Small Group Discipleship Toolkit

Have you ever planned a road trip without using a map or a GPS? It is possible, albeit challenging. You can drive in the general direction you need to go and follow enough signs identifying large cities along the route. You could even rely on your memory and wing it. In both cases, I’m sure you’d have a high percentage of getting to your destination—however, it’s not guaranteed, and you’ll most likely encounter a delay or two, and an unnecessary detour. 

That can be exactly what it feels like to host discipleship classes and community groups without a toolkit that provides direction for you and your group members. In most cases, you will surely find yourself discussing Scripture and how you can apply it to your life. However, without good direction and a plan, you’ll likely miss important moments; like the opportunity to discuss what the passage meant to the original audience. There may even be a session or two where you’re so busy addressing the needs of those in your group, that it’s possible you won’t even read any Scripture. 

Ask me how I know.

When I started in ministry, I only showed up with my Bible and an idea of what I thought we should discuss. And everyone knew it, including the inquisitive eight-year-old in my Sunday school class. He asked questions that were deeper than any I’d ever previously considered, and it became very clear, very quickly, that I needed a few more resources to help myself understand my Bible better. Let’s walk through a few that I find most valuable.

Bibles and Bible Studies

If you have solely depended on your Bible, I want to cheer you on. The Bible as our foundation helps differentiate our discipleship classes and community groups from self-help seminars and kickbacks. It is the most important tool in our kit, and we will want to return to it often to ensure the other resources we reference are accurate. 

In addition to the Bible, you may consider using Bible studies to help you learn from scholars and teachers who have spent a dedicated amount of time studying a section or theme of Scripture. Bible study workbooks can help you consider questions you might have rushed past or failed to realize were central to interpreting the text accurately. They help focus your group and offer guided opportunities for you to gain confidence while they study independently.

Using Bible studies will also help you disciple others more effectively by allowing someone else to lead in your absence. Emergencies and unforeseen issues regularly emerge, and while it may be wise to cancel in some instances, it’s not always necessary. If others have shown a desire to share their gift of teaching, a Bible study book can help you feel confident that the group will remain on task and meet the objective for the week. 

Apps

Once you have decided on the curriculum you’ll be teaching from, you’ll need systems in place for the new believers you’re discipling to contact you regularly. When you begin discipling others, ensure that you share expectations for the time you spend together. Giving them an opportunity to do so could even help you proactively correct any false assumptions they may have. Discipleship doesn’t mean that they get unlimited access to you whenever they have a need. It does, however, mean they should feel welcome and comfortable to contact you with those needs. Stating times that they can successfully reach you could help minimize any drama down the road. 

In fact, consider adding an app for them to reach you so the boundaries are reinforced. Apps can help you silence notifications more easily when you’re dedicating time to your family or other priorities, but they have additional benefits, too. If you’re discipling a group of new believers, apps can help the group members get to know one another better. As they do, they’ll also learn that they are there to serve each other. By inviting your group members into the process of forming relationships, you help them get practical experience in showing up for the body of Christ from the very beginning. 

Extracurricular Outings

At the end of the day, you can only build so much connection over the five-minute icebreakers you’ve planned for the beginning of your group’s meeting. After all, someone’s bound to show up late and miss them altogether. Others may nod politely, even though you know they have offered nothing more than the first response that came to their mind. And a few are going to take entirely too much time away from the others and the real reason you’ve met. However, facilitating extracurricular outings, in addition to your scheduled meetings, gives you all an opportunity to learn what is really going on in each other’s lives and live life together as a community.

One of the most rewarding groups of people I’ve ever discipled was a group of young adults between the ages of 18 and 31. The transparency during our Bible studies had grown as the conversation deepened. The members began showing up for one another in the “real world” outside of our designated meeting times and I still look back to see a few lifelong friendships that formed as a result of our time together. But it didn’t happen by chance. Those Bible study meetings provided ample opportunities for those in the group to get to know one another. Sometimes that happened at the church. Other times, it happened at the ice-skating rink or the dine-in movie theater. 

When new believers learn that they don’t have to keep their Christianity confined to the four walls of the church (or your meeting location and time), the more they’ll begin to grow in the faith and surrender their daily struggles and celebrations to the Lord. They’ll even begin to disciple others by inviting them to your outings, too. 

When it comes to discipleship, these are the three tools I would incorporate into my toolkit. You can choose to add as many other tools as you like, although sometimes, it really is refreshing to keep it simple. As we disciple others one-on-one and in group settings, we want to ensure that our goal is always leading them back to Christ and his Word. Stick to that and you’ll be surprised by how much ground you cover in the future.

So, what would you include in your own discipleship toolkit?

Also, if you need some more resource ideas, check out our recommended resource list!