Discipleshift, From Accumulating to Deploying

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Ephesians 4:11–16 ESV

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

The Current Scorecard

Youth looks like this

•  How many kids attended the event?

• How many kids got saved?

•  How many kids rededicated their lives?

• How’s your budget?

Churchwide looks like this

•  How many people attend your church?

•  How big is your church’s budget?

•  How big is your building? (or, How many services do you run each weekend?)

• How many people get saved?

What might be missing from these versions of the scorecard?

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (pp. 201-202). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

It can be tricky to quantify the results of discipleship, because spiritual maturity is revealed in fruit of the Spirit (characteristics such as love, joy, and peace) and in levels of devotion to Christ. Spiritual development shares many characteristics with physical development. In your children’s lives, you assess and celebrate different things. You celebrate when they’re born, when they take their first steps, when they graduate from kindergarten, when they graduate from high school, when they get married, when they have a child, and so on. You do so, however, with the thought in mind that they have farther to go, they will need to grow more, and they will have to face other challenges. That’s why it can be tricky to quantify the results of discipleship — people are always in the process of growing spiritually, so it becomes a now-and-farther-to-go paradox. When we evaluate, we must make the shift from just attracting and gathering to developing and releasing as well — that’s what this fifth and final shift is all about. We call this the shift from accumulating to deploying, because discipleship must result in Christians living out their maturity by showing Christ’s love to the world. As healthy Christians are reproducing other healthy Christians, and as healthy churches are reproducing other healthy churches, we will be deploying more and more people into the world to both demonstrate and tell others of the reality of Christ’s salvation and kingdom.

This new “release scorecard” is focused on how many people are released as growing and thriving “head, heart, and hands” Christians.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 203). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

By deploying (or releasing), I mean they walk out of the discipleship process equipped and motivated to share their faith with the lost wherever they work or live or go to school — any place they interact with other people.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 203). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

It is more important to evaluate how many people go out than to evaluate how many show up.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 203). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

The point is that we must champion and reclaim the ministry of all believers.

If a church hires a pastor to be a paid performer that people want to come and listen to, then the success or failure of a church is all up to him. But if a church hires a pastor to be a coach, then the success or failure of a church is up to the people as well.

The New Scorecard

The principles of Jesus’ strategy for making disciples, can be summed up in using a blueprint based on four words: Share, Connect, Minister, Disciple—Or SCMD

Jesus shared who he was through words and deeds.

When people accepted his message, he invited then to connect with him in relationship. During that time of sharing life together, he taught them the truth about himself.

During that time of sharing life together, he taught them the truth about himself.

As these disciples grew, Jesus trained them to minister to the lost and to his other followers.

Finally, after Jesus rose from the dead, he deployed his followers to disciple others.

The early church followed the same pattern. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached to three thousand people. Those people then began to connect in the temple courts and from house to house with those who were baptized (). As people grew, they were deployed to service; for example, the seven deacons were chosen to care for the Greek widows (). When persecution hit the church in Jerusalem, Philip went to Samaria and made disciples there (). Paul and the rest of the disciples repeated the process wherever they went, and those they discipled repeated that same process, and so on (). As his disciples today, we share our lives with other people, eventually also sharing the gospel — the good news about Jesus and what he has done for us and can do for them. We then connect with those who accept this message and help them connect with Christ and other believers in relationship through his church. Next, we help these new disciples take steps to grow, by supplying a place for them to learn how to minister in Jesus’ name. And finally, when they are ready, we deploy them, releasing them to disciple other people in the same way.

These same four words become the basis for our new scorecard for success. The questions to ask when evaluating a church are:

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 153). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Are we as a church corporately sharing Jesus with people outside our walls? Are we discovering ways to take Jesus to people in the world together? Second, are our people loving a lost and hurting world and sharing their faith wherever they go as individuals? How do I know they are?

Are we discovering ways to take Jesus to people in the world together? Second, are our people loving a lost and hurting world and sharing their faith wherever they go as individuals? How do I know they are? •  Are we as a corporate body inviting people to connect with Jesus in relational environments? Are our people in small groups? Are our people inviting people to connect with them in their small groups as they live in the world? How do I know this is happening? •  Within those environments, are we biblically training our people to be ministers? Are they becoming ministers in the corporate body and in their small groups? Are they learning that God has gifted them to serve, and are they discovering their abilities? How do I know this is happening? •  As our people are growing in spiritual maturity, are we equipping them to make more disciples? Are new leaders who understand how to lead a disciple-making ministry emerging from our church’s ministries? Are our small groups developing new leaders who can make disciples in relational environments? How do I know it is happening? •  Are new, higher-level leaders emerging who can come on staff as full-time, paid leaders? Are new church planters being developed so that the work of Christ becomes more of a movement in the region?

Second, are our people loving a lost and hurting world and sharing their faith wherever they go as individuals? How do I know they are?

Are we as a corporate body inviting people to connect with Jesus in relational environments? Are our people in small groups? Are our people inviting people to connect with them in their small groups as they live in the world? How do I know this is happening?

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (pp. 153-154). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Within those environments, are we biblically training our people to be ministers? Are they becoming ministers in the corporate body and in their small groups? Are they learning that God has gifted them to serve, and are they discovering their abilities? How do I know this is happening?

As our people are growing in spiritual maturity, are we equipping them to make more disciples? Are new leaders who understand how to lead a disciple-making ministry emerging from our church’s ministries? Are our small groups developing new leaders who can make disciples in relational environments? How do I know it is happening?

Are new, higher-level leaders emerging who can come on staff as full-time, paid leaders? Are new church planters being developed so that the work of Christ becomes more of a movement in the region?

Let’s make this practical. Say a staff member at Real Life ran a program, then came back and said, “We had five hundred people make first-time decisions for Christ.” I’d say, “That’s amazing. Let’s celebrate it. We’ve just shared Jesus and had a strong response. Now, how many of those new converts are getting connected?” Perhaps the staff member would answer that 388 people have been connected to small groups so that they can grow in spiritual maturity. I would again say, “Amazing! Let’s celebrate that. But it sounds like we have 112 people to track down, and how will we do that?” Once those people get connected, we’d begin to ask (usually this is a question that gets asked over time) how many of those people are moving into ministry roles. Here I’d say, “Wow, let’s celebrate that as a staff and as a church.” Then, over years, we would ask how many people are moving into roles in which they disciple others. We would ask how many new small group leaders have emerged. (This is my favorite celebration, although I like them all.) We would ask how many people God has shown us who have a call to full-time, paid ministry. When this starts to happen, you have a movement on your hands. At the end of the day, the most important scorecard for success is how many mature disciples your church has developed. You measure success against SCMD criteria. We’re not saying that conversion is not part of success. It is part of success. But it’s just the first step in the maturing process, not the only step. Back to the analogy of your child’s birth. When they are born, you definitely celebrate. But you know that you have not arrived at the end of the journey; you have only passed the first milestone. There are many more important ones yet to come, and you celebrate them as well.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 208). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

The biblical purpose of the church is to make biblical disciples in relationship who can make biblical disciples — so how do you do that?

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (pp. 208-209). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (pp. 209-210). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 206). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Step 1: Develop Biblical Vision

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 208). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 215). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Step 2: Create a Common Language

Step 3: Develop the Disciple-Making Process

Step 4: Live Out Your Vision

Step 5: Assess, Correct, and Encourage

1. Assessment. We honestly evaluate how we’re doing as a church against the criteria of our vision.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 226). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 225). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 222). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 220). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

2. Course correction. We’re honest with our assessment. If we’re not living up to our goals, we admit that, then take steps to get back on track. We say things such as, “Our goals were these, and we weren’t doing them. Now let’s return to the path we need to be on.” We are honest with our people when we have gotten off course, and by being honest, we are vision casting the right course.

3. Encouragement. What we celebrate as a church, people aspire to. So we purposely celebrate ministry items that correspond to our vision. We celebrate whenever God has done something in our church through our people.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 216). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (pp. 226-227). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Don’t change the vision, change the ministry.

Work through the specifics as a church and as a ministry leader.