A Wrong Disciplemaking Assumption and 3 Ways to Overcome it

It was “deja vu all over again.” I had the same conversation on two successive days with two different pastors on two different continents! Both pastors were making the same assumption and I could predict the outcome of their actions. What was the assumption?

They assumed that if you provided the right instruction (on disciplemaking) you would get the appropriate action (people making disciples). Seldom does telling change lives. Transferring information is not a trusty change agent. The reaction from the pastors’ audiences confirmed this.

People listened, nodded their heads, and smiled at the presentation. But when followed up in personal conversations no one took action. They affirmed the importance of disciplemaking, but took no steps to move forward. It shows again that telling is not teaching and listening is not learning.

Now telling, or teaching, is important. There are several good outcomes when we teach by telling.

• Telling casts a vision for action.
• Telling provides momentary motivation.
• Telling gives clarity and explanation.
• Telling is an efficient means to communicate information.
• Telling encourages a momentary action (a nod of the head or a verbal affirmation).

Each pastor lamented their disappointment at the lack of action from the participants. To train people in disciplemaking (or other ministry practices) we must do more than tell or transfer information; we must aim for transformation. Transformation happens when we help people:

• Discover
• Experience
• Do

What we discover we end up “owning.” The seventeenth-century hymn writer, pastor, and educator Isaac Watts said it well: “Inquiry . . . leads the learner into a knowledge of truth as if it were by his own invention, which is a very pleasing thing.” When we encourage inquiry — learning by discovery — people come away thinking it was my “own invention” — my own conclusion. We own what we discover.

Questions are the pry bars that open people up to discover what they don’t know, should know, or could know. Questions challenge beliefs, clarifies values, and reveals convictions. Questions trigger people’s minds and hearts to own the need to learn and change. Learners now take personal responsibility to act because they own the need.

What people discover they own; what they experience they will do. People must engage in a first-hand experience of the skill we want them to learn and practice. This first-hand experience can start with a demonstration. For example, when teaching how to ask questions, role play asking questions with someone and then ask people to observe what happened. People experience training through observation.

The second way of experience is hands-on participation. Move people from observing a demonstration to practicing the skill themselves. For example, in learning to ask questions, assign people to practice asking questions of one another. They now experience question-asking in a personal way.

Personal experience in a safe setting gives people the confidence to do this with another. They now have anexperiential reference point for doing. We are more likely to practice something if we have first experienced it. A reference point gives people a standard or model of behavior. What people experience they will do.

Over time, what people do becomes a lifestyle. Application, with corresponding accountability, turns information into action. Here’s a simple practice of application:

1. People identify a key principle of learning.
2. Ask people to consider how this principle could affect their life and ministry within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
3. Create one simple action step and plan a time for accountability.

Don’t make the wrong assumption that telling changes people. The best power point, the most logical presentation, and the most skilled teaching style is limited in its ability to create change. Remember: telling is not teaching and listening is not learning. Lasting change is triggered by discovery, experience, and doing. These three simple principles will move us from transferring information to transforming lives.