How Discipleship is Presented in a Typical Modern Church Congregation
A Problem in Modern Church Congregations 
- Followers usually don’t feel they are adequately trained to disciple new believers and often believe it’s the Pastor’s role.
- Pastors / Leaders are perceived to be trained to disciple others, but don’t have the necessary time to devote individually to each new believer.
- Pastors / Leaders are doing their job supporting the church.
- Followers typically are OK with this model eventhough the problem leads to an anemic Church.
Solution: Implement a Better Model
“And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.
Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head—Christ. From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.” Ephesians 4:11-16
- The role of Leaders (Pastors) is to “equip the saints” to disciple / spiritually mentor others. This can be done in corporate training sessions or modeled in one-in-one relationships.
- The role of the “saints” / followers is to have a surrendered attitude and learner’s disposition to be trained to mentor others.
- The result should be that personal discipleship / one-on-one mentoring is the norm rather than the exception. The expectation is that every believer is in the process of being discipled or discipling others.
- The ultimate goal is spiritual maturity, spiritual fruitfulness, and spiritual reproduction.
Watch as the author discusses the problem and a solution.
Are You a Typical Church Congregation? (5:22 min.)
