S.4. Ep.11 Developing a Pathway of Disciple Making Part 1

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Practitioners Podcast where we're applying Jesus style disciple making to everyday life. This episode and all of our episodes are powered by Navigator Church Ministries  which help churches make disciples who can make disciples.  For more information or to get connected go to navigatorchurchministries.org.

Hey everybody. Welcome back. I'm so excited. Today is episode one of a three set episode. We are going to talk about what it means to build the discipleship pathway. Justin how excited are you about building a pathway? Hey building a pathway is hard work but super rewarding work. And so I'm excited to get these out there.

And Tony my hope is that. As people listen to these if you are in the midst of building a disciple making pathway or want to build one these really will help you kind of with the roadmap of how do you do it? One of the things you need to be thinking about and not going to promise you'll be able to do it just from these three episodes but I think it will allow people to get.

pretty far down the road. And don't forget that this episode is really built on last week's episode of the picture of a disciple right? So even though the picture of disciple is really pre discipleship pathway I would encourage you if you didn't go back and listen to it and you're building a discipleship pathway go ahead go back listen to that and then come forward and start.

So when we think about  problems and discipleship pathway what do you think about?  Yeah well there are a lot of problems that come right?  often churches come to me or to as well. Tony of thinking about well we need a discipleship pathway. Can you help with that? Can you help with that? And one of the first questions I asked them is okay well let's think about what are the problems that you're expecting this pathway to solve?

And really in this episode that's kind of what I want us to be talking about is  what are the main problems that you can expect a disciple making pathway to solve or to not solve? Because the way that you answer that question and I'd encourage you even now as you're listening to think about H what would I expect a disciple making pathway to solve or what problems do I currently have that I think either building or improving our pathway is going to solve?

Because that's going to uncover both your motivation and your expectations of the disciple making pathway to begin with. And so typically there are a couple problems that  churches and ministries believe that disciple making pathways can solve. And we're going to talk about two of those today. Tony why don't you start us off with the first one?

Yeah the first one is in complexity right? So when when we think about a problem that church leaders want to solve with the discipleship pathway is it's this idea of  an organizational problem around how to to get someone to move closer to Christ in disciple making. So the very nature of a discipleship pathway right?

If you've never really thought about the practicality of it it's particularly designed to help on a scaled level simplify the process of moving someone closer to Jesus. Now this is a bigger thought process in developed countries like the U S than it is the what we see in  more underdeveloped countries.

Like here's a great example. My friends in Cuba they don't really have a discipleship pathway. All they have are intentional reproducible relationships because they don't care about scale the same way that we care about scale. They're not taking all these people and bringing them in hoping to spit out something that is clear and concise and is a clear disciple right?

So  our culture the U. S. culture is more systematic. It's more developed. And so a discipleship pathway can really combat complexity. And when it's well built And really well defined and it's it's well spoken. It's clear in language. It's really helped to move people along. It's going to channel energy and movement towards that specific destination which is why what Justin suggested at the beginning is so important be clear about what problems you're trying to solve because that's how you're going to build the pathway.

Another way to think about it is like a racetrack right? I'm building a track so that everybody who has a car can run on it. And move people to a very specific outcome. Is there anything I missed there with complexity? Just about miss. But I would add that you know we live in a complex culture right? In conseristic cultures there's just so many choices.

There's choice overload. And in churches there's often choice overload. And because people have so many choices of things to get involved in a lot of them get involved in just a portion of those things. Other people try to do it all and they're so busy that they end up not progressing spiritually because they don't have the pace of life that's conducive to transformation.

And so this idea of a pathway can help solve the problem of complexity because it simplifies right? A well developed pathway simplifies choices for people in the church. And it really directs people just like you were saying Tony it channels them and directs them so that they can move in a somewhat  together sort of way  towards that destination.

Cohesive.  Yeah yeah towards that destination of the picture of a disciple which they've already established so  Disciple making pathways really are a viable solution to the problem of complexity And if that's one of the problems that you had in mind of like well We have more of a menu of options for people in this church Rather than you know a track or rather than you know this is a sequenced  ordering of things that we really think will help people grow in the way that most people need it.

 that's what pathways are designed to do.  so yeah that's the first problem.  And one of the things that I just want to encourage you if if you think that discipleship pathways are going to solve this problem for you then what you have to know also is that you have to simplify your language around the pathway.

Sometimes we get so complex in the nature of our pathway that it doesn't actually solve the problem of complexity. It adds to it. So don't be afraid to simplify your language around the pathway to take a complex idea and make it simple. And then you really have to lean into it on a regular basis.  All right Justin take us to problem nber two.

Yep so the second problem is a shortage of disciple makers right? And this is when most churches are thinking about well a pathway we should develop pathway It's because they want more disciple makers and so it makes a lot of sense because in almost every church They're facing the same problem that Jesus wept over in Matthew 9 and that problem is too many sheep and not enough shepherds You know not only did Jesus wrestle with that the disciples wrestle with it throughout Acts And church after church really faces that and has to struggle with it.

And many view the pathway as a missing link between frustration and fruitfulness.  Unfortunately it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Pathways do not solve this problem. And if you're yeah  and if you're building a pathway and you're expecting it to solve this problem I want to tell you now it's not going to.

And I want to tell you not to discourage you but to help you have a realistic picture of what pathways can and can't do. And so that you can have a strategy that could actually work in solving that problem of too many sheep and not enough shepherds.  Let me explain it this way.   imagine that you were leading a church of 200 adults and 100 of those adults were mature disciple makers.

Would you even need a disciple making pathway?  I would say no you don't need it because if there's two hundred of you and a hundred of you are mature disciple makers Instead of a pathway all you need to do is ask the hundred mature disciple makers to go and Disciple one of those other hundred and now each one of them is in a relationship that will help them grow and develop as disciples and so one way to think about a Disciple making pathway is to think about an orphanage  right?

There are too many children in the church spiritual children in the church to be discipled in a family to have a parent. And so the question becomes for the church are we going to do nothing with those people that don't have  spiritual parents or are we going to do something?  And the answer is to do something.

It's better than doing nothing but we cannot expect of a pathway or an orphanage to have the same sort of impact that being in a family would have. None of us would choose if we were able to choose for our children to be raised in an orphanage instead of a loving family.  And so what pathways are designed to do is provide a track or a sort of programmatic  systematized way to help those who are not able to be in spiritual families.

Now pathways do not make disciples disciple makers make disciples people make disciples  right? And we miss that so often and it gets us off track with these pathways because What happens in is if you're in that reality as a church where you have too many Disciples or potential disciples and not enough disciple makers and then you build a pathway  the tendency or the tension that you have to manage  Spending too much time energy and focus on the pathway and sometimes they can get your people so busy doing programmatic systematized help for those who aren't in families that now now those people no longer have time to spiritually parent anyone.

And so there's an overemphasis and too much  time   devoted to the pathway. But the other extreme can happen too where there's an overemphasis on spiritual parenting.  And then the result is well we don't have anything for those who aren't in spiritual families and there's no no pathway whatsoever.

And that's not healthy either. And so what we need in churches is to have both right? We need spiritual parents parenting but we also need spiritual parents helping out on the pathway. And we have to manage that tension of you know are we doing too much? Are we doing too little?  with the pathway and how do we manage all that time Tony what are your thoughts on this one?

It's interesting right? Because  I am the associate pastor of disciple making at the church where I serve. And we really want to have a really well defined spiritual pathway. And so at the same time we also want a core team of disciple makers who are making disciples. So you know if one becomes the idol the other one gets in trouble.

Because you can't do one without the other. You can't you know it's another way to think about it is like a really Clear discipleship pathway is a tool to help you make disciples and put people in disciple making relationships. It's actually very similar to this podcast Justin you and I do this podcast so that it's a tool in disciple making now guess what?

You can listen to this podcast. You can listen to all the episodes. You can subscribe leave us a rating or review on iTunes share it with a friend. You can do all the things that we ask you to do and it's not going to make you a disciple maker. It won't right? Because we know that it's relational. It's incredibly relational.

It has to be intentional relational. Reproducible. So it's a tool. A discipleship pathway is a tool to help people make disciples. And it's specifically a tool that matches up the culture's need to have some semblance of a framework to put this in instead of just kind of a an ambiguous relationship that we're all called to be in.

Yeah that's that's exactly it. Because pathways one of the things that they're really good at. In addition to solving the problem of complexity is they provide a picture for the people that spiritual growth is meant to be ongoing  right? And so it's a pathway. Well people don't they don't go to a pathway to sit right?

There's not a you haven't arrived when you've stepped onto the pathway the pathway leads somewhere. And so the pathway can really guard against stagnation in the church. It can communicate within the life of a disciple that Hey maturity is expected and growth is expected and to get that there needs to be movement.

And so there's some real power simply in acknowledging those things. And when there's clarity and a culture around what this pathway can and can't do and what it's for and what it's not for it can really become a powerful thing in the life of a church. Now the hard part. Is figuring out well how do we build the thing?

How do we get from having no pathway to a pathway? How do we get from having you know a buffet of options? To like one of those fancy restaurants that that they give you a piece of paper and it's like here's what you're having. Here's here's the order that you're gonna have it right? Now you can choose between chicken or fish but otherwise it's already planned for you.

And it's like okay well I guess they've already thought about it and figured it out. And now I need to figure out how am I going to participate and to what degree am I going to participate? But there's trust given to the chef and to the staff. And that example of like okay they know that they're going to bring something to me that is good and nourishing and helpful for me.

And I am willing to trust them in that. And to trust God in that too you know in the example that we go with the church and a disciple making pathway. So even though I don't want you guys to hear that Oh well disciple making pathways aren't going to solve my disciple problem.  You should still make a pathway because the problem that it will solve is that problem of complexity.

It'll solve the problem of people thinking that they've arrived just because they've shown up at church and that that's all they really need to do.  Well one of the things that it also does for churches and specifically for church staff is that it gives church staff a vision of what the church is moving towards.

Yeah. So ultimately the disciple making pastor the one who wants to create a culture it requires buy in from the top down. So when you you put together this kind of vision on a team you're saying Hey we're building something. Towards a common goal in a common way. So even hospitality which could be very almost  evangelistic is on the discipleship pathway right?

It's when you serve on the hospitality team you're part of the discipleship pathway. It gives us arms to go around all the moving parts of the current North American church model. If you're in a traditional model which I think if you're a leader of leaders it's super important to make sure that. Every person on your team knows where they are on the pathway and knows that our goal is not to hold on to people but to move people along and keep them moving so that we can create that flow.

Yeah that's really good. Because if we're establishing a pathway in a church with a disciple making mindset then it changes every aspect of that pathway. Right? So you just mentioned hospitality welcoming team like a church that is Focused on disciple making and moving in that is going to execute those responsibilities differently than churches that don't have any sort of framework or definitions around disciple making.

So being on a hospitality team is partially about welcoming and being hospitable to people that are coming in. But it's partially about how do I invest in people that are around me on this team? How do I bring people into the church that have shown up now two or three weeks? How do I not only welcome them but get them ingrained or involved in the church in such a way that it's going to lead them towards becoming a committed disciple and eventually a disciple maker right?

And so again there are lots of  lots of advantages lots of things that Having a pathway will do for your church if you're moving towards disciple making but we also have to continue to hold it in tension with not expecting too much from it.  Tony what else should we add in this episode as we begin to bring it to a close here?

I would just say this build your pathway and but build it with realistic expectations right? It can solve your church's complexity problem.  Disciple making problem requires making disciples like Jesus did. Right. And we all kind of know that. So I I just want to encourage people don't put all your hopes and dreams into a disciple making pathway build it with realistic expectations and know that at the end of the day it's a useful tool to help creating that disciple making culture.

Justin why don't you give us the takeaway in action? Absolutely. So our takeaway today is the first step of building a disciple making pathway. is to develop clarity on what problems you expect it to solve. Again the first step of building your disciple making pathway is to develop clarity on what problems you expect it to solve.

And then the action step  take time to evaluate or plan your pathway. Take time to evaluate or plan your pathway and get clear about what you expect from it once it's done. Once it's complete what are you expecting? Take that time to get clear on it. It's really going to help you.  and we're excited to bring two more episodes on the disciple making pathway.

 next time we're going to get into a little more of the details of like well how do you even begin to get your hands around it and begin to build it?  we will get into that together next episode. And as always thanks for listening.  if you could like and subscribe to this podcast we'd really appreciate it.

Share it with your friends. We really want to help others with disciple making and things like this which are really important to those who are leading in the church or leading in ministries. And trying to figure out well how do I develop not only a disciple in my own life and making disciples that way but how do we develop cultures of disciple making?

We're glad to be on this journey with you and we'll see you guys next time.