Mistakes to Avoid
Disciplemaking is not a bullet dot in a list of options. A pastor is often asking the question: How can I get as many people as possible involved in this all at once? The most often repeated mistake is to turn Discipleship Essentials into a program.
Faulty Solution: Let’s preach on each of the 25 topics and form small groups meeting weekly to cover the same content.
Resulting Problem: All you have after 25 weeks is an experience but you have not equipped people to disciple others. You will be simply asking, “What program can we put in place next year?”
The second version of a program mentality is to attempt to cover Discipleship Essentials in 25 weeks since it is 25 lessons. The whole idea behind MicroGroups is that each group is customized to the individuals in the group.
Every group has its own organic life. Some will be complete in a year and ready to multiply. Many others will take a year and a quarter to a year and a half. You reproduce at your own speed.
Forget trying to coordinate groups on an academic schedule starting in September ending in June, taking the summer off and then starting new groups in the fall.
Go Slow
In other words, my advice is to go slow, enjoy the process, reproduce when ready, and watch the growth occur over the years. Take a longer-term perspective of 3-5 years to see a congregation become a disciplemaking church.
Ralph Rittenhouse
Former Pastor Camarillo Community Church
I had been the senior pastor for 28 years when we decided to do the experiment using the discipleship strategy laid out in Transforming Discipleship. In the first year we launched four MicroGroups: three quads and one triad for a total of 15 people.
This was done "under the radar." The four of us on staff did not announce this from the pulpit about what was going on. But within a few weeks, we all sensed the growth and excitement in our hearts knowing God was at work. Toward the end of the year the groups began to multiply.
That is when we began to suspect that we had started something extraordinary. At the end of the second year, the groups grew to 36 people involved, and at the end of the third year we were up to 64. Not everyone was able to take the lead in establishing their own group immediately, but we could see the process was working.
Life-Changing Church Disciplemaking
The testimonies of life change, the empowerment of seeing so many taking responsibility for creating the environment in which others could be discipled, really infused life into our congregation like I had never seen it before! After 5 years, over 400 people have been engaged in intentional discipleship to the point where it now defines our congregation.
This is who we are and what we are to be about. I am so excited about what we were seeing that we sensed that we needed to export this to others. We have since sponsored two international forums where we have brought people from over 15 countries to be trained to take back the same approach of intentional disciplemaking back to their home countries.
In 32 years of pastoring I have never experienced more church unity and harmony. Everybody is on the same page, convinced we are doing exactly what Jesus intended his church to do.
No microwaves allowed, only crockpots for slow cooking the nutritious environment of MicroGroups to develop disciples who make disciples.
Greg Ogden
Greg Ogden
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