This approach focuses on personal relationships whereby the pastor and other church leaders move others forward in the discipleship journey. Examples: mentoring and accountability relationships, apprenticeships.
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Audience
Those few church members and seekers who willingly commit to an ongoing relationship whose focus is on substantial life change and discipleship development.

Benefits
Many of the same benefits as the process-oriented approach, but deeper and more powerful results can be expected. There will be a very high level of discipleship growth among those few who agree to be discipled in this manner. The pastor (or other disciple maker) will grow through the process as well and will be more highly motivated once results are experienced.

Drawbacks
This is a slow process. A single believer can disciple only two to four people at a time. It will take time for the exponential factor to come into play as those who have been discipled begin to disciple others. Other church members might feel that the pastor is showing favoritism by spending unusually high amounts of time with those he is discipling.

Next Level
Thoughts for improving your person-oriented approach:

• Create a culture of personal discipleship by training leaders in how to form, maintain, and duplicate disciple-making relationships.
• Free up the pastor and other leaders to take time away from low-result disciplemaking activities and invest that time in one-on-one relationships.

Pulpit-oriented discipleship | Program-oriented discipleship | Process-oriented discipleship
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