Discipleship Spurs Church Growth

Pastor Francisco Limón was convinced that churches can’t grow without discipleship programs.

Pastor Limón (in orange shirt) with others interested in church planting.

So he began training nearly 40 members of his church in Veracruz, Mexico, to disciple others.

Last summer, he used resources from a Multiplication Network Ministries (MNM) church-planting conference to revise and strengthen his discipleship program.

“Our hope was that we could start eight new small groups to provide pastoral care to the church,” says Limón.

But the people in the first discipleship group started leading other groups. Within three months, 110 people—many of whom were new to the church—had joined 18 groups, causing Limón’s church to consider starting another church.

To help create “More Churches, Stronger Churches” across Latin America, MNM provides church planters with resources and training. Church planters learn about discipleship, evangelism, church ministries, spiritual disciplines, accountability, inductive Bible studies, and more.

MNM recently signed agreements with the Church of God and the National Presbyterian Church, two of Mexico’s large denominations, to support church-planter trainings.

“The focus is always on training others who then can train others, so there is a huge ripple effect,” says Ben Meyer, a Christian Reformed World Missions missionary and MNM’s Mexico coordinator.

Years ago, people told Pastor Limón that only new churches could expand. Old churches were full of problems. But he’s seen God renew the vision of older churches for evangelism.

Quoting a church planter, he comments, “Church multiplication can be done with low costs and high impacts . . . because it’s God who is allowing us to fulfill the work that he has commissioned us to do.”