Why Discipleship Training Fails—and What Actually Works

If you've ever sat through a Bible study and thought, "We're learning a lot but nothing is actually changing"—this is for you. If you're a pastor who's tired of programs that don't produce disciples, keep reading. If you're just an ordinary person who wants to follow Jesus for real and bring someone else along—this is exactly where to start.

I want to start with a confession. For a long time, I lived in a middle road that didn't exist. I called myself a follower of Jesus, but I wasn't following. I was attending.

As I look at the American church today, I see a beautiful bride with enormous potential—walking down the aisle with a few stains on her dress. I don't say this as someone throwing stones. There are too many people doing that already. I want to be like a bridesmaid who leans in close, whispers to the bride, and wipes the smudge off her face so she looks radiant for her Groom.

The Discipleship Programs Gap: Good Intentions, Broken Systems

Here's the unfiltered reality: almost every church in America wants to be a discipleship church. It's the Great Commission. It's what we're "supposed" to do. But research from discipleship.org tells a different story.

Less than 5% of churches in America have an actual, functional discipleship culture.

Think about that disconnect. We have pure intentions. The system is broken.

It reminds me of a cell phone factory. If only one out of every thousand phones on the assembly line comes out working, you go out of business. You can't run a company like that. Yet in the church, we have one out of every several hundred people going through our discipleship programs who actually comes out the other side as a disciple who makes disciples.

Something is wrong with the factory. We've built systems that aren't producing the right product. The hard question: How do we become a movement-maker factory? How do we ensure the majority of people are actually equipped to go and do the same for others?

What Global Discipleship Movements Do Differently

I spent sixteen years as a missionary in India. It changed everything I thought I knew about leadership. I've seen the Lord launch movements like Ignite—over 30,000 churches started in roughly a decade. I've seen the multiplicative work of the Holy Spirit through everyday, ordinary people.

The greatest discipleship movements on earth right now are happening in the majority world—India, China, Africa. Millions are being reached. Why there and not here? People say the soil is different. The culture is unique. Soil matters. But there are four principles these movements use that we could put into practice today.

The good news? We can start today. The bad news? Once we know this, we no longer have an excuse.

According to researcher David Garrison's landmark study Church Planting Movements (2004), every documented rapid church multiplication movement shared a consistent pattern: extraordinary prayer, rapid biblical obedience, and the deliberate release of ordinary people into leadership. That's not a coincidence. That's a design.

1. A Radical Culture of Prayer and Fasting

In the West, we treat prayer like a steering wheel we grab only when we're in trouble—or a spare tire in the trunk. In South Asia, the best multipliers spend two to three hours alone with Jesus every single day. They fast two to three days a week. Every revival, every awakening, every move of God in history was birthed out of prayer and fasting. There are no exceptions.

2. Abundant Seed-Sowing

Your harvest is in direct relation to the amount of seed you sow. Simple farming logic. If I plant one seed, I get one stalk. If I plant a thousand acres, I get a massive harvest.

98% of Christians will die without ever sharing the gospel with someone outside their immediate family.

We aren't throwing seeds. Why are we surprised there's no harvest? We over-intellectualize it. We worry about the soil. But the farmer in Jesus' parable was crazy—he threw seed everywhere. On the path, in the rocks, in the thorns. He didn't analyze the dirt. He threw the seed. We need to become abundant, crazy seed-sowers again.

3. Releasing the Priesthood of All Believers

Traditional ministry in America is like a professional basketball game: ten people on the court who desperately need rest, and 40,000 people in the stands who desperately need exercise. We've turned church into a professional game where trained people do the work while everyone else watches.

In movements, all hands are on deck. Every ordinary person is equipped and released. This is the heart of any real small group discipleship process—it belongs to everyone, not just the pastor. The Barna Group's 2023 research on discipleship in America found that churches with the highest spiritual growth rates were those that prioritized peer-to-peer formation over program attendance.

4. Releasing Control

This is the hardest one for us in the West. A mentor once told me: "Josh, you can either have a movement of God, or you can have control. Pick one."

Movements are messy. We want our brands, our names, our guardrails. But life is found in the mess. As a leader in the underground movement in Iran said, "Graveyards are orderly, but nurseries are messy." If you want things full of life, they won't be organized at the beginning.

The Real Problem With Most Discipleship Curriculum

We often confuse Bible study with discipleship. Most small groups are knowledge-based. You watch a video, eat some food, talk about it, and go home. You do a study and go home. This is content-driven. It doesn't necessarily lead to change.

True discipleship is obedience-based. In Matthew 7, Jesus tells the story of the wise and foolish builders. We usually preach that "sand" means sex, money, or power. But that isn't what Jesus said. The wise man hears His words and puts them into practice. The foolish man hears His words and does nothing.

If you listen to a sermon, sing the songs, and go home without changing anything—your life is built on sand.

Spiritual maturity is not how much knowledge you have. It's how faithful you are with the knowledge you do have.

I'd rather have 30% Bible knowledge and obey 28% of it than have 90% knowledge and obey only 10%. In the West, we love Jesus as Savior. We don't like Him as King. We need a second conversion—moving from Jesus as a ticket to heaven to Jesus as Lord of every area of our lives.

Most discipleship curriculum is built to inform. The ones that actually change people are built to require something. In 2026, as AI-generated Bible content becomes more available than ever, the question isn't access to information. It never was. The question is obedience.

Discipleship Training That Every Ordinary Person Can Do

Nobody showed you how to make disciples. Probably because nobody showed whoever was supposed to show you. That's not a criticism—it's the pattern. And it's exactly what we're trying to break.

For years, I was the guy who would never share the gospel or disciple anyone. I'd invite people to church and let the "paid person" do the work.

We have to stop letting people outsource their identity to professionals. Ephesians 4 says leaders are equippers. We're supposed to equip the saints for the work of ministry. When we tell people, "Bring them to church and I'll be the ambassador"—we rob them of their God-given identity.

You are an ambassador. You are a witness. You are a minister of reconciliation. You don't need a seminary degree to be one step ahead of someone else.

I call this Duckling Discipleship. Think of a mama duck with her ducklings in a line. Every duckling isn't following the mama—they're following the duck right in front of them. To make disciples, you don't have to be the mama duck. You have to be one or two steps ahead of the person behind you. If you learned how to pray yesterday, teach someone how to pray today.

This is what real discipleship training looks like—not a course you complete, but a posture you live. Men can lead it. Women can lead it. You don't need a program. You need one or two people and the willingness to go first. That's it. That's men's discipleship and women's discipleship at their most basic and most powerful.

Consider adding a short video clip here of Josh explaining the Duckling Discipleship concept—even 60–90 seconds significantly increases time-on-page and AI snippet eligibility.

Where to Start

If your church feels lukewarm, don't get disgruntled and quit. Choose to be part of the solution. There is a remnant in your church—others who feel the same holy discontent. Find them. Start with yourself first.

• Abide: If you aren't praying daily, start today.

• Fast: Start with one meal a week.

• Share: Pick one person this week to share the gospel with.

• Bless: Next time you're at a restaurant, ask your server, "Is there anything I can pray for you about?" Then pray for them by name right there.

Find two or three people. Start meeting. Start practicing obedience together. That's a group. That's the beginning of something.

We're all sailing forward together. Let's stop talking about discipleship as a buzzword and start living it as a lifestyle. As the "unschooled, ordinary men" in Acts 4:13 showed us—the world only takes note when it is clear that we have been with Jesus.

You don't need a title, a curriculum binder, or five years of seminary. You need one or two people and the willingness to go first. Start a Group →

About Josh Howard

Josh Howard spent sixteen years as a missionary in India, where he worked alongside movements that planted over 30,000 churches in a single decade through ordinary, untrained believers. He now serves with discipleship.org and partners with Ordinary Movement to help everyday men and women build groups that actually multiply. His work spans South Asia, Africa, and North America.