As the father of three boys, I’ve spent a lot of time at the ballpark. All of my sons were good athletes and my middle son, Jake, received a scholarship to play college football as a running back for the Samford University Bulldogs in Homewood, Alabama. Over the years, I’ve sat through hundreds of ball practices from little league all the way through college. The sounds and smells of football practice are etched in my memory. At every phase of the sport, I would often hear a coach say to a player, “Do your job! Don’t worry about anyone else; just do your job!” Good coaches hold their players accountable to do their jobs.

Likewise, loving spiritual accountability is a vital part of personal disciple-making. When Jesus called His disciples, He said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19). Throughout the four gospels, we see Jesus holding His disciples accountable to do their jobs. At one point He sent them out two by two to do the work of ministry and had them report back to Him. Ultimately, He held them accountable to multiply out to become fishers of men. Like Jesus, it is the responsibility of all disciple makers to provide loving accountability to those whom they disciple.

LIVES ARE CHANGED THROUGH SPIRITUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

It has often been said that people don’t do what they are supposed to do, they do what they are held accountable to do. That is why accountability is an essential part of the disciple-making process.

First, we most hold our disciples accountable to reading the Word of God. It's important for your discipleship group to agree on a daily Bible reading plan and to hold one another accountable to the plan. This will have a great impact on their lives. People who have never read the Bible with consistency will begin to read it daily. This alone is transformational. 

Second, we must hold our disciples accountable to their walk with God. As you lead your group to read and discuss the Bible, you should ask personal questions that relate to how each one is applying the biblical truths that they are reading. Loving accountability is especially important when someone in the group is struggling in a certain area of his or her spiritual life. Spiritual strongholds related to alcohol, drugs, pornography, sexual identity issues, and many others can be overcome through the loving accountability of a discipleship group.

Third, we must hold our group accountable to our work and witness for God. Ministry and evangelism are vital parts of the disciple-making process that will not happen by accident. We must hold one another accountable to be faithful servants and witnesses for Christ. We must lead our group to go outside the walls of the church to show the love of Christ in practical ways and to share the gospel of Christ. Aa a minimum, your group should plan a ministry project every other month and go do it.  At least six times a year your discipleship group should hold one another accountable to go out and serve together in ministry and evangelism.

LEADERS ARE CALLED THROUGH SPIRITUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

After Jesus' death and resurrection, it was time for His disciples to do their jobs. He had called them and spent three years training them to be fishers of men. Now, He had important job for them to do, and He held them accountability to do it. Despite their fears and flaws, the time had come for them to multiply out to become personal disciple makers. Jesus provides a great example of loving spiritual accountability in the life of Simon Peter.

Toward the end of Jesus's ministry, He warned Peter that Satan had requested to “sift him like wheat” (Luke 22:31). He told Peter that He was praying for him and, when he turned back again, he should strengthen his brothers. Peter took offense to this. He told Jesus he would never deny Him and that he was ready to go with Him both to prison and to death. To this Jesus replied, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me” (Luke 22:34).

We know where this is going. After Jesus was arrested in the garden, Peter was with a group of people warming by a fire. One in the group accused him of being with Jesus. Peter said, “Woman, I do not know Him.” A little later, someone else accused him of being one of Jesus’ disciples. Peter said, “Man, I am not.” After about an hour, still another insisted that he was with Jesus. This time Peter’s old fishing vocabulary came back out. Throwing in a few choice words, he said, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Immediately, while Peter was still speaking, the rooster crowed, “Cock-a-doodle-do!” Peter was a broken man. The only thing he knew to do was to go back to his old way of life. He felt like an utter failure and a disappointment as a disciple. He had denied his teacher and Lord. He had flunked out of Discipleship Class 101. Three years earlier, he had dropped his fishing net and left everything to follow after Jesus. Now, he picked his net back up and returned to the one thing he knew how to do. It was the one thing he felt he was good at. He went back to being a fisherman. He went back to being Simon, which was his name before Jesus changed it to Peter—the Rock. He sure didn’t feel like a rock at this point in his life.

If it were not for the loving accountability of Jesus, Simon might not have ever returned to being Peter again. He may have spent the rest of his life living with guilt and regret, thinking about what might have been. He was ready to quit and throw in the towel as a disciple of Christ. His plan was to return to his former trade as a fisherman, but Jesus had another plan. Jesus went to Peter to restore him and to hold him accountable to his commitment as a disciple.

One night, while Peter was fishing with his friends, the risen Jesus went to them and stood on the shore of the sea. Unrecognized at first, He asked the men if they had caught any fish. When they answered, “No,” He instructed them to cast the net on the right side of the boat.

For Peter, this was déjà vu. Remember, this had happened earlier in Peter’s walk as a disciple and it totally wrecked him. He and his companions hauled in such a great catch of fish that the Bible said, “Their nets were breaking” (Luke 5:6b). It was then that Peter fell down on his knees and confessed his sins to Jesus as his Lord (Luke 5:8). I believe this was the moment when he experienced true salvation. Lovingly, Jesus was taking a broken and humbled Peter back to that moment when he first believed.

Three years had passed since Peter brought in his first great catch of fish. Now, Jesus asked Peter once again to let down his nets for a catch. Unlike before, there was no hesitation. As soon as the net hit the water, it filled up with large fish, 153 of them to be exact. Although there were so many, this time the Bible says that “the net was not torn” (John 21:11). There is a big point in this tiny detail. It was a picture of Peter’s growth as a disciple. Peter didn’t know it yet, but the broken net was now mended. Peter had been broken, and now, he was finally ready to be a fisher of men. He was fully equipped for the greater work that Jesus had called him to do.

When Peter saw this second great catch of fish, he did his best Forrest Gump imitation. He didn’t wait on the boat to come into shore. He jumped out of the boat to swim to Jesus. 

Jesus’ model of loving accountability with Peter is an example to follow. Three times he had denied Jesus, and three times Jesus confronted him with his commitment as a disciple. He didn’t say, “Peter, I told you so.” He didn’t condemn him for his failures. Instead, Jesus gave Peter three opportunities to tell Him that he loved Him and three reminders of his call as a disciple to “feed My sheep” (John 21:15-17).

Jesus was patient and loving with Peter, but He held him accountable to his commitment to the greater work. In spite of his failures and shortcomings, Jesus reminded him that he was called to make disciples who make disciples. In a loving way, Jesus was saying to him, “Do your job.” Through his brokenness and humility, Peter was finally ready to become a fisher of men. 

This is true for every one of us. Despite our failures, insecurities, inadequacies, and shortcomings, we are called to be disciple-makers. We are called to do our jobs.

LOVING ACCOUNTABILITY IS A VITAL KEY TO MULTIPLICATION

A very humble Peter was reconciled to Jesus. The rest of the story is history. He became one of the greatest disciple-makers the world has ever known. He became the rock that Jesus always knew he could be. He preached the first sermon of the New Testament church and launched a disciple-making movement that turned the world upside down.

Humble people make great disciple-makers. They are willing to listen and learn. How about you? At some point, you must humble yourself and take a long, hard look in the mirror. You must ask yourself some tough questions. Am I living in obedience to the Great Commission? Am I doing the greater work of making disciples who make disciples? 

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12a). He didn’t say you “might” do the works that He did. He said that you “will” do them. He didn’t say you will make fewer disciples than Him. He said you will do “greater works” of disciple-making than Him. How is this possible?

According to Jesus, it’s simple. It all begins with a small group of people who meet anytime and anywhere for intentional discipleship. This is how Jesus taught us to do it. To do the greater work involves either participating in a discipleship group or leading one. You should participate in a D-Group until you are ready to lead one. Then you should multiply out to begin a new one. This is how Jesus taught us to live a lifestyle of disciple-making. Let's go do our jobs.

The Kingdom principle of multiplying disciples is the most necessary and neglected practice of disciple-making. Churches often fail to grasp the importance of multiplication in their discipleship ministries. Jesus did not teach His disciple to add; He taught them how to multipy.

When Jesus invited twelve men into His D-Group, He knew that He would not be with them forever. His goal was not to remain with them but to send them out. His disciples knew that they would each go out and do what He had trained them to do. They would multiply and make other disciples. Likewise, all D-Groups must be committed to the practice of multiplication.

Jesus made disciples who made disciples. He didn’t make any other kind. Disciple-making requires the multiplication of disciples; apart from multiplication there is no real discipleship.

Later in the Bible, we are introduced to a man named Paul. He was not one of the original disciples. In fact, when we first meet him, he is no disciple at all. He was a skeptic who did not believe in Jesus and who persecuted those who did. Through a supernatural encounter with Jesus on a desert road, his life was radically changed. Paul the skeptic not only became a disciple of Jesus, but he went on to become one of the greatest disciple-makers who has ever lived.

As a man on a mission, Paul’s whole life was committed to making and multiplying disciples. He took groups of disciples with him on his missionary journeys and left behind disciple-making leaders in every city where he stopped. The impact of Paul’s life cannot be measured because of his relentless commitment to the greater work.

Someone very special to Paul was a young disciple named Timothy. As he approached the end of his life on earth, Paul wrote a letter to his young disciple giving Timothy his own version of the Great Commission. With tenderness and strength Paul said, “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:1-2). 

This is one of the clearest descriptions of genuine discipleship in the entire Bible. There is no way it can be misunderstood that multiplication is an essential quality of discipleship. According to Paul, multiplication is a disciple-maker’s mission. As a D-Group leader, you must lead your group to multiply. 

THE MULTIPLICAITON OF DISCIPLES IS EMPOWERED

Knowing that the time for his departure was at hand, Paul realized that Timothy would need God’s strength to carry on the greater work he had trained him to do. With the love of a father, he encouraged Timothy to “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1). The word “strengthened” is the Greek word, endunamoó. From the root of this word, we get the word “dynamite.” Here, Paul was reminding Timothy that God’s grace would be with him to empower him for making disciples.

The same is true for you. As you lead your D-Group, God will be with you. The Spirit of the greatest disciple-maker who ever lived dwells in you. He is the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. He will continually empower you with great strength and explosive power to make disciples who make disciples.

THE MULTIPLICATION OF DISCIPLES IS EXPLAINED

Nowhere in the New Testament is the process of disciple-making more clearly laid out as Paul explains it here. 
Paul said, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). In this one sentence, we see four generations of discipleship: 1) Paul, 2) Timothy, 3) faithful men, and 4) others also. Paul had discipled Timothy. Now it was Timothy’s turn to disciple some faithful men. In turn, these faithful men were to go disciple others also. 

This is how God’s kingdom is intended to grow. This is growth without gimmicks. The great expansion of the early church did not happen by addition. It was the result of the explosive process of multiplication. Concerning the early church, the Bible says, “The word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly” (Acts 6:7).

When you step up to lead a D-Group, you are on the front lines of the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth. It’s not the preacher in the pulpit but the disciple-maker in the trenches who determines if the kingdom grows. It is important for you to do your job. You are empowered for this. Don’t be duped by the misleading allure of addition. Simply put, your job is not to grow a bigger group but to multiply new groups. It’s only through the multiplication of disciples that you will witness the result of exponential kingdom growth.

As a true disciple-maker, you must make multiplication your primary goal. Intentionally and methodically, strive to send out at least one new disciple-maker every year to lead a new D-Group. You may not always achieve this goal, but you should make it your aim. This is a reasonable and worthy objective.

According to the Bible, the Father is glorified when “you bear much fruit” (John 15:8). Perhaps, you do not realize the greatness of your fruit-bearing potential. When you live a lifestyle of disciple-making, you possess unlimited potential to bear much fruit and to bring great glory to the Father. 

Consider the possibilities. What if you simply discipled three people every year—just three? Then, what if you sent out one of them each year to do the same? If this became your lifestyle for the next twenty to thirty years, the fruit of your life would be immeasurable. 

Let’s take a deeper look. As a D-Group leader, here is your goal…

• You simply disciple at least three people every year.
• You send out one disciple each year to do the same.

As you make disciples who make disciples, the unlimited nature of your fruit-bearing potential is seen in the graphic below on “Multiplying Disciples” …

​Wow! What if only half of this happened! This is your fruit-bearing potential for the Father. In just ten years, over five hundred discipleship groups and more than fifteen-hundred disciples could trace their roots back to you. In twenty years, over five-hundred thousand discipleship groups and a million-and-a-half people would be discipled because of you. In thirty years—well, we won’t even go there—because I know what you're thinking. You’re thinking that such a disciple-making movement could never happen because of you. But, why not you? Don’t you think the early disciples must have thought the same?

Nevertheless, it all begins with just three and one—discipling three people a year and multiplying one out to do the same. If you could have the faith to do just this, you have the potential to reach thousands of people for Christ. That’s a lot of fruit! Exponential kingdom growth is the ultimate result of multiplying disciples.

​When I think about the raw reality of this, my heart weeps over the failure of the church to do our job. Disciple-making is our job! Jesus taught it, modeled it, and commanded it. Paul taught it, modeled it, and commanded it. We have no excuse! 

In thirty-three years, just one person has the potential to reach the entire globe for Christ. But wait, what if there were more than one person? A global grassroots disciple-making movement would mean that the world is still within our reach. 
 
THE MULTIPLICATION OF DISCIPLES IS EXCITING

Few things are more exciting and fulfilling for a true follower of Christ than to lead a D-Group that is continually multiplying. It also adds great significance to your life. 

Like Jesus, Paul made disciples who made other disciples. There is no way to measure the eternal impact of his life. We can be certain that his rewards in heaven were great.
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Likewise, if you commit to a lifestyle of disciple-making there will be no way to measure the impact of your life either. Your rewards will be great.  A lifetime lifestyle of making and multiplying disciples is the disciple maker's ultimate commitment.

Have you ever wondered why most ministry takes place inside the walls of the church? You don’t see this with Jesus. Almost all of the personal ministry of Jesus took place outside the walls of the temple or synagogue.

As believers who make up the church, the Bible says, “You are the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:27). We are His hands and feet, but we often tie up His hands with matters inside the church. We fail to make a difference in the world when we keep His hands and feet inside the walls of the church.

In the New Testament, we see Jesus leading His disciples outside the walls of the synagogue to proclaim the message of the kingdom. His disciples watched as He touched the leper, healed the sick, fed the hungry, and showed compassion for the sinner. Then He “began to send them out two by two” to do the same (Mark 6:7). It was their turn. The Bible simply says, “So they went” (Mark 6:12).

In Jesus’ D-Group, doing ministry outside the walls of the synagogue was not an option. It shouldn’t be for us either. This is an important part of leading a D-Group. You deceive yourself if you think you can disciple others solely from a classroom. Disciple-making requires on the job training. Would you fly on a plane with a pilot whose only training was in a classroom? Of course not! Pilots need real experience and so do disciples. Disciple-making requires a lab, and the world is our lab.
 
LEAD YOUR GROUP TO PLAN MEANINGFUL MINISTRY PROJECTS

In your D-Group, take time to plan for meaning ministry. Ask, "How can we be the hands and feet of Jesus where His presence is needed?" Pray for the Holy Spirit to direct your path. Plan for meaningful ministry projects where you can bring light into darkness and hope to those who are hurting.

Such incarnational ministry is best fleshed out in a D-Group. Real people rub shoulders daily with other real people. Meaningful ministry happens when a disciple says, “I know where a real need is. I saw it with my own eyes.” This is when a group will take ownership of the ministry that needs to be done.

I’m sure you have heard of the 80/20 principle. It’s a principle that says that eighty percent of the work in a church is carried out by only twenty percent of the people. This is a real concern for some people in the church today. But what is really concerning is that the vast majority of the work done by the twenty percent takes place within the walls of the church. It makes you wonder if any percent of the work of ministry takes place outside the church.

Now, think about Jesus and His disciples. What percentage of the twelve disciples did the work of ministry? All twelve did; it was one hundred percent. Even Judas did, though he complained about it. Also, almost everything they did was outside-the-walls ministry. 

How did this happen? It was because this is what Jesus had discipled them to do. In the church today, we could obliterate the 80/20 principle if we could simply get the twenty percent to disciple the eighty percent to do the work of ministry. What’s more, is that we could shift the focus of our ministry outside the walls of the church.

LEAD YOUR GROUP TO GO OUT AND DO MEANINGFUL MINISTRY PROJECTS

After your group makes plans for meaning ministry, then go out and do it. Sharing in ministry together as a D-Group is both fun and fruitful. It builds deeper community within your group. 

Ministry projects may include things such as feeding the homeless, doing lawncare for someone’s yard, doing a project at a local school, building a wheelchair ramp, adopting a family for Christmas, prayer walk evangelism, offering assistance to other social ministries in your area, and many other creative ideas. The opportunities are endless. D-Groups can even make plans to go on a mission trip together.

A minimum goal for your D-Group should be to do at least one meaning ministry project every two months. This means that your D-Group will do six ministry projects a year. Again, it is important to keep your goals reasonable and attainable. If we truly desire to impact our world for Christ, this is a reasonable minimum goal.

Think about the significance of this on your church’s ministry to your community. If your church started only four D-Groups, this would result in twenty-four ministry projects outside the walls of your church in one year. Simply multiplying to ten D-Groups would result in sixty ministry projects. What if someday you could train one hundred believers to lead D-Groups? This would result in six-hundred ministry projects each year outside the walls of your church. Can you imagine how many lives would be touched? 

LEAD YOUR GROUP TO PRACTICE LIFT UP YOUR EYES EVANGELISM

Meaningful ministry opens doors for Gospel conversations. When unbelievers see the love of Jesus displayed in a practical way, they are more willing to listen to what we have to say.

As a D-Group leader, you want to lead your group to practice lift-up-your-eyes evangelism. Jesus instructed His disciples saying, “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest” (John 4:35b).When your D-Group does a ministry project, lift up your eyes and see those who are around you. See those who are watching you and wondering why you are there. Look for an opportunity to share the Gospel with them. When you lead others to Christ, you will seek to connect them with your D-Group, and when possible, to your church.

In many churches today, intentional evangelism does not exist. No one is being discipled to share his or her faith. However, to be a true disciple-maker, you must unite evangelism and discipleship into one process. Think about it. You can do evangelism without being a disciple-maker, but you can’t be a disciple-maker without doing evangelism.