Add one intentional along-the-way follow-up touchpoint per person between meetings (a short conversation that connects to their 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.
- Increase Scripture consistency by moving from topical-only engagement toward a simple Bible reading plan that keeps everyone in the Word together.
- Build in intentional reliance on the Holy Spirit by making space to listen, pray, and respond to what He brings to mind from Scripture.
- Over time, design your process so replication is an explicit expectation: the same steps you use with someone become the steps they use with someone else.
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!
