Create Discipleship Disruption

The following content is an excerpt from the eBook Fill Your Seats. Download your free digital version in your favorite format here.

If we want to generate curiosity about this way of life, we need to think outside the box. And we can learn from the marketers who make other ways of life look so attractive.

Marketers create disruption. For example, Brooks Brothers shows you an image of an extremely handsome, well-dressed man. The picture is designed to shake you up a little, to disturb your homeostasis—to create a gap between the way you look and the way you could look if you were wearing their outfit. Buying their clothes closes this gap and restores your homeostasis (at least for a while).

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They’ve created disruption by giving you a vision of you. . . what you could be like!

Stimulating interest in becoming a disciple maker starts with shaking people’s homeostasis. Just like the Brooks Brothers advertisement, we have to generate curiosity by disrupting people from their current state! We do this by demonstrating what could be for them.

So how do we create disruption in people who are not yet interested in discipleship and disciple making? First, we have to live lives so distinctive that we’re attractive to others. To use today’s vernacular, “We’ve gotta smoke what we’re selling.” Consider the attractiveness of a great marriage, one that’s “a light on a hill” and gets people’s attention. Think about a pleasant countenance, a spirit of acceptance, a humility that’s the opposite of self-righteousness, and an abundance of God’s love in our life—these attributes draw people to us. They create curiosity about what makes us the way we are. Few people grasp that it’s not a what that fuels us; it’s a who. It’s Jesus. . . living in us! He was “gentle and humble in heart.” Imagine how attractive Christianity would be in today’s culture if all its adherents lived and loved with gentleness and humility.

Second, we have to showcase the stories of regular people, who became disciple makers, not just converts. My church has regular baptisms, and each one is accompanied by the video testimony of the person being baptized. We celebrate conversions and we should! But if we want to attract people to discipleship and disciple making, shouldn’t we share the stories of people who’ve gone beyond baptism and begun to follow Jesus?

You get what you glorify. When you celebrate something in front of the church, you’re inspiring folks to get in on what’s being celebrated. So skillfully showcasing the lives of ordinary disciples and ordinary disciple makers just might create disruption in the lives of the people who are sitting on the sidelines. It might lead them to an interest in one of our processes or trainings. It might lead them to respond to God’s calling to “go, make disciples!”

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

This comes from the free eBook Fill Your Seats, which you can download here.

Written by Regi Campbell

Regi Campbell grew up in a small-town church. He’s belonged to congregations in multiple cities and gotten to know a quite a few pastors and churches. For the past twenty-three years, he’s been a part of one of America’s largest churches, Andy Stanley’s North Point Community Church serving as an Elder twice and in other leadership roles. His first three books—About My Father’s Business, Mentor Like Jesus, and What Radical Husbands Do—speak to business people, mature men, and husbands respectively. Campbell now speaks to Senior Pastors, Staff Pastors, and leaders in the local church, sharing what he’s learned about creating interest in discipleship and disciple making.

Regi is the Founder and Chairman of Radical Mentoring, a nonprofit focused on equipping and encouraging churches to build disciples and disciple makers through intentional men’s small group mentoring. Regi believes the future of the local church is intimately connected to the development of strong Jesus-following lay leaders who will lead their wives, children, businesses, neighborhoods, and churches with God at the center.