In this five-part series from Justin Gravitt, author of The Foundation of a Disciplemaking Culture, you’ll learn why a disciplemaking culture is needed now. In the first post, we learned the meaning of “a disciplemaking culture” and the leadership opportunity in creating and sustaining one. This next post gives examples from Jesus’ ministry and Paul’s ministry to see what a disciplemaking culture looks like.

Many Americans struggle with being on a team, whether a large team (which was my experience in Thailand) or a small team at a church or in a neighborhood association. With some exceptions (notably sports and sometimes family), American culture is individualistic. It’s been passed down through historical narratives that glorify independence and individualism. We are a nation of do-it-yourselfers; we are encouraged to look out for number one. Sure, we use the word team at work or at church, but most of us find the comfort of personal control that groups offer preferable to the demands of teams.

Jesus’ Example

Jesus and Paul developed teams in order to build a disciplemaking foundation. Since Jesus’ way of making disciples is the best way and our ultimate example, let’s start by looking at what He did.

During the first year of His public ministry, Jesus invested deeply in five disciples: Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael, and John (noted in John 1-4. John is the unnamed disciple in those chapters.) There is a lot we don’t know about this year, but many scholars agree that it wasn’t until after this first year that Jesus called the Twelve to follow Him in a new way. (You can read to A Harmony of the Gospels by Moody Press and other books for reference.)

Jesus’ plan for His team is shown in passages like Mark 3:14–15 (“He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.”) and Acts 1:8 (“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”). The Gospels show a close relationship between the disciples that included arguments, struggle, and interdependence. They fought like brothers over who was greatest, they failed together in the garden of Gethsemane, and they were sent out as ministry partners. Jesus had a team, but He also had individual relationships with each disciple on the team. The training happened at both the team level and the individual level.

The connection point between the two is Jesus’ presence. Surely on their day-long walks, mountain retreats, and ministry experiences Jesus ministered to them at times individually, in pairs, in triads, and so on. In fact, we see these interactions in the Gospels when He addresses Peter in Luke 22:31–34; James and John in Mark 10:35–40; and Peter, James, and John together in Matthew 17:1–13. This dual focus of team and individual allowed Him to form the disciples into a team whose culture carried a disciplemaking DNA that would one day reach the rest of the world.

Paul’s Example

Paul employed a similar team strategy when he planted disciplemaking churches. In Thessalonica (according to 1 Thessalonians 1:1, 5), the team began with just three: Paul, Silas, and Timothy. As a team, they lived with the Thessalonians and modeled for them what a disciple’s life looked like. Upon that small, yet powerful, foundation some of the locals took notice and began to imitate them. As the number of disciples increased, others started to become like those disciples. As the spiritual generations flowed outward, they became a “model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.” And soon after, “the Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.” – 1 Thessalonians 1:7-8

A close reading of the Pauline Epistles shows that Paul repeated this team strategy over and over again. He left behind teams of disciples to lead those disciplemaking churches. For example, not only does Paul remind the Ephesians of their different leadership roles, (Ephesians 4:11-13) he also ends most of his letters by individually greeting the leaders. For Paul, church leadership was a we thing, not a me thing. Paul developed and identified team leadership that served as the foundation of the disciplemaking culture in each church he helped establish.

The team approach that Jesus and Paul employed to change individuals and culture is compelling. Unfortunately, outside the directive to follow the example of Jesus, the Bible doesn’t offer a comprehensive explanation about how to shift a culture from one thing to another.

John Kotter, the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard University, is known as the authority on leadership and culture change. Time magazine has called his book, Leading Change, “one of the 25 most influential business management books ever written.” For decades now, Kotter’s insight into culture change has proven helpful and effective in thousands of contexts all over the world. And his process just so happens to pair well with Jesus’ model. Kotter writes convincingly in Leading Change about the consequences of undervaluing a team approach (which he also calls a guiding coalition) to cultural transformation. Efforts that lack a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition can make apparent progress for a while. The organizational structure can be changed, or a reengineering effort might be launched. But sooner or later, countervailing forces undermine the initiatives. Later in Leading Change, he drives home the point.

Because major change is so difficult to accomplish, a powerful force is required to sustain the process. No single individual, not even a monarch-like CEO, is ever able to develop the right vision, communicate it to large numbers of people, eliminate all the key obstacles, generate short-term wins, lead and manage dozens of change projects, and anchor new approaches deep in the organization’s culture. Weak committees are even worse. A strong guiding coalition is always needed—one with the right composition, level of trust, and shared objective. Building such a team is always an essential part of the early stages of any effort to restructure, reengineer, or retool a set of strategies.

John Kotter, Leading Change

Does the world need another book on disciplemaking?