Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover
Dogwood Symbolism
You have enough structure to move forward without triggering a disruptive overhaul: a clear method, a leadership pathway, and some leaders already modeling disciple making. If you focus on consistent personal application and along-the-way follow-through, you can raise confidence, strengthen unity, and help more leaders reproduce the same disciple-making approach in a way that fits your church culture.
Quick Snapshot
You have a clear method in place and a unified pathway to leadership, but your disciple making is currently shaped mainly by teaching and topical Scripture engagement. Right now, it tends to land on “for everyone” rather than helping each person take a clear next step, and it usually stays inside scheduled meetings.
What's Working Well
You already have some meaningful structure to build on: you’ve clarified a method, you’ve seen people become leaders, and at least some senior leaders are personally making disciples.
- A clear method is present (you can describe what you do).
- There is a unified pathway to leadership.
- Some senior leaders are modeling disciple making in visible ways.
What May Be Challenging
Several constraints are likely limiting momentum: disciple making is not yet happening “along the way,” individual focus is low (it lands mostly at the group level), and reliance on the Holy Spirit isn’t a consistent emphasis. Add in mixed leadership priorities and a high concern about division, and even good changes can stall if they feel disruptive.
- Scripture engagement is primarily topical, and the weekly format is teaching-heavy.
- Personal application emphasis and success measurement are both unsure right now.
- Leadership alignment is mixed, and you’d worry about division if changes were made.
Why It Matters
When disciple making stays mostly inside teaching settings and doesn’t regularly translate into personal application and along-the-way investment, it becomes harder to form disciples who reproduce—and it becomes harder for leaders to stay aligned around one clear mission. Strengthening individual next steps, along-the-way follow-through, and Spirit-reliant practice can raise confidence from “medium” to “clear” without triggering unnecessary division.
— 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 Making Disciples is Done Intentionally and The Fuel is God’s Word. 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
Based on what you shared, your church has some real building blocks—clear method elements, a unified leadership pathway, and some senior leaders modeling disciple making—yet the process is not consistently translating into individual, actionable next steps or continuing outside meetings. The two strategies below were selected because they are the highest-leverage constraints affecting nearly everything else: if individuals don’t leave with personal application, it’s difficult to disciple “along the way,” measure progress, or multiply leaders consistently. Strengthening these two together lets your teaching stay in place while the disciple-making outcomes become clearer and more reproducible.
From teaching to personal application for each person
Based on what you shared, you already have a clear method and regular teaching, and the biggest leverage is ensuring each person regularly identifies a specific personal application from Scripture rather than landing only on general “for everyone” discussion.
- End every gathering with each person stating one specific application step they will take before the next meeting.
- Keep application concrete: one decision, one relationship step, one habit to start/stop, or one conversation to have.
- Have leaders model it first by sharing their own personal application briefly.
- Make application Scripture-tethered: “Because this passage says __, I will __.”
- Use a simple check-in at the start of the next meeting: “How did your application go, and what did you learn about God and yourself?” (keep it encouraging, not a reporting loop).
Build “along-the-way” follow-through outside meetings
Based on what you shared, you already gather consistently, but disciple making is not currently happening outside meetings, so people don’t receive real-life help applying Scripture in everyday situations.
- Start with a small starter group of 3–4 people where leaders intentionally follow up once between meetings.
- Keep follow-up simple: one text or short call asking about the person’s application step and offering prayer and encouragement.
- Equip leaders with one repeatable question for everyday settings: “What is God showing you, and what will you do about it?”
- Encourage leaders to connect disciple making to real situations (family stress, work decisions, conflict, temptation), not just meeting content.
- Make the outside-meeting touchpoint normal and lightweight so it strengthens unity rather than feeling like a disruptive new program.
What Success Looks Like
- In most gatherings, each participant leaves with a clear, personal application step tied to Scripture.
- Leaders regularly have brief, intentional contact with people between meetings to encourage application.
- The church can describe disciple-making “wins” in concrete terms (maturity, application, relationships repaired, missional steps), not just attendance.
- Leadership alignment increases because disciple making becomes clearer, simpler to explain, and easier to reproduce.
Early Measurable Wins
- Each meeting ends with every person sharing one specific personal application step.
- Leaders follow up once between meetings with at least 3–4 people to encourage application.
- You can name at least a few real stories of Scripture-based application happening in everyday life.
- Leaders can describe the disciple-making process in the same basic language without adding competing priorities.
— 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.
- Shift Scripture engagement from primarily topical passages toward a simple Bible reading plan that moves through larger sections of Scripture over time.
- Clarify a simple, shared definition of a disciple and what “success” looks like so leaders measure the same outcomes.
- Strengthen Spirit reliance by building in intentional moments where people ask, listen, and respond to what the Holy Spirit is prompting through Scripture.
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!
