Dynamic Discipleship: Your practical how-to guide for growing followers of Jesus

In the past year, we’ve seen some incredible things happening in the Church. Through reports such as Bible Society’s The Quiet Revival and stories from churches up and down the UK, I’m convinced that God is doing a fresh work in this generation. 

Yet, I can’t help worrying that we might also be in danger of missing the biggest missional opportunity of the last 70 years. That we might be confusing church growth with kingdom growth. There is an undeniable increase in the number of people physically in church. But numerical growth isn’t the same as disciple-making – and it’s disciple-making that leads to kingdom growth. 

Disciple-making transforms believers in Jesus into followers of Christ. It transforms church consumers into kingdom participators. Good discipleship grows a church full of people who are aware of their role in the kingdom – and equipped to live it out. 

When Jesus called his first disciples, he didn’t say: “Hey, you should come to my gathering, we’re meeting at 11am by the lake. We’ll have bread and fish – it’ll be great!” Instead, he said: “Come, follow me” (Matthew 4:19). The invitation was simple. Jesus invited them into relationship with him. They saw where he lived, how he lived and who he lived with. And over time, their lives became more like his. 

Asking good questions is far more important than giving good answers

In the same way, when Jesus sent the disciples out, his great commission wasn’t to fill the pews with as many people as possible. He said: “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). In other words: “Go and do for everyone else what I’ve done for you. Show them how to walk with me like you have.” This simple strategy transformed ordinary people into powerful kingdom-builders who lived in partnership with the Holy Spirit. They built a community centred around Jesus – and invited others into it. From there, they took the gospel halfway around the globe, building churches and changing culture across the known world.

This kind of intentional disciple-making movement is how the Church exploded into existence in the first century. It’s what’s happening in China and Iran, where the Church is growing most quickly. In places where discipleship is essential, the gospel spreads like wildfire. Here in the West, if we want to make sure that the fiery Gen Zers who are giving their lives to Jesus today are still following him in 20 years’ time – and their children and grandchildren, too – this needs to be at the heart of our church culture as well. 

Most young people coming into our churches for the first time haven’t been to Sunday school or youth group. They have no idea what Jesus said or did. They are just turning up because they want to know him. But they have been schooled by social media. They have been discipled by a culture that tells them that they’ll never be enough. So we need to start discipling them in the way of Jesus. 

Discipleship shapes lives and builds a kingdom. I know this to be true because I’ve lived it. It’s also my story. 

A two-way street

On the first day of Fresher’s Week in 1999, I arrived at Loughborough University. I was on fire for Jesus and ready to dive straight into the next chapter of the story that I was sure God was writing for me. The first person I met was the guy in the room next to mine in halls. I went over to introduce myself. He was picking a leaflet up from the doormat and looked a bit annoyed. “It’s from the Christians,” he said, waving it in my face. “I hate Christians!”

Within the first few days, the weight of the social pressure to fit in, combined with the enormous realisation that I had to sort my own life out now ran me into a bit of a wall. The fiery guy who had showed up on Monday had burned down to an ember.

That Sunday, I dragged myself to a nearby church. Almost defeated by just a week, I found myself in floods of tears as we sang ‘Be thou my vision’. When we got to the line “thou and thou only, the first in my heart” I stopped singing, my mouth silently forming prayers begging God to help me. After the service, a recent graduate called Nick came over. I have no idea whether he’d witnessed my teary prayers or just spotted a new face and wanted to say hello. He introduced himself and asked whether he could take me to lunch to encourage me in my walk with Jesus. I said yes. After that, we met pretty much every week of my first year at university. Steadily, over the course of about 40 lunches, Nick helped me keep Jesus as my vision.

Disciple-making transforms believers in Jesus into followers of Christ

I didn’t realise it at the time, but what Nick was doing was discipling me. Ever since, I’ve met with other people in different seasons of my life and asked them to disciple me. At the same time, I have met with more than 50 other people to disciple them. Many of them have done this for others, too. When God’s people do this, it is part of a chain reaction that becomes an exponentially unstoppable Jesus movement. Discipleship is, by nature, dynamic. It creates and releases energy in people. Being discipled – and discipling others – has become a pattern of life for me. 

Best of intentions

I’m actually writing this having just had lunch with some football lads on the University of York campus. They aren’t Christians, but they’re curious. They need a space to come with their questions and find their own answers. When we talk about this kind of discipleship, what do we actually mean? At its core, discipleship is one believer walking alongside another person, helping them to follow Jesus with honesty and integrity. It’s about giving them the space and time to process and strengthen their journey with Jesus. 

Intentional discipleship can look different from person to person. In our church, some people meet for coffee, others for a dog walk or a wander through town. Once, someone asked me whether they could borrow two spades for their next discipleship meeting. I said yes – and then asked why. It turned out that the student they were meeting with was processing the breakdown of his parents’ marriage. My friend had come up with the idea of symbolically burying it in the woods. They dug a hole, and the disciple had space to grieve. Then he could let it go. The point is: discipleship doesn’t always have to follow the same format. Sometimes, it’s helpful to do something a bit more creative. 

It’s not always easy to start something like this, particularly if you’ve never been discipled yourself. That doesn’t mean you can’t – or shouldn’t – start growing a discipleship culture in your church. But what do you need to do to help someone in their walk with Jesus? 

Imagine for a moment that you’ve asked someone to meet up with you to disciple you in this way. Picture yourself in this scene.

You’re waiting outside a coffee shop, coat zipped up against the wind. You glance down at your phone. It’s 12:17pm. You’d agreed to meet at noon, and you’ve got a class at 1pm…A few more minutes pass before a voice pipes up: “So sorry I’m late! I had to stop to get some dog food. Millie’s really grown, and the vet told us to switch to a new brand with more protein…” Your mind wanders as they tell you in detail about their dog’s recent gut health problems. 

Once in the café, you find yourself squeezed onto a tiny table between a couple that, by the look on their faces, seem about to break up, and a family with twin babies screaming their heads off. “So,” they say. “How was your week?”

At its core, discipleship is one believer walking alongside another, helping them to follow Jesus with honesty and integrity

You begin to answer, trying to articulate a thought that’s been going round in your head all week. On the table, their phone beeps. Their hand twitches towards it. You plough on, explaining how you’ve been wrestling with Jesus about this thought you keep having. The phone goes again. And again. “Keep going,” they urge as they pick it up. 

The minutes creep forward and now it’s just before 1pm. They push their chair back and stand up. “I’ve got to run, I’m afraid. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to pray – we will next time. Have a lovely week!” 

As you make your way out of the café, you think: I’m pretty sure we didn’t get a chance to pray last time either…

You’ve probably figured out what’s wrong with this picture. But what’s the right way to go about discipleship? There are five simple but crucial elements. 

1. Availability

First, make yourself available to spend time regularly with the disciple. This means not turning up 17 minutes late! 

2. Asking

Second, ask good questions. These draw the disciple deeper into understanding who they are and who Jesus is. Asking good questions is far more important than giving good answers. It’s especially more important than giving irrelevant information about your own life. 

3. Attentiveness

Third, give your full attention. Listen well, without being distracted – and pay attention to what the Holy Spirit is saying during the conversation. 

4. Scripture

Fourth, you don’t need to be an expert or have 1,000 verses memorised, but it is important to ensure your conversations are based upon what the Bible has to say more than your own opinions! Be willing to explore what scripture says together, looking things up when you meet and going back to the Bible between meetings where needed. 

5. Prayer 

Finally, make time to pray for and with the person you are discipling – inside your meeting time and outside of it. It’s through prayer that the Holy Spirit can transform the disciple. It’s not up to you to do the transforming – but it is up to you to hold the space well and invite the Holy Spirit to work in their lives. 

If you can do those five things, then you’re probably ready to disciple some people. Who could you meet up with? All it takes to start a discipleship culture like this in your church is for you to decide to invest your time in someone. This is how we strengthen the next generation. This is how we release an unstoppable Jesus movement. 

Just imagine what your church could look like if, in a few months’ time, the person you are meeting up with started discipling their friends, and then their friends discipled their friends. 

Suddenly, you’d be a church full of people who don’t just believe in Jesus but are actively walking with him. And more than that, you’d be a church full of people who are aware of their gifts and how to outwork them. 

You’d be a church where Sunday gatherings aren’t the only space for growth but the overflow of lives already being transformed. You’d be a church full of people who are actually carrying out the great commission. And if we all did that? We’d be a nation of people actually doing what Jesus told us to do. And that would be unstoppable. 

So, who are you inviting for lunch this week? 

Fusion’s new book, How to Make Disciples That Make Disciples contains ready-to-use session plans and practical tools to help you start discipling others. Find out more at fusionmovement.org/htmd