Exponential Growth: Disciples Making Disciples

Discipleship ministry starts small — one person mentoring another — and can seem like a slow way to grow the church. But when disciples are trained to make disciples who make disciples, growth can be exponential. Leaders of the Discipleship Lab, part of the Center for Church Renewal, have a vision for a movement in the Christian Reformed Church of just this kind of growth.

When Scott Vander Ploeg took a call to serve in ministry at Sunlight Community Church in Port St. Lucie, Fla., over 15 years ago, it was a small congregation of about 40 or 50 regular worshipers. Since then, it has grown into a multicampus church of over 900 members — and discipleship has been a big part of that, says Vander Ploeg.

Early in his ministry at Sunlight, Vander Ploeg started a leadership class. He began mentoring one of his students from the class, thinking it would be a one-time effort. Since then, however, he has mentored dozens of people, 18 of whom are now in some kind of ministry — licensed to preach, or working as ministers of the Word or commissioned pastors..

Vander Ploeg was mentored himself as a young man in his teens and early 20s, and he said he sees these times of discipleship as part of his journey into full-time ministry, so he knows the impact that a one-to-one, relational approach can have.

“I’m always praying about who and how many [mentees] to take on,” said Vander Ploeg. “It’s a big part — probably the most important part — of my ministry.”

He disciples people for about a year or 18 months, meeting with them one on one for one hour each week, either in person or via electronic media.

As Vander Ploeg’s discipleship ministry grew, other pastors started asking him about how to raise up disciples who will go on to raise up other disciples. In response, he created an outline of the process and some resources, and put it online for church leaders to access.

These resources have become 222disciple.com, a website with resources for people to use after they have worked through a program of formal discipling. The “222” in the name comes from 2 Timothy 2:2, which says, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

Vander Ploeg sees this kind of discipleship as a chain, linking people throughout the history of the church. “The key is disciples making disciples — we train people to train. Paul trained Timothy, who trained ‘reliable people,’ who trained others, all the way down to us. We’re not supposed to be the last link in the chain.”

Brian Bosscher is the director of discipleship with the Center for Church Renewal. He became interested in “life-on-life” discipleship two years ago when he saw the success of his son’s efforts in ministry using discipleship. Bosscher used time on a sabbatical from pastoral ministry to train with Vander Ploeg two years ago, and reconnected with him this year to serve in the Discipleship Lab.

“Discipleship resonates with the Great Commission,” said Bosscher. “Sermons are a great and necessary part of the work of discipleship, but the equipping and transformation needed to make disciples also needs the life-on-life mentorship.”

He hopes to equip pastors to equip members to make disciples. “Trained people are much less afraid to share [the gospel], because they know what to talk about,” said Bosscher. The training includes 24 basic lessons about sin, salvation, and service, but Bosscher stressed that discipleship is about relationship as well as learning.

Harold Winter, a pastor at Tillsonburg (Ont.) CRC, has seen the fruit of relational discipleship. He had learned about discipleship from the Church Renewal Lab, which is one of the resources offered by the new Center for Church Renewal, and he wanted to fill a need he’d heard about: some members of the church repeatedly heard the call to share the gospel but had never been trained to do so.

Using some of Vander Ploeg’s resources, Winter mentored Marilyn Dykxhoorn, meeting with her and his wife, Robin Winter, together each week in 2017. Several months into the mentorship, Dykxhoorn had an opportunity to share the gospel with her neighbor, Chelsea, who accepted it with joy. Chelsea participated in an Alpha course at the church and was baptized there with her three children in Oct. 2017.

Dykxhoorn stood with Chelsea for the baptism — and says she still sees her interaction with Chelsea as a highlight of her faith walk. “I have a much greater burden for people who do not yet know Jesus as Savior, and now I feel much more confident sharing the gospel message,” said Dykxhoorn.

Tillsonburg CRC has been growing in new ways since then. The church will run its fourth Alpha course this fall, is nearly finished with major building renovations to accommodate growing numbers, and has seen a huge rise in the numbers of children and teens participating in ministries. “It’s an exciting journey, made safe only because God is holding us in the palm of his Fatherly hand,” said Winter.

A discipleship lab is scheduled for Jan. 5-8, 2020, at Sunlight Community Church for pastors and lay members wanting to become involved in making disciples. About 30-40 participants will be paired with 20 trained mentors to continue the discipleship process. The hope is that these participants would then go on to mentor others, to create a movement of discipleship for exponential growth and renewal.

To find out more about discipleship and how you can get involved, go to churchrenew.org/discipleship-lab/