The Three Stages of Discipleship
In your paper, analyze and summarize the 3 stages of discipleship. Give ideas and suggestions for each
stage and discuss how you plan to develop and implement those ideas in your church ministry
context.PLEASE, NO FORM PLAGIARISM WILL BE TOLERATED.
The Three Stages of Discipleship
The concept of discipleship first came about in the New Testament during the time when Jesus
was selecting followers who would help him to run the affairs of his ministry and then further it
when he resurrected and ascended to heaven. In today’s Christian circles this concept is still
alive and well with people deliberately deciding to dedicate their lives for the furthering of
ministry work. While there are no clear stages in the Bible for discipleship, it is widely accepted
and believed that this concept is indeed supported by scriptural examples. There are three main
stages of discipleship. These are the basic stage, intermediate stage and finally advanced stages
of discipleship (Grover, 2012).
The basic stage of discipleship is more of an introductory phase where one has just been
introduced to this idea and it entails a lot of familiarization with the core aspects of discipleship.
One learns to define discipleship, describe what it is composed of (Grover, 2014). In my local
church ministry, I believe it will be important for this concept to be well explained with spiritual
backing.
The intermediate stage commences as soon as one has adequately grasped the concept of
discipleship. It entails a lot of planning and analysis of opportunities where discipleship can
apply in real life. It is crucial that new disciples learn through the accomplishment of attainable
goals rather than lofty ones whose failure may discourage new disciples in the ministry (Hull,
2012).
The third stage of discipleship is advanced discipleship. The process that takes place here is
similar to the deployment of soldiers to the field (Hull, 2014). One gets to put into practice the
things he or she has learnt and also the things that were planned. While action is important at this
stage, it is also highly necessary to engage in evaluation by comparing the actions being
undertaken with the basic concepts so as to ensure one does not go or lead other members of the
ministry astray while doing things in the name of discipleship.
References
Grover, Rick. “Faith Development Theory: Handmaid to Biblical Discipleship.”Leaven 7, no. 2
(2012): 7.
Hull, Bill. The complete book of discipleship: On being and making followers of Christ. Tyndale
House, 2014.
