Do you have a plan to take your church deeper—deeper into the story of the Bible, the rich doctrines of the Christian faith, and into time tested spiritual practice? People are spiritually hungry; they want to go deeper. Typically, we take people deeper by moving them further into different ministries of the church. While those steps could be helpful, they don’t resolve the core longing for more of God.
The Deep Discipleship Program is a comprehensive discipleship program (comprised of two twelve-week semesters) that empowers participants to grow deeply in their faith—ideally in the context of your local church or in community with other Christians. The program’s curriculum seeks to equip believers in three areas of discipleship: Christian Story (the message of the Bible), Christian Belief (the study of doctrine), and Christian Formation (essential practices that flow from Christian story and belief). The curriculum weaves these three elements together into a holistic approach to discipleship.
Deep Discipleship is radically committed to a God-centered, a Christ-centered, vision of all things. One of the greatest mistakes we will make as we seek to grow in our own walk with Christ, and as we seek to help others deepen their faith, is that we will try to give people more than Jesus. True discipleship is not more than Jesus, but more of Jesus. Ministry is only worth doing if Christ is the One who gets all the glory.
The invitation to deep discipleship in the local church is the invitation to enjoy the infinite God—to invite Him to cover His church with the knowledge of His glory, as the waters cover the sea. J. I. Packer asks these important questions of discipleship: What are we made for? What aim should we set ourselves in life? The answer to both answers: to know God. He is absolutely right, and if we believe that, we also need to ask this question: How can we structure our churches and ministries to help people toward that end?
If God is who He says He is, then nothing is more valuable than deep discipleship. Everyone is a disciple of something, but only the triune God invites us into deep, holistic, never-ending fellowship. Our greatest hope in this program is that our churches will be reminded of who God is. He is more beautiful than we can ever imagine. Discipleship that is geared toward self-improvement or that caters to spiritual apathy evaporates when we see Him for who He is.
Discipleship should be deep because God is inexhaustible. He invites His church into rich and deep fellowship because His goodness is indeed bottomless, and you can never exhaust the bottomless beauty of God. Along with Paul we proclaim,
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”
"Oh, the depth of the riches
and the wisdom and the knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments
and untraceable his ways!"Romans 11:33
The invitation to deep, holistic discipleship is first and foremost an invitation to see God for who He is, our highest good. And as people find the depths of God and grow in their love for Him and service to Him, they can be commissioned back into the church to take what they’ve learned and disciple others. All disciples are sent, and most are sent back into their local church.
Being sent is not for the spiritually elite; it is for every Christian. One of the most overlooked aspects of sending is intentionally sending disciples back into the local church to serve and lead. I know that it sounds a little counterintuitive to think of the local church as the first place to intentionally send people, but I also think it is deeply biblical. Ephesians 4:12 reminds us that one of the primary purposes of discipleship in the local church is to build more disciples who build up the body of Christ. Every believer is called to ministry and service in the local church. One of the clearest ideas the New Testament gives us is that we are all called to build up the body of Christ through service. When the church becomes a place where people are an audience, rather than participants, we have moved far away from the New Testament’s understanding of discipleship. Ministry is not something the church staff does; it is something the whole church does. The responsibility of the local church is not to put on a show but to call and equip others into service.
"And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness."
Ephesians 4:11-13 CSB
Christ has given foundational gifts to the church—apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers—in order to equip all the saints to do ministry. Too often the church can act as if the foundational gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher are the only gifts because those are the ones that get all the attention. The church is not meant to put the talented on a stage but the gifted into service, and all are gifted. Each believer functions with spiritual gifts that are meant to be put into the service of the church, in order to build up the body of Christ. The role of the church staff is not to do ministry for people but to equip all people to do ministry.