The Discipleship Series: Detailed Explanation
1. What is Discipleship?
When we use the word discipleship, we are describing two closely related realities. First, discipleship means following Jesus. A disciple is someone who trusts Jesus, learns from him, and increasingly brings every area of life under his rule. This is a lifelong process. Through his Word and Spirit, Jesus forms his people so that they increasingly reflect his character, obey his teaching, and participate in his mission. Second, discipleship means helping others follow Jesus. Jesus did not call his disciples merely to grow personally. He sent them to make disciples of others. Christians therefore seek not only to follow Jesus themselves but also to help other people come to know him, learn his teaching, obey him, and eventually help others do the same.
These two dimensions belong together. We follow Jesus, and as we mature, we help others follow him. Those people, in turn, learn to help others. In this way, disciple-making becomes an ongoing pattern of spiritual multiplication.
The purpose of discipleship, then, is to help believers increasingly follow Jesus within every relationship and responsibility God has entrusted to them while helping others do the same.
2. What Does Following Jesus Involve?
Following Jesus involves far more than learning biblical information or participating in Christian activities. Jesus calls us to follow him with our whole lives.
The diagram above helps us think about this from two complementary perspectives: our core responsibilities and our core purposes. The responsibilities describe the primary areas of life in which we follow Jesus. The purposes describe what we seek to accomplish as his disciples within those areas.
Our Core Responsibilities
God has placed each of us within relationships and responsibilities in which we are called to follow Jesus faithfully.
Private Life before God: cultivating our relationship with God through Scripture, prayer, worship, dependence on the Holy Spirit, personal holiness, and faithful obedience.
Family: honoring Christ in marriage, parenting, relationships with children and parents, and the ordinary responsibilities of family life.
Local Church: gathering with other believers, loving and encouraging one another, using our gifts to serve, submitting to biblical leadership, and helping strengthen the body of Christ.
Neighborhood: building meaningful relationships with friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others God regularly brings into our lives.
Society: representing Christ with integrity through our work, citizenship, stewardship, relationships, and influence within the wider community.
These are not separate compartments of the Christian life. Together, they represent the ordinary settings in which discipleship takes place.
Our Core Purposes
Within each of these areas, followers of Jesus increasingly pursue several biblical purposes.
Christlike Character: becoming increasingly conformed to the character, attitudes, priorities, and ways of Jesus.
Service: using our gifts, abilities, time, and resources to meet the needs of others with humility and love.
Evangelism: prayerfully proclaiming the gospel and helping non-Christians understand and respond to the good news about Jesus.
Discipleship: intentionally helping other believers grow toward maturity and become disciple-makers themselves.
Worship: glorifying God through grateful devotion, joyful obedience, and lives increasingly centered on him.
The core responsibilities describe where discipleship is lived out; the core purposes describe what we pursue within those responsibilities.
This gives us a broad picture of Christian maturity. A mature disciple is not simply someone who knows more of the Bible. Mature disciples increasingly follow Jesus privately, within their families, in their churches, among the people around them, and throughout society. As they do, they grow in Christlike character, serve others, share the gospel, make disciples, and worship God with their whole lives.
The Discipleship Series is designed to help believers grow across this entire picture of discipleship.
3. How Does The Discipleship Series Serve the Vision of The Gathering Network?
The vision of The Gathering Network is to equip ordinary believers to make disciples of Jesus—resulting in starting, strengthening, and multiplying churches in homes, cities, regions, and across the world.
The Discipleship Series serves that vision by helping ordinary believers become grounded in the teaching of Jesus and his apostles and equipped to put that teaching into practice where God has already placed them.
As participants grow, they learn to reach non-Christians, strengthen other believers, and invest in future leaders within their families, friendships, neighborhoods, workplaces, churches, and communities. As this happens repeatedly, believers mature, leaders emerge, churches are strengthened, and new churches can be established.
Not every disciple will lead a church or help start a new one. But every believer can participate in Christ’s mission by faithfully following Jesus and helping others do the same. The Discipleship Series provides a common biblical foundation for that work.
4. What Principles Shape The Discipleship Series?
Several biblical commitments shape both the content of the curriculum and the way we encourage people to use it.
1. We Follow the Way of Jesus and His Apostles. Our starting point is not a contemporary philosophy of ministry but the ministry of Jesus and his apostles. We want our understanding of discipleship, leadership, church life, and mission to be increasingly shaped by Scripture.
2. We Form Disciples for Everyday Mission. Discipleship is not merely preparation for some future ministry assignment. We learn to follow Jesus where God has already placed us. Throughout the curriculum, participants are encouraged to share the gospel, disciple others, serve faithfully, and develop leaders within the relationships and responsibilities they already have.
3. We Teach the Whole Counsel of God. Rather than building discipleship around isolated topics or selected verses, the curriculum seeks to establish believers in the teaching of Jesus and his apostles. Participants learn to understand individual passages within books of the Bible and within the larger unfolding story of Scripture centered on Christ.
4. We Learn in Community. The New Testament was written primarily to communities of believers, not isolated individuals. For that reason, the series is designed especially for people gathering around God’s Word together—reading Scripture, asking questions, discussing its meaning, encouraging one another, praying, and responding in obedience.
5. We Develop Disciple-Makers and Leaders. Every Christian can help someone else follow Jesus. As disciples mature, some will also be entrusted with greater responsibility to teach, shepherd God’s people, develop other leaders, strengthen churches, and help establish new churches. The curriculum intentionally prepares believers for both disciple-making and leadership.
6. We Pursue Transformation Through Obedience. The goal of biblical instruction is not simply greater knowledge. Jesus calls his disciples to obey what he has taught. Each lesson therefore seeks to move from understanding God’s Word to responding faithfully—in our character, relationships, responsibilities, and participation in Christ’s mission.
Together, these principles keep the Discipleship Series centered on Scripture while making it practical, relational, and reproducible.
5. How Is the Curriculum Organized?
The Discipleship Series is organized into two complementary parts. Together, they provide both a biblical foundation for faithful discipleship and a living picture of discipleship and mission in action.
Part One: Learning the Foundations of Faithful Discipleship
Part One explores the teaching of Jesus and his apostles on essential areas of the Christian life. Participants develop a biblical framework for:
knowing and embracing the foundational truths of the Christian faith;
growing in their personal relationship with God;
reaching the people around them with the gospel;
following God’s design for marriage and parenting;
participating faithfully in a local community of believers; and
representing Christ well within their work, neighborhoods, communities, and wider society.
These studies establish a theological and practical framework for following Jesus in everyday life.
Part Two: Watching the Apostolic Mission Unfold
Part Two follows the unfolding story of the New Testament as the risen Jesus continues his work through the apostles and the early church. Rather than approaching the New Testament as a collection of unrelated books, participants watch the gospel move from place to place as people become disciples, believers mature, leaders develop, churches grow stronger, and new churches are established.
Along the way, participants encounter biblical doctrine, church life, pastoral ministry, leadership, suffering, perseverance, relationships, holiness, and mission in the settings in which the apostles originally addressed them. This helps us understand not only what the apostles taught, but also how their teaching formed believers and churches for faithful participation in Christ’s mission.
Together, the two parts help participants understand the foundations of following Jesus and then watch those truths take shape in the life and mission of the early church.
6. What Does a Typical Lesson Look Like?
Each lesson follows a consistent pattern designed to help participants understand God’s Word, discuss it together, and respond faithfully.
Lessons begin by establishing the historical and literary context of the biblical passage. They then work carefully through the text, usually in three to five major sections. Rather than pulling individual verses out of context, participants learn to follow the author’s larger argument by moving from the overall passage to its sections, paragraphs, sentences, and important words or ideas.
Each major section includes a concise explanation of the text, a theological summary, and questions that help participants understand what Scripture teaches and consider how they should respond.
A typical lesson therefore includes:
the historical and literary setting of the passage;
careful exposition of the biblical text;
three to five major sections that follow the author’s flow of thought;
concise theological summaries;
questions for understanding and discussion; and
opportunities for personal obedience and participation in ministry.
The goal is not simply to transfer information from a teacher to a learner. Participants gather around Scripture, think through it together, ask questions, pray, encourage one another, and consider how God’s Word should shape their lives.
Because the same basic pattern appears throughout the curriculum, participants gradually learn how to read Scripture carefully, discuss it meaningfully, apply it faithfully, and help other people do the same.
7. How Can The Discipleship Series Be Used?
The Discipleship Series was designed to be flexible enough for many different discipleship settings while retaining the same basic purpose: helping people gather around God’s Word so they can increasingly follow Jesus and help others do the same.
It can provide the primary teaching material for a house church or another regular Christian gathering. It can be used by a small group of believers who want to grow together. A more mature Christian can work through the material with one or two other people. Churches can use individual courses or larger portions of the curriculum to establish believers in biblical doctrine and Christian living. Leaders can also use the material to train emerging disciple-makers and teachers.
The written lessons are intended to serve the discipleship relationship rather than replace it. Christian growth involves more than completing lessons. Believers need prayer, encouragement, correction, example, shared life, service, worship, and opportunities to put what they are learning into practice.
For that reason, the series works best when participants do more than discuss the material. They should increasingly practice what they are learning: spending time with God, strengthening their families, serving their churches, building relationships with people around them, sharing the gospel, discipling believers, and taking responsibility for ministry.
Over time, participants should also begin helping others. Someone who has learned a lesson can discuss its truths with another believer. A participant can gradually help lead a portion of a gathering. Emerging leaders can prepare and lead entire lessons. Eventually, some participants can gather and disciple others themselves.
The goal is a simple and reproducible rhythm: learn God’s Word, obey it, help others understand it, and prepare them to do the same.
8. What Do We Hope God Will Produce?
The goal of The Discipleship Series is not simply to finish a curriculum or increase biblical knowledge. We want to see mature, reproducing disciples of Jesus.
Our prayer is that God will use these studies to form believers who know his Word, love Christ, grow in holiness, serve others, participate faithfully in their churches, share the gospel, and intentionally help other people follow Jesus.
As this happens, the results will take different forms. One person may begin sharing the gospel with a friend or coworker. Another may disciple a younger believer. Parents may become more intentional about discipling their children. Someone may begin serving or teaching within a local church. Others may emerge as leaders who shepherd believers, train additional leaders, strengthen existing churches, or help establish new ones.
The goal is not to move everyone into the same ministry role. It is to help every believer become increasingly faithful with the relationships, responsibilities, gifts, and opportunities God has given them.
As ordinary believers follow Jesus and help others do the same, disciples multiply, leaders develop, churches grow stronger, and new churches can take root. Through this ordinary and repeated work of disciple-making, Christ continues to build his church and advance the gospel from homes to cities, regions, and across the world.