Discipleship Model

Background to the Discipleship Model

This model is being developed the Church Growth Model Building Series - the "Church Growth Cafe". This takes place under the auspices of the Cymru Institute for Contemporary Christianity, CICC, in Cardiff, UK. Summaries of the meetings are given on the Model Building Series page.

The starting point of the model was to understand "kingdom growth" in an individual congregation. "Kingdom" refers to the Kingdom of God, the collection of people who are under God's rule (believers), not just attendees at church. This terminology was chosen to make clear that "growth" means qualitative growth, not just numerical growth in the church. That is the church is making disciples, not just converts, thus there must be some measure of the maturing process in discipleship.

Kingdom Growth: A Definition

An individual congregation has "Kingdom Growth" if sufficient mature believers are generated through the church's own discipleship and conversion program to enable both the church and that program to grow. Though the congregation may benefit from existing believers at varying stages of discipleship transferring in from other congregations, is not dependent on such transfers to facilitate its growth. It is internally self-sustaining in overall numerical growth and discipleship.

Aims of the Discipleship Model

The model should be able to:

• Understand the human side of Kingdom Growth, specifically:
  • Growth in maturity of members of the church, i.e. effects of discipleship
  • Interaction of the church with the community
• Be applied at the congregational level. It does not need to be applied to larger groupings
• Be as generic as possible. Thus it can be applied to churches with different understandings of mission and discipleship. Specifically:
  • The type of evangelistic campaigns that have been used in evangelical churches for many generations
  • Relational evangelistic and renewal methods such as the Alpha Course, Christianity Explored, or Christianity Explained.
  • Churches that rely on the strong links between the congregation and the wider community that exist in places with strong community spirit.
  • Churches that use social programs to attract people to the Kingdom
  • Emerging church methods which attempt to break down the barriers between church and community.
  • Organic growth that occurs through natural contacts between church members and the community
  • Planned discipleship programmes
  • More informal and organic discipleship that occurs through friendships and ministry partnerships in the church
• Understand where people can make a difference in the growth of the Kingdom
  • Things to do
  • Things to avoid
  • Important leverage points

Four Levels of the Discipleship Model

As the model developed it became clear that it need to operate at different levels of complexity.

Level 1 - Measuring Discipleship

This model quantifies:

• How many people are at each stage of discipleship at any time - static view
• How many progress between these stages in a year - dynamic view
• How many people transfers in, leave, are attracted to church, and are converted in a year.

The numbers and rates are set in advance, but can be varied over time. Thus it can explore the impact of a sudden number of conversions in a given year.

A critical part of the model is distinguishing the church from the wider community, and understanding how they interact. These are the two main groups of the model. The model has two stages of interaction: attraction and then conversion. Thus there is an in-between grouping between the wider community and church of believers called here the Potential Converts. This reflects the concept of the "fringe" or overlap between the wider community and the church. Specifically, the three major groupings are:

• Wider community or unbelievers. The latter term is preferred keeping this model in line with other church growth models, and as a reminder that this modelling is more than an academic exercise. The future destiny of individuals is at stake!
• Potential Converts
• Church, or believers. The word church is generally used, as it is well understood by most Christians.

Specific definitions are given in the description of the level 1 model.

Level 2 - Resourcing Discipleship

The next level examines how the church is able to provide the right amount of discipleship required by the church. Specifically:

• Supply by church. That is how many resources can those with sufficient maturity supply given they are also involved in other activities such as church leadership, worship provision and external work.
• Demand by believers. That is how many believers at each stage are seeking to move to the next level of discipleship.

It is quite possible that there are more believers seeking to progress in discipleship than the church provides. Likewise the church may be providing more discipleship resources than are required, thus taking effort away from other parts of church life. Unlike in economics there is no mechanism that adjusts supply to match demand or vice versa.

Level 3 - Controlling Discipleship

• Demand for discipleship comes from the desire for discipleship among the believers of the church
• This desire comes from the sense of expectancy of what God is doing in the church
• This expectancy comes from seeing the spiritual activities taking place in the church, specifically the discipleship ones; and the input of the church leadership. The latter could also be used to describe a direct intervention by God, although it needs to be recognised that this is difficult to quantify, and impossible to predict or control!

Level 4 - Feeding Discipleship

New believers are produced from the potential converts by:

• Contact between potential converts and the church,
• The desire for conversions in the church
• The desire comes from the sense of expectancy of what God is doing in conversions
• The expectancy comes from seeing God at work in conversion, the conversions actually taking place, and the input of the church leadership.

The potential converts are drawn from the wider community of unbelievers by:

• Contact between the unbelievers and both the church and potential converts
• The hunger for the lost in the church
• Input from the church leadership
• The reputation of the church
• The attractiveness of the church resource, such as buildings or community facilities provided.

Definition of Terms

Church Growth. The numerical growth of the church, whether measured by attendance, membership etc, regardless of which category people belong to, basic discipleship, mature etc. The growth may be by conversion, transfer or birth.

Discipleship Process. The work that takes place in the church to produce mature Christians, i.e. to facilitate the flows from potential converts right through to mature believers. This may occur through courses, but more often discipleship is produced though informal contacts that occur in areas such as housegroups, shared mission work, or general friendships.

Progression in Discipleship. The fraction in each category that progresses to the next, and the duration spent in each category. I.e. the controls on the flows in the system dynamics model.

Balance of Maturity. The fraction in each category, in this model: Potential Converts, Basic Discipleship, Early Mature and Mature.

Healthy Balance of Maturity. A church with a balance of numbers in each category that optimises the discipleship process. Although it would be very difficult to set exact ratios, there is a recognition that a disproportionate fraction in any one category will not sustain a discipleship process. E.g. too many in basic discipleship will leave too few mature and early mature to resource discipleship. Too many in the mature category at the expense of basic discipleship will give too few contacts with the wider community and restrict potential converts, and perhaps portray a church of "experts" where "learners" may feel less at home.

Kingdom Growth. The numerical growth of the church, whether measured by attendance, membership etc, through conversion, with a discipleship process that produces a healthy balance of maturity. The church grows though conversion and maturity is achieved by discipling those converts, not by transfers from other churches.

Links to Construction and Results

Level 1 Construction, Principles Established, Experiments

Level 2 Construction, Experiments

Level 3 Construction, Experiments

Level 4 Construction, Experiments

The work of adding material is ongoing

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