Church Groups Need Clear Discipleship Goals

Most churches have a selection of community groups. Some of them have goals. Some have implied goals. However, to move believers from passive consumers to active participants, church groups must establish strategic, measurable discipleship goals. A discipleship goal is a specific, measurable target that moves a believer toward spiritual maturity and the ability to make disciples of others. It fulfills the second, often overlooked, portion of the Great Commission:

“teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:20a

Teaching them all that Jesus commanded can be supplemented by sermons, but the core of discipleship needs to be in smaller groups.

First, What We Mean by “Church Community Group”

For the purpose of this discussion, “community group” refers to any gathering (a Bible study, a Sunday school class, a small group, or a fellowship group) of roughly fifteen people or fewer who meet to discuss biblical topics.

Community groups are a vital part of church life. Beyond simply meeting for a lesson, they offer a space for an authentic connection that can be hard to find in larger settings. They are places where people build trusted relationships, share real-life struggles and victories, and hold one another accountable. In a healthy community group, brothers and sisters in Christ form a family bond. If you are not currently part of one, I highly encourage you to join.

Existing Church Goal Examples

If the goal is stated by your leader or on a church website, it might look something like:

• Growing closer to God
• Applying the Word to our lives
• Living Christ-centered
• Being a biblical man, woman, husband, wife, father, mother, etc.

These goals are not wrong; we should all aspire to achieve them. But they are so high-level that they become vague, and it is difficult to accomplish true discipleship without specificity. There are three primary problems with vague goals:

1. They cannot be measured. Has a person grown closer to God because they joined a volunteer team, or are they simply checking a box? Is this goal being measured by a leader or by the member? When a goal is this vague, progress is a ghost: you cannot chase it, measure it, or celebrate it. If there is no obvious way of measuring, it may mean that one member feels they are thriving while another is frustrated.
2. They are self-centered. It is a blessing to grow in your faith, but everything you learn should eventually be shared with someone else. You are not becoming more Christ-like only for your own benefit; you are on this path for the benefit of others.
3. There is no accountability. A leader cannot go up to a student and say, “I see you falling behind the rest of the group in growing closer to God. How can I help you?”

The Problem With Treating Discipleship as a “Lifelong Journey”

We do not think much about vague goals when we view discipleship strictly as a lifelong journey. While it is a lifelong pursuit, treating it as an infinite, destination-less trek is exactly what keeps immature Christians immature. Jesus did not take a lifetime to equip His disciples; He did it in a little over three years. Paul did not spend decades training leaders in the book of Acts; he established them and moved on. They did not treat equipping as a permanent state of “trying.” They treated it as a specific process with a graduation point.

Every other form of education relies on specific milestones. Your elementary, junior, and high schools did not have a vague goal of making you “more academic.” They maintained clear criteria that you needed to master before progressing to graduation. Each incremental goal provided a platform for the next. In a first-grade classroom, teachers have highly specific goals for a child to accomplish by the end of the year:

• Reading simple words and stories
• Writing basic sentences
• Adding and subtracting small numbers
• Recognizing shapes
• Understanding and following classroom rules and directions

If US churches tried to teach plumbing the way they teach discipleship, the country would be full of leaky pipes because we do not have “fully equipping” goals in mind.

The Limitations of Unstructured Learning

If your church leadership is humble, seeking, and puts the Bible first, you are likely hearing excellent biblical truths. If your group leaders share that heart, you may be part of fantastic Bible studies or short-term topical programs. There is a lot you can learn and apply.

However, imagine learning US history the way many people learn in church. Perhaps you learn about the founding of the country, then jump to the Great Depression, loop back to World War I, and then move forward to the Cold War. You accumulate information, but you miss the connective tissue, resulting in massive historical gaps. Furthermore, because you are never tested or assessed, no one knows if you actually comprehend what you have been taught. As long as those gaps exist, you can never carry on a proper conversation about history. This leaves you as a worker who should be ashamed (2 Timothy 2:15).

Churches were meant to serve as minister incubators (Matthew 28:19-20; Ephesians 4:11-16), yet many lack a clear system for achieving this at either the sermon level or the group level. Scripture is meant to make us “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and Ephesians 4:11-13 states that leaders exist to equip people until they reach “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God.” Without specific, progressive goals, believers never move past the “milk” of the word to “solid food” (Hebrews 5:12-14) because they were never taught the full, organized truth.

Layered Discipleship Goals: From Vague to Specific

The biblical goal for a disciple is to be fully equipped for ministry, a measurable objective with a definitive finish line. To get there, goals must be layered, meaning small, specific goals are nested inside larger objectives.

An Example: Learning to Study the Bible

Imagine a student being equipped to study the Bible independently. Most believers have never been shown how; they read a verse, experience an emotional response, and move on. The goal is to provide a simple, repeatable method that they can use on any passage and pass on to someone else. Here is how a twelve-week course moves them toward that first foundation:

• The Destination (the “equipped” goal): The student can sit down with any passage, study it without help, and teach someone else to do the same.
• The Course (a twelve-week goal): Twelve weeks covering the basics, each building on the last: praying for guidance, reading closely for only what is written, and meditating on it; journaling thoughts, questions, context, interpretation, and cross-referencing; using study tools like dictionaries, maps, encyclopedias, and commentaries; and finally, application and teaching it back.
• The Week (a weekly goal): In Week 1, learn to begin in prayer for guidance, read a passage closely for only what is actually written, and meditate on it before deciding what it means.
• The Immediate Task (a single sitting): Open with a short prayer for guidance, read one paragraph (such as the opening of Mark) taking in only what is plainly written, and sit quietly to meditate on it before drawing a single conclusion.

Why Specific Progressive Goals Change Discipleship

Aligning groups with structural education matches the intentional, equipping discipleship models used by Jesus and Paul. It allows us to measure progress and help people build a core foundation upon which they can build for the rest of their lives.

If your church group has a specific goal, the entire group can concentrate on achieving it. A vague goal invites people to stay in a self-improvement mindset instead of evolving into a ministry mindset.

With specific goals, you can measure progress. If you treat your current group goal as a foundation for something more, you must ensure each member is learning. With ongoing assessment, leaders can back up, choose a different approach, or slow down. You can also quickly identify if a student needs personal, one-on-one assistance.

Furthermore, when you train people to be fully equipped, those called to teach can confidently launch and lead their own groups. Without this targeted training and evaluation, a church cannot properly vet its group leaders, which increases the risk of theological drift and false teaching taking root.

Conclusion

Jesus and Paul did not view spiritual progress as a passive exercise. It was an active process with measurable results, and they expected their students to be completely different people at the end of their training than they were at the beginning.

Progress, in other words, is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of proof. So ask the question honestly: does your small group have a biblical goal, one specific enough to measure, layered enough to actually reach, and aimed not just at your own growth but at equipping you to serve a lost world? That is the only goal the New Testament holds out, and it is the only one worth setting.

Lastly, I think one of the biggest problems is that most disciples do not know they should grow into people who can competently minister to others in their church, home, work, and community. I believe the flock is accustomed to remaining the flock and inviting people to hear the gospel instead of conveying it directly.

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Related Posts:

Words That Have Lost Their Biblical Meaning: Disciple

Words that Have Lost Their Biblical Meaning: Minister

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Scripture Used or Considered in the writing of “Church Groups Need Clear Discipleship Goals” By RD Montgomery. All Scripture quoted is in ESV format unless otherwise specified.

• Mark 1:21-22
• Mark 4:13
• Mark 4:40
• Matthew 4:19
• Matthew 7:16-20
• Matthew 10:1-15
• Matthew 12:22-23
• Matthew 15:16
• Matthew 16:9
• Matthew 23:26
• Matthew 28:19-20
• Luke 6:40
• Luke 9:23
• John 13:14-15
• John 14:15
• John 14:21
• John 15:8
• Acts 20:27
• 1 Corinthians 3:1-3
• 1 Corinthians 4:16
• 1 Corinthians 11:1
• 1 Corinthians 14:20
• 2 Corinthians 5:20
• 2 Corinthians 10:15
• Galatians 4:19
• Galatians 5:22-23
• Ephesians 4:11-16
• Colossians 1:28
• Colossians 4:12
• 1 Thessalonians 1:3
• 1 Thessalonians 4:1
• 2 Thessalonians 1:3
• 2 Timothy 2:2
• 2 Timothy 2:15
• 2 Timothy 3:16-17
• Hebrews 5:11-14
• Hebrews 13:17

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