Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover

First Church of Whoville

Created for Doug Burrier
You already have genuine signs of life—Scripture is present through a Bible reading plan of selected books, some disciple making happens beyond meetings, and a few people are discipling others. The opportunity now is to bring clarity and unity without disruption: a simple shared definition and method, paired with consistent individual application. As leaders model this together, you should see confidence rise and disciple making become more consistent across ministries.

Quick Snapshot

Overall Disciple-Making Strength
0 / 35 · Early
Your church has some informal disciple making already happening, including a few people who have begun discipling others, but the overall approach isn’t consistent across ministries. Scripture is present, yet much of the weekly experience is curriculum-driven and discussion is mostly general rather than personal. With mixed leadership alignment and concern about disruption, the next step is a simple, unified process that leaders can model without “blowing up” existing ministries.

What's Working Well

You’re not starting from zero—there is real momentum and some replication is already happening. – A consistent Bible reading plan through selected books of the Bible is part of your culture. – Some disciple making is happening outside meetings at least sometimes. – A few people have already begun discipling others.

What May Be Challenging

The biggest constraint is that people don’t have a clear, shared process they can repeat across ministries, so results depend heavily on the leader and the group. – Groups lean curriculum-driven and discussion stays mostly general, which makes personal application inconsistent. – There isn’t a clearly defined method, and the definition of “what you’re producing” is only partially clear. – Leaders are mixed in modeling and alignment, and change feels risky because disruption to existing ministries is a major concern.

Why It Matters

When disciple making depends on individual leaders rather than a simple shared method, it’s hard to reproduce healthy outcomes across a whole church—especially when ministries are operating with different plans. Clarifying a unified, leader-led pathway can raise confidence, increase personal application, and make replication more normal without requiring a wholesale replacement of what ministries already do.

— 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

Strong Alignment

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

Right now disciple making in your church is happening informally, with a few people discipling others, but the lack of a clear, shared approach across ministries is keeping confidence low and results uneven. The two highest-leverage moves are to clarify a simple definition and to re-center the process on individuals rather than mostly general discussion. Together, these create a repeatable pathway leaders can model and ministries can align to without forcing a disruptive “reset.” If you make these two shifts in the next few meetings, you should feel clarity rise and see more consistent personal application.

Clarify a simple, shared disciple-making definition and method

Based on what you shared, there isn’t a clear method in place and your definition is only partially clear, which makes it difficult for different ministries to move in the same direction. Practical helps: – Write a one-sentence definition of a disciple in your context (simple enough that every leader can repeat it). – Write a one-page description of “how we make disciples here” using plain language (no new curriculum required). – Decide on a small set of shared inputs every ministry can adopt (for example: Bible reading plan, application question, and simple follow-up). – Align leaders on 2–3 outcomes you want to see that match your definition (so measurement is consistent). – Start with a pilot team of 3–4 leaders from different ministries to test and refine the shared method before broader rollout.

Shift from general discussion to leader-led individual application

Based on what you shared, discussion is mostly general and individual focus is low, which often leaves people encouraged but unclear on what to do next. Practical helps: – Add one non-negotiable application moment to every gathering: “What will you apply, specifically, before we meet again?” – Have leaders ask one personal follow-up question in the moment (brief, respectful, and specific to the person). – Keep the Scripture anchor, but require a personal takeaway tied to the Bible reading plan (not just a group insight). – Build in a simple touchpoint outside the meeting for each person (text, call, coffee, or a short check-in) focused on encouragement and application. – Train leaders to listen for where each person is and guide one next step, instead of trying to cover everything for everyone.

What Success Looks Like

– Different ministries can describe the same simple disciple-making definition and basic method in the same words. – Group meetings consistently produce specific personal application steps, not just good discussion. – Leaders follow up with people outside meetings in simple, repeatable ways. – Replication increases as more people feel equipped to disciple others using the same shared approach.

Early Measurable Wins

– Draft and share a one-sentence disciple definition and a one-page “how we do it” method with a small pilot of 3–4 leaders. – Add a consistent application question to every group and track whether each person leaves with one specific action. – Have each leader do one brief outside-the-meeting follow-up with each participant (or at least with those they’re actively investing in). – Identify the first signs of progress: more specific application, more outside-the-meeting encouragement, and one additional person beginning to disciple 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!

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. 

– Strengthen Making Disciples is Done Intentionally by setting one clear, shared disciple-making goal leaders can rally around. – Strengthen The Process Relies on the Holy Spirit by intentionally making space for listening and responding to Him, not just covering content. – Strengthen The Goal is Application by coaching leaders to prioritize transformation-focused next steps over information coverage.

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!