A Vision of Deep Discipleship for Every Church

How well does the average church member know the Bible? Studies suggest, not well. In 2021, Barna found only 1 in 3 adults (34%) read the Bible once a week or more, and half (50%) read the Bible less than twice a year. Lifeway Research found even Protestant churchgoers aren’t always regularly engaging with Scripture.

When it comes to essential Christian beliefs, the story isn’t much better. The State of Theology study reveals there’s much confusion over basic Christian doctrines like the perfection of God, the Trinity, and the inerrancy of Scripture.

Does you church have an answer for the downward trend away from robust biblical and theological literacy? Has this crisis in the church become a crisis in your church?

When we consider the scope of the problem, finding a place to start can feel daunting, and a solution feels even further away. But the Deep Discipleship Program was created to take people deeper into the infinite beauty of the triune God revealed in Scripture. It’s an entire theological training program that’s ready for you to deploy in your church and small groups to take people deeper into Christian story, belief, and formation.

However, it’s important to say success in ministry isn’t found in building programs but in building disciples—disciples who love God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind (Luke 10:27). Christ is the goal. Our ministries will only be successful to the degree that they take people deep into the riches available to us in Christ.

The glory of the Lord is the goal

Ministry does not satisfy; God does. We want Him now and in the future, and His presence with us is the only way we’re going to get there. Our ministry aim is to ask God to bring us into His inexhaustible presence, bottomless beauty, and infinite glory. Fellowship with the triune God is where we’re going, and fellowship with the triune God is how we’re going to get there.

God’s desire is that one day the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover every square inch of His creation. God is working to bring a knowledge of Himself to all of creation, and His followers want in on that now. If we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God’s purpose is eventually to cover all of creation with His glorious presence, then our instinct should be to get in on that now.

Whole disciples of Jesus say, “If you are bringing your presence to this world, start with me, and start now.” That’s the instinct of deep disciples. We don’t want to wait for tomorrow for the knowledge of God’s glory to transform us. Discipleship is for today, not just for the future.

We need disciples and local churches who not only look forward with eager anticipation to a future in the presence of God but who also want to be covered with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord today—now. Even though it may not look like it at times, this is the path the world is on, and disciples are already on that journey. In order for the church to grow and develop a vision of deep discipleship, we have to start with the why behind the what.

God-centered vision for discipleship

God is the why behind the what of deep discipleship. Why does deep discipleship matter? Because God maters. Nothing is more beautiful, lovely, pure, and limitless than God.

The greatest opportunity for the contemporary church is to recapture a radically God-centered vision for discipleship. Deep discipleship is more about reveling in the transcendence of God than it is a ministry practice. The source of true discipleship is not better programs, better preaching, or better community. All of those, and more, are important tools, but God is the source of discipleship. Thus, at the heart of everything we do is the desire to grow in our love and knowledge of God.

If we give people better ministry programs but fail to give them a radically God-centered vision for their lives, we’ve failed miserably. In other words, the primary pathway of discipleship is not a curriculum, and it can’t be programmed. The primary pathway of discipleship is God. God is the goal of deep discipleship.

When thought of this way, discipleship is not just a program but a total reorientation to reality. We begin to see who God truly is, who we are, and what God has done, is doing, and will do in the world. In being reoriented to reality, disciples begin to view everything through a God-centered lens.

Reoriented to God

The opportunity in front of the church is not primarily found in better programs, better preaching, or a better philosophy of ministry. All of these are important, and the church should strive to be excellent in these things, but without a radically God-centered vision of all things, it does not matter how good we are at ministry. We cannot forget this. Great ministry practice that isn’t fueled by a great God is the greatest tragedy.

The opportunity in front of us is to reorient ourselves and our churches to a God-centered vision of all things. We won’t make any genuine progress in ministry that isn’t fueled by the presence of God. God is working in the world to accomplish His purposes of bringing about the knowledge of His glory to His entire creation, and the church’s role is to align itself with the purposes of God.

There’s no silver bullet or perfect ministry paradigm that creates deep disciples. We should pursue excellence in all of these areas. However, if our primary focus is our own ministries, not God, then we’ll never make deep disciples.

True discipleship can only be measured by a disciple’s ability to connect all of reality to the triune God. When we think about discipleship, we’re thinking about our ability to be reoriented to God, and we begin to see God initiates discipleship, is the source of discipleship, and is the goal of discipleship.