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Multiplying Missionary Disciples
Matthew Frost, Discipleship Lead of CCX, shares an invitation of what to do after the dust has settled on Multiply 2025
By Matthew FrostJune 2025
‘Multiplying missionary disciples’ – this has been the singular focus for Multiply this year. In preparing for the conference it’s been so encouraging to find local churches experimenting with new, imaginative approaches to disciple-making and spiritual formation. And many, too, are rediscovering ancient practices and recasting these for today’s cultural context. We’ve also noticed a hunger amongst new disciples to take their formation with utmost seriousness, and with the expectation that this will shape every aspect of their lives – work, home, community and gathered church as well.
At Multiply this year we set out to support leaders and pastors in becoming more creative, intentional and fruitful with regard to disciple-making and spiritual formation. We brought together as many frontline voices, stories and tools as we could pack into a single day, while looking to make space for participants to reflect on the state of their own spiritual formation and growth. Together we faced the truth that we can only lead others into deeper and more fruitful formation if we are living and embodying this ourselves – with a degree of honesty, openness and vulnerability. Our goal was to spark our collective imagination and creativity about disciple-making and spiritual formation – grounded in grassroots experience and practice.
So, following the conference, what practical and purposeful next steps might we take towards growing disciples and deepening spiritual formation, in our local churches? One foundational step towards a more intentional approach is to clarify what disciple-making is all about, with the active engagement of the whole of our local church. Three ‘discovery’ questions are very helpful in doing so.
Question 1 – What kind of disciples are we hoping to grow in our local church, and how would we describe this kind of disciple in simple straightforward language? Put in different ways: What are their qualities and characters? How do they behave? What drives and motivates them? What fruit would you expect to see? The point of asking and answering these kinds of questions is hopefully self-evident. One of Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is to ‘begin with the end in mind’. It is difficult to set out on a journey without some sense of our hoped for destination. If our responses are too narrow, purely around Sunday church attendance and financial giving, or too vague, we undermine formation from the start. In contrast, if we frame our responses expansively around following Jesus in the whole of life, alongside the mindsets, behaviours and Christ-like fruitfulness we hope to see, we inspire and draw people into God’s mission to renew and restore all things.
Question 2 – How are these kinds of disciples formed in our context and, therefore, what is our intentional approach to growing these disciples, in our local church? With clarity about the kind of disciples we hope to grow, this second question asks how we believe growth takes place. Before trying to answer this for others, it’s helpful to reflect on those moments when you knew you grew spiritually. What helped you to grow? What was going on? How did you know you grew? What was the fruit? And, too, reflect on what helps children to grow and flourish. Knowledge is only part of the answer. Possibly even more significant and often overlooked are other enablers of growth: obedience to Jesus’ commands and invitation; taking personal responsibility for our own growth; practice and spiritual exercises; community that encourages vulnerability and honesty; a rhythm of intentional reflection; suffering and adversity; the Holy Spirit. How do we draw on the best of adult learning theory and ancient formational wisdom to design ‘pathways’ of growth within our local churches as we are both sent out into the world and gathered on Sunday?
Question 3 – What would we need to have in place, in order to know whether our intentional approach to growing these disciples is bearing fruit, and whether or not we need to adapt or refine our approach? Let me be clear. Here I am not talking about measuring simplistic indicators for feeding into reporting mechanisms and church hierarchies. The point of asking and answering this question is to know whether our chosen approach to growing disciples is bearing fruit or not. We want to reflect on our praxis in order to sense and discern what may need to change, what could be improved, what needs to be adapted. It is exciting to see some local churches moving to nuanced learning and reflection designed to maximise local agency and involvement.
These three questions are at the core of ‘action learning’ – an intentional peer-based, inquiry-driven approach to learning and continuous improvement, grounded in experience and reflection. Jesus modelled just such an approach, living and walking with the disciples for three years, teaching, modelling practices, sending them out, calling them back, reflecting together and challenging them, speaking truth with love. As we set about answering the above three questions, we do so with the active engagement of members of the local church. And we seek. to apply a degree of rigour and wisdom, drawing on: scripture; ancient and modern Church tradition; research; and contemporary insights into adult learning and psychology.
As you reflect on your own responses to these questions, I encourage you to draw on the findings of the research that CCX commissioned recently, working with Eido. As a catalyst to fuel our collective imagination and creativity about disciple-making and spiritual formation, we decided to ask people, especially the emerging generations, what is actually helping them to grow spiritually. The insights of the research, Five practices, one experience, and the Holy Spirit: Exploring spiritual growth amongst 18- to 35-year-olds in the UK church, are thought-provoking and insightful.
Disciple-making was described by Eugene Peterson as ‘as long obedience in the same direction’ in his book of the same title. To me this speaks of being intentional, of patience, of consistency and of focus. In a similar manner, change begins with small, intentional steps taken consistently over time, all designed to lead in a specific direction, whilst embodying a specific culture and mindset. What ‘one degree shifts’ might you put into practice in your local church to shift towards a more intentional, creative approach to forming and growing disciples? Which of the stories, voices, approaches you heard about at Multiply (or after watching one the talks) most inspired you? Who could you connect with to learn from, or be encouraged by? Which of the tools are you drawn to apply in your local context?
At CCX we are asking ourselves how best to support all of you who are seeking to help your local churches become more intentional and creative with regard to disciple-making and spiritual formation. We would greatly value your thoughts on this. What support would most help you? What stories would most inspire? What connections would help encourage you? What communities would help you reflect and learn? What further research would be insightful? Please give us your thoughts on these and other questions by completing this short survey.
Finally, a word of thanks for joining in with us at Multiply 2025. We believe that God is stirring his Church to grow and form missionary disciples in an abundance of new and renewed ways. These are encouraging times! So let us remain in Christ, and know that his Spirit remains within us (John 15). Let us go and make disciples, sharing the love and ways of Jesus, who is with us to the end of the age (Matthew 28). Amen!
