Suppose Bob walked into your church and had no religious background.
The music was okay. The message made him think a little bit. The people seemed friendly.
What would Bob’s next step be if he wanted to know more—and Bob’s not really sure what he wants to know more about?
This is where assimilation and discipleship shake hands. Is it clear where you want to take people…and how they can get there? There are many different ways to do this—and I’m first assuming that you hope to find/invite/attract people who may not have a clue who God is and bring them to a place where they become acquainted with him and then best friends. At least, that’s my bias.
This is all about process. I’m not suggesting what information or curriculum you use, but rather whether you have a system for discipleship or not. Your system may be organic or highly structured, but you must have some philosophy that informs your system and whether people inside and outside it know how it works.
For example, ours looked like this:
It began with a post-Sunday morning service event called Square One. This would have been announced for several weekends, and might happen every six weeks. Typically it lasted 75-minutes including a free lunch, childcare, a short video overview of the church (primarily mission/vision), introduction to the senior pastor who would then explain what a person’s next steps (one of the four squares) might be and Q & A. If a person was like Bob, it was fairly linear: first, Find God, then Find a Friend, Find a Job, then possibly All In. Each square—or next step—was described like this:
Find God. Let’s be honest: knowing God is The Big Deal. But it helps to have a safe place to investigate, be real, cut through the religious weirdness, and feel accepted as you explore who God is.
Find a Friend. As we backpack through the journey of life, it’s always better to have a buddy. Life is way more manageable with a like-minded friend to process with, lean into, encourage and be encouraged by.
Find a Job. Everyone is wired with a unique personality and abilities. Everyone. We come alive as we do what we were wired to do and recognize our potential as a child of God. We are all called to serve in some capacity.
All In. When we commit to a community to be discipled and disciple others, we discover the dynamic power of accountability, a shared spiritual DNA and a collaborative mission that’s much bigger than ourselves.
All In was the commitment to become what we called a Shareholder back then, where a person made a covenant with the community for spiritual growth. You might call it a member. They would learn and practice the church’s core values, embrace the mission and vision, and create their own accountability for spiritual formation in order to become “a surrendered and transformed person who loves God and others”—which was our simple definition of a disciple. Every two years they would renew that commitment—we never wanted an inflated roll of who was committed to our community. And by the way, that was typically only 20% of our weekend attendance. It was a true commitment.
Each square had a “flagship event” if a person wanted to take the next step. We used the Alpha program for our Find God step. For Find a Friend we often had a “taste of small groups” event or a weekend series that did a shared group experience for people to join. Find a Job was usually a “shadowing” program where someone could follow a person around who was serving in a particular ministry area to see if it fit them. All In was a “Shareholder Orientation” (typically 90 minutes) where we talked about the requirements and benefits of “deeply covenanting” with our community and mission.
Though the process was somewhat linear, no one had to follow it in that way. For instance, a believer who moved into our city didn’t need to Find God—they probably just needed to connect with some new friends. We let people make their next step based on what they needed.
Was this a perfect system? Of course not.
But at least people had a map…and knew what the map was. And any system is better than no system.
Q: What’s your introductory system for including and discipling people in your community? Does everyone know what it is?
Dave Workman | The Elemental Group
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