The Discipleship Series: Recovering the Apostolic Pattern
The Discipleship Series:
Recovering the Way of Jesus and His Apostles
From the First Century to Our Own
Imagine Ephesus around AD 90. You gather with twenty believers in a courtyard home lit by oil lamps—one of many house churches spread throughout the city and surrounding villages. A trusted elder unrolls a fresh copy of 1 John and reads the entire letter aloud. When he finishes, no one rushes away. You linger, talking through the letter as a whole, then its major movements, then its paragraphs and sentences—pausing over words that pierce the heart and strengthen assurance. You pray, confess sin, encourage one another, and commit to obey what Christ calls you to through his apostle.
This is how ordinary Christians grew: immersed in the apostles’ writings, in community, with the shared goal of obedience. This rhythm—the way of Jesus and his apostles—is how the gospel took root in households, spread through networks, and multiplied into churches across cities and regions.
That same way is the heartbeat of The Discipleship Series. We exist to help believers and leaders today walk again in the pattern Jesus gave his apostles—so that disciples mature, leaders multiply, and churches reproduce with clarity and simplicity. We are retrieving the apostolic way from AD 30–95 and expressing it through simple, modern pathways, tools, and resources that ordinary believers can practice in homes, neighborhoods, cities, and regions.
What This Series Does
The Discipleship Series invites us back into the way of Jesus and his apostles. Together, we read large portions of Scripture, then move from sections to paragraphs to sentences, learning to hear the apostles as the early churches did. We discuss, pray, apply, and practice obedience. And we train every participant to teach others so the faith multiplies from house to house and generation to generation.
Designed for transferability, the series grounds believers in the apostles’ teaching, forms sound doctrine and everyday holiness, and equips men, women, and parents to disciple within their real contexts—so that learning becomes shared life, and truth becomes love in action.
Why This Series Matters
We live in a moment when believers are surrounded by an ever-expanding stream of Christian content—books, podcasts, sermons, and articles—yet many still struggle to grow in clarity, obedience, and confidence. Even more, many lack the practical skills to disciple others within the very contexts where God has placed them.
The Discipleship Series meets these needs by returning to the way of Jesus and his apostles: grounding believers in Scripture, forming them in sound doctrine, and equipping them to guide others in the same way. This series matters because it provides a shared foundation for believers of all ages and stages—helping families and churches grow together into maturity in Christ so they can bear faithful witness in the world.
It also emphasizes transferability with a view toward multiplication. The structure is designed to get people teaching large portions of Scripture sooner, not later. It helps men disciple men, women disciple women, and parents disciple their children. When learners become teachers more quickly, truth is internalized, ownership increases, and the gospel spreads naturally. In this way, discipleship leads to multiplication as every believer is equipped not only to grow themselves but also to establish others in the faith.
What Is Discipleship?
Discipleship has two inseparable dimensions. Personally, it is the ongoing process by which a Christian learns to follow Jesus in every area of life—bringing desires, thoughts, words, and actions under his lordship. Relationally, it is the intentional process of helping others follow Jesus in their own contexts, walking with them as they grow in faith and obedience.
Discipleship happens across five core responsibilities:
Privately – cultivating Bible reading, prayer, and personal holiness.
In our Families – leading and loving those closest to us with Christlike humility.
In our Local Churches – participating in worship, fellowship, Scripture, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper.
In our Neighborhoods – showing kindness, practicing hospitality, and sharing the gospel.
In Broader Society – modeling integrity and diligence in ordinary work and civic life.
Discipleship also pursues five core purposes:
Godly Character – becoming like Christ through the Spirit’s transforming work.
Service – meeting needs with humility and love.
Evangelism – bearing witness to Jesus’s death and resurrection.
Discipleship – helping believers obey Jesus faithfully where God has placed them.
Worship – valuing God above all else as we offer our lives to his glory.
These responsibilities define the spaces discipleship inhabits, while these purposes define the goals we pursue in those spaces.
And discipleship must be intergenerational. Titus 2 shows older men teaching younger men and older women teaching younger women, while households disciple children and adolescents are drawn into shared patterns of prayer, learning, and service. Churches thrive when multiple generations gather around meals, encourage one another, and share life as one household of faith.
The Discipleship Series provides the doctrinal backbone, but discipleship comes alive only when households and churches embody the way of Christ in ordinary rhythms.
The Challenges of Discipleship Today
Modern discipleship faces real obstacles:
Information Without Integration – learning fragments without coherence.
Passive Consumption – hearing without engaging or obeying.
Fragmented Commitment – irregular rhythms that hinder growth.
Non-transferable Teaching – content that cannot easily be explained or retaught.
Lack of True Learning – little confirmation that truth has been understood or lived.
Knowledge Detached from Practice – doctrine not connected to obedience.
The Discipleship Series addresses these challenges by combining expository teaching, interactive discussion, and summaries of core doctrines—moving disciples from passive consumption to active obedience. Because lessons are designed for transferability, men disciple men, women disciple women, and parents disciple children, so the faith spreads naturally across households and generations.
The Apostolic Pattern of Teaching
In the first century, the apostles established churches by teaching the Word in person and through letters. These writings were discussed and obeyed in homes through dialogue, reflection, and shared commitment. Their approach was systematic and intentional, grounding believers in the whole counsel of God. Within months, new disciples were rooted in the gospel and spreading it throughout their regions.
This pattern—hearing the Word together, discussing it in community, and obeying it in daily life—is the apostolic way.
The Discipleship Series mirrors this pattern. Instead of relying on isolated topical lessons, it leads participants through large units of Scripture, allowing them to follow the apostles’ own flow of thought. Groups read, reflect, and respond together, creating a discipleship process that is unified, coherent, and deeply rooted in Scripture.
The Way of the Apostles: How These Lessons Work
Our aim is not only to study the apostles’ writings but to practice the way of Jesus and his apostles—hearing the Word, reflecting together, and responding in obedience as the early churches did.
Scripture in Community: Each lesson begins with substantial passages read or retold. Groups trace the author’s argument, discuss meaning together, and let the Word shape their shared understanding.
Revelation → Reflection → Response: Every lesson follows a simple, repeated rhythm: Hear what God has said, Reflect on its meaning, Respond through prayer, confession, and concrete obedience.
Rooted in Sound Doctrine: Lessons are built on the conviction that sound doctrine produces godliness. Over time, participants encounter the whole counsel of God, seeing how truth forms belief, character, worship, and daily living.
Spirit-Led Transformation: Growth happens through the Spirit’s power. Lessons include space for prayer, confession, and encouragement, inviting dependence on God rather than self-effort.
Simple and Reproducible: The design is intentionally clear and transferable. The consistent structure—introduction, commentary, application—allows any believer to lead the same study in another setting.
Disciples Who Multiply: Every lesson is designed to be passed on. Participants retell the passage, summarize the main truth, take a concrete step of obedience, and share it with someone in their circle. Leaders gradually hand off responsibilities until new leaders can guide full studies.
The rhythm—hear → obey → teach → repeat—keeps growth organic and movement reproducible.
A Modern-Day Catechism
The Discipleship Series functions as a modern catechism—not through rote memorization but through systematic grounding in the apostles’ teaching.
Each lesson:
Anchors participants in representative passages,
Summarizes essential doctrines,
Presses truth into daily contexts,
Prepares participants to teach others.
This catechetical structure helps believers understand, retain, live, and pass on the truth.
The Two-Part Framework
The series unfolds in two complementary tracks:
1. Foundations of the Faith: Essential groupings of teaching such as:
Becoming a Christian
Our New Life in Christ
Private Disciplines for Christian Growth
2. Representative New Testament Books: Large units from books like Matthew 5–7, Acts, James, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Peter, and 1 John. This exposes believers to the breadth and coherence of the apostles’ teaching. Together, these tracks form a foundation and a breadth that reflect how the apostles discipled their communities.
Discipleship in the Household of Faith
The Discipleship Series is deeply important—but it is not the entirety of discipleship. The New Testament portrays discipleship as a way of life. The series is a springboard that connects teaching directly to everyday rhythms:
Privately – Scripture and prayer.
Daily – encouragement, accountability, and confession.
Weekly – gathering for the Lord’s Supper, meals, and prayer.
Intergenerationally – parents and households discipling the next generation.
Without these lived expressions, lessons become abstract.
With them, the way of Jesus and his apostles becomes visible, tangible, and transferable.
Conclusion
The Discipleship Series helps churches recover the apostolic pattern of discipleship—rooting believers in Scripture, immersing them in the apostles’ teaching, and equipping them to live and pass on what they have learned. It functions as a modern-day catechism that forms lifelong disciple-makers shaped by the teaching of Christ and his apostles.
But it must be joined to the wider life of Christian discipleship: older believers training the younger, households encouraging one another daily, and communities embodying the gospel together.
Our prayer is that this series would help raise up resilient, multiplying disciples in our generation and the next—walking faithfully in the way of Jesus and his apostles.
Questions for Reflection and Action
Understanding the Framework: What comments or questions do you have about the diagram at the top of the page?
Identifying Barriers: Which of the discipleship challenges listed do you most identify with right now? Why?
Seeing Scripture Whole: How might studying entire books or large units of Scripture change the way you see and live the Christian life?
Transferability: Why is it important that discipleship be transferable—men with men, women with women, and parents with children? What step could you take to practice this?
Life Together: In your household or church community, what daily or weekly rhythms could make discipleship more of a lived reality?
Knowledge and Obedience: How do you balance learning and obedience in your life, and where is God calling you to grow next?