The Failure of Intentionality
Failed discipleship isn’t simply a problem of theology. A lack of intentionality is behind a lot of initiatives that end up in the ministry graveyard. What I’ve heard veteran ministry leaders saying is that failures are most likely when specific goals aren’t named and if measurements aren’t used. As the old proverb goes: If you aim at nothing, you’re sure to hit it.
I know this first hand. My first pastoral post involved working with twentysomethings. The programming was fresh and dynamic, so I figured maturity would happen naturally. I remember one young lady named Ella who came in with a hulking, lavender-colored “devotional Bible” that was more devotions than Bible. Like many of the others, she was a baby believer and had little idea about how to study the Word. No problem, I figured. That next year we did all sorts of presentations on the Bible as well as in-depth studies. The group grew in size, and people said the content was great. But when I asked Ella to lead a Bible study, she couldn’t do it. She nervously fumbled her way through a scattered devotion – using that same lavender devotional Bible! If she had grown in the area of Bible study, it wasn’t evident at all. Ella was a regular attender, but that didn’t mean she was trained.
THE PROBLEM OF UNCLEAR GOALS
Lack of clear goals in our training is a common failure among discipleship projects. We forget to identify goals or, if we name them, they’re vague. We say things like we want our people to be “biblically informed,” or “lead flourishing lives,” or “have a biblical worldview.” All commendable things. They’re very spiritual goals. They’re also very foggy.
Jesus seemed to have something more tangible in mind: “Teach them to obey everything I have commanded” (Matt 28:19). The Lord’s commission echoes the giving of the Law: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts” (Deut 6:6). Similarly, Hebrews speaks of moving “beyond the elementary teachings about Christ” (Heb 6:1). Don’t these verses suggest something pretty specific in content? Christian maturity is not just general spiritual outcomes, but the knowledge, practices, and skills of Jesus. There should be specific goals.
Along the way, I started asking Christian leaders what they felt was the most effective discipleship program they’ve been a part of. The answers I hear most often? A martial arts dojo. A well-coached sports team. A business mentor. A musical ensemble. Firefighting training. The military.
I admit, such answers are giving me pause. Do we need to think more like coaches? After all, the good ones are eagle-eyed when it comes to setting clear goals and strategizing accordingly. “As intentional leaders, we must be able to look at our own players and evaluate their skills and what they need to learn,” writes Jim Putman in Real-life Discipleship.
Many pastors have articulated at least some discipleship objectives for congregants. A recent survey found that 57% of pastors say they have a leadership development plan in place. But getting clarity about discipleship targets can be hard work, and fruitful, reproducible discipleship models can be hard to find. My experience is that pastors usually look to a packaged course or curriculum for leader development. That’s not a bad thing, but the concern remains. Development needs to be aimed at specific goals. Otherwise a group is just “going through material.” The lack of focus is what prompts 49% of volunteers to say “their most energizing ‘win’ would simply be a clear, sustainable roadmap.”
THE PROBLEM OF MISSING MEASUREMENT
Unclear goals were just one side of the problem when it came to drifting discipleship efforts, I noticed. Lack of measurements were too. If clear goals tell you what mature disciples look like, measurement is the feedback loop to let you know if they’re getting there.
Statistics suggest that churches are struggling to use meaningful metrics. Lifeway Research found that 71% of pastors believe there are ways to measure discipleship in a congregation, yet just 30% say their churches have specific methods for measuring discipleship. Aaron Earls concludes, “Pastors have a vague satisfaction with discipleship happening at their churches but no real way of determining if those feelings are valid.”
So often the default metric used in churches is attendance. If people show up, it’s successful. If people walk away, it’s not. However, many of the leaders I spoke to were troubled by this metric. Attendance was often irregular on account of people’s work schedules and youth sports. Even when attendance was stable, leaders couldn’t tell if their people were growing. But what alternative was there to measuring by attendance rates?
Fortunately, some churches have found meaningful indicators of maturity. “We didn’t have any confidence that we were making a difference until we started measuring the health and growth of our people,” a veteran pastor told me. Previously they had only kept track of attendance of programs. Around 2018 they started tracking some key maturity markers for each one of their members. They did an annual spiritual check-in. They started some training tracks that included the demonstration of competencies. Suddenly it became apparent who was growing and who was stalled out. It was possible to see which ministry efforts were facilitating change.
Not that such a shift is easy. Indeed, there is something of a crisis for churches that want to do better measurement. Even though the New Testament regularly describes evaluation of fruit as part of the life of disciples (e.g., Matt 7:16, John 15:8, Gal 6:4, 2 Cor 13:5, 2 Pet 1:10), American Christians aren’t used to it. Measuring maturity can be greeted with resistance. Yet without measurement, discipleship goals fail, which means discipleship fails.
Well-meaning churches see their discipleship efforts go adrift when there aren’t specific markers of maturity and specific measurements to go with them. Failure happens when the initiative turns out to be just a collection of activities.
Dr. Nathan Hitchcock is a consultant for the Alliance of Reformed Churches. He led the launch of Pathways, a competency-based framework to help pastors get ordained the Alliance. Now he's working on a major discipleship initiative.
This article is part of a series called Four Failures That Undermine Discipleship. Each segment will be released over the end of Lent 2026. For the whole series, see below.
