Hey everybody welcome back to the Practitioner's Podcast where we're applying Jesus style disciple making to everyday life. This episode and all of our episodes are powered by Navigator's Church Ministries. To get connected or to learn more go to navigatorschurchministries. org. Friends today on the podcast we're covering part three of developing A pathway of disciple making Justin.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about where kind of where we are in this process now? Yeah. Part three I feel like we're in a groove here talking about this. This is super important stuff because any church that wants to have or ministry that wants to have a disciple making pathway needs to be thinking about these things and needs to be figuring it out.
So in the past couple episodes right we have talked about what is it? What can we expect it to accomplish? What can we not expect it to accomplish? That was the first episode of these three. Last time we talked about you know at a step by step level how do you develop a disciple making pathway? And so we shared with you those seven steps.
And so today we're going to move forward and one of the first things that I want to talk about with you guys is what does a finished pathway look like? What does a finished pathway look like? And then later on the episode we're going to get into what are some common mistakes that ministries and churches make when they're Developing a pathway or trying to implement that pathway.
What are those mistakes? It can really kind of take you out of disciple making fruitfulness from a pathway perspective to make it so that it's kind of you're falling on your face and you don't know why and you don't mean to. Ah all those things. And so we're going to look at four common mistakes for that.
So first let's get into what does a finished pathway look like? there's a few ways to look at this right? So one way is what sort of things will be present? Right? So almost every pathway is going to have first steps right? So if someone is coming into your church or your church's culture what are the first things you're inviting them to do?
and then they're going to have next steps to do. And then there's going to be some ongoing things that are continuing to happen in a cyclical nature in that church or culture. And then another way to look at it is just what are the settings right? So every church pathway is going to have some steps for people to do that happen in a large group environment there's going to be some that happen in a midsize group environment and there's going to be others in a small settings or small group environments.
And so from kind of a conceptual level that's kind of what it would look like. when this thing is done Tony what have you seen as far as pathways? Well I I think when we talk about first steps next step and ongoing steps it's important to note that this is going to scale in accordance with the movement that you're trying to steward right?
Or the size of your church. So depending on how you want to say it either way it's going to be different kinds of steps. So first steps for example at centerville grace we do this thing called new to grace. That's the first step onto the pathway. And then from. son of new to grace then all of a sudden we have 201.
And then we have life groups and disciple making relationships. And then we've got our core team right? And so these are all different parts of the path kind of our first steps next steps and then ongoing steps. Right? So when we think about this we often think about this. conceptually but I want to encourage you to think practically you probably already have some parts of these steps in your system right?
And you don't even know it. So one of the things that we've talked about in the previous episodes is just taking the time to kind of identify your your pathway may not be finished but chances are good. If you're listening to this podcast at least you've already at least started them a little bit. Does that make sense to you Justin?
Yeah I think that's really helpful just for people to hear that hey there there's some examples right of what are the first steps next steps etc. Okay so that's kind of what it looks like but here's the thing right you might have spent a lot of time maybe you're you're doing it now constructing that pathway now.
But we want to help equip you with some vision to see what are some common mistakes that churches make When they have a pathway try to implement a pathway So there's four common mistakes and the first one is this There's too much focus on the pathway too much focus on the pathway And the reason for this is that there's so much time and energy spent into developing this pathway And then the next question is well Who's going to be the ones to lead the different steps?
So at Tony's church right? This new to grace thing that happens there's discipleship 101 201. There's other things and you're going to need people to lead those. And then who's going to lead them? Well it's normally the same people that are making disciples relationally. And. Other people who maybe aren't doing that but really love this idea of like doing things in a classroom setting doing curricul education centered stuff.
And so there's too much focus on it. Tony have you seen this before? What's kind of your experience? Well one of the things that happens sometimes when I'm working with pastors And ministry leaders is that they're so busy doing ministry. They say they don't have time to make disciples. And this is a direct result of common mistake.
Nber one because you're focused so hard on the activities of the pathway. You don't have time to actually make any disciples because you're teaching the class you're putting together the handouts you're making sure that assimilation happens. You're doing all those things and they're all important but don't do it.
You know as the old saying goes don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Yeah yeah there's all that. There's recruiting to it. There's follow up etc etc. But here's the reality if we could program our way to disciple making fruitfulness we would have done it already right? Think about all the times all the decades that churches have had their primary discipleship and primary disciple making energy is going towards programs and classes and knowledge centered things.
And if you could do that already then it would have already been successful but that's not how it works. That is not how it works. And so we have to be careful that we're not spending too much focus and energy on the pathway right? We need to make sure that our disciple makers realize that the pathway is an accommodation.
Instead of an accommodation it is just something that we are doing to to serve the people that we can't relationally disciple. Okay so that's the first one. Too much focus on it. Tony how about nber two? Nber two if nber one is too much focus on it nber two is too little time on it. Right and this is where it happens when we diminish the value of the pathway.
And that can absolutely absolutely happen when we focus too much on relational disciple making. So again this is if this is an area that you tend to swing the other way. So hey I don't have time to do anything but relational disciple making. And then all of a sudden we eliminate the pathway. We the truth is we need to live in the tension of both.
So sometimes when you're so focused on relational disciple making you're not putting together any kind of pathway for the water to move. Right. So that whole process of willingness to kind of slow down and acknowledge that we need to put in a pathway. Now one of the areas that I've seen churches really struggle with this is they do this with groups.
So life groups does not constitute. Or a pathway it just constitute groups and groups are important right? Groups are really important. I we want you to have groups but groups can't be the only thing because there's no movement in most group ideas. Right? So when I say that I'm talking about like Hey you're a pastor you're a church leader we've got a life group.
We want everybody in a life group. Okay. That's great. Then what? The then what is the part of the discipleship pathway that we tend not to focus on. And that's certainly been an error that I've made. Justin where have you seen it in the local church? Yeah. This idea that that groups can function as the fullness of disciple making.
What I see most commonly when that happens is the the leaders of the group. are the ones that get totally burned out. They have trouble finding anyone to take over for them et cetera et cetera. so that is a really difficult thing. that you just have to be aware of you have to look out for that.
even in the pathway you're not making it such that some people can't make disciples relationally because they're so busy doing stuff on the pathway. So you don't want to spend too much time on it. You don't want to spend too little time on it. Right? It's like Dor Dorothy. Is it Dorothy? Why does that sound right?
And the three little bears? That's not right. No it it was . Yeah it is Dorthy. Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood. What is wrong with us? Oh my. All right. Well fortunately there's probably not a ton of like you know four to eight year olds listening to our podcast. Otherwise we'd be dropped immediately.
But all right. So that's the first couple. Tony what's the next one? No nber three. Nber three is a huge one and it's unwillingness to prune. Right. And that's making simple Exercises and intentionality to actually take a look and have real conversations about. The discipleship pathway itself. And this is one of those things for church leaders.
That's really hard is that we don't often evaluate what we're doing and take things off the plate right? Sometimes we just want to evaluate what we're doing and add more things to it. But the truth is is that if we want to do relational disciple making and we want to do a pathway that moves people along.
We have to be willing to stop and evaluate it. We know that this is a longterm game. We know that disciple making is longterm and even something that was highly successful in the beginning of your pastoral journey may not be successful now. And you guys all know these things. We all have them. We call them sacred cows and.
Every now and then we have to take the time to evaluate and ask the question is this helping our movement make disciples and push people towards disciple making? Yeah if we are unwilling to prune we're going to have a hard time having a making culture that's really fruitful because there's going to be sideways energy created in the culture.
There's going to be energy that's diverting people away from what we're trying to move them towards. You're going to cause people to stagnate. You know I've seen churches that you know have a really strong ministry around Bible study but it's Bible study that isn't moving people outward. It's just filling people's minds with knowledge instead of application.
And as long as that's the case and as long as those leaders aren't disciple makers then that ministry is going to move people at best. It's going to to stagnate them. It's going to take time and energy away from them that could be moving towards disciple making. And at worst it will divert them into thinking that this is the more important thing to be focused on.
And leaders let me just tell you that the hardest thing to prune are the things that look successful to the outside. So some of the things that are in the beginning of your the attractional parts of your discipleship pathway kind of the first steps when they become wildly successful it's really easy for them to become the main attraction of your pathway.
And those events are the ones that really have to be pruned. Because again if it's not moving people it's just gathering people. Then you end up not maturing people. So more thoughts on that Justin? No that's wonderful. I was going to move on to our next one. You ready for that? No I was getting ready to throw it to you.
Take us to nber four. All right. So nber four it's not relational. So if you have a disciple making pathway and it is not relational it is not going to help people become disciple makers. Right? So. And this is a hard one to even speak about because by a very by its very nature when we're creating a system which a disciple making pathway is kind of a system it's not as relational as just inviting someone to do something finding someone to sit down taking a couple couple people and saying Hey why don't we Why don't we start meeting together and praying for each other and getting in the word together?
It's different from that. But here's the thing. If we're going to have a disciple making pathway and we're going to invite people into these opportunities whether it's a you know discipleship 101 get to know your church etc etc. The basics of the Christian faith. If we don't have people in there that can relationally connect then.
Our pathway is not going to be relational. It's going to be aimed at the head instead of the heart and instead of their life. And so what most disciple making churches figure out is that for a disciple making pathway to move people towards effective disciple making and effective maturity towards that We need some mature disciple makers who will walk the pathway again and again with people.
And so they're not showing up to Discipleship 101 because they don't know how to make disciples. They're showing up so they can walk alongside some of the people in Discipleship 101 so that they can begin to model and begin to really pray through boys there's someone here. That God you're calling me into a deeper connection with to even to begin to disciple them.
And so then again that disciple maker is not moving through the pathway for themselves. They've probably already done it. They're moving through the pathway again for the sake of someone who is moving through it for the first time. And so that's what we mean by relational. And it has to be relational again because disciple makers are the ones that make disciples.
Not pathways not programs. Disciples make disciples. And so make sure your pathway is relational and keep watch that it stays relational. Okay so those are the four common mistakes to look for. Too much focus on the pathway. Too little focus on the pathway an unwillingness to prune things that need to be pruned in your culture in order for the pathway to to thrive.
And then the first the fourth one rather is it's not relational. So those are four. Tony do you have any thoughts that we didn't cover over any of those four? I know you didn't speak to the relational part and that's kind of a passion. Well I just you know we're not going to program our ways to making disciples.
You said it best. I think that if we if we could have done it already we would have. And and everybody knows that there's no silver bullet to this thing. And so I I'd like for us to kind of as we kind of. Head towards rounding out this third episode of the discipleship pathway. I was hoping that you and I could kind of smarize the last three episodes.
Right? So let me start by talking about nber one and nber one butts right up against the fourth mistake which is pathways won't make disciple. They only provide. Direction and movement right? Pathways won't make disciples but it will provide direction and movement. Having an intentional pathway is just direction and movement.
It doesn't actually make somebody become a disciple maker. And that's kind of what we really started with this idea that it's still relational. It's still intentional. It's still reproducible. It still requires you to roll up your sleeves and get to work. And so that very first episode. Was about thinking about Hey I want to be a disciple maker.
I want this movement that I'm a part of to be disciple makers. And this is how we can help move people along. What was the second episode? Yeah. So our second episode was kind of a step by step right? How do you make a pathway? And we said there were seven steps to a pathway. And so if you're sitting there still in this episode and you're thinking all right I'm going to get started on that.
I'm going to roll up my sleeves. Here's the process for it. Step one. You need to determine your values and determine what the values are that you want expressed in people later on. Right? Another way to say this is you need a picture of a disciple before you even begin to think about what the pathway is going to be.
And that's step to describe the destination. That's your picture of a disciple. That's where you're going. That is who you're trying to help people to become. Okay so determine your values describe the destination. Step three discuss the reality of your current culture. What's already true here? What are the things that are strong?
What are the things that we're not doing so well? And how can we move forward from there? Step four Decide what practices everyone will do. Okay so that's again the first steps next steps ongoing steps. Step five design a step by step process that outlines what will happen and when it will happen what will happen and when it will happen.
So that's kind of your your sequencing of your pathway. Step six dig up and discard barriers. Another way to say that is prune. You got to do some pruning if you're going to have a pathway that is focused and really moves people well from one step to the other and step seven discern how to continually improve your pathway.
So that's what we talked about last episode. And then this episode you've just heard it. I don't know that we need to smarize it a whole lot. There's four mistakes. You got to look out for them. You got to look out for them. and continue to iterate in this pathway because your first your first decision your first launch of this pathway is not going to be the final one.
And we also mentioned that last episode Tony final thoughts takeaway action step. What do you have for us?
Well today's takeaway every movement faces mistakes. So don't be surprised when you see one every movement faces mistakes. Don't be surprised when you see one and the action step. Evaluate your discipleship pathway put it on paper share it with your team of disciple makers. It's crystal making it crystal clear to everyone in the movement exactly what the pathway is.
And as always if you need help go to the website that I talk about in the beginning of every episode navigators church ministries. org. you've heard me really. Publicize them but it's great to have outside resources. If you have more questions reach Justin reach out to Justin and I were embarrassingly easy to find.
We would love to help you in this process. And until next time we'll talk to you guys real soon.