Assimilating People into an Effective Discipleship Process
by Tommy Swindol
Among the many elements of a healthy church, three are particularly important concerning the assimilation of newcomers: maintaining an effective discipleship process, ensuring the right people are leading each ministry, and creating the right church culture.
By effective discipleship process, I mean that we want to create a scope of spiritual development into which we can assimilate people. Once we align our ministries toward an effective discipleship process, we want to put the right people in the right leadership positions to ensure they are leading others based on their passions and spiritual gifts. The term culture refers to the intangible qualities of a healthy church: What makes someone feel welcomed and know that they are being cared for? How are they able to leave a gathering with the understanding that they are accepted? Those things are all intangibles that the church fosters. The most important (and difficult) component of these three to develop is culture.
With that framework in mind, this article will focus specifically on developing an effective discipleship process within a church and on assimilating people into that plan of spiritual development.
The Mission of God’s Church
We must orient our discipleship processes directly around the mission of God’s Church, which is centered on the urgent Great Commission found in Matthew 28. However, each individual local church shoudd express that mission verbally in a contextualized way. For instance, at our church, our mission statement is that The Donelson Fellowship (TDF) exists to lead people to freedom, purpose, and fulfillment in Jesus Christ:
- Freedom: the realization of both the bondage of our sin and the freedom our Savior brings. “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go’” (Mt. 28:18-19a).[1]
- Purpose: knowing why we’re on this planet and accepting God’s refinement in the process of living. “‘And make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’” ( 28:19b-20a).
- Fulfillment: how God can use our personalities, passions, and spiritual gifts for His glory. “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Mt. 28:20b).
The process of spiritual development for which we long is to help people find their freedom in Christ by their accepting Jesus as their personal Savior. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn. 8:36). However, once individuals begin a relationship with Jesus, they still have to work through their baggage, such as addictions, emotional insecurities, and sinful patterns.
For that reason, they need not only to discover their purposes in life but also to begin walking in those purposes, allowing God, His Word, and His Spirit to guide them consistently. “I will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments” (Ps. 119:45, NLT). So, once a person has been set free, and he begins to discover and walk in his purpose, then he longs for fulfillment through service as he pours his life out for the benefit of others and engages in disciple-making relationships himself. “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Gal. 5:13).
Contextualizing that Mission
Biblically speaking, the discipleship process outlined above is what all churches hope to establish and consistently use. However, the tools we use to do that depend on the individual church and the context in which it finds itself. For instance, at our church, we invite people into a relationship with Jesus primarily through individual discipleship relationships and weekend worship services.
Once we have engaged in relationship with them, either personally or through our corporate worship services, we invite them to a four-session course called Lifetrack, which functions as an on-ramp to the larger path of discovering their purpose. Then we help them find a small community of believers in which to live out their purpose (called a Lifegroup), finally helping them engage in day-to-day and week-to-week intentional discipleship and service as part of our Dream Team, the group of amazing servant-leaders in our church who have discovered their passions and spiritual gifts and are actively serving in areas of ministry and disciple-making that fit them.
Therefore, in helping people find freedom, purpose, and fulfillment, we point people to Lifetrack in every service. In Lifetrack, leaders help people discover a Lifegroup to plug into. Everyone who is in a Lifegroup needs to know how to disciple others and how to discover a lifestyle of serving on the Dream Team. This type of assimilation mindset causes us not simply to focus on worship attendance but instead on the overall percentage of growth in each of the four areas. For instance, maybe our worship attendance grew by 5% this year, but has our Lifetrack, Lifegroup, or Dream Team percentage grown by that percentage? These types of measurements help us identify drop-offs in our assimilation process as well as specific areas of improvement that are needed. It also helps us celebrate areas of assimilation that are going really well. Either way, the assimilation process among these four specific areas becomes a consistent scoreboard:
- Are worship services inspiring and authentic?
- Is Lifetrack relational, informative, and attractive? (By the way, a helpful statistic we found in our church is that 90% of people who come to Lifetrack will plug into a disciple-making role in our church, showing us how important it is to get people into Lifetrack.)
- Do Lifegroups involve heartfelt prayer, care, fellowship, and discipleship?
- Is our Dream Team comprised of passionate, focused, skilled disciples daily using their spiritual gifts for Kingdom work?
The Heart Behind the Process
An important part of the discipleship and assimilation processes is the approach toward and heartbeat behind them. Therefore, we should not treat discipleship as a mechanical conveyor belt but rather as an individualized, patient discipleship process involving messy, complex human beings. One tool that has helped me immensely as I mentor people toward an obedience-based relationship with Jesus, as well as assimilate people into God’s Church, is the Engel scale developed by James F. Engel. In it, he encourages us to disciple people prayerfully by moving them one step closer to Jesus at a time.
For instance, if someone has no appreciation for the Bible, he will likely not be preaching sermons in six months; however, our reasonable aim is to help him value God’s Word as authoritative. Once he views God’s Word as authoritative, then our aim is to help him know how to spend meaningful time in the Word. Everything in discipleship and assimilation is developed with a “move one step” mentality because life is made up of a series of steps. Therefore, a healthy discipleship process is broken down into approachable, easily accomplished next steps.
Again, both the mission and assimilation portions of a discipleship process must be contextualized based on our communities and individual churches. But the ultimate goal is to be intentional in our making disciples of Jesus and assimilating them into God’s Church. The reality is that everything should point to our discipleship process and lead to healthy assimilation. Alignment is key: from the website to the budget to community involvement to sermon preparation. Also, whom we empower to lead, as well as how we do all of this, will help us build a strong culture.
So where is your church in this important area? Do you have an effective discipleship process? Are you assimilating people into that process? Why or why not (having answers to both of those questions is important)? Regardless, God has invited us into His redemption story for the nations. We get to be part of this, so let’s steward our time, energy, and resources well.
____________________
About the Author: Tommy Swindol is the Lead Pastor of The Donelson Fellowship in Nashville, TN. He is married to his wonderful wife of fourteen year. They have two beautiful daughters. Tommy is a graduate of Welch College (Youth Ministry/Music) and Liberty University (MAR in Discipleship Ministries and M.div. in Professional Ministries). Tommy is passionate about discipleship and sharing the truth of God’s Word in a relevant and challenging way to people all over the world.
____________________
[1]Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture quotations come from the New International Version.
May 14, 2018
Thanks for this insightful, practical, and thought-provoking article, Tommy. I’ve bookmarked the Engle scale. Pretty sure I’ll be referencing it later this fall in a series of messages I’m planning to preach on our church’s core values.