How Care Ministries Make Disciples | Watermark Resources

The best place to make disciples

Pastoral care ministries are the best place in your church to make disciples—better than Sunday services, better than equipping ministries, better than bible studies, and better than mission trips. Do you believe me? Where else in your church does everyone walk through the door humbled, broken, and ready to listen? Pain creates captive and willing audiences. People desperate to get well are willing to do some of the hardest spiritual and relational work of their lives.

Sadly, many pastors default to handing off care opportunities to “experts” outside of the church during the very seasons when the people are most ready for change. This may be because pastors feel overwhelmed, or the church lacks the resources necessary to care for the vast array of needs. But in outsourcing, pastors could be surrendering the church’s mission: helping people become fully devoted followers of Christ. Outside Christian experts can certainly support and supplement The Great Commission, but Scripture tells us that the responsibility to make disciples and bear burdens primarily rests on the local church.

Even if a church offers a menu of care ministries, some of those might only focus on addressing specific pain points. Fixing the struggle at hand is almost always the goal of the people in need, but this is a short-sighted goal for the church. Throughout the gospels, Jesus addressed people’s felt needs to reveal greater truth and invite them into further transformation. He forgave the sins of the paralytic before demonstrating his authority to restore both body and soul by commanding the man to walk (Mark 2). He healed the man born blind, then accepted the man’s worship to reveal himself as the Christ (John 9). He raised Lazarus to demonstrate his power over death (John 11). These healings revealed God’s compassion but were not the end goal. Recovery was a point along the way to deeper transformation and devotion to Christ in all aspects of life.

Are the care ministries in your church producing followers of Christ with increasing devotion in all areas of life? Are participants in these ministries reconciling with God and becoming ministers of reconciliation themselves? Do graduates integrate into the church and actively contribute to strengthening it? If not, you might be missing the greatest opportunities to make disciples of those coming to you for help.

Evaluating Care Ministry Discipleship 

To determine if your means of care is fulfilling the Great Commission, assess whether your ministry is producing disciples. For the purpose of this article consider a disciple to be someone on a lifelong journey of taking the next faithful step to follow Christ, while inviting others to join them (1 Corinthians 11:1). Look for these signs: 

Evidence of life change: People experience transformation and respond to life more like Jesus.

• Positive Signs: Attendees come out healthier than when they entered. They experience clear, positive, lasting change noticeable to family, friends, church members, and the community. They pursue continued personal growth in Christ beyond the care ministry.
• Signs of Hindrance: Change is limited to one aspect of life, short-lived, or hard for others to see. People become perpetual participants who appear more loyal to the care ministry than to Jesus or their church. Participants remain within the “safe” walls of ministry rather than integrating into the life of the church and sharing their stories.

Passion for Jesus: People love Jesus more, desire more of him, and want to tell others.

• Positive Signs: People passionately share about Christ’s work in their lives. There is visible evidence of joy and delight in Jesus. They are eager to know more of Jesus and make efforts to learn and apply God’s word. Their capacity grows to receive Christ’s love, dwell in it, find significance in it, and share it with others.
• Signs of Hindrance: People appear to be more self-focused than Christ-focused. They are bigger fans of the ministry than they are fans of God. People celebrate overcoming their struggles more than Christ’s victories. People are resistant to sharing their stories or mentioning Jesus to others outside of the ministry or church.

Authentic servant leadership: Because of their own experience, people desire to serve and help others experience new life in Christ.

• Positive Signs: Participants begin to comfort others with the comfort they’ve received. They have a purpose and mission to invite others to experience Jesus with them. They long to be a part of Christ changing lives and serve sacrificially even if they feel inadequate. They integrate deeper into the church to share with others what they’ve found.
• Signs of Hindrance: Participants recycle through the ministry repeatedly. They might be irritated at what the church isn’t providing. They are hesitant to step outside of the ministry or lead within it. They drift away from the church, rather than build into it.

Fifteen years ago, even though our care ministry was one of the largest ministries in our church, we decided to survey participants to see if we were fulfilling our mission. We found that people were getting “sober” from whatever struggle brought them through the door, but we were not producing disciples who faithfully allowed Jesus into every area of life. This was a problem because our mission was to call people to be fully-devoted followers of Christ. “Sobriety” was supposed to be a stop along the way to full devotion, not the end goal. This was an “ah-ha” moment for us because it was clear that our ministry process and goals needed to be reformed to align with our mission.

Making Changes to Your Care Ministry 

It isn’t easy changing a ministry that God has used to heal people. We all become passionate about the tools and people God uses in our lives. We can slip into fear when those “supports” of the past start changing. But do you know who never changes? Jesus. Christ is steady through any change. And the truth is that Jesus has always been the real change agent. So, the first and most important thing to do when transitioning a ministry is to:

1. Make sure Christ is the hero (not the ministry leader, counselor, pastor, or program). Before you change anything else, start giving Jesus credit and glory for every changed life. Make him the focal point of your language, celebrations, and healing (regardless of your program). When this happens, Christ works at deeper levels in participants’ lives. For many ministries, simply shifting the focus and glory from the program to Jesus is the only change necessary to produce followers of Christ. Once your language and focus shifts to Jesus, evaluate whether the content, practices, and teachings do the same. Any component of the ministry that does not preeminently point to Christ must change. It is rare that all processes need to be thrown out, but all should eventually start, work, and end with the goal of helping people connect with Jesus. If you have a long list of changes, make a few easy changes first to gain momentum, then work toward harder changes. If a core component of the ministry is a substantial hurdle to helping people turn to Jesus, you must replace it with something that propels people toward Christ (for us, the hurdle was curriculum).
2. Integrate spiritual disciplines. Infuse the ministry with practices that foster a daily relationship with Jesus. Integrate practices like prayer, devotional time, Scripture memory, and worship. If you can integrate spiritual disciplines within core content of the ministry itself, even better. Providing participants with daily connections to Christ engages and sustains them through deep works of confession, repentance, forgiveness, making amends, and finding identity in Christ. Remember, Christ is the healer, not the process.
3. Establish authentic biblical community. Authenticity is more powerful than anonymity. God created us to be fully known and loved (1 John 1:3-90). We will not experience being fully loved until we allow ourselves to be fully known. God offers the body of Christ to be healing hands, prayer warriors, comforters, and burden bearers. Group-based support helps participants realize they are not alone or unique, and they can be loved in their brokenness. In groups, participants can see biblical principles at work in different situations. So, provide a group environment that minimizes the threat of gossip, but never fosters secrecy or isolation. Connecting Christians on healing journeys together in a healthy environment should be a priority.
4. Be disciples who make disciples. The institution of the church is called to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Church leadership should be preparing and inviting its people to minister…because Jesus is. His divine power has given us all we need for life and godliness and the Bible equips us for every good work. Christ isn’t held back by human shortcomings; he invites us into situations that only he can handle and works through us despite our shortcomings. Participants should commence with a clear call and path to share God’s work in their lives with others inside and outside of the ministry. So, create a process where participants are equipped to become leaders, leaders become coaches, coaches become staff, staff become elders and all become ministers of reconciliation.

Ask God to Do More Than You Can Imagine

When we realized that change was necessary for our ministry, it took us almost three years of prayer, development, and testing before we were ready to launch a new ministry fully aligned with our mission. Because of the rigor of the daily connection with Christ and spiritual formation integrated into the new ministry, we weren’t sure people would do the work. I told our church leadership that the depth of transformation would increase, but participation might decrease by 2/3. At the time, I had forgotten about the gift of desperation that prepares people for change.

When I looked up a year after our launch, we’d actually doubled in size, and the depth of life transformation was more than we’d imagined. People weren’t only finding victory over the presenting struggle (99% reporting some freedom), but reported significant transformation in other areas of life, too (49% reporting). Nearly half of the participants entering the ministry felt alone or unknown, but this fell to less than 5% for those who completed the curriculum. Over the course of the ministry, the share of people experiencing authentic biblical community tripled. From start to finish, the percentage of participants with a God-focused life purpose shifted from 16% to over 75%, and nearly two-thirds reported navigating life more from a biblical world view. People were falling in love with Jesus, experiencing God’s peace, joy and love, growing in prayer, and reconciling relationships. God had involved us in miracles.

More than a decade later, God continues to use the ministry to transform lives in every corner of our church and highest levels of leadership. Many other organizations have now adopted the ministry. People now attend as much for growth and discipleship as they do to overcome struggles. We’ve seen generations transformed into fully devoted followers of Christ.

God wants to make disciples through your care ministry, too. The invitation into The Great Commission should be woven into every ministry but God has a special eye on those whose spirits are broken. He will not despise broken and contrite hearts (Psalm 51:17). Those who have been forgiven much end up loving much (Luke 7:47). They will be the people most committed to laboring with sinners being redeemed by God because they’ve experienced the joy of deep reconciliation with Jesus and become ministers of reconciliation themselves.

Ask God to give you clarity about your next steps in making disciples through your care ministry. Then, like Peter, step out of the boat and focus on Christ as you walk into the deep (Matthew 14:22-33). As you faithfully move toward Jesus in a new way, invite others to join you. You might find yourself under water sometimes, but if you depend on Christ, you might also witness some drowning people transform into disciples of Jesus.