SIMPLE CHURCH: Movement, Part 3

Most churches don’t stall out because of one or two problems that they can easily fix. Most stall out because of church systems! That is, the entire way you have put your church [Christ’s church, but since you have messed it up, its ‘yours’] together is wrong. Simple Church makes you look back at the systems approach to church growth and discipleship. In our continuing series analyzing the impact of the book "Simple Church" by Eric Geiger and Thom Rainer, we are looking at the second church health principle of "Movement".

Simple Church helps you ask the question, “What is our system for making disciples here?” You do have a system don’t you? You see, even if you don’t, you still do. As Edward Deming has astutely put it, “You have the perfect system for getting exactly the results you are getting!”


Do you have weak and anemic disciples at your church? Your church system is producing weak and anemic disciples! Or are they strong and vigorous? Again, it is your system.

What is the system in your church? Can you identify it? For example, let’s say that this Sunday someone turns their life over to Christ at your church. Then they stay with you for 3 years, and then are transferred away. What do you want that disciple to look like at the end of 3 years of participating in your church discipleship system?

The focus of what we are talking about here is MOVEMENT! And Movement, is the 2nd key principle of the Simple Church Book. For an intro to Simple Church see my Jan. 16th, 2007 blog, and for the first principle of Clarity see my March 3rd, 2007 blog.

Movement is defined by Geiger & Rainer as "... the sequential steps in the process that causes people to move to greater areas of commitment."

Where do disciples start in your church and where do they go and grow? In most churches I’ve served in, there is no clear system. We just hope that they meet the Lord, start attending services and Bible studies and start growing. Isn’t that good enough? Try asking some of the big guns like Rick Warren at Saddlebback with his 4 bases. Or try asking Bill Hybels at Willowcreek with the 7 steps to maturity system and the 5 G’s. They’ve got systems in place to develop disciples.

Question: Is it enough just to copy the 4 bases of Saddleback and say that you’ve got it done? Not if you don’t understand the concept of church systems yet. Then you are just mimicking what you’ve seen, and as soon as someone tinkers with it, you will have problems.

Here’s what we are doing at our church to really put these principles into practice:

First , we answered the PRODUCT question. That is, if the example cited above of someone coming to church for 3 years and then leaving really occurred, what kind of a disciple would we want to produce? So over the course of several months, with staff, and leadership, we defined 27 character qualities of a mature disciple. These 27 character traits cover 3 broad categories related to Head, Heart, and Hands. Or put another way, we have defined Intellectual goals, and Emotional/
Attitudinal goals, and we have defined Behavioral goals.

Then, having just defined that, we are now working through all of our church programs, and determining exactly what kind of life-change we are trying to accomplish in each ministry. The question is "how does each ministry program in the church contribute to one or more of the 27 traits of spiritual maturity?

Also, we are clearly marking out our discipleship movement path for our church. We have identified a one-year path which we will encourage all new converts, new members, and seekers to pursue. (It is optional, and is also available for current regulars if they wish to join.).

Here is our path in synopsis:
First, Newcomers Dessert social
Second, On-Ramp (new members class), targeting the newcomers at the social
Third, Passport Dinner – to introduce them to the recommended “journey towards growth”
Fourth – one-full year of growth training, broke down into 4 separate discipleship groups:

This includes 4 discipleship groups which are coached, and that is a key part. Our awesome Small Groups director, Jim Troe, (he's reading this, so I had to say that;) put together this one-year plan…
-- Alpha – 10 weeks on the basics of Christianity for Seekers.
-– Connections – 8 weeks on how to develop healthy relationships with seekers.
-– Foundations – 8 weeks on basic discipleship issues like a daily quiet time, and Bible study.
-– SHAPE training – 8 weeks on discovering and using your spiritual gifts.

Fifth, Once they have completed the one-year discipleship training, we place them into long-term growth groups, which are normally “sermon-based” groups, that is, discussion and curriculum is based on the current teaching series.

Please note, these are all optional at every step of the way, although we do recommend a particular course of action.

So that is our current plan for movement. Yes, it may change, but we finally have a "clear path for discipleship", which happens to be what we call it. We know where we are going, and by God's grace and guidance we hope to get there.

NOW, how do we make sure to encourage people to follow this course of action?

That relates to the 3rd Simple Church principle, which is Alignment. I’ll update you on that next month.

Until then,
In Christ,
Dr. Bill