The Disciple-Making Dilemma Beneath Our Best Intentions

No one in church leadership thinks disciple-making is optional.

Across denominations, networks, and traditions, disciple-making is one of the few things we all agree on. It shows up in mission statements. It fills conference schedules. It fuels podcasts, books, and training pipelines. If you asked a room full of pastors or ministry leaders whether making disciples matters, every hand would go up.

And yet, something is off.

Despite our agreement, the church in the West remains largely immobilized. We talk about discipleship constantly, but few churches would say that everyday believers are consistently mobilized to follow Jesus on mission in their neighborhoods. The language is everywhere. The outcomes are not.

This is the disciple-making dilemma beneath our best intentions. We care deeply. We agree wholeheartedly. But agreement has not produced action, and passion has not produced movement.

The problem is not that the church has forgotten the Great Commission. The problem is that we have misunderstood how Jesus expected it to unfold.

Why Good Intentions Have Not Led to Mobilization

Most leaders assume the primary obstacle to disciple-making is motivation. If people just cared more, knew more, or were trained better, disciple-making would naturally follow.

But motivation is not the issue. The modern church is filled with sincere, capable, and committed believers. The problem is not a lack of desire. It is a lack of mobilization.

Mobilization happens when people are not only convinced that something matters, but are also trained, practiced, and released to do it. In other words, mobilization requires more than belief. It requires formation.

For decades, much of the Western church has tried to produce multiplication without first producing mobilization. We have emphasized outcomes over process. We have focused on growth without paying attention to how people are actually formed.

This is why so many disciple-making strategies stall. They aim at the right destination but ignore the path Jesus used to get there.

The Order Jesus Never Reversed

One of the clearest insights from the Gospels is also one of the most overlooked. Jesus did not start by sending his disciples. He started by forming them.

For three years, Jesus walked with a small group of ordinary people. He shaped their lives through shared time, immersive teaching, and repeated practice. Only after this prolonged season of formation did he send them out to mobilize others.

The order matters.

In Scripture, mobilization always precedes multiplication. The Gospels come before Acts for a reason. The Gospels show us the cause. Acts shows us the effect.

When churches try to multiply without first mobilizing, they are reversing Jesus’s strategy. They attempt to reproduce results that only emerge after formation has taken place.

This helps explain why many churches feel stuck. Programs multiply. Services expand. Systems grow more complex. But the people in the pews remain largely spectators.

Jesus never designed disciple-making to be a spectator sport.

When Talking Replaces Doing

Leaders face a unique challenge in all of this. We talk for a living.

Preaching, teaching, and casting vision are central to pastoral leadership. But there is a hidden danger in this. Talking about something can feel like doing it.

Neuroscience tells us that talking about an action can release some of the same endorphins as actually performing it. In ministry, this means we can feel productive about disciple-making without ever practicing it ourselves.

Over time, the church can become fluent in the language of discipleship while remaining unfamiliar with the practice of disciple-making.

Jesus never trained his disciples this way. He did not gather them around a table to theorize about mission. He invited them into a way of life. They walked dusty roads together. They watched him engage people. They tried, failed, debriefed, and tried again.

Formation happened in motion, not in abstraction.

Why This Is a Leadership Problem First

If disciple-making is going to change in the church, it will not start in the pews. It will start with leaders.

Jesus did not mobilize crowds. He mobilized leaders who mobilized others.

Every movement in history begins with a catalyst. Research into movements consistently shows that catalytic leaders are not simply born. They are formed. They grow into their role through practice, risk, and obedience.

This is why disciple-making cannot remain something leaders merely endorse. It has to be something they model.

If leaders do not practice disciple-making outside the pulpit, it will never take root inside the church. Structures may change. Language may shift. But culture follows practice, not policy.

Jesus convinced only a small number of people at first. But because those people were mobilized, the impact was exponential.

The Canary in the Coal Mine: The Next Generation

One of the clearest signs of our disciple-making failure is generational.

In many churches, young people are drifting away not because they lack information, but because they were never mobilized. They were taught about faith, but rarely invited into mission. They learned beliefs, but not practices.

In the New Testament, generational transfer is woven into the fabric of disciple-making. The Scriptures themselves were largely written by second and third-generation disciples. The faith spread because it was practiced and passed on, not merely explained.

Every great story understands this truth. The hero rarely wins alone. There is always a mentor, and there is always a successor. The future depends on those who come after us.

Jesus understood this. That is why he invested deeply in younger leaders. He was not trying to preserve his own platform. He was preparing others to carry the mission forward.

When churches fail to mobilize the next generation, they are not simply losing attendance. They are losing continuity.

We Do Not Need Something New

At this point, many leaders assume the solution must be innovation. New programs. New language. New structures.

But the answer to the disciple-making dilemma is not invention. It is recovery.

Jesus already gave us a framework for mobilization. He modeled it clearly and consistently. What has been lost is not knowledge, but alignment.

Discipology is not about creating a new method. It is about rediscovering the patterns, principles, and practices Jesus used to form and send his disciples.

Across cultures and movements, practitioners consistently identify the same core elements. Becoming like Jesus. Thinking like Jesus. Living the way Jesus lived. Different words, same reality.

The art of disciple-making may vary. The science remains constant.

Why This Matters Now

The church is not facing a crisis of belief. It is facing a crisis of practice.

When people cannot gather, they scatter. When structures falter, movements reveal themselves. In recent years, many believers have discovered that faith was never meant to be confined to a building or a schedule.

The rumblings of mobilization are already present. They are just beneath the surface. What is needed now is clarity and courage.

Mobilization does not require abandoning your church model. It requires releasing your people. It starts with mindset before method.

Jesus did not ask his followers to invent a strategy. He asked them to follow him.

A Way Forward

The first chapter of my upcoming book Discipology addresses the what and the why of disciple-making. It names the dilemma honestly and refuses to settle for superficial solutions.

But diagnosis is only the beginning.

The rest of the journey requires us to look closely at Jesus himself. How he spent time. How he taught. How he sent.

Discipology exists to walk leaders through that process, not as spectators, but as practitioners.

If the church is going to move again, it will not be because we talked more convincingly about disciple-making. It will be because we recovered the way Jesus actually made disciples.

And that recovery starts with us.