Moving Beyond the Crowd: Building a Disciple-Making Culture
As a church planter or pastor, you feel the tension every single week. Sunday is always coming. The sermon needs preparation, the worship team requires coordination, the tech gear is acting up, and the volunteer schedule is glaringly empty. In the constant, exhausting hustle to build and sustain weekly worship gatherings, it is incredibly easy to settle for producing ‘Christian Consumers’. These are the folks who show up on Sunday, drop their kids off at the children’s ministry, and maybe serve as a door greeter a few times a month. They are good people, but deep down, you know that managing a crowd isn’t the same thing as fulfilling the Great Commission. Jesus didn’t call us to gather an audience; He commanded us to make disciples of all the nations.
Breaking out of the weekend-centric, consumer-driven church model requires a radical, intentional shift in leadership focus. It starts with absolute clarity. You cannot build a strategy for something you haven’t clearly defined.
Think about your ministry. Do you have a clear and shared definition in your church of what a disciple of Jesus is and does? If a brand-new believer walks through your church doors this Sunday, do you have a clear, step-by-step pathway that guides them towards learning how to obey all that Jesus commanded? If someone from your team asks you to train them on making disciples, do you have a simple, relational and reproducible process to offer them?
A healthy church plant doesn’t just hope spiritual growth happens only by osmosis during a 35-minute sermon or a great worship set; it builds an intentional, reproducible culture. That’s why this month, we want to equip you to move beyond crowd management and step confidently into movement building. To help you with that we’ve curated a list of resources to help you articulate your definition of a disciple, clarify your specific pathway, and lead a church that multiplies.
Enjoy!
-Patrick Bradley, Director of Operations
P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how the current consumer-driven church operation system came to be, read Todd Wilson’s new book, How Did We Get Here?
May 2026 – Content
- Crafting Your Disciple Making Strategy
- 7 Practices of Disciple-Making Churches
- The Heart of Movement Leaders
- Definitions Matter
- Sustainable Discipleship
- Distance Church Planter Residency
Crafting Your Pathway: The Disciple Making Strategy Template
Hope is not a strategy. If you want your church to produce disciples who reproduce, you need a clear strategy to follow. That is exactly why we created the Passion for Planting Disciple Making Strategy Template. This free resource is designed to guide you and your leadership team through the crucial process of articulating a strategy for how your church will make disciples who make disciples in your context. It forces you to answer the hard questions: What’s our definition of a disciple? How do we engage the lost with the gospel? How do we establish believers in the faith? How do we equip them to guide those in their sphere of influence towards spiritual maturity?
By working through this template, you’ll move your disciple-making process from a vague theological idea into a practical, step-by-step framework that any member of your church can understand and reproduce.
Transforming Culture: 7 Practices of Disciple Making Churches
Transitioning a church from a consumer culture to a disciple-making culture is hard work. If you are looking for a practical guide on how to make that shift, you will benefit from reading Bobby Harrington and Josh Howard’s recent book, 7 Practices of Disciple Making Churches.
The book breaks down the essential habits and systems that separate churches that merely gather crowds from those that actively multiply disciples. It highlights practical realities like the role of fasting and prayer, intentional relational environments, and how to champion a culture where every member views themselves as a disciple-maker. It’s an invaluable blueprint for pastors and planters who want to realign their staff and weekend services around the core mission of Jesus.
The Leader’s Heart: How God Shapes Movement Leaders
Before you can lead a disciple-making movement, God has to do a deep work inside of you. In his incredibly insightful blog post, Steve Addison explores the profound reality of How God Shapes Movement Leaders. Addison highlights that God is far more interested in the character and deep surrender of the leader than their natural charisma or strategic brilliance.
As Addison reveals the journey of leading a multiplying church often involves seasons of intense testing, failure, and brokenness. These aren’t detours; they are the exact tools God uses to forge movement leaders. If you are feeling the weight of ministry or wondering if you have what it takes to spark a disciple-making movement in your city, this article is a must-read. It will shift your perspective from your own performance to God’s transformative work in your life.
Daily Habits: Sustainable Discipleship
At the core of every growing disciple is a deep, personal engagement with God’s Word. Yet, one of the biggest challenges pastors face is getting their people to actually read and apply the Bible outside of Sunday morning. Enter Sustainable Discipleship. This powerful system is actively helping churches across the country develop resilient disciples of Jesus who are committed to reading God’s Word daily and, more importantly, applying it to their everyday lives. By providing structured, accessible, and highly relational tools, Sustainable Discipleship takes the intimidation factor out of Bible reading for new believers while challenging mature Christians to go deeper.
If you want a proven framework to help your congregation build life-long, sustainable spiritual habits, check out the resources offered by Sustainable Discipleship. Why? because as they say, “Excellence is never an accident; it is the result of high intention and sincere effort.”
Definitions Matter: Help Defining Key Terms
Words are one of the most powerful tools in a leader’s toolbox. Words allow you to communicate where God’s calling you to move as a church and can spell out exactly how people can join you on this mission. That is if you have clarity in your language.
Definitions matter, especially when you’re trying to lead people towards a common goal like making disciples who make disciples. If you’re trying to build a disciple making culture at your church, but don’t have a clear definition of what you mean when you say “disciple” or “discipleship” or “disciple making” you’re setting yourself up for a lot of frustration. To help you understand why having clarity on these terms is important and ideas for how to define each read, the blog post What Do We Mean by “Disciple,” “Disciple Making,” and “Discipleship” at Discipleship.org.
Take the Next Step: Passion for Planting’s Distance Residency
Are you ready to turn your vision of a disciple-making church into a reality? The Passion for Planting Distance Residency is explicitly designed to equip leaders to make disciples and plant healthy, reproducing churches. This comprehensive training program allows you to stay in your current ministry context while receiving top-tier coaching, practical equipping, and cohort-based learning.
Applications are currently open for our next cohort, which officially kicks off on September 9th. Space is limited to ensure personalized attention, so if you or someone on your team is interested, we highly encourage you to apply soon. Best of all, residents who successfully complete the program will be eligible for a $5,000 cash grant to help fund their church plant! Don’t plant alone—join us and build a strong foundation. Apply for the Residency today!