Potholes Misalign Focus

Whereas sinkholes have the power to gobble up your disciplemaking ministry, potholes jar your focus on the mission. There are 10 potholes that tend to misalign disciplemakers, as Ralph Rittenhouse explains.

1-Excuses

One of the first potholes that we encounter is excuses. These are reasons or explanations put forward to defend or justify a lack of response to God’s clear commands.

“I don’t have the time,” is one. What they often really mean is that they don’t have the commitment. Jesus encountered a man that insisted that he had to go bury his father first. He had other priorities. An excuse may be the immediate response.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, but, you can salt the oats."

What does that mean? What do you do? Let the Holy Spirit do His work in His own time. In other words, do your part by asking. Explain the process. Share the beneficial impact on your own life. Ask them to pray about being in a MicroGroup with you.

Leave it there. Wait. Pray. Remember your part and God's part.

"Paul planted. Apollos watered. Only God makes it grow."
1 Corinthians 3:6

I invited a man to join my new MicroGroup, and he said he did not have the time. Then six months later he approached me and said he was now able to participate. He had been honest with me. His schedule had been too full earlier, but he truly did want to participate by answering the call of God on his life to make disciples who make disciples. He completed our MicroGroup and is now reproducing by starting another MicroGroup.

2-Scheduling

We live busy lives. Coordinating schedules can be a real challenge. Men are often available at early morning times, before work. Six in the morning has proven to be a desirable time for many of my MicroGroups. Women at home with children often like to get together just after they get the kids off to school. Sometimes lunch breaks or evening times work out better.

What do you do when people’s schedules are interrupted or change? This requires a group response, but can often be solved by changing the time of day or day of the week.

If one person of the quad is going out of town for the week, I will sometimes meet without them. Since I always try to work with groups of four, three still works well.

If the person who misses is a young believer, I might meet with them alone to review missed material. If they are a mature believer, I encourage them to be sure to cover the material by themselves. If two are going to be gone, we just take a week off.

3-Unwillingness to sign the covenant

If someone is hesitant to sign the covenant, I let them explain why. It may simply be a little daunting to see themselves as a leader. When Jeff joined my group, he was admittedly a novice, very young in his faith.

He and his wife had become believers very late in life and he always felt a bit behind. He needed to be reassured. When I told him I thought he would be a great disciplemaker one day, he was visibly encouraged. He had worked with men in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) for years. He had already been discipling men.

He just did not call it that. As the group progressed, he dutifully took his turn facilitating the discussion. When we completed the curriculum, he was the first to start a new group.

When Lori joined her women’s group, she signed the covenant, but later admitted she never thought she would be able to lead her own group. She got so excited about what God was doing in her life that she did not even wait to finish the basic curriculum before she started her own group.

4-Will not do homework

Rick was a businessman almost of retirement age, but still traveled a lot. Also, he and his wife were raising their wayward daughter’s three-year-old. He caught me in the parking lot before going into Denny’s for our quad.

“Ralph, can I audit this group--just come and listen? I really don’t have time to do the homework.”

He continued to explain to me the demands on his time, and I was sympathetic. I said we would talk to the other men when we got inside. As we sat down, I let him explain his situation to the other members of the group.

At first there was silence, but then the others in the group shared their own challenges. It quickly became clear, they were not about to let him off. No way! If we’re going to do the work, so are you.

I was surprised but gratified that Rick took the challenge and never missed doing his homework again. The mutual accountability of these groups is one of their great strengths. The members can often speak stronger than the leader.

When someone is not adhering to the covenant, not showing up on time or failing to memorize the verses, allowing others in the group to determine the restitution or consequence required may be all that is needed.

5-Will not memorize verses

Ok, what about memorizing the verses? Yes, some have more trouble with this than others. But, Scripture memory is a critical part of life transformation. Usually, it is not just one verse, but several.

This requires that you begin working on the verse early in the week. Reviewing it once each morning and then again at night is what I recommend. You want the verse to permeate your life and, as a result, influence your thoughts and actions.

Memorizing the verses may actually be of more value than answering all the questions and reading the notes. Scripture memory trains our minds to see things from God’s perspective. That spiritual discipline allows the Holy Spirit to transform us in accordance to God’s Word.

Dr. Howard Hendricks of Dallas Seminary reportedly made the statement that if it were his decision, every student graduating from Dallas Theological Seminary would be required to learn one thousand verses word perfect before they graduated.

“When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths” 1 Corinthians 2:13.

So, what are some ways to help those who find this a difficult challenge? Well, memory cards often work. Write the verse out on a notecard, carry it with you all week, reviewing it several times a day. I like to write out the first letter of each word on a card, and then force myself to read it repeatedly with only the letters.

6-Vacations

Though Discipleship Essentials has 25 lessons, no one is expected to complete the curriculum in 25 weeks. In fact, a year is more likely and many take 18 months or more. What is most important is the life transformation that takes place in the highly accountable relationships of a gender-specific quad, focused on God’s Word.

Disciplemaking is not calendar driven, its transformation driven.

There will be times when you won’t be able to meet. Taking a week off is not precarious, though two might cause a loss of momentum and cohesion. We encourage meeting weekly in order to build consistent spiritual disciplines and facilitate necessary intimacy and trust.

7-Absenteeism

If a quad member is delinquently absent, the leader may need to meet privately with the individual to review the covenant and assess the reason. It is possible that their life circumstances have changed making participation impossible. Or, maybe commitment is the issue and you may need to offer a gracious “off-ramp.”

If someone has to miss for legitimate reasons, you may need to spend time with them individually to help them catch up, or you could also ask another group member to help them.

My wife has a quad consisting of three stay-at-home moms. All three have multiple adopted children. Because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, these moms have been greatly challenged with home schooling issues. Each week has presented unique scheduling problems.

All the women enjoy the quad sessions together, maybe more so because much of their day lacks adult interaction. Some weeks, the ninety minutes has to be cut to one hour.

Other weeks have been skipped altogether. None of this is because of lack of desire or commitment, but valid availability struggles. I suspect that this group will eventually complete the curriculum, but they will also have learned from each other how to prioritize their own spiritual growth needs.

8-Cannot find people to populate new groups

Jesus spent all night in prayer before selecting the twelve. Certainly this should be our first step.

Pray

I often say, the church in America is a giant reservoir of unemployed disciplemakers, just waiting for someone to come along and show them how.

Jesus chose ordinary men, right off the street, and turned them into world changers. They surrendered to His leadership as Lord to follow Him.

John was a guy like that. He was employed by our church. When he came to apply for the job, he brought his "rap sheet" with him. He had been deep into drugs before coming to Jesus. Now he was clean and sober, had been for a few years, but he did not want any surprises for his new employer.

He got the job and was working on the church maintenance team. When I met him, he had risen to become leader of that team. But he was still young spiritually. I invited him to become part of my discipleship quad and he agreed.

I think John was a bit hesitant at first to join a group with two pastors and another longtime believer. But, as the four of us met weekly, all of us were growing. When we finished our basic discipleship curriculum, John did not hesitate to begin his own discipleship quad. That one finished and now he has started another one. Let God help you choose your group. In Discipleship Essentials at the end, there is a "Leader’s Guide" which contains additional instructions for creating a group.

9-Conflict with small groups

Most churches today have some kind of a small-group ministry. Realizing that all needs cannot be met on Sunday morning or by the pastor, churches institute small groups to help people belong and grow. Small groups do an excellent job at that. People do make friends and build crucial relationships. And, there are many helpful curriculums to assist church members to grow. The advantage of our gender-specific quad is that they allow for much greater transparency and honesty.

And, with only four people in the group, there is a much higher degree of participation and accountability. No one can easily hide in a group of four. Everyone has opportunity to speak.

We never encourage churches to drop their small group ministry, but rather, to add the disciplemaking opportunity for those who want to go deeper. The ultimate goal for every Christ follower is to become a spiritual parent; one who is helping others grow in Christlikeness.

10-Leaders who hesitate to get on board

If a church takes seriously the Great Commission of our Lord, it is important that disciplemaking be modeled by all in leadership.

“You can’t teach what you don’t know, and you can’t lead where you won’t go.”

Now, there are other ways to make disciples, but if the other method does not include helping people learn to become reproducing disciples themselves, they fall short. As I said earlier, there is a difference between discipleship and disciplemaking.

Jesus modeled disciplemaking, and commissioned us to make disciples in all the world. That will not happen if we do not intentionally make multiplying disciples. Without multiplication, we will not reach the world. The Apostle Paul said,

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.” (2 Tim 2:2)

One way to get late-adopters to buy in is to let them “taste the fruit.” Let me illustrate: Some time ago I visited an apple farm in Bellingham, Washington.

In the gift shop, they had a counter with apples available to taste. I was intrigued. I have a number of apple trees in my own yard at home. They had five different varieties available. Most, I was familiar with, but one apple, I did not recognize. It was an Orin apple. I had never even heard of an Orin apple.

But, I liked it; I liked it the best. The texture was crisp and the flavor was strong and sweet. I said to the woman behind the counter,

“I do not want to buy any of your Orin apples. I want to buy an Orin apple tree.”

I was politely told that they didn’t sell apple trees, and that I would unfortunately have to look somewhere else. The point of this story is, that many people will hesitate to buy the tree until they have tasted the fruit. Once they see the results of disciplemaking quads using Discipleship Essentials, and the authentic transformation that results, most will want to try it.