What does a discipled church look like?‍

‍

Many elements make up a healthy church—integrity from its leaders, Christ-centric preaching, engaging with the community in love and service, and especially discipleship. But what exactly does a discipled church look like? We asked a few of our previous conference speakers what they thought.

‍

‍‍

‍Matt Chandler‍

There’s going to be, I think, a visible maturation of the congregation in regard to love and worship of Jesus which involves knowing the Word and worshipping rightly. But I also think—and here’s where it can get sticky—there will also be quite a bit of messiness. And what I mean by that is, a genuine disciple who’s growing in a knowledge of the Word, who’s following Jesus, who loves him deeply is going to be sharing the gospel with friends and neighbors and coworkers and family members, which is going to be introducing a lot of new baby Christians into the church.‍

‍

David Kinnaman‍

We’ve done a lot of research on what a discipled church looks like and, first, we realized that we’re in a context that is not very disciple-oriented here in the United States. So, a lot of Christians, not a lot of disciples. Only 8 percent of all US adults are resilient disciples. What a disciple looks like is one who believes in the authority of Scripture, they have made a commitment to Jesus that’s still important in their life, they’re actually active in church community, and they want their faith to matter in the world to make an impact.

‍

‍Jennie Allen‍

What Jesus was so good at, how he made his disciples, was he really approached the whole person. Because he built the whole person, right? God built us to be people that are emotional, that are spiritual, that are physical, that are intellectual, that are relational. So those are the ways I look at an individual—how is their health? Those five fronts need to be thought of when we’re thinking about discipleship. If someone is a spiritual giant and they’ve memorized all of Romans and they quote it with force, but they are an emotionally immature person, that person is actually going to be damaging. If they’re actually emotionally healthy but they don’t know anything, then they’re actually going to be damaging to the faith. They’re going to be a heretic in something if they don’t actually intellectually know things. So, we’ve got to look at the whole person. As they are growing they should be giving that away, because one of the greatest ways they actually grow is to give it away. When I had the first girl in my life that I was pouring into and discipling and she asked me, “How do I know if the Bible is true?” you better believe I was like, “I need to go learn how I know the Bible is true.” So set your people on mission and I promise you they’re going to want to know God, and they’re going to want to grow in those ways.

‍

Figuring out what our individual churches need to practice good discipleship should be at the forefront of our agendas because Jesus has called all of us to be—and make—disciples. And it all begins with seeing each other correctly.

‍

How are you hoping to, or continuing to, cultivate and nurture a healthy framework and practice of discipleship within your church? If you need a resource to get started, check out Essentials of Faith—a multi-series discipleship program designed to help your church develop mature followers of Jesus. Click here to learn more about Essentials of Faith.

‍