There is a lot of information being floated around about Discipleship. Many books have been written, conferences offered, and videos accessible. Most have good quality material and information for churches and individuals willing to be discipled or to disciple others. However, as with any major topic, we must be cautious and good stewards of God’s resources and in the way we lead those God has granted to our charge.

While I do not consider myself to be “The Expert” or the only voice to listen to, let me offer three thoughts to consider as you examine your church’s Discipleship process – something every church should evaluate each year. – or as you design/redesign a more effective Discipleship process for Christlikeness.

1. Discipleship is more about conduct than content. Content is extremely important in building disciples. Jesus spent better than three years pouring content into His Disciples. Yet, more than content, Jesus poured out His conduct every day in each situation He found Himself. His conduct displayed the importance of living out the content. When our words and our actions do not line up, people take note and we in turn are building Disciples of a different source, following our actions, not our content.
2. Discipleship is more about process than program. Disciples are not built through programs. Churches and denominations tried this for years without great fruitfulness. Certainly, you can have certain studies or activities expected of everyone in your church. Yet, not everyone will advance or mature at the same pace or based on a number of studies completed or activities engaged. Discipleship cannot be measured by studies completed or how many activities a person has been engaged in through a process. Discipleship can only be measured through heart-felt evidence of Christlikeness.
3. Discipleship is more about individuality than uniformity. Jesus’ twelve Disciples/Apostles were certainly not cut from the same mold. Neither did they each adopt Jesus’ teaching in the same manner. Peter was impromptu, off the cuff, spontaneous. John was likely more laid-back, subdued, and watchful. Each one acquiesced in his own manner based on upbringing, character, and background. God creates each person individually and places us in environments that help mold us into His useful instruments. Growing Disciples is not building robots. It is building individuals into Christlikeness for their purposed assignments from God.

Certainly, these three ideas are not all inclusive of a healthy Discipleship process, however, they are three areas where many churches falter. A healthy Discipleship process is part of the calling of the church and of The Great Commission. Faltering in one of these areas may produce weak Christians and misleading Discipleship beliefs. Let us be prudent and devoted to God’s calling to be truly effective in Christlike Disciple making.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

When all teaching components are committed to the learning aspect, the outcome is about true life-changing learning. Every teaching opportunity should be accompanied by an invitation for application of the learning experience.

While the classroom setting may not be the most conducive for application, application should be discussed and a challenge to apply lessons learned should be issued. Some application challenges will be specific, others may be broader. Examples: “How will you go out this week to be a better servant to others?” or “Who is the one person you will send a note of encouragement tomorrow?”

Much of the Christian teaching in our churches today focuses on delivering information, history, facts, and figures. While it is important to have knowledge of the scriptures, knowledge does not produce disciples. Information, history, facts, and figures may provide knowledge, and knowledge may produce a few trivia buffs, producing trivia buffs is not our calling.

Every time Jesus asked a question, offered an object lesson, or illustration, He was inviting His listeners to engage in the learning experience. He invited them to not only learn the facts and history, He invited them to apply in their individual lives the truth of His teaching. It was always about the learning experience transforming lives.

Content and application are both necessary in our disciple-making and “teaching them to observe all things…” Content without application leads to trivia buffs. Application without content leads to what many call “social gospel” in which an atheist could serve right alongside us.

Content pertains to knowledge, information, facts, figures, and material. Application pertains to transformation, wisdom, and discipling maturity. It is imperative that we give our listeners along with the information, the means to use the information to transform their lives, through applying it into their daily living. But are we? Would our answer be acceptable to God when so many that He has called us to are dying? What are the unwavering evidences of true application to a lost and dying community around us?

Not only in the classroom, opportunities for application come from the various ministries of the church, from the pulpit, and from the needs of the community around your church. People will always learn more from doing, applying, than sitting for weeks listening to someone speak on the need to serve. Application will always cement a learning experience. Plan application opportunities with an explicit thought of cementing biblical truths through each person’s engagement.

Every opportunity to serve and engage in ministry within the church and in the community should be a steppingstone to the next level of serving and engaging in discipleship maturation. Lives are changed, transformed, through application of biblical truths and principles.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

In the church we hear the term Discipleship more than any other setting on earth. If Discipleship is the acquiescence of the teachings, disciplines, and practices of another, what should be our objectives as believers in Christ? Would you agree the purest form of Discipleship is imitation? If so, and we are to make disciples of Christ, can we follow His example? We might call it Disciple Making 101. Perhaps in simplified terms we could follow Jesus’ process;

Jesus’ course of discipleship

• choose your disciples
• know your plan of action
• teach the way Jesus taught
• tell them the why (in a relevant manner to them)
• send them out (let them practice it and put into practice)
• Debrief
• Teach them more, deeper
• Commission them and send them out to be learners and practitioners

Using Jesus’ example what are the objectives of a fruitful, Discipleship ministry?

A Discipleship ministry…

• teaches believers the disciplines that can lead to a spiritually transformed life in Christ.
• Causes believers to accept the disciplines (not forced, but creates a desire to accept)
• teaches believers how to pray, meditate, and worship; and to practice these disciplines daily.
• trains believers to share their faith with unsaved people and builds confidence as they witness on a regular basis.
• provides believers with opportunities for fellowship and the development of strong and lasting relationships within and outside the group.
• equips believers to identify their spiritual gifts, choose a worthy ministry, and do ministry with compassion and competence.

The Apostle Paul stated, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil 3:14. May we, each press on in our own maturation into a Disciple of Christ as we lead others into and through his/her Discipleship journey. This is our Calling and should be our compelling desire. May God bless your Discipleship journey as you assist others in theirs.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

When viewed as a continual learning process, life can take on wonderful, greater meaning for each of us. Life is to be a continual learning process. Some learning experiences come unexpectedly through our actions and experiences. Others come from our striving to learn each day. Striving to learn keeps the mind alive and life juices flowing. Without striving to learn, our brains stagnate, and as stagnated water breeds the stench of death, so will the stagnation of our brain cells.

 I searched for years trying to find an occupation where after your initial orientation training, you never had to do any further training. Not that I was looking for work, I simply thought surely there were jobs like that. No one has ever been able to point to any job where there is not additional training from time to time. There is always safety training, new technology, new systems or procedures, always some new or next level training.

Every job in the corporate world has continual training to better your work, and the organization’s production rate. Each one of those jobs’ deals with the temporary, the here and now. In the church we deal with the eternal. Doesn’t it make sense that we should also have continual training to be more efficient and proficient at carrying out our tasks? Yet in the church we often neglect to train and equip for Kingdom work. Very little training is ever offered to new position holders and less continual training.

It should be imperative in the church; we should always be on the search to improve our service to God for His Kingdom. God has created us to be life-long learners. This includes being better equipped to serve Him by serving others.

The third tenet of the Great Commission is “teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you…” Notice the word “teaching” is present tense. It is a continual action. It does not suggest a stopping point. It is not about the past. Also, note, how the Disciples knew what to teach? Jesus had been teaching them throughout His ministry – and would continue to teach through His Word and The Holy Spirit.

We may not have Jesus walking physically beside us, but we do have His written Word. We also have men and women God has taught to be able to train and equip us. Today’s advancement in technology gives us greater capability for equipping than any previous generation. 2 Timothy 2:2 states, “And these things you have seen and heard from me, commit to others, so they may be able to teach others also.”

Jesus taught His disciples, who taught others, who taught others, who taught others, through the ages, until someone brought His teachings to you. You and I have an obligation and a privilege to thirst and hunger for more equipping as long as there is breath in us. Drink in His teaching, and teach others as well. This is fulfillment of The Great Commission.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

In one church I interviewed and hired an administrative assistant, LeeAnn. At the time LeeAnn had never worked in a church office or any office with a computer. In fact, she was in a sense intimidated at the thought of using a computer. Her trepidation came as much of her work would require the use of a desktop computer. While she had her concerns, I saw the capacity in LeeAnn to succeed and overcome her computer challenges. In the end I could not have asked for a better Administrative Assistant. She was a partner in ministry. Everywhere I have moved since leaving that church, I have always looked for the next LeeAnn.

LeeAnn was a person of capacity. Whether it was using the computer, or planning and organizing an event, LeeAnn always carried our plans to the next level. When you have the right persons in the right positions, the ride of ministry is much easier and so much more fun.

People with passion and drive are people of capacity. They are willing to go the extra mile to get the job done. People of capacity have a giftedness of competence, ability, capability, and aptitude to accomplish what they are assigned.

Everyone has capacity. It is the responsibility of leaders to help unearth and develop that capacity. Instead of filling empty slots with the first person to say yes, look for capacity in individuals. Helping people find and engage in his/her highest level of capacity is one of the most stimulating and rewarding areas of leadership.

Some people are like Lee Ann and are ready to learn and take on a challenge. These people have a drive within him/herself to uncover and unlock his/her abilities, giftedness, and capability, especially in the work of God’s Kingdom. Others are not so eager to leave their comfort zone to grow. As a leader you can guide each one into increasing in his/her God-given, greater capacity.

People of capacity create fruitfulness. The more you can influence the God-given capacity of each individual within your church/organization, the greater the fruitfulness will be evidenced. Every person in your organization has unique contributions to make according to his/her God-given capacity. What processes do you have built into your culture to influence people’s unique contributions to advance God’s Kingdom?

Promoting, supporting, and encouraging individuals to serve within his/her unique capacity, contributing as God has enabled them is asking them to work from his/her personal strength. Doing so, you will see much more than work being done. You are honoring each one for his/her individual contribution to the Kingdom of God.

Allowing persons to develop and serve out of individual capacity you release untapped potential enabling people to become fully engaged in God’s Kingdom work at their fullest. What will you do today to begin building a culture of recognizing and deploying individual capacity of all members?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

Are you an increasing or decreasing leader? You would think every leader would want to be an increasing leader, yet this is not the case. Speaking of an increasing or decreasing leader I am referring to not your ability, but how you influence others. Do you cause people around you to grow and increase in their capability and production, or not?

There are leaders who believe they have to be the smartest, wisest person on the team. Others believe the way to lead is to ridicule, belittle, blame, and subject team members to negative criticism. Both of these are decreasing or degrading leadership styles. Decreasing leaders make all plans and decisions and expect his/her plans to be carried out exactly as he desires.

An Increasing leader considers himself part of the team, knowing he is not always the smartest person on the team for every situation. They seek input from team members, allowing people to stretch their knowledge base and gain insight. Increasing leaders are looking through positive efforts to build the capability of every team member. Rather than belittling and degrading team members, Increasing leaders are looking to build up, encourage, and increase confidence for increased productivity.

While decreasing leaders chip away at the capability of others, Increasing leaders are always seeking opportunities to foster self-improvement of others assisting in their building of character, capability, and productivity.

There are well-meaning leaders who do not realize they are decreasing leaders, leading the way they have been led, though they were never fond of that leadership style. It is much easier to pull someone down than to build him/her up. A snide comment here, neglecting to acknowledge good performance, blaming instead of shouldering responsibility, these are evidences of a decreasing leader. These leadership characteristics are whittling away at the confidence capability, and productivity of the team.

Increasing leaders on the other hand have a mindset of assisting others to become better, raising individual capability, confidence, stretching people to want to be a growing individual in all areas of life. Instead of passing the blame onto team members, Increasing leaders shoulder the responsibility and pass the credit on to team members. These characteristics will always increase capability, dedication, and productivity.

Examine your own leadership, at church, work, or in the home. Do you recognize traits of a decreasing leader? Even a comment as, “You’ll never get anywhere in life…”  or “I wish somebody would get something right around here” are signs of a, decreasing leader. In your self-evaluation, if you do not find any decreasing leadership traits, you likely have not taken a honest deep enough search. When you identify decreasing leadership traits, what will you do this week to become a better Increasing leader?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

Have you ever considered differences between being involved and engaged? For a bacon and egg breakfast, a chicken is involved, the pig, however, is fully engaged. Involvement and engagement are two completely different mechanisms evidencing distinctive levels of participation. Many New Testament churches today are filled with people involved in the church, yet not engaged.

A person can be involved in church for decades yet never engage. You can attend church every weekend for 70 years and never become engaged. Likewise, a person can attend Bible study for years/decades without ever engaging in maturing as a believer. Sadder yet is many of these “involvers” have no clue they are not growing Christians.

Much of the liability for this fallacy rests with the church. For a couple decades churches used a specific set of Bible study classes as “Discipleship”. In my denomination those classes took place on Sunday, prior to an evening worship service. Then we dropped those classes due to lack of attendance. Few people were offered the opportunity to be engaged in true Discipleship. No engagement led to lack of involvement.

While Bible studies are important in Discipleship, Discipleship is not a set of classes. Discipleship is a lifestyle requiring engagement in principled practices.  In Philippians 2:12 the apostle Paul tells us, “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” This is our maturing in Christlikeness throughout our lifetime as believers. To work out your own salvation, to advance in Christlikeness requires more than involvement. It requires engagement.

Follow these suggestions for moving people from involvement to engagement in gospel ministry.

• Get to know the people, discover their passions and aspirations. People will serve out of their God-given passions and be willing to grow through the use of those passions. Serving out of passion is engagement.
• Provide opportunities for service and growth. Service opportunities come both inside and outside of the church. A person will learn more in one act of service than four weeks of classroom instruction. Engagement always brings a higher level of learning.
• Pair people up or create small groups of 3-5 disciples who will challenge and encourage one another in their discipleship growth. Challenging and encouraging one another ensues engaging one another and causes everyone to engage.
• Give encouragement. Showing appreciation demonstrates that you care. When people realize you truly care about who they are becoming, engagement will follow.
• Issue challenges for engagement. Growth never takes place in the comfort zone. When we challenge people to engage in something new, greater, outside his/her comfort zone, his/her engagement will bring joy and insight for future engagement.

These five are not all inclusive of moving people from involvement to engagement, but they are tested, tried, and true. You can research and add others as you master these, and God aligns greater engagement opportunities for your church members.

When we stand before God, may we not be relegated to say we had many people “involved” in our church. Let it be proclaimed of us that we led many to fruitfully engage in the ministry of Christ.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

The world speaks of successful leadership. But what is success? In the Christian realm, I like to speak in terms of Fruitful Leadership. Scripture speaks of bearing fruit. The Great Commission is about bearing fruit. John chapter 15 is a fruit bearing chapter.  

One of the tenets of Fruitful Leadership is Persistent Engagement. Persistent; continuing firmly in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. Fruitful leaders understand the importance of persistent engagement with their constituency. Persistent engagement keeps a leader actively connected in the labor and development of the people he leads regardless of other demands of his time.

Fruitful church leaders understand the importance of being engaged in not only ministry, but also in the personal lives of your congregation. Not to be intrusive but engaged in conversation about more than the Sunday morning worship experience.

Discovering why some churches excel and others do not often will be determined by the engagement of the leaders of the church. Not only paid staff, Persistent Engagement is required of all lay leadership too. Each one must be committed to the full authority of Christ and the mission of the church.

In any area of life, your ability to lead well is contingent to your level of engagement.

This does not insinuate that as pastor/leader you must be in every meeting, every class, for every decision made, every day of the week. Therefore, build a culture of fruitful leaders beyond your current leadership team.

Ways to stay engaged can include;  

• Engaging in personal conversations. Find out about those you serve.
• Listen to the opinions and concerns mentioned in meetings or conversations. Do not mentally cut off someone. Hear them out. Focus on the heart of the concern, not your opinion.
• Be the last to speak in a conversation or meeting. When the pastor/leader speaks, most others in the church will become silent. It is great to allow everyone else to speak first. This builds confidence and unity. Speak last.
• Don’t try to always be the smartest person in the room. Listen, gain an appreciation for the opinions and suggestions of others. Then explore as a team.
• Always shoulder responsibility and pass the credit to others. In a worldly view the leader takes the credit, even if he did nothing to contribute. This is demotivational and leads to an exodus. Always shoulder the responsibility, even if you had nothing to do with what went wrong. Always pass the credit to those following you, even if you did the bulk of the work.
• Practice deeper listening skills – listen to more than words alone. Words make up only 7% of what is communicated by everyone. Our natural inclination is to begin forming our response within the first three sentences as someone speaks. Doing this we miss the root cause of the need being presented. Wait patiently, listening intently without forming a response,

Persistent engagement requires your physical, mental, and spiritual presence. As spiritual leaders we must diligently practice the art of being present in body, mind, and spirit as we engage.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

As Christian leaders we often use the phraseology, “turn to the Bible to…” This phrase is used in all types of situations in various walks of life. We tell people, “If you want to know how to deal with this circumstance or that situation, turn to the Bible. You’ll find the answer in scripture.

I agree, you can find no greater source for any situation or circumstance. Yet, why do we as Christian leaders and churches overlook one of the great teachings of scripture within our own confines of the church? We may go to scripture when recruiting, we find certain passages that meet our desired requirements for particular positions in the church, but do we seek to follow the example of Christ?

Have you ever pondered, maybe even scratched your head concerning Jesus’ choice for His team, His Disciples? These were the men He chose to train then send them out to accomplish a task that had never been set before men. And not only to a few, but to all nations, everywhere. At best Jesus picked a motley crew, uneducated, simple men with callused, hardworking hands. This is not the crew anyone at anytime in the history of the world would select for such a task. But Jesus did, and He used them to turn the world upside down.

Think on it, Jesus did not go to the highest institutions of learning, He didn’t seek out the men with the most degrees to their name, or the brightest of academia. He did not go to the halls of government, seeking the most persuasive minds and congenial personalities. He did not go into the corporate world looking for the leaders of great organizations. He did not even try to find the brightest of Jews educated in the Torah.

Instead, Jesus went first to Galilee to recruit a ragtag bunch of fishermen. Then He proceeded to call men of unexpected means, common men, mostly uneducated in the world’s eyes. Not one was a man of influence, power or prestige. Not one would be considered “the best for the job”. Yet these were the men Jesus chose to turn the world upside down.

It really should not surprise us as God used this methodology many times throughout all of scripture. God often chooses the ones that men will not even consider.

As we look to recruit in the church are we closer to the model Jesus demonstrated, or following a worldly model? I wonder, what greater accomplishments could God do through His church if when recruiting, by prayer, we put on the eyes of Christ instead of the eyes of world seekers? Instead of trying to find the most qualified of our friends to fill a role, what if we sought the fishermen with callused hands that we have written off as – not qualified?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.