How to Make a Disciple Making Church - Jim Putman

Hi, my name is Jim Putman, and I'm the senior pastor at Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho. And I'm also one of the founders of what's called the Relational Discipleship Network. The question is, um, what does it take to create a disciple-making church? And, uh, let me just say it takes several things. But first and foremost, it takes a church that has decided that rather than making converts, uh, the church has to make disciples. And in order for that to happen, you have to have some clear definitions of terms that are simple and repeatable.

And so, as a church, we, we started with, "Hey, uh, as a pastor, my job is not to be, uh, the paid player. I'm not the entertainer. I'm not the, the educational transfer of information king, and everybody else's job is to come and listen and support and and learn the information." I want to share my job is to be a coach. And so Ephesians 4 says that the job of an apostle, a prophet, a pastor, teacher, an evangelist is to prepare God's people for works of service so the body of Christ can be built up. That every Christian is to be a disciple. And and so winning is not gathering a crowd. It's training up disciples who launch from your church like it's a locker room onto the playing field wherever they work, live, and play, uh, to launch them into places where they make disciples, where they reach people and and minister to them, and then earn the right to be heard as far as the gospel being shared. And then they know full well that if I share the gospel with you and you accept Christ, that I get to connect with you, and and I'm going to be intentional about what that looks like, and I'm going to take you through this reproducible biblical process.

So it's, it's coming up with a clear understanding of who you are as a coach rather than a player or a performer or even a teacher. Teachers teach about something. Leaders use teaching to lead people to something that they can do themselves. Uh, and so having clearly defined terms and understanding of what winning is. Winning isn't gathering a crowd. Um, isn't even doing an altar call so hundreds of people come because you shared Christ. I think we do that, but what's more important to me than just sharing Christ from the pulpit and people getting saved is how people got saved. For me, it's a much bigger win if it's a disciple that we've discipled, a father, a, a, an employee or employer at a workplace, they earned the right, they shared Christ, they understood the gospel, shared it, started discipling people there in their work. And so when there's a baptism, it's much more exciting to me personally, though they're saved either way, but it's more exciting. It's a double win when it's a person who is a disciple in your church, a regular everyday person who is now won somebody to the Lord, shared the gospel, now is discipling those people, and then those people are discipling people later on. That's the win.

And so in order for all this to happen, you have to have some clear definitions of terms. For us, Matthew 4:19, it, we say it this way in the invitation is the job description of a disciple. Uh, Jesus said, "Come and follow me, I will make you fishers." Amen. So we break that into three parts. A disciple is following Jesus. If you won't follow Jesus, um, then you're, you're not a disciple. Jesus, a disciple is being changed by Jesus. He takes you as you are, but as you spend time with him, you realize that every command he has given, everything he's doing is about reconciliation with God that leads to reconciliation with others. All along the prophet saying on those two commands, love God, love others. So as you're following Jesus, he's your head, your authority, your heart's being changed. He's changing you to be a lover of God and lover of others. So you're following Jesus, you're being changed by Jesus, and then finally, you're committed to the mission of Jesus. "Come and follow me, and I'll make you fishers." Amen. Jesus's intent was to intentionally lead people through a process that they then would become fishers of men. They would, though, then go and reproduce the process, people who are committed to the mission that Jesus had, not to their own mission. Jesus doesn't follow us and is committed to our mission. No, we have surrendered our lives. We live a new life. We were, uh, we confessed him as Lord. We were baptized. Buried, baptism was a picture of being buried with Christ, the whole life gone, raised to walk in newness of life, a picture of of following him into what he's doing.

And so as we understand that's what discipleship is, that I'm, if I'm a disciple maker, now Jesus raised up these guys and said, "Now you go and do the same." Don't do whatever any way you want. Do it the way I did it with you. He shared his life. We share our lives. We share the truth because our sharing our life with them and caring for them is open the door to that. Now I'm able to share the truth with you. Now I'm able to call you into a relationship like Jesus had with his disciples, where we start doing life together, and I'm moving you from being a consumer to being a minister of of God to God in worship and praise, but also to others. And we're shaping them in in with the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God to become people who become ministers, servants of God and others. And then finally, we send them out to make disciples. So there's this process in relationship that happens. Uh, and so clear definition of terms, clear methodology for doing that, and then, um, it leads to, uh, a kind of alignment around right doctrine as a church, uh, around relationships, around, uh, in other words, how to have those relationships, alignment around philosophically how we're going to do this, and organizationally what does systems look like, uh, that actually produce what we value, processes, aligning our team around this, um, mission that we've been given together as a church.

So all of this comes together to create a disciple-making church. And I've written a lot about this. Church is a team sport, or the, uh, the Real Life Discipleship book, or Discipleship, or most recently, um, uh, I wrote a book called The Power of Together, and, um, The Revolutionary Disciple. And I have a new one coming out that's for just everyday, regular people called The Disciple's Journey. But it's all this process, uh, in these details about what does it look like to do life with other people intentionally so that we're making disciples.

A couple of things I would say, uh, about disciple making that are super important. You will never have a disciple-making church if you do not have a disciple-making pastor who is personally making disciples, committed personally to doing that in his everyday life. So it, a lot of pastors think they're making disciples when they preach. No, they're preaching, and that's part of it, but, but your people in your church cannot reproduce that. They don't have a pulpit. They don't, they, they don't get to see somebody actually doing it in their everyday life. They get to hear about it. But Jesus modeled for the disciples what it looks like to be a disciple maker in their everyday lives, so that ordinary, regular people who may not be gifted speakers but have influence because of how they live in the lives of those around them, uh, they're able to make disciples. They're able to reproduce disciple making because they saw it versus just come to a sermon and hear about it, but, but then not flesh it out in practical ways in their life.

So a disciple-making pastor is actually making disciples, and out of that are coming people who can make disciples. Everybody on staff at our church is in a relational environment for the purpose of discipleship. And, and then if you are a disciple who can make disciples and you have leadership gifting, then we will move you into helping us create systems that make disciples, uh, or systems that help people, uh, learn how to make disciples. So small group systems, youth ministry systems. In our system, discipleship happens in relationship. But then how does the weekend service, uh, flow into the small groups? What do you do in those small groups? How do you train small group leaders? How do you, um, set up a curriculum that supports what you value? How do you, uh, uh, hold people accountable in that? Raise up new people? I mean, all those are systems. But if the pastors, the leaders in the church, the elders in a church are not actually making disciples, they're just leading systems, then they're not actually doing what we're asking everybody else to do in our church.

Uh, being aligned around the practices of disciple making is key. There is no staff member who didn't prove they could make disciples personally who gets to lead a system. There are no elders who get to make decisions about disciple making when they're not actually disciple making. And so to this day, I'm in three small groups a week, and one with my wife and a life group, two with men. And, uh, my job is to make disciples. And out of that, many staff members have come, many church planters have come. Then all of the rest of our staff are doing the same thing. And so, uh, the way we break that down is we all have what's called our personal ministry plan, and then we have our ministry plan. Our personal ministry plan is 10 to 12 hours a week, and, um, our ministry plan is the running of the system or the, the, the, the programming and the systems that produce discipleship in the church as a whole.

And the reason it's, uh, 10 to 12 hours and then 40 hours is because we ask all these people out there who have a job to come in and go to church, be in a small group, disciple, mate, do relationship with other believers. And if we're asking regular lay people to do that, why do we get to be, uh, opted out of that? We have a job, they have a job. Uh, and so again, we don't ask other people to do something we're not personally doing, and we get the chance to model for our people what it looks like to do that. And then we have a church service where we talk about and support it and and encourage that. We have a budget that encourages disciple making. That's the bullseye. And in the way we spend our money and our time and energy and effort in everything we do leads to discipleship groups, intentional groups where people are learning to follow Jesus. They're they're being changed by Jesus. They're committed to the mission of Jesus in a relational environment. And, and out of that, these people serve. Nobody gets to serve in a ministry, uh, that would be what we would call the top of the funnel, a bridge ministry, like our Sports and Outdoors Ministry or or our scouting ministry. Nobody gets to serve in those ministries if they don't have the time to be in a group where they're being discipled, where they're being in relationship, where they're growing spiritually. It's only when you, um, are doing that that we then say, "Yeah, okay, now if you have time to come and do some of the rest of this stuff, great." But you have to be living your life as a healthy Christian person, um, first, which includes being in relationship in groups where you have, you're known and you know people, you're loved, and it's intentional, and you're growing in spiritual maturity. Then out of that, you, you can be involved in some other things.

So give an example. All of our elders are leading small groups and discipling people. Um, if they don't have time to do that, then we're not going to let them come to a meeting to decide on, uh, what our church is doing as a whole. You have to be in the season of life that you can be in a small group and then come to meetings that help us, uh, make decisions as a church as a whole. Same with staff. And so we are aligned around practices that protect what we value most. Again, we don't just want to gather a crowd, and that's not the goal. We want to gather a crowd and then move them into relationships where they're growing in spiritual maturity, where they're learning to serve and minister and give. And so everything we do lines up in such a way that we're able to measure at the end of the day, are we making disciples that make disciples? Are they mature disciples that make disciples? I don't care how gifted they are and what they know if they're not learning to love God and love others well and allowing others to love them well, they're not in relationship. And therefore, it doesn't matter how gifted they are, they don't get to speak or teach or do whatever if they're not doing what we want every person to do. And again, that's not perfection, but that's what we aspire to, and that's what we're shooting for.

And so as you, as you think about what we're doing here, um, we work really hard at, uh, uh, living out being first, doing second, out of being disciples who love God, who are in relationship, are experiencing spiritual maturity in our life and the benefits of it. Now, we we make better decisions, more lasting decisions. We, we make, uh, uh, we're better models for a church as a whole. So when we come in together and have meetings, the question is, um, how many people are getting saved and how are they getting saved? Uh, what matters again is when a father baptizes his son, when somebody in a life group has a baptism at the river, and they're discipling those people. That's more exciting to me than somebody just showed up for church and came forward or filled out a card. Not saying we don't do that, but if they're not in a group already and they come and they give their lives to Jesus, we say, "Listen, we're not here to make a convert. We're here to make a disciple. Or are you willing to get into a small group and become a disciple?" If you're not, all you want is to have an event salvation, you know, kind of a check a box, pray a prayer, baptism, and go your way. We don't believe in doing that. And if you're not willing to get involved in relational discipleship and take that next step, we're not really interested in in helping you, uh, check a box so that you can say, "Crossed the finish line," rather than, "You started a race with other believers."

And so these are the kinds of things we measure and, and we we focus on. And it constantly, we have people who come from a variety of different backgrounds, cult members, uh, to, uh, never been a part of anything, to have come from other churches. And we have systems set up to bring alignment, uh, into our people's lives. So again, we have a membership class, and every person who comes to our church, before they can serve in any way or be in any sort of ongoing ministry, has to go to our membership class. And in that membership class, we outline what the Bible says about salvation, what are our key doctrines, uh, we outline, uh, what is our goal as a church, making disciples, and how our church is organized. And so we vision cast for them. This is where we're at, and we want you to know that, uh, uh, we want you to get in a small group. You have to commit to, "I am going to follow Jesus. I'm accepting Christ. I'm going to be baptized into Christ," because the Bible says, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you," or, "Go into all the world, making disciples, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all I've commanded you." We're going to baptize you. Um, We're gonna get you plugged into a small group. If you won't commit to doing that, then you can attend on Sunday mornings, but you can't be a member of our church. You're going to commit to give, you're going to be involved in all those things. And, and so, uh, the reason we do that isn't necessarily because of new believers. We want new believers to learn a lot of this stuff in discipleship. But you, you know, we are going to have you come and become a member and make sure that as a member, you are in agreement with what we believe. We do the membership class because, uh, we have people coming from all different kinds of backgrounds and, uh, Christian backgrounds. And it's not non-Christians who blow up churches. It's crazies that are running by a different playbook or defining terms in different ways. Have different definitions of terms. And as a team, if we're not aligned, and we're not using the same words and going in the same direction, then there's no way we win. You know, it's like in football, in a huddle, if you call a play, but we don't all have the same understanding of the play or our role in it, doesn't matter how talented you are, you don't win. You can do the same with music. It doesn't matter how well you play individually unless we're running by the same sheet of music, defining terms, same timing, all that stuff, it sounds terrible. It's the same way in the church.

And we want to make sure that these Christians that come here know how we believe about doctrine, that Jesus is the only way to salvation, that's this is how we define sin biblically, uh, that, uh, there are issues that are what we call secondary issues. They're not salvation issues, and you can be saved if you have different views. But if we're going to be unified, this is how we're going to deal with it. Like, uh, spiritual gifts, you know, Calvinism versus Arminianism. We want you to know where we stand. And, uh, and so you can decide if you're a Christian, but you don't want to go and run by our playbook. We want you to filter out. We want you to go to a different church. We don't, uh, we don't want you to come here and be an evangelist for speaking in tongues or for some of the, you know, the lesser important issues in our small groups. Remember, we're trying to align everybody so that we're protecting our small groups so that they know what we're doing in those small groups so those become free-for-alls, which then puts our leaders in those small groups in in a bad way because, uh, you know, we didn't resolve these issues for them before that. And so, um, we, we go through, here's how our church is organized. Here's where we stand on issues like, for instance, women's roles, abortion, homosexuality. There's all these issues that at one time in our culture, they were settled, even for unbelievers. Now there are people coming from churches that are not settled on these. So they need to know this. For instance, homosexuality, sin, marriage is between a man and a woman. There are two sexes, male, female. Abortion is sin. This is where we stand. If you don't believe that, then you either change your view or you go somewhere else. This is where we're standing on issues like salvation, on, on, and by the way, homosexuality is not a secondary issue. It's a sin issue. It's the Bible, what the Bible says. The sin is sin. Speaking in tongues is more like a secondary issue, or once saved, always saved is a secondary issue. We're trying to align our team. And we do these membership classes usually twice a month. Then every year, systematically, we have a break. So like our small group system in the summer, we have a break during that break because people only have so much time. And in North Idaho, when it's sunny, everybody disappears. We will do some training. And then before the season starts again in the fall, we go back through all of our belief systems. And it's called our, uh, our Leadership Covenant. And now every year, we go back through, here's what we believe, here's where we're going, here's where we stand, and you have to re-sign that covenant again because, you know, just because you took a class seven years ago doesn't mean you remember what we believed, especially when you're reading different books. The culture is changing. We're, this is our team. This is where we're doing. We're doing that to make sure that we keep beating the drum, this is who we are, this is what we're about, so that we stay aligned.

There is no sports team in the world that would say, "Since you went through the playbook last year, you don't need to go through it this year." The key to winning is the basics. The target stays on disciple making. We're going to be aligned theologically, doctrinally. We are going to be aligned relationally, philosophically. This is how we do what we do. And organizationally, this is how we work. This is your role as a small group leader or whatever ministry you're in. This is who you answer to, and this is what that looks like. And so we keep beating the drum, and we keep the target, the target. And so I don't go to a new conference and go, "Let's find a new target." I may go to learn something that helps me, "How do we do what we do better?" I do that. I go to discipleship.org, Renew Network, I do different conferences. How do I make disciples better? I'm always learning that. But making disciples is the key. Uh, it is the mission we were given as a church. That never changes. Um, and so these are all kinds of things that we do.

Now, let me just say something about what we do constantly, and I, I mentioned it, but I want to go a little bit deeper as I, as I close this out. And again, if you want to know more about what we believe, I mentioned some of the books, you can go and look at those. But, um, one of the things that that bothers me about pastors in America is this, they tend to be the most lonely people in the world. There's several reasons for that. Number one, they're usually trying to do everything for everybody, and so they're moving so fast that they don't have time for deep relationships, um, or they, uh, won't allow deep relationships with people in their church because they believe that their credibility is based on the fact that they've got everything all together. And if I let somebody close, they're going to realize I don't have everything together, and then therefore I'll lose my credibility. And so they live isolated lives. And it may, they've maybe been taught that from Bible College, and they might say, "Well, I have a friend, oh, I went to Bible College with, or a friend in a different town, but I don't really have friends here because I'm too busy, or I'm not going to let people do that know that because they'll use it against me or whatever it is." And as the head goes, the body follows. If you are moving too fast and you aren't real as kind of the, the leadership of the church, then your people will be moving too fast to have real deep relationship. And oh, and, and they'll put on the, "My credibility comes from how much I know," and they'll live isolated lives. And the devil loves that.

Spiritual maturity is your ability to not just know information and be skilled. It's to to be in relationship. Our God is a God of relationship. God wants us to have relationship. Maturity is my ability to be real with others and vulnerable and teach them to be good friends and me be a good friend. Uh, relationship requires that we fight for a relationship because we're both broken. We'll misunderstand each other. We'll, uh, we'll miss each other. We'll get offended at one another. Our ability to fight for relationship, humble ourselves, say we're sorry, forgive one another, our ability to love. By this all men will know that you're my disciples, by your love for one another. Your ability to be in relationship is the key to you getting through tough things in life. Jesus didn't send us out by ourselves. He sent them out by twos. He sent them out to be the church in relationship because the mission itself means that we're fighting the enemy, and the enemy is powerful, and we can't beat him by ourselves. We might say, "Well, I have Jesus." Well, Jesus didn't think just you and Jesus was enough in the garden. Um, at the beginning of time, God said, "It's not good for man to be alone." Man wasn't alone. God and man walked in the garden together. He said, "No, I made you for relationship with me and relationship with with others." He wants us to do life with each other, to confess our sins one another, to carry one another's burdens, to be transparent and tell each other the truth. He wants us to do life with our staff. And sometimes we've incorporated organizational structure. I'm the boss. I can't learn anything from somebody below me. I can't share with them my struggles. I, you know, I can help them, but I've got to be the fix-it person. No, I got people on my staff that have been married longer, have had kids longer, and they know things that I don't know, and I'm so glad God brought them here. I may be organizationally in charge, but those are brothers and even spiritual mentors in my life that help me live out what I actually believe. In the organizational structure, they actually are my friends and my support. We do it together. I'm not Moses that goes up on the hill and comes back and tells everybody what to do. Uh, I'm a, a co-laborer with other mature leaders, and I facilitate good leadership. As I lay down my life, I'm open, I'm honest. I always tell people, "You don't think you can tell your people what's really going on in our in your life?" Jesus was so much higher than the disciples, and yet he still said, "My soul is grieved to the point of death. Will you pray for me?" He still wept. He was afraid in the garden, and he said, "Father, um, take this cup from me if there's any other way." Jesus allowed these guys to see him struggle and was honest. Who do we think we are that we can't be honest? And if you're not honest with those you lead, yours people won't be honest with those who they lead, and they won't have the benefit of doing life with other believers in relationship. And, and that leads it leads them vulnerable.

Right now, more than ever, if we're going to make it through this life, we have to have mature believers. Maturity, immaturity looks like this: I'm going to take care of me, and you take care of you. The second level of maturity is, "Okay, I'll help you, but I can't, I won't let you help me. I'm always fine." Maturity is, "I'm going to help you, and I'm going to let you help me." If your church is about making disciples, but it doesn't have the right definition of a mature disciple, then we're still leaving people with an incomplete version of maturity that leads that leads them at risk. Jesus modeled maturity, openness, transparency, courage, faithfulness. Paul writes to the First Corinthian Church, he says, "You can know all mysteries, speak of the tongues of angels of men, but if you have not loved, you're a clanging cymbal." In other words, you can know stuff and do stuff, but if you don't have love, you're a clanging cymbal. He says, "You can offer your body to the flames, you can sell all your possessions and give to the poor, but if you don't have love, you're nothing, and you gain nothing." In other words, you can give away everything and even die, but still be immature. And then he says, "Love is," and he has to tell us what love is. Love is, doesn't feel. Love is, he says it bears no record of wrongs, right? Uh, in other words, it forgives. Uh, it, it, it, it, it constantly pursues. It's, there's a humility. It doesn't seek its own. It's, it's, I, I really do believe it's transparent and open, and we carry it. You know, using the rest of what he talked about, we carry each other's burdens. We speak to one another in honest ways that allows for doubting. As a Christian, I doubt. I'm so glad that I have people that help me when I'm doubting myself, wondering where is God, why did he do that? If I can't share that stuff, then then I isolate. And the devil loves to play in the dark.

When my son was in a rehab center and then in a homeless shelter, we had to leave him there because he was, we tried everything, and he was hurting himself and hurting us and leading my other boys astray. So we had to say, "Enough. You have to stay out there. We love you. It kills us every day, but we have to leave you out there." If I wouldn't have been able to share with my elders and my staff and my home group that I was angry at God, that I couldn't get along with my wife because she wanted to always enable and I wanted to be too hard, if I wouldn't have been able to admit to our congregation that I didn't know what to do, "Pray for me," if I had to pretend, or if I'd had somebody that came along goes, "You're supposed to have your life together. You can't be an elder, man." I was looking for the door. That's the closest I've been to drinking in 30 years as an alcoholic. Uh, if I couldn't have been real and had mature people around me who helped me get through the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus, Jesus does that, but he uses people too. Uh, I wouldn't have been in ministry. My son would have pulled me off the rock instead of people holding me fast, relational roads.

And so here's what I'm saying. Now more than ever, your people need to be mature, and they need to be in a mature family of God, that that we help each other, we carry each other through these dark times of so many false voices out there lying and and, uh, deceiving with agendas. And, and not only how to hit, you know, what's happening to our culture. If we don't have each other's back right now, um, we're gonna lose so many people. And maybe even if we're not careful, we'll slip off the rock if we don't have the support that we need. And so I think about Ecclesiastes 4. There was a man who was all alone, he had neither friend nor brother. He says to himself, "Where, who cares about my wealth? I mean, who I spend it on?" And he says, "What a miserable business." He's speaking about Americans and American Christians right there, in my opinion. Plenty of work to do, plenty of wealth, no real relationships. Then he says, "Wait a minute. Two are better than one. Food is a better return for their work." He says, "When one falls down, what would the one who falls down when there's no one to help him? But the man who falls who has someone to help them." I mean, again, two are better than one. He says, "When it's cold at night, but, you know, what good is that?" You know, it does. There are nights of the soul, but, but now there's warmth. When an enemy comes, two, one can protect himself, but two can get back to back." And he says, "Three are better than two. Uh, a cord of three strands is better."

Right now, we have Christians that are, I call it rock skipping. We're moving so fast through life that it's like, you take a rock on a lake and it just skips along the top because it's moving so fast. If we don't slow down and have a deep relationship with Jesus, a deep relationship with others, um, we're not gonna make it. Our people aren't going to make it. Christians aren't making it right now because they went to church, they said, "How you doing?" "Fine, fine." But they didn't have deep roots. They didn't have relationships they were supposed to have. And, um, God has no obligation whatsoever to bless our form of church or Christianity. He only blesses his own. And in the scriptures, um, we have God's recipe for the faith that we're told to hold to the faith, not just doctrine, but to hold to the faith, which includes lifestyle, which was once for all delivered to the saints. And, uh, too many people have come up with a, uh, fitting Jesus into their life when there's nothing else going on, not having time for anybody in real relationship. That's not going to help us win lost people to the Lord, and it's not going to help us keep the ones who supposedly gave their life to Jesus because it's not, it's not disciple making. Those aren't real disciples of Jesus. And it, again, as the head goes, the body follows. If you're not living a life of relationship with God and others, maturity in Christ, you can't give dear people something you don't have. And if they don't have it, they're not going to make it.

And so my hope is right now, more than ever, you will think in terms of, "We're going to make disciples. We're going to be disciples who make disciples. We're going to humble ourselves and learn how." If all we were ever done, ever ever happened to us was we went to Bible College and we were educated, it's not going to be enough. Discipleship includes education, but education by itself is not discipleship. I'm praying that you as leaders go, "We're going to become a disciple-making church." It starts with me, starts with our staff. Out of the overflow that comes to people in our church, out of the overflow of that comes people in our community. And now, as the enemy comes against us, we stand strong together. I really appreciate you spending some time here. Uh, I know that's surface, uh, conversation, you know, some, not really diving too much into the details. There are resources for that. Come to our RDN, Relational Discipleship, uh, uh, Network, RDN1.com, and we'd love you to know more about this. And, uh, God bless you and, uh, see you next time.