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Responses (cont):

Pastor Gary Hoffman – Covington, VA
We have offered all types of different classes.  Guess who does not attend? Those for whom it was designed for.  In the 15 years that I have pastored here in Virginia, we have grown from 30 people to 675 people now attending.  I have come to see that through all the services that we have that people are being discipled through the services.  Discipleship has a beginning, but has no ending; we are all still being discipled. I don’t think that “discipleship” is a class.  Jesus told us to be followers of Him.  Discipleship happens over time in the Word and being around other believers.  I have taught on being a good follower.  Following Christ will automatically disciple any believer.  Teach on the importance of staying in the “house.”  Apostles Paul and Peter gave us the goal of finishing our race until the end.  This growth in grace never ends while here on earth.  Try to give your church the mindset of following till the end!


Pastor Dean Hawk – Colorado Springs, CO
We run a Discipleship 101 class two to three times each year on Sunday mornings during one of the two services.  This is a 10 week course that covers the basic fundamentals of who we are in Christ, baptism of the Holy Spirit, and various foundational beliefs.  Yes, there are those who only attend the class and skip attending the church service, but we have found we get a higher participation by offering it on Sunday mornings when they are already in the church mode.


Pastor David Emigh – Sand Springs, OK
We have a 7 week Foundation class on Sunday mornings that has worked well on grounding the new believers.  We also provide it on CD for those that work on Sundays.  We then let them fill out an application for helps ministry. Also, our “Welcome to the Family” membership class has been real successful.  I spend two hours going over the history of our church and then do an interview.


Pastor Dave Williams – Lansing, MI
For some reason or another, I’ve never been able to make cell groups work at Mount Hope Church.  I believe the cell group method is not as important to disciple making as the principle it illustrates, which is education and delegation.  Educate lay people for the work of the ministry and delegate it to them (Numbers 10:11-17; Acts 6:1-7).

We have found that new believers should develop about seven healthy friendships within six months.  And, since cells have never worked for us, we have formatted another plan that has been successful.

First, when a person comes to Christ, we invite them to a free dinner and a six-week course that explains all the fundamentals, such as “Who is God?”  “Who is Jesus?”  “Who is the Holy Spirit?” etc.  During this time, the participant develops relationships with fellow believers, both new and mature.  We have several mature believers in these meetings.

It’s strange.  We have no planned, tightly organized cell structure, yet we have hundreds of natural occurring homogeneous groups ranging from motorcycle enthusiasts to quilt makers.

On the training end, we provide a pathway for “champion disciples.”  Just about every evening there is a Bible Training class in which people may participate.  Membership class is sometimes offered as a six-hour Saturday seminar.  Each church department is broken into smaller relational groups and provides training in a way that applies to that particular group.  Then we have our satellite, off-campus, churches that offer a smaller church setting for more tight-knit relationships and personal care.

Cell groups are great, I know.  I’ve read all the books and even attended Dr. Cho’s meetings.  Yet, after three major pushes, I still have come up short.  Maybe it’s because the principle probably is more important than the method.


Pastor Andy White – Chandler, AZ
What every joint supplies - I ran into an unexpected enigma. As part of our processing of new members ,I had made up a series of questions that could be answered on a scale of 1-10 such as, “I enjoy organizing.” Without any conscious plan I asked two questions back-to-back:

Please answer from 1 (low) to 10 (high) the following:

“I really like to be involved in the church.”                  1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10

“I always wait to be asked before I get involved.”       1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10

That is where the unexpected enigma revealed itself. A surprising number of people who were joining our church answered 8, 9 or 10 on both questions! A significant number of people who really liked to be involved in the church would wait until they were asked before they would get involved.  It meant there were probably some really great workers who would get involved if we would ask them to help. It also meant there were a lot of people who would never get involved if they weren’t asked.

And so we ask. In fact, one of our goals is to staff each and every event with 50% of volunteers who have never worked on the event before. With big smiles and lots of encouragement, we ask them to try something new.  We know that Ephesians 4 says that we “join and knit together by what every joint supplies.”  Based on this, a fundamental principle of assimilating new members is: No supply – no join and knit.  

Sometimes it helps to speak of how a person ‘supplies’ in addition to how a person ‘serves.’ Ephesians speaks about the “effective working by which each part does its share.” Each means 100%. So our goal is 100 percent of our members (as opposed to attenders) are connected through supplying and sharing.

How we assimilate new members

We have a staff member who is in charge of member services. Her entire purpose is to connect people into the body by finding ways for them to supply. When we teach new members we speak about how we are the Body of Christ, not the Body Parts of Christ. If you walked outside and saw an eyeball on the sidewalk, you would know something was wrong. That part is supposed to be connected and supplying and we feel the same way about members. We graft people into the body. We actually sit down with them, one at a time,  and with those same smiles, laughs and encouraging words; we find them a place and people to connect with.

Part of our growth was in making a change in our ministries from a focus on “how people serve” to “how people share.” A ministry in a church must be more than simply a place where people punch in and punch out and no one even knows how they are doing. We believe ministries must be a place where people care for each other as well as serve together. They are sharing a slice of life together.

Intro to our Foundations booklet

I have been asked, “What do you want your church to be?” My answer is: “We are already that church, I just want to keep what we have as we grow.” We all have Tenets of Faith, but the Bible also speaks of a “like precious faith.” Even though our Tenets may match, how we practice those tenets can differ significantly and this booklet is intended to help explain our Tenets, our “like precious faith,” and our culture. It answers a lot of questions and it is readily available to visitors, on our website and it is covered in our Foundations class. 

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