In my last post, I talked about the idea of a discipleship pathway. I encourage you to read that post. But to summarize here: A discipleship pathway is a strategy a church uses to move a person from being a new believer or new church member to being a fully active and committed church member as a follower of Jesus. Unfortunately, only about 5% of churches have a clearly defined pathway. Fortunately, a pathway is simple to develop (though it takes vision and commitment to implement it) and often can be built with the programs and ministries already in place.
In a moment, we’ll discuss the practical steps of developing a discipleship pathway, but first, I want to briefly touch on why your church should have one.
First, a pathway helps to create membership expectations. Most organizations have expectations for their members. The church should be no different. In fact, when you look at scripture, you see several expectations of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We’re to meet regularly with other followers of Jesus. We’re to love others in practical ways, serving their needs no matter who they are or their life situations. We’re to grow in godly character, the fruit of the Spirit. We’re also to make disciples who we train to make disciples. We could keep going, but it is easy to see that to be a Christian means something. The same should be true for church membership.
In High Expectation Churches, Thom Rainer wrote, “Effective assimilation churches have one primary characteristic that sets them apart from churches that do not keep their members in active involvement. Effective assimilation churches had high expectations of all their members” (p. 23). Honestly, I would prefer a different word than assimilation. I’m just too much of a Star Trek fan (“Resistance is futile,” says any Borg), but the idea stands. Effective churches that keep and involve their members expect commitment from their members. A pathway can define those commitments.
Second, a pathway provides clear steps of involvement aimed at spiritual growth. Suppose your church sees worship, small groups, and serving others as activities that help produce spiritual growth. In that case, it makes sense to have them in a structured pathway where each step calls for greater commitment (e.g., serving needs often takes more commitment than attending worship). Third, a pathway can provide a unifying vision for ministry and programs centered on spiritual growth. In other words, a pathway gives a unifying purpose to everything a church does. People can learn why different ministries and activities are essential instead of hearing, “Well, we just do it.”
So, then, how do you build a pathway?
First, involve and cast a vision with other leaders. If you’re a pastor or church leader, don’t set out to do this alone. Many people might give a courtesy nod to an idea. Most people buy into what they help create. When a person has put blood, sweat, and tears into something, he is more likely to embrace it and continue with it.
Second, with your team, determine and define the church’s priorities. The idea here is to group everything into three to six big categories. So, if your church sends a spring missions team to Guatemala and a fall missions team to Kenya, supports an independent missionary, and gives to Lottie Moon, this would all be lumped under missions. To determine the priorities, it can be helpful to brainstorm around a few questions, such as: What does our church do? What makes our church unique? Who does our church serve? What defines a fully committed church member?
Third, order these priorities from lesser to greater commitment. Commitment level isn’t the same as order of importance. It is simply saying this activity is easier for a person to be involved with than that activity. Gathering for worship is very important. However, it takes much less commitment to get up and attend church most Sundays than it does to go on an out-of-country mission trip every spring. Order the priorities accordingly.
Fourth, create a pathway based on these priorities. Let’s take the example of the First Church of Sometown. It is a typical small-town church with an average worship attendance of 100. As a church, they have Sunday worship, kid’s worship, Sunday School small groups, a few ministry teams, Awana and youth programs, and an evangelism team that strives for some evangelism emphasis or event every quarter. Recently, they also began growth groups for deeper discipleship. Each group has 3 to 5 people, making them smaller and more intimately connected than the Sunday School classes.
From these activities, First Church’s leaders determined their priorities are worshiping, fellowshipping, serving, and disciple-making. They also decided this order of the priorities best represents the commitment level, as reflected in involvement. One hundred attend worship, 80 are in Sunday School, 45 participate in ministry teams, and 20 are on the evangelism team or in growth groups.
Based on this, the leaders of First Church sketched out a pathway of worship > fellowship > serving > discipleship. The worship step involves Sunday worship and kids’ worship. The fellowship step involves Sunday School and Awana and Youth for the kids. Serving involves ministry teams and leaders who help with Awana and Youth. Discipleship consists of the evangelism team and growth groups. The leaders want to engage people in worship first, lead them to join a group second, have them serve others third, and finally be involved in disciple-making to help move others through these steps.
Fifth, state the pathway simply so it can be communicated well. The leaders decided to focus on four easy-to-remember words to help church members understand the pathway: Gather, Connect, Serve, and Disciple. Gathering, the church is a place to worship. Connecting, the church is a place to fellowship. Serving, the church is a place to make a difference. Discipling, the church is a place to change lives. These things together make the church a place to grow as a follower of Jesus. Use similar simple words to communicate the steps in your pathway.
Finally, create a plan to move people through the steps of the pathway. To help people move to greater levels of commitment and, hopefully, deeper spiritual growth, a church needs an avenue to prevent people from getting stuck at different stages. We must remember that some people will never grow beyond just attending worship or participating in a small group. You can encourage them, but you can’t force them. However, a church should make it as clear as possible how to move from one step to the next.
To do this, a church, of course, must communicate, communicate, communicate. State the process. Make it visible on bulletins and the website. Talk about it. Put graphics on the wall in the entryways. As a leader, when you’re tired of talking about it, the church is just starting to grasp it. Some churches also might assign each new member or believer a spiritual mentor who can help guide them through the process. Or a church might tie ministry teams to small groups, so serving becomes a natural outflow of being a part of a group.
First Church decided to create a variety of classes offered throughout the year to help people move from one step to the next. First, they have a Membership Class to teach potential members about the church and introduce them to the pathway. Second, they have a Grow Class where group involvement is emphasized and the basics of spiritual growth (such as personal spiritual disciplines) are discussed. Third, they have a Serve Class where members learn how to discover their spiritual gifts and are presented with ministry teams looking for more involvement. Fourth, they have a Disciple Class where members are taught the importance of sharing the gospel and mentoring others in the faith. Participants in this last class are encouraged to join the evangelism team or a growth group.
In conclusion… I hope this post, along with my previous one, has encouraged you to develop a discipleship pathway. I truly believe that developing a pathway can help give a church a new sense of vibrancy. If your church has a pathway or you’re committed to creating one, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
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Mike Bergman has served as a pastor for over twenty years. He is certified as a church consultant and in church revitalization. He seeks to use his experience and training to assist other churches, especially those in smaller rural environments like the one where he ministers. You can find out more about his practice at ozarkhills.org.
Image cred: Photo by Tobi: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-stands-on-brown-pathway-631986/