Church revitalization has become a trendy topic at ministry conferences. There is a good reason for this. Most churches need revival and ministry leaders are eager to learn about this important issue. But how many times have you attended a session on the subject only to leave without a tangible plan for achieving it? Let’s be honest. The best way to experience revitalization in your church is to build a disciple-making culture.

A great number of churches have an “Aaron’s calf” approach to discipleship. Do you recall the story of Moses and Aaron in the wilderness of Sinai? After leading the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses left them in the wilderness to go up on Mount Sinai to meet with God. He left his brother Aaron in charge and was gone for a long time. When the people saw that Moses was delayed, they pressured Aaron to make them a god who would go before them. So, he asked the people to give him their rings of gold. After receiving the gold, he fashioned it with a graving tool to make a golden calf. The next day, the people rose up early to offer sacrifices and dance in worship to the golden calf.

After receiving the Ten Commandments, Moses came down from the mountain. His anger burned hot when he saw the calf and the people dancing around it. When he confronted his brother about the golden calf, Aaron’s explanation is both humorous and outrageous. Any five-year-old could come up with a better excuse. After explaining to Moses how he got the gold, he said, “I threw it into the fire and out came this calf” (Exodus 32:24). Really, Aaron? Is that the best you could do? This has to be the worst excuse of all time.

The problem is that church leaders often make a similar excuse. We ask our members to give us their valuable time. Then, we fire up our church programs and toss in the people. Our hopes are high that out will come a disciple-maker, but one seldom does. Really, pastors? Is this the best we can do?

Jesus did not teach us to have discipleship programs. He taught us to how to make disciples who make disciples. The issue is that many of our church programs have become golden calves, and people often love the programs of the church more than they love the mission of the church. This is a problem. In fact, it is idolatry. It’s time to repent and return to the greater work of our Great Commission.

The question is, how? Must we bury our church programs to revitalize the church? Some maybe, but certainly not all of them. However, one thing is essential. A tangible plan for church revitalization begins with building a disciple-making culture.

How can you build a true disciple-making culture in your church? How can you transition from merely having a discipleship program to making disciples who make disciples? Let’s consider a five-step plan to build a disciple-making culture for church revitalization.

PRAY IT THROUGH

First and foremost, you must pray it through. You are not the first ministry leader with a vision to revitalize and rebuild. Years ago, the word of the Lord came to Zerubbabel and said, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

Church revitalization will never occur through human power and ingenuity. It will require a movement of the Holy Spirit. To lead your church in transition, you must pray it through. Pray with as many people as you can and as often as you can. Confess your sins to God and pray for revival in your church.

Times of change in a church will always bring challenge. Don’t be surprised by this. At each step of the way, remember the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel and pray it through.

UNITE YOUR LEADERS

The second step is to unite your leaders. This begins with the lead pastor. Building a disciple-making culture requires a disciple-making pastor. Without his bold and active leadership, it will be difficult to accomplish your goal. He can lead from the first chair or the second chair, but he must not be passive. Strong leadership from the lead pastor is essential.

It is also important to have a unified leadership team. Disunity will disrupt good plans. Work hard to bring everyone along. Include other ministers, deacons, and additional key leaders in the process. Meet regularly with the main influencers in your church to seek their wisdom and support. Communicate the vision with them and get them to join in praying it through.

DEVELOP A PROCESS

The third step is essential. After uniting your leaders and praying it through, you must develop a disciple-making process. This is the missing link for most churches. You cannot build a disciple-making culture without a well-defined process to develop disciple-making people.

A disciple-making process is a clear and simple plan for making disciples who make disciples. It’s not a program or curriculum, but it’s a highly intentional process to equip and empower people for a lifestyle of disciple-making. Intentionality is the key word. Our Great Commission to make disciples is not something to leave to chance. It requires strategic intentionality. When Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” He was both strategic and intentional (Matthew 4:19). He knew exactly what He wanted to make, and He knew how to make them. He was going to make disciples who make disciples.

Let’s be honest. Few churches have any ministry that remotely resembles the relationship between Jesus and His disciples. Jesus taught us to make disciples in the relational environment of a small discipleship group. For us, a D-Group could be as small as three to five people who meet anytime and anywhere for intentional discipleship. From Jesus’ example, we know that a D-Group serves a three-fold purpose: 1) to grow in spiritual maturity, 2) to serve in missional ministry, and 3) to reproduce disciple-makers.

As close as possible, you want to develop a disciple-making process that resembles the one of Jesus and His disciples. There are a few good resources available for your church to look through. However, you are looking for a true disciple-making process and not merely a small group curriculum. Your process must include a clear path to equip your people for a lifestyle of disciple-making. Pray fervently for the Lord to lead you to the one that is right for you.

As the author of D-Life, I highly recommend it for your consideration. D-Life is a simple, biblical, missional, and reproducible process of disciple-making. It is modeled after Jesus and His six practices of disciple-making. D-Life is a proven plan for making disciples who make disciples. Ministries all over the world are using D-Life to equip and empower their people for a lifestyle of disciple-making—anytime and anywhere. D-Life will provide a clear track for your disciple-making process to run on and a simple tool to keep you on track.

RETHINK THE MODEL

The fourth step is to rethink your model for ministry. Once you develop a disciple-making process, you must define how it relates to your other ministries. You want your disciple-making process to be central to everything you do. However, you don’t want it to create confusion in your church or a sense of competition within your ministries. You want others to see your disciple-making process as something that complements your other ministries instead of something that competes with them.

One way to rethink your model for ministry is to consider the illustration of an atom. Around 400 BC, a very smart man named Democritus, a Greek philosopher, came up with the idea of the atom. He figured out that everything in the universe must be made up of tiny particles that are so small they cannot be cut. He called these particles “atoms,” which comes from the Greek word “atomos,” meaning indivisible or uncuttable. His remarkable theory remained as a mostly philosophical topic until the development of chemistry in the 1600s.

Over the years, brilliant chemists and physicists discovered that atoms were real. They also learned that the enormous power of an atom is found in its nucleus. Revolving around the nucleus are different particles of the atom, which make each atom unique.

Likewise, most churches have a variety of programs that make them unique. They have great ministries related to worship, Bible study, Christian service, and missions. Though each of these ministries stand alone in importance, what they need is a clearly defined nucleus at the core of the church to provide energy and power for growth.

Lexico defines the “nucleus,” as the central and most important part of an object, movement, or group, forming the basis for its activity and growth. Having a clear disciple-making process at the nucleus of your church, will provide strategic intentionality for all of your other ministries. Everyone will know exactly what you are wanting to make and how you are planning to make them.

Churches with an Aaron’s calf approach to discipleship are like an atom with no nucleus. They hope to make disciples but are neither strategic nor intentional. They have discipleship programs but fail to produce disciple makers. This is not what Jesus taught us to do. He did not call institutions to make disciples, but individuals. Likewise, the main purpose of the church is not to make disciples but to train up an army of disciple makers to go do the greater work.

With a true disciple-making process at the nucleus of your church, you can train your people for a lifestyle of disciple-making. Individuals will begin to make and multiply disciples anytime and anywhere. As a result, you can ignite a disciple-making movement at the core of your ministries that will revitalize your church and provide great energy and power for growth.

In 1930s, two German scientists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, discovered that the “uncuttable” atom could actually be cut. Through a process of physics known as nuclear fission, they successfully split the nucleus of an atom, which resulted in the release of a great amount of energy. This release of energy is what makes nuclear fission useful today for making nuclear power plants or nuclear bombs.

Many years ago, a carpenter from Nazareth and twelve common men revealed a process of disciple-making that we could call “spiritual fission.” They successfully split a D-Group, which resulted in the release of a great amount of energy and “the number of the disciples multiplied greatly” (Acts 6:7b). This release of energy is what makes spiritual fission useful today for building a disciple-making culture and reaching many people for Christ.

One more thing, what holds it all together? When you think about an atom, this was a question that confounded scientists for many years. Whatever the force that holds the particles of an atom together must be very strong. With a vivid display of imagination, physicists named this force “the strong force.” Likewise, when you place disciple-making at the core of your church, something very strong will hold it together. That strong force is Jesus Christ. When you put disciple-making in the center, you are putting Jesus at the center of everything you do.

Rethinking your model for ministry is an important step to building a disciple-making culture for revitalization. Meet with your leaders and pray it through.

SET SOME GOALS

The fifth and final step is to set some goals. It’s often said that if you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time. Don’t aim for nothing. Set some big goals. You now have a process in place to make them achievable, and you want to see the fruit of your labor. This is the fun part. Work with your leadership team to develop SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.

Your first priority is to set your disciple-making goals. This will give you the metrics you need to come back later and set goals for all your other ministries.  So, where do you begin in setting your disciple-making goals? First, you must answer two big questions:

• How many D-Groups can you start with?
• At what rate can you expect them to multiply?

To answer the first question, you must train some leaders to start some D-Groups. Once you know how many D-Groups you can start with, you can begin to set your disciple-making goals. You will want to start with only those you feel are fully equipped and devoted to lead a D-Group for several years.

To answer the second question, you must work with your leaders to determine the rate that you can expect your D-Groups to multiply each year. Your “D-Group Multiplication Rate” (DMR) is very important and you must pray it through.

Answering these questions will likely lead to a crisis of belief. It will stretch your faith. However, with a true disciple-making process at the core of your church, you can experience the power of spiritual fission and multiply disciples at a rate unthought of before. Diligently seek God’s leadership, remembering that “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6a).

Once you know how many D-Groups you can start with and at what rate you can expect them to multiply, you are ready to set some exciting goals. Let’s consider a couple of goal setting plans for both a small and large church.

For a small church, beginning with 4 D-Groups and a 40-50% DMR is a realistic starting point. In the chart below, let’s look at a ten-year goal-setting plan for a church starting with 4 D-Groups and a 40% DMR.

Small Church starting with 4 D-Groups / 10-Year Growth Goals with a 40% DMR

	D-GROUPS	MINISTRY PROJECTS	NEW LEADERS
Year 1	4	24	2
Year 2	6	36	2
Year 3	8	48	3
Year 4	11	66	4
Year 5	15	90	6
Year 6	21	126	8
Year 7	29	174	12
Year 8	41	432	16
Year 9	57	342	23
Year 10	80	480	32

 

In the first column, you see your ten-year growth in the number of D-Groups from 4 to 80 groups. If you average 5 people in each group, you will go from 20 to 400 people participating in a D-Group where they are certain to “Grow in Spiritual Maturity.”

In the second column, you see your ten-year growth in the number of ministry projects your groups will do outside the walls of the church. If each D-Group does 6 ministry projects a year—as they are trained to do—you will go from 24 to 480 projects as your people “Serve in Missional Ministry.” Can you imagine the impact this will have on your community?

In the third column, you see your ten-year growth in new D-Group leaders from 2 to 32. Each year you are equipping new leaders to “Reproduce as Disciple Makers.”

This is the power of spiritual fission. It produces growth without gimmicks. For a small church, you will experience spiritual and physical growth that is healthy and sustainable. This is the result of building a disciple-making culture for church revitalization.

Now, let’s consider the same plan for a larger church. For a large church, beginning with 30 D-Groups and a 30-40% DMR is a realistic starting point. In the chart below, let’s look at a ten-year goal-setting plan for a church starting with 30 D-Groups and a 33.3% DMR.

Large Church starting with 30 D-Groups / 10-Year Growth Goals with a 33.3% DMR

	D-GROUPS	MINISTRY PROJECTS	NEW LEADERS
Year 1	30	180	10
Year 2	40	240	13
Year 3	53	318	18
Year 4	71	426	24
Year 5	95	570	32
Year 6	127	762	42
Year 7	169	1014	56
Year 8	225	1350	75
Year 9	300	1800	100
Year 10	400	2400	128

 

In the first column, you see your ten-year growth in the number of D-Groups from 30 to 400 groups. If you average 5 people in each group, you will go from 150 to 2000 people participating in a D-Group where they are certain to “Grow in Spiritual Maturity.”

In the second column, you see your ten-year growth in the number of ministry projects your groups will do outside the walls of the church. If each D-Group does 6 ministry projects a year—as they are trained to do—you will go from 180 to 2400 projects as your people “Serve in Missional Ministry.” Again, can you imagine the impact this will have on your community?

In the third column, you see growth in new D-Group leaders from 10 to 128. Each year you are equipping new leaders to “Reproduce as Disciple Makers.”

Wow! This is healthy growth. By building a disciple-making culture, church revitalization will come in the form of both spiritual and physical growth regardless of your size or location.

You can use a similar chart to determine your own goals for your church. Once you know how many D-Groups you can start with and the rate you expect them to multiply (DMR), you are ready to set your ten-year disciple-making goals. This will give you the metrics to come back later to set goals for all your other ministries. You want your disciple-making goals to complement all your ministries and to supply them with energy and power for growth.

Be sure to track your goals and work hard to achieve them. Bring your D-Group leaders together at least three times a year for celebration and accountability. Share testimonies of spiritual growth, tell stories of missional ministry, and celebrate the birth of new D-Groups. Above all, give all the glory Him who said, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

A well-known pastor of a popular mega church talks about “catching spiritual waves” as a key to church growth. However, what if church growth was never meant to be that subjective? What if it was really about the objective hard work of living out the Great Commission? I believe it is.

Jesus never talked about catching a spiritual wave but about doing a greater work. Are you tired of waiting on a wave to catch? Let’s make our own waves by joining with Jesus in the greater work of making disciples who make disciples.

I want to encourage you again to check out D-Life (www.livethedlife.com). D-Life is a true disciple-making process and a proven plan for making disciples who make disciples.

One of the first D-Life training events that Rondie and I led was at the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia. My friend, Allan Taylor, was serving as the Minister of Education, and he invited us to lead the training for him and his education staff. Afterward, Allen sent me the following testimony:

Bill Wilks led my Education Staff at First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Georgia, through the D-Life training. We were absolutely amazed! It is simple, yet profound. It has the basic ingredients of fellowship, Bible study, and prayer; but finally, a discipleship strategy that incorporates ministry, accountability, and . . . drum roll please . . . multiplication! If you are looking for a discipleship process that both makes and multiplies disciples of Jesus Christ, then this is it.

Allen said it well. It’s all about multiplication. If it doesn’t multiply, it’s not real discipleship.

Rondie and I would love to come to your church to lead D-Life training or to assist in working through your plan for church revitalization. For more information about D-Life training go to: www.livethedlife.com/training.