Transforming Church

As I look back at my early years of faith, I find that Cursillo (now Vie de Christo) was the means my church used to help launch people on a spiritual journey. Elders who became mentors made it clear that leaders at Apostles went through a Cursillo weekend. It was an informal norm for many years. I was baptized as an adult, and the experience of Cursillo, two years after my baptism, made faith real in my life.

I experienced God that weekend, and realized that was the same Spirit who had touched me earlier in life. Vie de Christo offers that same pathway into intentional spirituality to many churches today. However, it does tend to draw much of the newfound zeal into the life of the parachurch movement, doing more weekends and the reunion meetings at participating churches.

We moved back downtown from the suburbs two years ago, and joined Redeemer. The church is in transition, searching for a Senior Pastor, and is in a strategic planning process. This process is drawing on input from hundreds of members, with a number of teams processing feedback and identifying ministry needs and space needs for a potential building campaign. Dialog has gone on for more than a year. No one seems intent on even considering the question of how we will disciple people as part of this strategy process. Of the hundreds of questions being asked and answered, this one hasn’t gotten any traction. Given what I’ve seen across the ELCA, I am not surprised.

I led a workshop for the mission developers of the ELCA Southeastern Synod this spring. I asked them this question, and had them talk in groups of three and then report out to the room. I did not hear of a single cohesive strategy in place to disciple people from any of these missions and redeveloping churches.

For the past couple of years, I have coached Scott Seeke, as he has launched a post-modern mission called the River (www.wadeintheriver.org) in North Atlanta. At Exponential, the New Church Planting Conference, I heard of a Presbyterian Church (PCA) Planting network in Atlanta. Scott and I have attended several of their half-day coaching and support meetings. Within this circle, I have heard much more systematic approaches to discipleship.

Perimeter Church PCA in Atlanta (www.perimeter.org) has been planting churches for many years. I met John Purcell recently and asked him the question. John is now consultant and coach (www.transform-coach.com) working on transformation and discipleship with churches across the country. John spent 16 years as the Staff Director at Perimeter Church, overseeing all ministry planning and execution as the church grew from 500 members and 30 staff to 4000 members and 130 staff. One of the keys to healthy growth and multiplication at Perimeter is their discipleship process, called Life-on-Life discipleship. John laid out for me a three-year discipleship journey they had developed based on the pastor’s experience personally discipling people.

John is helping churches across the country develop the means to disciple people. In a recent article on his website, Leading with a Business and a Ministry Response: What the Church Can and Must do in the Current Economic Climate, John suggests one response:

Consider implementing a life-on-life discipleship ministry. The ultimate shepherding of the flock is to do what Jesus did with the 12 – disciple them in a way I call “life-on-life.” If we want our people to truly have a Christian world view, minister to other believers, become missional where they live, work and play, and grow in their leadership, then they must be transformed. Nothing short of investing our lives on theirs will accomplish this, and the proven most effective way to do this is in intentional, life-on-life groups of a few men or women. How has it been proven? First, of course, by Christ Himself, then Paul, Peter, and other disciples, and contemporarily by a few churches that are practicing this approach.

Have you developed a systematic approach to discipleship in your church? If you have, we’d like to hear from you. We are recruiting Partner Learning Sites, which will be visited by triads of candidates and their lay learning team as part of our learning journey. Finding healthy, missional churches with a process of multiplying disciples and leaders is critical to our mission. What are the best practices of discipleship? Let us hear from you.

To read Part Two of this article for additional insight click here.