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A Three-Thirds Plan for Discipleship Meetings

three thirds plan for discipleship meetings collegiate disciplemaker

A Three-Thirds Plan for Discipleship Meetings

One of the intimidating parts of disciplemaking is figuring out what it should look like in your specific context. Jesus began His ministry setting the pace and example for disciplemaking. He preached the gospel and called for a multifaceted but simple response: repent, believe, and follow (Mark 1:14-17). As we share the gospel and make disciples on a college campus, of course we want to model our ministry off of Jesus’ methodology, but what does this look like?

DiscipleMaking is a Daily Endeavor

Robert Coleman writes in The Master Plan of Evangelism that one of the key things Jesus did as He called His disciples was to invite them to associate with Him. The call to follow Jesus was something that took time! Through daily, regular association with Christ, the disciples learned not only the message of the gospel but also the way of life Jesus was calling them to. 

This sort of model for discipleship seems pretty daunting. Who has time to associate day in and day out with a disciple? Does the pace of modern life even allow for this sort of thing? If you are a volunteer or minister to college students but are not a college student yourself, this does sound pretty daunting. You have a lot of responsibilities to juggle at home and work. For the college student though, a day-by-day sort of plan for disciplemaking actually works! Friends spend time together. The more time you can spend together with a “disciple,” the better.

A Three-Thirds Plan for Discipleship Meetings

Regardless of the quantity of time you spend with someone you are trying to disciple, you need a plan for meeting. How often will you meet? What will be your course of study? What is your goal for your time together, and how will you know when your time together is complete?

A few years ago, I was introduced to a concept called the Three-Thirds Process. Ever since learning this simple plan for a discipleship meeting, my meetings have had a clearer sense of direction and purpose than ever before. The three-thirds process consists of three parts: Looking Back, Looking Up, and Looking Forward.

Looking Back

This portion of a discipleship meeting is an important time of connection with the person or group you’re meeting with. This time is  spent in worship, pastoral care, accountability, and vision-casting. In essence, this is a loving check-in for the leader and disciple or disciples. 

The best part is that this is actually a pretty natural part of meetings we all have on a regular basis. The framework of worship, care, accountability, and vision-casting just gives some guidance for using the time well. Worship might look like singing a song together, but more than likely, it will be a time of just praising God for how He has been at work in your lives. Pastoral care might be hearing about some relationship challenges or possibilities and talking through them together. Loving accountability is simply a time to hold one another accountable for the goals made in a previous meeting. Vision-casting asks the question, “Why do we meet?” and regularly focuses the meeting so that it doesn’t just become a gab session. 

Looking Up

This portion of a discipleship meeting is where you learn a new lesson together. There are lots of possibilities for what this could look like curriculum-wise, but I always want to make sure the Bible is the center of this time. This takes effort! It is very easy to neglect Bible study during a discipleship meeting and spend the whole time in what essentially becomes a counseling session. I have had success following a number of plans for this portion of the discipleship meeting, but the simplest is reading through a book of the Bible together and talking about it using basic inductive Bible study methods. I like to use the book of Mark as a study framework with new discipleship groups.

"It is very easy to neglect Bible study during a discipleship meeting and spend the whole time in what essentially becomes a counseling session." @pdamery #collegiatedisciplemaker #mbcollegiate #NoPlaceLeft Click To Tweet

Looking Forward

This portion of a discipleship meeting involves setting goals and commissioning one another to go out and walk in obedience to God—especially in light of the lesson learned during the meeting. Goals set during this time should be SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time sensitive. When you meet for your next meeting, the accountability questions during “looking back” should be centered around how you did living out the goals from the last meeting!

What are You Waiting For?

My intent here has been to simply introduce the concepts of the Three-Thirds Process and whet your appetite for it. These ideas work well as a plan for a weekly meeting, and they will give you a framework to run with for helping train disciples who make disciples. For more explanation and instruction, check out the links below. After that, get started! You can implement this in any discipleship meeting you currently have.

No Place Left Training Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfzP2qDv0UYTraining for Trainers (T4T) – https://www.t4tglobal.org/three-thirds-process

Image Credit: theilr via Flickr.com

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Equipping You to Make Disciples of Collegians & Young Adults

The Collegiate DiscipleMaker is an online publication providing practical encouragement and disciplemaking tools to those making disciples among college students and young adults. Our weekly articles are theologically rich, biblically grounded, pragmatically applicable, and college ministry oriented.

Our Team

We are people just like you— campus missionaries, ministry wives, young adult pastors, and more—who simply have a passion to make Gen Z disciples on college campuses and beyond.

Contributors:

Austin Pfrimmer (Campus Missionary)

Christina Boatright (Campus Missionary)

Paul Damery (Campus Missionary)

Reese Hammond (Campus Missionary)

Jon Smith (Campus Missionary)

Jerome Stockert (Campus Missionary) 

Karin Yarnell (College Ministry Wife)

Editor in Chief:

Britney Lyn Hamm (College Ministry Wife)

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