Article

The Discipleship Question

Barnabas Piper

For many people, discipleship is a loaded word and a litmus test of a church’s efficacy.

“What do you guys do for discipleship?”   

This is a question that pastors frequently get from new people in their churches. At a church plant, they especially want to know what the plans are. For many people, discipleship is a loaded word and a litmus test of a church’s efficacy. It is near the top of their list of imperatives for a church, and at a new church, that question is especially pressing. 

What people mean when they ask this question is generally, “What kind of program are you running?” What are you doing for men or for women? What resources or curriculum do you use? What style of gatherings do you have for discipleship, and what is your meeting rhythm? Whose methods are you using? “Discipleship” in the American church has largely come to refer to a particular ministry area we have created—some program of meetings and Bible study for professing believers to help us grow as Christians. 

Let me be clear: that is a good endeavor. Such programs are for God-honoring purposes and the benefit of Christians. But what I want you to hear, church planter, is that discipleship itself is not defined by or limited to any program or plan. While all these efforts and plans and products contribute to Christian growth, no program encapsulates the totality of discipleship, and no program is essential for faithful discipleship.  

Total Discipleship

To help you consider this, let me pose a question: what ministry of a faithful church is not discipleship? 

Preaching the gospel is the hub of disciple-making and disciple-growing. Pastoral counseling is discipleship. Kids ministry is discipleship. Music ministry, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, small groups—all discipleship because all of them are part of strengthening and growing Christians. Everything we do in church is for the purpose of making and growing disciples, for pointing them to Jesus and helping them walk faithfully with him. And, of course, if we find some area of ministry where this is not true, we need to quit it.  

What this means for you, church planter, is that you do not need a robust discipleship program or an expensive discipleship curriculum, especially if they do not fit the phase your church is in. Rather, you need to be a church that is so Jesus-forward and so embedded in the reality of Christ’s work that all your efforts help people grow in Christ–even if these efforts are small and simple. You can disciple people through sermons, meals together, neighborliness, and conversation. If you don’t have an office, you can disciple them in homes and over coffee. When people ask, “What do you guys do for discipleship?” you don’t need a method or a brand to answer; you simply need to say that you proclaim the gospel of Jesus and seek to live in its reality together.  

Paul’s Program

In Acts 20:17-38, the Apostle Paul gives one of Scripture’s great treatises on pastoring, and therefore on discipleship, as he says farewell to the Ephesian elders. In it, he lays out seven of what we might call “ingredients” for ministry and discipleship. These are the essentials for faithful ministry, no matter the size or newness of your church. They work in urban, rural, or suburban contexts. They are not bound by ethnicity or socioeconomic realities. What Paul gives us is a paradigm of faithful pastoring and discipleship.  

1. Paul preached the whole gospel, not shrinking from declaring the whole counsel of God. He reiterates this multiple times in verses 20, 24, and 27. In order for people to grow deep as disciples, they must know the whole counsel of God, the full scriptures, the deep gospel. So we, as pastors, preach it to them.  
2. Paul did ministry publicly (v. 20). He emphasized the gathering of believers for corporate worship, into which outsiders and unbelievers could be invited. He preached the gospel to all who would hear.  
3. Paul did quiet ministry (v. 20). He went house to house to declare the whole counsel of God. This means that our hospitality, our counseling, our welcoming, and our conversations are infused with the gospel too. We bring the whole gospel into the private and quiet parts of ministry. 
4. Paul took doctrine seriously. We know this from the way he spoke about the gospel and also from the way he urges the elders to “pay careful attention” (v.28) in their care of the flock. He is urging the pastors to protect against false teaching.  
5. Paul worked hard (v. 35). He recognized that gospel ministry was both a tall task and well worth it for the sake of Jesus’s name and the growth of His church. 
6. Paul was a man of prayer (vv. 32, 36). None of this ministry was done with his own cleverness or in his own strength. He turned the church over to God, and he went to God with the church.  
7. Paul emulated Jesus. Throughout these verses, we can see humility, boldness, tenderness, earnestness, passion, love, and sacrifice. The work of Jesus was so evident in Paul that he exuded Christlikeness, making Jesus compelling to those around him.  

None of this could be called a program of discipleship. None of this depended on a certain amount of resources, staff, or congregation size. All of it was done in the church plant at Ephesus and numerous other churches across the Near East. All of it is repeatable. And all of us, as pastors, are called to all of it. If you have a program of discipleship, good! Don’t abandon it or disparage it. Just ensure it looks like these ingredients. If you don’t have a program, don’t be discouraged. You do have a paradigm, and the Lord has given you all you need to faithfully follow it.