How to Start a Men's Discipleship Group That Actually Makes Disciples

This is for the guy who leads a men's group but suspects something is missing. The one who keeps starting new studies because the last one didn't seem to stick. If you've ever thought, "We're doing Bible study but we're not making disciples" — this is for you.

I have spent years in men's Bible studies. Church basements, coffee shops, living rooms — going through curriculum after curriculum, semester after semester. And for a long time, I couldn't put my finger on why something felt off. We were faithful. We were showing up. But we weren't seeing men step up and actually make other disciples. We were just looking for the next study.

I want to be clear about something before I go any further. I love the Word of God. One of the greatest failures in the church today is a lack of biblical knowledge and time in Scripture. You will never hear me say that studying the Bible is wrong. I study it every day. But there is a trap we fall into — one my friend Alex Rossie calls the Knowledge Acquisition Loop.

The Real Reason Your Discipleship Training Isn't Working

Knowing more about Jesus is not the same as following Him.

The Knowledge Acquisition Loop is exactly what it sounds like. We learn, the semester ends, and then we ask: "What are we going to study next?" It's a self-focused cycle. We've made men's groups so low-stakes, so easy, that we've stripped away any real challenge. We're afraid to ask for a real commitment. And the result is a culture of boredom.

We have men who have been in Bible studies their entire lives, and very few of them are discipling anyone else. It becomes consumer Christianity. We take in information, but we never pour it out. And the men sitting in those chairs know it. They feel it. That's why they keep leaving.

The data backs this up. Barna surveys show that 93% of pastors say they value discipleship. That sounds great. But only 28% have a clear process for it. Research from discipleship.org shows that 5% or fewer of U.S. churches have a reproducing disciple-making culture. Most "processes" are Bible studies about discipleship — not actual [discipleship training](/discipleship-training) on how to be one. In their 2023 State of the Church report, Barna also found that fewer than one in five churchgoing adults said they were currently discipling someone else — which means the pipeline is broken at every level, not just the top.

Think about the Pharisees. In Matthew 23, Jesus calls them hypocrites and blind guides. He wasn't against them knowing the Law. He was against the fact that they had all this knowledge but neglected justice, mercy, and faith. They had internal righteousness in their own eyes, but they weren't doing anything with it.

Second Timothy 3:7 describes a crowd as "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." That is the Knowledge Acquisition Loop. If you are genuinely learning about Jesus and His commands, you will eventually find yourself compelled to live them out. True knowledge of the truth leads to action.

We've also made the exercise the goal. Bible study is a tool — it's how we stay sharp and prepared — but it is not the mission itself. Think about a pilot. You spend a lot of time in a classroom. You have to understand physics and flight mechanics. But no aspiring pilot wants to stay in the classroom forever. They want that knowledge so they can get in the cockpit and fly. That's how I feel about Scripture. I am hungry for it. But I want it so I can better serve Him.

What a Real Discipleship Process Looks Like

You can't microwave what takes years to slow-cook.

My biggest frustration with church leadership is our obsession with making discipleship neat and manageable. We want it to fit in a ten-week semester. We want everyone starting and stopping at the same time for the sake of administrative ease.

But following Christ is messy. Look at Jesus' twelve disciples. One of them turned Him in for murder and then committed suicide. That is not a clean process. People grow at different rates. They fall in love with Jesus at different speeds.

Discipleship cannot be microwaved. It is a slow cooker.

Think about a brisket. Put it in the microwave, and it's the toughest, most unpleasant piece of meat you've ever had. Put it in a slow cooker, and the longer it cooks, the better it gets. Every brisket cooks differently — some stall, some hit temperature faster. You have to let the process happen. If you try to force discipleship groups into a four-week or three-month box, you'll have a lot of talk about discipleship, but very little actual movement.

At Ordinary Movement, we believe a genuine discipleship process is built on three things: intimacy with Jesus, intentional relationships, and multiplication. Intimacy is the bedrock. It's not a teaching point — it's a lifestyle. It's walking out the greatest commandment to love God with everything you have. Intentional relationships mean that discipleship doesn't end when the 60-minute meeting ends. It's living life together, talking about the Lord, and challenging each other outside of class time. And multiplication means your group should not look the same in two years as it does today. If everyone in the group is a believer, they should be out discipling others within a year or two. The goal of a leader is to work themselves out of a job.

This framework tracks closely with what Dallas Willard called "the curriculum of Christ" — the idea that spiritual formation requires immersion in relationship, practice, and accountability, not just information. Formation doesn't happen in a semester. It happens over a life.

To build that kind of culture, you have to be intentional about the environment you create. There are four types of group cultures. Low grace, low challenge produces boredom — no one asks anything of you, and they beat you up when you fail. High grace, low challenge produces consumerism — it's kind, but you never grow. Low grace, high challenge produces burnout — constant pressure with no support. High challenge, high grace is where discipleship actually happens. High expectations. And when you fail — because you will — you get covered in grace and pushed to try again.

Most church cultures live in the high grace, low challenge quadrant. That's why people are bored. And if nothing changes, they'll be bored in another ten years, still waiting for the next study.

How to Start a Men's Discipleship Group: Four Practical Steps

The goal was never more knowledge. It was always more disciples.

So how do you move from a low-commitment men's Bible study to a high-impact discipleship process?

The first thing is to stop looking for impressive people. We fall into the trap of inviting the guys who look like future leaders. Don't do that. Invite whoever God puts in your path who is simply willing. You will be surprised. Often, the guy on the fringe — the one you thought wouldn't commit — is the one who ends up multiplying. God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Acts 4:13 says that when the religious leaders saw the boldness of Peter and John, they recognized that they were "unschooled, ordinary men." That's who Jesus built His movement with.

The second thing is to actually bring the challenge. Men love hard things. We ride mountain bikes the hard way, go on grueling hunting trips, lift until it hurts. But church leaders keep saying, "Our men aren't ready for a 26-session commitment." That is not true.

Josh Howerton tells a story about military recruiters. The Army, Navy, and Air Force recruiters got up and promised the GI Bill, education, and travel. Then the Marine recruiter stood up and said: "I've looked at you, and none of you are fit for the Marines. If you join, you'll get shot at, you'll hate the day you were born, and you probably won't make it." Afterward, the line for the Marines was out the door. Men want to be told they are going to war. They want to know their lives will matter. Stop sugarcoating it. Tell them: "This isn't your typical Bible study. I have expectations for you. But it will change your life."

The third thing is to change your role in the room. You are not there to lecture. You are there to facilitate. We use a model often attributed to Mike Breen called the Discipleship Square. It moves through four stages: I do, you watch. Then I do, you help. Then you do, I help. Then you do, I celebrate — you're leading your own group, and I'm your mentor. Every stage transfers more ownership to the person you're discipling. That is the goal. For a deeper look at how this works inside a full men's discipleship curriculum , see how we structure the process at Ordinary Movement.

And the last thing — the most important thing — is that a discipleship process ends differently than a Bible study. A Bible study ends with everyone looking at the leader and asking, "What are we doing next?" A discipleship process ends with a Send. The question shifts from "What am I going to learn next?" to "Who am I going to reach next?"

In Matthew 4, Jesus called Peter and Andrew and said: "Follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people." They didn't ask for a reading list. They left their nets. When He called Matthew the tax collector, Matthew got up and followed. There was action. There was purpose.

We've replaced "Follow me" with "Learn about me." And that is the heart of the problem.

This isn't a new model. It's not a program. We are simply unlearning a church culture that has drifted from what Jesus actually called us to do. It's risky. It's purposeful. And it's the only way we've ever seen real movement happen in the body of Christ.

Start a Group— and build something that multiplies.

Jeremy McCommons is the Founder of Ordinary Movement, a discipleship training movement that has walked more than 1,600 people through an intentional disciple-making process across 35 states. He lives and leads from the conviction that ordinary people, following Jesus faithfully, can change the world around them.