“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35 (CSB)
When you think of discipleship, what comes to mind first? Some leaders go immediately to a discipleship pathway. For others, it’s a program like Sunday School (or whatever you might call your groups ministry), and for some, it’s about personal relationships pointed toward becoming more like Christ. The more I connect with leaders around the country, the more stories I hear of churches wanting to be better disciple-makers but not knowing what steps to take.
We want our churches to be characterized by the disciples that we send into our communities and around the world but feel largely unsuccessful when we try to measure our effectiveness. That is one of our struggles as church leaders, isn’t it?
How do we measure the growth of a disciple? The easiest metric to measure is attendance and you can learn a lot from attendance trends. Here are some questions you can ask to track attendance metrics:
1. What drew them into the church?
2. Did they come back the next time the church was open or did you have to connect with them again through another outreach?
3. How many times did they attend before they became a Christian?
4. At what point did they get connected with a smaller group in the church?
5. How many times a month do they attend worship and small group?
6. Is their attendance staying steady or increasing?
7. Have they found a place to serve? And if so, how often are they serving and where are they serving?
8. Lastly, have they moved into a leadership role? (e.g. Are they leading ministry teams, mission teams, or teaching a class?)
All of these questions are attendance related and offer indications toward their spiritual growth, but these metrics can only tell you so much. When we’ve learned all we can from attendance, what do we do?
At some point in the journey there must be a transition from programs to relationships. This is where verses like John 13:34-35 and Hebrews 10:24-25 come in. In John 13, we are given the command to love one another, and Jesus says that it’s in this love for one another that the world will see the mark of Christ in us. In Hebrews, as the writer is encouraging a scattered and scared people, he says to “…consider one another in order to provoke love and good works.” The apostle Paul says, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1 CSB).
Each of these are encouragements toward intentional relationships that reflect Christ, hold the believers accountable, and reflect a life investment that yields growth in one’s life. In other words, this is where the rubber meets the road. Being a disciple is about being known and making yourself open to growth in Christ and this is only going to happen when ministry leaders prioritize and make room for deep relational discipleship.
To be clear, I’m not saying that small group programs aren’t an integral part of discipleship. They can be one of the most critical pieces of a discipleship pathway, but they can fall flat as well. It’s all about the intentionality behind what is happening in your groups ministry. Are your leaders being trained to look for class members that are ready to take a next step or are they just checking off another successful lesson? When your programs are built to equip and challenge disciples to take their next step, you’re moving in the right direction.
The question now is, how do you know what next step a disciple is ready to take? This will be partly dictated by your church culture and the individual being discipled, but over and above attendance, you should consider measuring these areas:
1. Study – How often are they in the word?
2. Pray – What are their prayer rhythms?
3. Worship – Where do you see worship in their life?
4. Serve – How are they exercising their gifts?
5. Connect – Do they have a strong Christian community?
6. Share – With whom and how often are they sharing their faith journey?
So let’s go back to where we started. How do these questions relate to love that identifies us to the rest of the world as disciples of Christ? Some easy applications would be that as we study scripture in a pursuit of Christlikeness, we will inevitably develop a compassion for not only our Christian brothers and sisters, but also the lost world around us.
As we develop that love for those around us, we will be compelled to pray for them and intercede on their behalf. As we pray for opportunity for to speak the gospel into the lives of people around us, we will have opportunities to share our faith with them.
When we serve others in our church and community, love is actively on display to those we are serving. As we worship, we declare our love and dependance on the Lord, and as we do that together in community, we foster and encourage one another in love. In all these ways, love becomes one of the major distinctives in a disciple’s life.