Growth without discipleship is a church that gains people and loses them.

A young man hears the gospel, believes it, and is baptized on a Sunday morning. The church rejoices. The missionary writes home with the good news. A soul has been saved.

Then Monday comes, and nobody calls him. Nobody shows him how to read his Bible. Nobody teaches him to pray. Nobody asks how he is doing when the old life starts pulling him back. Six months later, he is gone. Nobody knows quite when he stopped coming. And the church counts the next convert and moves on.

That is the fatal flaw. A church can win people and still lose them, because it never discipled them.

The Mistake

The mistake is failing to prioritize the discipleship and mentorship of new believers and church members.

The church does not fail to evangelize. It evangelizes well. It preaches, it invites, it baptizes. But after the baptism, the work stops. The new believer is left to grow on his own, and a new believer left alone is like a newborn left alone. He will not make it.

"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

A newborn needs milk, and he needs someone to feed him. He cannot feed himself yet. A new believer is the same. He needs someone to sit with him, open the Bible with him, pray with him, and show him how to live this new life. Without that, he will not grow. He will starve, quietly, while the church counts its numbers.

Why It Happens

There are a few reasons a church plants and evangelizes well but disciples poorly.

First, evangelism is visible, and discipleship is not. A baptism is a moment you can photograph. A man learning to pray is a quiet work nobody sees. A soul saved makes the prayer letter. A soul kept, taught, and grown over three years never makes the letter at all. So the visible work gets the time, and the invisible work gets whatever is left, which is usually nothing.

Second, the missionary moves on to the next prospect. There is always another person to reach, another family to visit, another town to enter. The new believer is already "won," so the missionary turns his eyes to the next one. But the new believer is not finished. He has only just begun.

The third is the assumption that growth happens on its own. We assume that if a man truly believed, he will read his Bible, pray, come to church, and stand firm, all by himself. Some do. Most do not. They need a mentor, someone further along who will walk with them until they can walk on their own.

And the fourth is that discipleship takes time the missionary feels he does not have. It is far faster to preach to a hundred than to sit with one. But the hundred will scatter if the one is never taught. In the end, the fast way is the slow way.

What It Costs

Jesus told a parable about this.

"But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended" (Matthew 13:20-21).

He received the word with joy. He had no root. He lasted a while. Then trouble came, and he was gone.

That is what happens to a new believer with no roots. The joy is real. The faith is real. But the roots take time, and roots grow only when someone tends the soil. A church that never disciples its new believers will keep sowing seed on stony ground, and keep wondering why nothing lasts.

It costs the church its depth. A church full of new believers and no mature ones has no teachers, no leaders, and no one to carry the work forward. It costs the missionary his joy too, because he keeps winning people and losing them, and after a while he starts to wonder if the gospel works at all. It does work. But it works through discipleship, and discipleship was never done.

And it costs the Great Commission itself.

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Baptizing them, and teaching them. Two parts, not one. A church that baptizes but never teaches has obeyed half the commission and calls it the whole.

The Way Jesus Did It

Jesus never left a new believer alone. He spent His time on twelve men, and He stayed with them.

"And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach" (Mark 3:14).

With Him first. They watched Him pray. They watched Him deal with people. They asked Him questions no crowd ever gets to ask. Then He sent them out. He did not hand them a tract and wish them well. He lived with them until they could live without Him.

Paul did the same. He wrote to the Thessalonians,

"But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us" (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

Not the gospel only, but our own souls. That is mentorship. That is a man giving his life, not only his message, to another man.

Paul's goal for every believer was plain.

"Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus" (Colossians 1:28).

Present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Not half-grown. Not left as a baby. Brought to fullness. That is the goal of discipleship, and it takes time, patience, and love.

What Discipleship Looks Like

Discipleship is life on life. It is one believer walking with another, week after week, until the younger one can walk on his own.

It starts the first week. Visit the new believer at home. Sit with him. Ask how he is doing. Show him how to read his Bible, a little each day, and how to pray, honestly and simply. Teach him the basics: assurance of salvation, baptism, the church, prayer, giving, and how to tell someone else what Christ did for him.

It continues month after month. Meet regularly, the two of you, with the Bible open between you. Talk about what he is reading. Talk about the struggles he is facing. Pray together. When he misses church, go find him, gently, before the drift becomes a departure. A new believer who is missed will know he is loved. A new believer who is never missed will conclude he is not.

And it multiplies.

"And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2).

The goal is not only a believer who grows, but a believer who can teach another to grow. When the new believer starts discipling someone else, the work has taken root.

This is also how a church grows leaders. You do not find leaders. You make them, one conversation at a time, by investing in people until they can carry the work themselves. A church that disciples its members will never run out of leaders, because it is always growing them.

It Is Not Too Late

If you have been winning people and losing them, it is not too late. Go back to the ones who drifted. Call them. Visit them. Ask them what happened. Many of them did not leave because they stopped believing. They left because nobody came after them.

Paul knew what this work feels like.

"My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19).

Travail. Labor pains. Discipleship is labor, and it hurts, and it takes time. But that labor forms Christ in a man.

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

God finishes what He starts. And He finishes it, most often, through a faithful believer who will not let go of a new one.

So place the emphasis where it belongs. Not only on winning them, but on keeping them, teaching them, and growing them. Invest your time and your resources there. The numbers will take care of themselves, because a discipled believer is a believer who stays, grows, teaches, and wins others. That is the church that lasts.