An effective discipleship process needs to begin with the Gospel and let the people grow naturally, right where they are, according to Winfield Bevins in his book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship. Programs that work for churches indifferent cultures and contexts will not necessarily work in yours, and linear discipleship programs that try to funnel everyone through the same process will not suit everyone; hence effective discipleship needs to be organic.
There are four major themes to the organic discipleship process advocated by the author:
- Gospel, being the seed and foundation of the entire discipleship process
- Mission, being the outreach impulse that compels us to go and make disciples through word and deed
- Community, which is the inward movement of discipleship involving connecting and growing new disciples to Christ and his church
- Reproduction, being the ultimate goal of discipleship, involving selecting, training and sending out missional disciples who will repeat the discipleship process
It is widely recognised that the church in the West has problems with discipleship. The typical church attender tends to act and think like a non-believer rather than like a fully committed disciple of Jesus. Many churches have no intentional strategy to address this problem, while others run classes which increase knowledge but do not change behaviour. In my opinion this book does not provide a complete answer, but it points in the right direction.
The book is available for free download: http://www.exponential.org/2012/09/grow-reproducing-through-organic-discipleship-by-winfield-bevins/