Your Personalized Disciple Making Makeover
Caden Billingsley
You’re not starting from zero—you’re already investing, people are experiencing real-life change, and you have a clear definition of a disciple. The next step is to make your disciple making simpler, more intentional, and more Spirit-reliant so it becomes easier to measure, easier to repeat, and eventually easier to reproduce in others.
Quick Snapshot
You’re investing in people and seeing encouraging signs as they tell you about success in their own lives, but your disciple making is currently informal and mostly contained to meetings. Because you don’t yet have clear goals, a repeatable plan, or a clear way to measure progress, your confidence is low and replication hasn’t started yet.
What's Working Well
You already have some important building blocks in place: you care enough to follow up with people, you are using Scripture (even if mainly topically), and you can clearly define what you mean by “a disciple.”
- You have a clear definition: someone who believes Jesus is Lord and Savior and is actively following His Word.
- People are reporting real-life wins, which suggests God is using your investment.
- You do follow up outside meetings with “how are you doing?” questions, which keeps relationships active.
What May Be Challenging
Right now the main constraint is not your heart or effort—it’s that the process isn’t yet clear, measurable, or designed for multiplication. You also shared that personal application is mostly general (with only occasional personal conversations), along-the-way disciple making is not clearly built in, and reliance on the Holy Spirit isn’t a consistent part of the process.
- Without a simple plan and clear goals, it’s hard to know what to do next with each person.
- Without consistent personal application, meetings can drift toward discussion rather than transformation.
- Without Spirit-reliant space and follow-through outside the meeting, growth often stays event-based rather than life-based.
Why It Matters
You’re already seeing some fruit, but a simple, intentional, Spirit-reliant process will help you move from “encouraging moments” to a steady, repeatable pathway that produces mature disciples who can disciple others. It will also raise your confidence because you’ll be able to see progress more clearly and know what “working” looks like.
— 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 Definition is Simple. 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 shared that disciple making is happening, but it’s informal, mostly meeting-contained, and you don’t yet have clear goals or a clear way to tell if it’s working—so confidence is low and replication hasn’t started. The two highest-leverage moves now are to make disciple making truly intentional with a simple plan, and to build in consistent Holy Spirit reliance so transformation doesn’t depend on your effort alone. Together, these will give you a clearer pathway for each person, make progress easier to recognize, and create a foundation that can eventually reproduce in others.
Make disciple making intentional with a simple, repeatable plan
Based on what you shared, you’re already investing in people, but without clear goals and a repeatable plan it’s difficult to know what to do next, measure progress, or help others reproduce it. A simple plan does not need to be complicated—it just needs to be clear enough that you (and eventually others) can run it the same way with the next person.
- Choose a small starter group of 3–4 people you can invest in consistently.
- Write a one-paragraph plan that answers: what you do in the meeting, what you do between meetings, and what “progress” looks like.
- Set 2–3 simple, measurable goals (for example: consistent engagement with Scripture, one clear application step each meeting, one intentional follow-up conversation between meetings).
- Add a basic way to track progress: a short note after each meeting on what each person’s application step is and what follow-up you’ll do.
- Start inviting those disciples to begin practicing the same process with someone else when they’re ready, one step at a time.
Build consistent reliance on the Holy Spirit into the process
Based on what you shared, you’re aware that reliance on the Holy Spirit isn’t yet a consistent part of your process, and strengthening this will directly increase transformation and discernment for personal next steps. Making space for the Spirit also helps move conversations from general discussion toward personally relevant application.
- Begin each meeting with a brief prayer that specifically asks the Holy Spirit to lead, convict, and guide application.
- After reading Scripture, pause and ask a simple question like, “Holy Spirit, what are You highlighting for me to apply?”
- Encourage each person to name one clear next step they sense God is leading them to take (keep it simple and specific).
- During follow-up, ask, “What did you sense God was saying, and what happened when you tried to apply it?”
- Keep the tone pastoral and encouraging—this is about learning to listen and respond, not performing.
What Success Looks Like
- You can clearly describe a simple disciple-making plan and goals, and you’re running it consistently with a small group.
- Meetings regularly lead to specific personal application steps (not just general discussion).
- Follow-up outside the meeting becomes intentionally connected to each person’s application and growth.
- Early signs of replication begin as at least one disciple starts helping someone else take the same kinds of steps.
Early Measurable Wins
- Identify 3–4 people to invest in and schedule consistent meetings with them.
- Introduce one consistent “personal application step” moment so each person leaves with a clear next action.
- Add one intentional follow-up touchpoint between meetings that connects directly to each person’s application.
- Start each meeting by explicitly inviting the Holy Spirit’s guidance, then include a short pause after Scripture for listening and response.
— 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.
- Move from topical Scripture use toward a simple Bible reading plan that steadily walks through larger portions of the Bible over time.
- Strengthen individual focus by ensuring every person has a personal next step, not just a group takeaway.
- Clarify “what counts as progress” with a few simple indicators you consistently look for and celebrate.
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!
