Beeson Corner: Reclaiming Disciple Making
In this month of Holy Week opening to Easter when, historically, catechumens preparing for membership have been welcomed into the Church, disciple-making seems to be an appropriate focus. New believers experienced a three-year preparation in the Early Church in anticipation of the culminating baptism and communion once they finished the training. They would be steeped in the Word of God and basic Church doctrines. They would also be mentored into spiritual maturity and were commonly instructed in what twenty-first-century Christians might call deliverance ministry. Once catechized, they would join the full fellowship and disciple-making practices of the congregation.
A three-year preparation for church membership would be nearly unimaginable today. At the same time, the opposite routine of a one or two-week “new member orientation” has certainly not been adequate. Disciple-making requires a much more robust pathway that extends from pre-evangelism to reproducing disciple-makers and the Majority World Church offers some best practices to consider.
The explosive growth of the number of disciples of Jesus beyond North America and Europe has been catalyzed by various movements of God around the world. For example, thousands of new believers are coming to Christ through small, indigenous Bible studies that ask participants to not only comprehend the Word but also apply it to their daily lives. One of the more visible streams of this Gospel transformation is Disciple Making Movements.
Disciple-Making Movements (DMMs) typically utilize small group studies that invite “people of peace” to consider the truths of Scripture in an open, shared conversation. Questions and doubts are encouraged so the leader(s) can help participants engage with biblical stories and principles. Insights from the Word are translated into a specific act of obedience to be lived out that week. Participants are also asked to share what they were learning from the Bible with their friends and families.
DMMs are having an impact in North America as well. Asbury is learning from several church planters from the Wesleyan theological perspective who are using DMM approaches for launching new congregations. One Asbury alum and Board of Trustees member, Rev. Kyle Ray, is a Wesleyan pastor in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area who has adopted a DMM model for his congregation as they multiply daughter churches.
Assuming the statistics Eric Huffman cites in The Next Methodism are true – that American Methodism, once renowned for starting two new churches a day, now loses congregations at the same rate – then new disciple-making wineskins like Disciple Making Movements and micro-church strategies are particularly timely, especially for Christ followers who embrace the legacy of John Wesley. If COVID has taught the Church anything, resilience goes up when congregations practice some type of Wesleyan bands and/or similar small groups. When groups extend the invitation to people of peace, people who appear to be open to safe conversations about faith issues, disciple-making accelerates as well.
There is no question that the high majority of believers have never been part of a foundational discipleship relationship. My source was and is material from the Navigators which is all they do. I still use the material after being a Christian 64 years. One group in California is approaching discipleship with cohorting, but it is more of supporting, encouraging approach. No seminarian should graduate without being in some kind of discipleship involvement.