Deep Discipleship: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus

by J.T. English

Everyone is being discipled. The question what is discipling us?  
 
The majority of Christians today are being discipled by popular media, flashy events, and folk theology because churches have neglected their responsibility to make disciples. But the church is not a secondary platform in the mission of God; it is the primary platform God uses to grow people into the image of Jesus. Therefore, as church leaders, it is our primary responsibility to establish environments and relationships where people can be trained, grow, and be sent as disciples. 
 
There are three indispensable elements of
Deep Discipleship equips churches to reclaim the responsibility of discipling people at any point on their journey.
 

Genres: Discipleship, Christian, Christian Living, Theology, Church, Nonfiction, Leadership

213 pages, Hardcover

Published September 29, 2020

About the author

J. T. English, PhD, is an author and teacher, and currently serves as the lead pastor of Storyline Fellowship in Arvada, CO. Previously, JT served as a pastor at The Village Church in Flower Mound, TX, where he founded and directed The Village Church Institute, which is committed to theological education in the local church. He received his ThM in Historical Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and PhD in Systematic Theology from Southern Seminary. He is married to Macy English, and they have two children, Thomas and Bailey.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5. A needed book.

Churches shouldn’t just ask, “How do we keep disciples?” They should ask, “How do we grow disciples?”

It begins by raising the bar.

[Jared Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. Chapter 5 on How Disciples Grow is alone worth the price of the book.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve read on making fully-formed disciples of Jesus in the local church. We don’t outsource discipleship.

[Temi Agbaje · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book and will be using it as a resource! It’s both spiritually and practically helpful! I’m challenged to start thinking deeper (see what I did there) about what it means to raise up disciples who have a deep love for God and His people! A note about this book, it’s more of a book that leans more toward “practical”, but nonetheless still very helpful!

[Natalie Herr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just 'yes-and-amen'ed my way through this whole thing. A strategic approach to recovering learning environments in the church that will develop Christians and send them out on mission in their homes, workplaces, neighborhoods and churches? Yes, yes, yes.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about designing discipleship spaces aimed at not just knowing Jesus but in making clear what is required of disciples. The God-ordained space for this is the local church. English doesn't shy away from creating education-drive spaces where learning is the highest stated value (not fellowship or something else) and where dissonance is created and leveraged for the sake of learning. This would be a great work for an elder team to work through if there was a new lead pastor coming into the church, or as a way to really evaluate the trellis aspect of church ministry.

[Caleb Batchelor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too programmatic for my discipleship tastebuds. Love the recovery of classes in the church's discipling ministry, but I don't like the weight placed on them. Not much talk about church members asking other church members to read the Bible or other good books with them. Not much discussion about elders having oversight and care of individual members. But a lot of talk about setting up different levels of classes. Good ideas. Just not jazzed about how hard he braces against them.

[Emma Wissman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who is hungry to see a culture of deep discipleship in the local church, this book was unbelievably refreshing. It answered a lot of questions I’ve had about what a church’s philosophy of ministry should look like in regards to discipleship/how disciples are developed in the context of the local church. Plus all of the principles in this book can be scaled down for smaller church plants which I really loved. This book gives me so much hope that deep disciples can be made in all types of local churches, from megachurches to brand new church plants.

Highly recommend for any church/ministry leaders who want to learn more about what a healthy discipleship structure in the local church could look like!

[Caleb Purdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my new favorite book on discipleship. J.T. English demonstrates how we can practice both personal and corporate discipleship in the church. The best part is that it’s actually applicable to any church.

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. An absolutely necessary read for anyone interested in any level of local church leadership, vocational or otherwise. I think my excitement caused a smile on my face the entire time I read it.

[Jennifer Squire]

JT wrote this book in the same accessible way I’ve grown accustomed to learning from him on Knowing Faith podcast. I appreciated learning in a concise, orderly, and strategic way. While it was easy to read in access, the content is deeply challenging and at times I selfishly admit that I wished I had remained ignorant. I’m thankful he is calling the church to deep and holistic discipleship and makes this material incredibly practical for all believers.

[Alexander Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really practical and helpful book about discipleship in the church. Found myself thinking about many of the principles laid out here throughout the work day. Must read for any pastor!

[Daniel Bouchoc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book.

His framework is excellent and simple—an ideal to strive for. Having pre-work, discussion, and output as part of the teaching paradigm is excellent and lacking in most discipleship I have been a part of.

My big critique is that the book lacks family discipleship and his overall structure doesn't correlate neatly with the family structure. You can make it correlate, but it didn't seem to have a significant influence on the author. His framework is basically that the church will cover all the basis, rather than the church as the framework the family imitates with the Father as priest in his home and channeling discipleship to that pathway. If the family doesn't prioritize the church (rather emphasizing sports, activities, vacations, etc), then the framework will mostly work for singles or older couples. I still find the framework really helpful, and plan to use it with my own emphasis on the family structure.

I think the question of time and business is a big hurdle in discipleship. The author touched on this in the last chapter, but it wasn't extremely helpful. In our culture addressing this might be a first step in a discipleship pathway.

[Nate Jacques · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has done a marvelous job at sparking thoughts on discipleship. I think his reasoning and philosophy behind discipleship is excellent, but the way he suggests implementing it is obviously influenced by his specific context. It is as if he has built a spectacular engine, but I struggle to support the direction he drives the car simply because of major contextual differences.

I specifically love his vision for discipleship, emphasis on the church, and the general needs of people. However, he is rather blunt in his assertions at times, which betrays his context quite a bit. Overall, he provides an excellent and well rounded approach to discipleship. I loved this work and recommend it to all, so long as they take into account their own context and apply their knowledge of their own people.

[Jake Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

JT English effectively takes a macro and micro-scale perspective of how a church of any size, budget, or location, could grow in its width and depth of developing disciples.
From his past experience of founding and facilitating The Village Church Institute, English constantly reorients his readers back to concerns that should be on the church’s mind, like how the local church can grow disciples, rather than simply maintain them. The importance of the local church in investing in disciples for teaching and sending is emphasized on just about every other page, and serves as a great reminder that the local body is responsible for building up the next generation of disciples to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

[Grant Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read this book once several years ago and most of the content seemed fairly self-explanatory. The suggested ministry philosophy made sense and I assumed that many churches had already adopted this kind of approach to developing disciples. Reading it this time, I was much more aware of how rarely churches functionally view Christ-likeness as the end goal of their ministry programming & efforts. So often, conversion or even mere crowd-building subtly become a church’s functional end goal, resulting potentially in masses knowing about Jesus (which is good) but few consistently growing to be more like him (which is better). Only 4 stars because of writing style, but I would recommend this book for every church or ministry leader.

[Will Imfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one will have me thinking and strategizing for the rest of this year lol. I love concrete ideas and this book provided some incredibly practical and penetrating insights into discipleship culture in a church…. What is the goal of discipleship? Where should discipleship be happening in the Church? What do disciples need? How do disciples grow? Where do disciples go?

[Cole Ragsdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid on round #2 //

Terrific.

A practical guide to create a culture of deep discipleship in the local church. So many of his diagnostic questions resonated with my own experience—for example, why did I have to go to seminary to learn the basics of the faith?

Bible. Beliefs. Spiritual formation.

Will be curious how to implement this in my own context.

The heart cannot love what the mind does not know. - Jen Wilkin

Doctrine is for everyone.
The Bible is for everyone.

The goal is not knowledge. The goal is participation.

If I don’t describe my wife properly, do I actually know her? Do I actually love her? Same with God.

Creeds. Confessions. Catechism.

Knowledge leads to faithfulness and fruitfullness. We cannot be faithful and fruitful to a God we do not know.

“We shout doctrine in the light so we can whisper it in the dark”

“Disciples will never rise to an expectation the church does not set” 133

[Holly]

I’m not really sure how to feel about this book. It had a lot of good ideas on how the church as a whole can build deeper disciples—not on how we can grow individually as disciples which is what I thought it would be. Most of the ideas revolved around structured classes and things that are not really available for me. However, it was interesting to see the situation that religious people (of any degree) are in currently and that the goal should be to raise the bar and not lower it. I think it may have given me tips to talk to those people in my life—maybe. Overall it was a short and easy read, but I’m not sure I would recommend it.

[Kevin Choate · Rating 5 out of 5]

English provides a great blueprint for churches to think intentionally about their ministry practices. As someone who is a deep believer in process-oriented strategies, English lays out a thoughtful approach to develop disciples who are actively following Christ. Great read and helps church leaders process any gaps in their discipleship model.

[Colin Fast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dang good.

[Erin Loper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book both encouraging and thought-provoking. One of the biggest takeaways for me was English’s reminder that people often thrive under more expectations, not less—something I’ve seen in my own life and that echoes research in The Culture Code.

That said, I do have a couple of reservations. The book seemed to lean heavily on knowledge acquisition as the primary pathway for discipleship. While English pushes back on this at points, the repeated emphasis on biblical “illiteracy” made it feel like knowing doctrine was the main mark of maturity. I worry that a newer believer might walk away thinking they don’t belong in “deep discipleship” if theology feels intimidating. Or even Christian maturity is out of reach for those less “resourced.”

I also found his critique of parachurch ministries a bit one-sided. While I understand his desire to re-center the local church in discipleship, parachurch groups have played a vital role in many people’s faith journeys (including his own). The tension here felt underdeveloped and overly hostile— especially given his own conversion within a parachurch ministry.

Overall, I wouldn’t universally recommend this book, but I did gain helpful insights that I’ll carry into my own discipleship contexts.

[Ethan McCreary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep Discipleship widened my perspective of the process of discipling, particularly through the lens of scope and sequence. For example, Discipleship groups are a wonderful tool in the local church, but is that tool alone enough to cover the entire discipling need of the church? Probably not. The whole idea of “discipling your next pastor” was eye opening as a question to gauge current discipling structures.

English does an excellent job giving a defense for the end goal of discipleship - to know God intimately. Following this, to build discipleship pathways to meet that objective.

Overall, I was encouraged by this read and look forward to implementing more holistic discipleship philosophies into our church and build further existing disciples.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

J.T. English does a fantastic job of explaining an effective and achievable model of discipleship for local churches in an accessible way. Not only does he provide a helpful framework for thinking through discipleship, he provides an actual strategy for implementing discipleship in your church in a structured, effective way. It seems that the method English presents in this book can be very fruitful in sending mature Christians into local churches, families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and to the nations. I think this book should be read by everyone in any kind of leadership role in their local church for consideration.

[Pamela Kilzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so convicting, powerful and insightful! I learned so much and really feel on fire for Christian discipleship again (something that so easily falls to the wayside in our day-to-day lives). I’ve listened to J.T. English on the Knowing Faith podcast before, but reading this book just reaffirmed my admiration of him. I thought he presented his arguments in a clear, concise, well-written and extremely thought-out way. “Deep Discipleship” is applicable both to layman individuals and megachurch pastors. I’m really excited to implement a lot of his thoughts, and can’t wait to see the effects they have in my own life and in my church’s life.

[Brian Pate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read, but very good. English presents a strategy for a discipleship ministry in the local church.

- Where should this happen? The church needs distinct spaces for learning (e.g., Sunday School) and community (e.g., small groups).
- What should we teach? A scope that includes Bible, doctrine, and spiritual disciplines.
- What is the pathway of maturity? Learning spaces for everyone (e.g., Bible studies), disciple makers (e.g., Bible institute), and leaders (e.g., residency).
- Where do we send disciples? To make more disciples in the church, home, work, and around the world.

"We cannot plant healthy, multiplying churches among the unreached until we have healthy, multiplying disciples among ourselves" (p. 179).

[Thomas Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. English argues that to make disciples/apprentices of Jesus, they need to be taught: Bible + Christian Beliefs + Christian Habits/Practices.

In order to do this in the church we need: Community environments + Teaching environments ->
* "community is indispensable to discipleship but community is not discipleship. We cannot be disciples of Christ outside the context of community. However, we can be in community that is not teaching us to be disciples of Christ. Just because we get people into community does not mean we discipling them" (p83)
* Churches today "are expecting the classroom to do what the living rooms do best, and the living room to do what the classroom does best" (p92)

Therefore, the discipleship model should be: weekly weekend services + weeknight community groups + weeknight teaching spaces ->
* "We had a lot of environments that had the highest stated purpose of community (small groups) and almost no environments where the highest stated value was learning" (p77)
* "one of the key elements of local churches making disciples is the retrieval of learning environments" (p185)

4 stars because ->
* I believe its a new insight which will be very beneficial if adopted in church
* it helpfully nuances & enhances the normal model that most churches adopt for christian discipleship
* its a very accessible read
* but I finished thinking he could have written a more in-depth exploration of the theological foundation of his thesis
* and you could tell this was also written by a pastor/preacher because it could be very repetitive, and erred on sloganeering at times.

[Emma Hinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book about the importance of deep discipleship and practical ways the church can foster that. It's a book more geared towards church leaders but as a small group leader I definitely learned a lot.

[EmmaJulia Edsall · Rating 3 out of 5]

The great commission outlines discipleship as an integral part of the Christian life. While most would argue for the necessity of discipleship, most would also agree that it is often neglected. This book offers an "ideal" for discipleship that I heartily agree with. However, it can only be implemented by leaders in a church and would require the complete restructuring of church life.

[Ethan Moehn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most helpful books I've ever read in terms of philosophy of ministry. If I had to recommend one book on 'making disciples', it would be this one. English is not only theologically astute, he effectively draws from his own experience in local church based discipleship.