Why Telling Your Disciple-Making Story Is So Critical to Your Church

Pastor Doug Beutler

In my experience, most Christians have no idea how to make disciple-makers. That’s often what keeps them from doing it. One of the main reasons adult Christians don’t engage in disciple-making is because they were never personally discipled themselves.

Discipleship is not a new concept—Jesus clearly commanded us to go and make disciples. But somewhere along the way, the Church shifted its focus from making disciples to doing church. As a result, many believers simply don’t know how to do it, what it looks like, or where to start.

That’s why telling your disciple-making stories is absolutely critical for your church. These stories cast vision, model what disciple-making looks like, and create momentum. Let me share with you three reasons why telling these stories matters so much.

1. It Teaches Your Church to Celebrate the Right Things & Communicates Vision

There’s a simple but powerful truth:

What you celebrate communicates what you value.

If you constantly celebrate high attendance numbers, your people will assume numbers are your priority. There’s nothing inherently wrong with numbers, but if all the excitement is about how many people showed up to a service or event, you’re shaping the church’s values around that metric.

If your real priority is seeing people come to Christ or grow in their faith, then celebrate that. Share stories of salvation, transformation, and spiritual growth. When you testify about someone deepening their walk with Jesus or learning to make disciples, you’re casting vision in a practical and compelling way. You’re showing what matters most in your church.

I remember standing before our church celebrating that over 400 people came to our Trunk or Treat event. But we didn’t know who they were. No one from our church personally invited them. We didn’t capture any follow-up info. They came for candy, not connection. Afterward, someone asked me, “Why are we celebrating that?” It was a fair question. We weren’t celebrating disciple-making—we were celebrating attendance at a candy giveaway. That moment challenged me to rethink what I truly wanted our church to celebrate.

2. It Shows Your Church What a Disciple-Maker Looks Like

We know how to develop leaders. We create pipelines. We give opportunities. We debrief. We offer mentoring and training.

We do the same with volunteers. We pair new volunteers with experienced ones. We train, we observe, we equip.

So why don’t we approach disciple-making the same way?

Too often, if discipleship exists in our churches, it’s relegated to a program taught by professionals. But our people don’t need more curriculum—they need examples. They need to see how disciple-making relationships form. How do you start one? What do you talk about? What do you study together? How does it multiply?

These questions can be answered through real stories.

One of our disciple-makers built a friendship with a woman attending our church who was struggling after a painful breakup. She didn’t trust easily. So they started reading a book together on rebuilding trust from a biblical perspective. As they continued meeting, healing and spiritual growth took root. Six months in, the disciple-maker suggested the woman lead a women’s group at church. Her first response? “No way!” But over time, she agreed—and that step changed her. When they shared their story publicly, people saw exactly what disciple-making can look like. It wasn’t a program—it was a relationship. And it was powerful.

3. It Motivates Your Church to Actually Do It

Small churches often struggle with momentum. They may not have large crowds, big budgets, or flashy building projects. These are traditional signs of growth—but they’re not the mission.

Disciple-making is.

And what generates momentum more than anything else? Changed lives.

Whether it’s someone coming to Christ for the first time, returning to church after years away, or recommitting their life to Jesus—stories of transformation spark excitement. You don’t need big numbers or big dollars. You need testimonies.

I once shared a story in a service about a young man I was discipling and a bartender we were building a friendship with. The bartender had questions about faith, and we encouraged those conversations to grow. After the service, another Christian came up and asked me, “Can you and I do that? I want to start having spiritual conversations with my waitress.” That story motivated action.

When people hear stories of real-life disciple-making, it removes the mystery and fear. They realize: I could do that. And that’s the goal—to spark a movement of everyday disciple-makers in your church.

Telling your disciple-making stories is critical because:

1. It teaches your church to celebrate what matters and clearly communicates your vision.

2. It shows people what disciple-making actually looks like.

3. It inspires and motivates your people to step out and do it themselves.

You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to share the stories. Because stories plant seeds. And when the Church begins to celebrate and multiply changed lives, you won’t have to chase momentum—it will come naturally, as your people obey Jesus’ call: Go make disciples.

From Baseball Analytics to Church Discipleship: Why the Numbers Matter

By Pastor Doug

I’m a big Chicago Cubs fan. So you can imagine how I felt when they won the World Series in 2016—on top of the world. But in the nine years since that historic win, I’ve noticed something remarkable happening in the world of baseball: analytics have taken over.

It all started (at least in the public eye) with the movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. The story follows a general manager who ditched traditional scouting instincts in favor of hiring a stats-savvy analyst to build a winning team. Instead of relying on what a player looked like, they looked at stats like On-base Percentage (OBP), Slugging Percentage (SLG), Weighted On-base Average (wOBA), and Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+). Some baseball purists hated it. Others embraced it. But there’s no denying: analytics changed the game.

And now, analytics are changing the Church too.

Moving Beyond Attendance and Budgets

For years, churches have measured success with the “three Bs”: butts, bucks, and buildings—attendance, giving, and facilities. But just like baseball moved beyond batting average, the Church is beginning to shift from output goals to input goals—the things that help people actually grow in their faith.

In a recent post, I shared a study from Lifeway Research about discipleship. They identified 8 attributes of a growing disciple of Christ:

1. Bible Engagement

2. Obeying God and Denying Self

3. Serving God and Others

4. Sharing Christ

5. Exercising Faith

6. Seeking God

7. Building Relationships

8. Unashamed (Transparency)

These aren’t just ideals—they’re measurable outcomes of spiritual growth. As I researched I also found that certain spiritual disciplines consistently help people grow in all eight of these areas. Four disciplines stood out above the rest:

1. Attending weekly worship services

2. Daily Scripture reading

3. Being part of a small community

4. Actively serving others

Putting Discipleship Analytics into Practice

In the middle of the pandemic in 2020, our church took the discipleship assessment from Lifeway. The results helped us refocus on these four key disciplines. So, our elders began to intentionally guide our congregation in these directions. Here’s how we translated those disciplines into actionable practices:

1. Sunday Morning Worship

   We encouraged regular, in-person attendance—making it a spiritual priority, not just a weekly habit.

2. Daily Devotion: The 5-5-5 Plan

   We introduced a simple, approachable rhythm: 5 minutes of Bible reading, 5 minutes of prayer, 5 days a week. This came from the “On Mission” training by the Missionary Church denomination. It’s an easy on-ramp for developing consistency in time with God.

3. LifeGroups: The Next Step in Community

   LifeGroups were already part of our church, but we challenged people to go deeper—not just studying the Bible, but applying it and holding each other accountable. One of the questions we began asking regularly: “How is your 5-5-5?”

4. Serving with Purpose

   We helped people discover how God designed them to serve using spiritual gift assessments, personality profiles, and their own passions and experiences. The expectation grew: everyone has a role in ministry.

A New Way to Measure Church Health

For the first time in 2025, we used these four input goals to evaluate our ministry year—not attendance, not budget, not how many events we pulled off. Here’s what we measured instead:

1. Sunday Attendance Engagement

   87% of our church attended worship on a typical Sunday.

2. 5-5-5 Participation

   Among our leadership team and their spouses, 83% were actively doing their 5-5-5. We still need a better way to track this church-wide, but it’s a start.

3. LifeGroup Involvement

   81% of our church were involved in a LifeGroup.

4. Serving in Ministry

   78% of our church was actively serving in some capacity.

Our elders emphasized one key truth: this isn’t about legalism. We’re not tracking numbers for numbers’ sake. These disciplines aren’t boxes to check—they’re pathways to heart transformation. We want people to engage in worship, devotions, community, and service with the right attitude.

Why This Matters

This shift was revolutionary for our leadership. For the first time, we had meaningful data that showed real growth in the hearts and lives of our people. We saw people taking their next step in following Jesus. We saw genuine life change.

And yes—the analytics backed it up.

We’re going to keep encouraging these four discipleship practices, not because we want higher stats, but because we believe the fruit will be more Christlike people. As the numbers grow, so does spiritual maturity. And that’s something worth measuring.

Switching Price Tags in Churches

Pastor Doug Beutler

There were 2 friends who loved to play pranks on people.  Over the years they had gotten really good at this.  There was a local store owner in this small town that did not like these 2 boys.  He thought they were disrespectful.  So these 2 boys decided to have a little fun and pull a prank on this particular store owner.  They snuck into the local store but they didn’t take anything.  All they did was switch the price tags on the merchandise.  A can of pop was now $695 and a TV was $1.25.  A gallon of milk was $1,250 and a computer was $2.99.  A dress shirt was $250 and a riding lawn mower was $5.  The next day when the store owner opened his store within an hour there was mass confusion and he had to close.

Sometimes I think the church looks like this today.  For decades the church has looked at success as having 3 elements.  The first element of success was how many people you have coming to your church.  The more people you can squeeze into your sanctuary the better.  The second element of success was once your sanctuary is packed then you need a building program.  The building program would attract even more people and it would look like your church was going places in the community.  The third element of success was that as the church grew it would need staff which that would require money.  The more money you could raise the more programs you could run.  If you did not have these 3 elements in your church then you would be considered a failure as a pastor.  There are denominations and churches who still believe this lie.

One of the churches that pioneered this philosophy was Willow Creek Community Church.  But in 2010 Willow Creek took a look at whether the church was actually producing disciples that were maturing in their faith.  In a blog by Chuck Warnock he wrote that the results of Willow’s study showed church programs in and of themselves do not produce spiritually mature Christians. Non-Christians and new Christians grew with Willow’s programming but those “close to Christ” and those who are “centered on Christ” their programming didn’t help.  https://chuckwarnockblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/willow-creek-study-says-church-programs-dont-make-better-disciples/  So the question is what helps people to grow Spiritually?

LifeWay Research began a study in 2011, as part of their biggest discipleship study to date, and interviewed discipleship experts from eight countries, as well as surveyed 1,000 pastors and more than 4,000 Protestants from North America.  The intense study revealed 8 attributes of discipleship that consistently show up in the lives of followers of Christ who are progressing in spiritual growth.  They are:

1)     Biblical Engagement

2)     Obeying God and denying self

3)     Serving God and others

4)     Sharing Christ

5)     Exercising faith

6)     Seeking God

7)     Building relationships

8)     Unashamed (transparency)

https://www.lifeway.com/en/articles/transformational-research-attributes-of-growing-disciples

What do these 8 attributes have to do with attendance, building campaigns, or money?  That is the question that is getting a lot of attention today.  Maybe we have our price tags confused.  Have we bought into is good business model but not necessarily a good church model?  The desire to be bigger, better, and the best have driven many away from the church.  It has caused many to question whether following Jesus is worth it.  It emphasized ‘doing church’ instead of ‘being the church’.

But there is hope.  There are spiritual disciplines that we can implement that will help us grow spiritually.  What is even more amazing is that there are no requirements for churches to be a certain size, have so much money, or have a new building campaign.  Churches can implement disciplines that produce these 8 attributes in their people and small churches are a perfect place for this to happen.  What are those Spiritual disciples?  Next time I will share with you what I learned from taking the Lifeway Assessment and digging into the data about how to help people grow spiritually.  I will share with you 4 spiritual disciplines that followers of Christ can implement that will impact all 8 of these attributes of spiritual maturity.   Until next time.

Small Churches are Ripe for Revival

By Doug Beutler

I was being interviewed on a podcast a couple weeks ago about small churches and the host asked me why I am so excited about small churches.  I told her that the reason I am so excited about small churches is because I believe they are Ripe for Revival.  She then asked the most important question, “Why are small churches Ripe for Revival?”. 

Here is why I believe small churches are Ripe for Revival.

1)    Small Churches are positioned for change 

Most small churches have a limited number of programs or they don’t have any programs at all.  Unlike larger churches that have many programs that demand a large workforce small churches are lucky to have 1 program.  Discussions can be easier to have in smaller churches because there is less politics, deeper relationships, and fewer people to convince.  People only have a limited amount of time to donate to the church.  Churches need to prioritize how to best use that time.  We are learning in the church that relationships are more important than programs.

I will never forget when one of the people attending our church came to me very frustrated.  I asked them what was wrong.  They said they didn’t have enough time to make disciples.  They then described for me all the “things” that they were involved in with the church.  Women’s ministry, outreach ministry, drama ministry, children’s ministry, and worship ministry.  Where did they have time to build relationships and make disciples?  After some discussions she decided it was more important for her to make disciples then lead a special event for the church.  So we stopped doing that special event because there was no one else who had a passion or time for it. These are the tough decisions that churches need to make if they want to have a disciple-making movement in their churches.

2)    Survival in a small church is a real thing

Financial pressure, finding and keeping a pastor, and having people continue attending your small church are realities that a small church faces every week.  Losing a family or 2 in a large church may not even be noticed but for a small church, it can be devastating.  Because of this pressure, it forces small churches to be open to change in ways larger churches may not be.  It creates situations where small churches may now accept what in previous years they would have never considered accepting.  Like changing the color of the carpet, changing music styles or having music at all, or using technology in the worship services.

I remember when LifeWater merged with a struggling small church in 2009.  I was surprised by the tone of the discussions between the two groups.  The church that was struggling wanted to merge with us because they had lost hope that they could survive and they desperately wanted to continue being a light in the community.  They were willing to adopt our church name, accept our doctrine and denomination, allow us to put screens on the walls to project words for our worship songs, and accept our contemporary style of worship.  All these changes I would guess they were unwilling to accept before but were willing now because they knew they had to change or die.

3)    Small Churches have a trained pastor available.  

I went to an invite-only Catalytic Church Planting Gathering in Houston Texas this last fall.  There were 10 or 12 churches there that had been chosen to come and talk about church multiplication in a new culture.  We spent lots of time talking about the difficulty finding qualified church planters, the limited amount of money available for church planting, and the restrictions in training church planters.  We were there for 2 days and worked about 10 hours a day on these questions.  We did a great job identifying the issues but not a lot of solutions.

One of the great things about small churches is that most of them already have a pastor.  These pastors love their people and their community.  They already have relationships built and have earned trust in the community.  They have taken classes at a Bible College or Seminary and have a good foundation about what they believe.  They have sound doctrine and if the church is part of a denomination the pastor has had to go through their credentialing process.  These pastors are aware of discipleship and most of them have a desire to improve in their disciple-making abilities.  There are fewer worries about false teaching, inappropriate behavior, and misleading people in a small church structure compared to other multiplication structures.  Desperate recruiting is not necessary and the pressure to “find someone” is lessened. 

4)    It does not cost money are require a minimum number of people to make disciples.  

One of the great things about small churches is that beginning a disciple-making movement in small churches that lead to revival doesn’t cost money.  You don’t need expensive resource materials, you don’t need a band, you don’t need an expensive sound system, you don’t need an elaborate marketing plan, you don’t need critical mass, you did need a vast variety of programs, and you don’t need multiple staff to run all those programs.  The only thing you need is a pastor who has a passion for Jesus, for his people, believes in the scriptures, and a desire to make disciples.  They start with one person who is open to growing in their faith and they meet with them weekly.  They experience life with them, walk with them in faith for the long run, and then they ask them to invite a friend to join them.  That is how revival and multiplication begin in a small church.

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 There are many small churches in America that are ready for this change. They are ready to impact their communities for Christ. They are positioned for change, they are motivated by survival, they already have a pastor and people in place, and it doesn’t cost any money or require a minimum number of people. Small churches are Rip for Revival! If you are a small church pastor please prayerfully consider what your next step could be in starting a disciple-making movement in your small church. If you go to a small church talk to your pastor and see what your next step could be in creating a disciple-making movement in your small church. If you need help reach out to us here at Seeds of Change. https://www.lifewatercc.org/seeds-of-change