Biblical Discipleship in Large Groups

Editor’s note: Ministry takes place in a variety of settings: one-on-one, small groups, large groups, camps/retreats. Each contributes differently to a students’s spiritual growth and brings different challenges, too. This month’s series “Contexts of Discipleship” will help you think through the ways you can better understand your context in order to disciple youth into lifelong faith.

Making disciples is the call of every Christian. Training believers in Christ how to follow Christ by becoming like Christ is the expectation for all who claim the title “Christian.” Discipleship, then, should be an essential focus of our student ministries. But how do we do that well? 

Conversations about discipleship at church tend to focus on emphasizing the small. How do we “do discipleship?” Small groups. One-on-Ones. Table talks. Connecting people. If we want to move away from a gimmick-laden attractional model, then conventional wisdom might lead us to do away with anything resembling a large group monologue. “Discipleship” will become primarily conversational, dialogical, and something that is formed as a group rather than authoritative, deliverable, or from a single source. But is that entirely biblical? 

Foundations for Large Group Teaching

Think about your small group Bible study. You gather around on couches and dig into a text, seeking insight through discussion. That’s not problematic whatsoever. But what’s the text you’re reading? If it’s a Pauline epistle, it was more than likely originally intended to be read by someone as a sermon to a large group. The parables of Jesus? Large group teaching. The Torah, the Sermon on the Mount and the other four large discourses in Matthew, most of the speeches in Acts, the majority of the prophetic books, almost all of these were meant to be read to a large audience as a monologue. 

While focused, attentive, dialogical discipleship opportunities are incredibly biblical, so is the example we get from the majority of Scripture about large group teaching as a way of moving and shaping the heart. The Bible is full of examples of large groups of God’s people being addressed and challenged together. 

Approaching Large Group Teaching

But that’s not usually what your church leadership is asking for when they’re asking for your “discipleship strategy.” If you answer, “preaching and teaching the Word,” they’ll more than likely reframe the question to be “but how are you going to make that smaller or more personal?” There’s no ill intent in that question. It should drive you to make sure that your large group teaching opportunities break the traditional stereotype of becoming impersonal declarations. Instead, they become opportunities to build disciples of the living Word from the teaching of the written Word. 

When you are doing this well, it opens natural opportunities to make your teaching “smaller” because it engages your students personally. Practically speaking, this means teaching in a way that targets the heart, soul, mind, and strength; in short, large-group teaching should address your students’ whole being (Mark 12:30).  

Biblical Examples of Large Group Teaching

That command to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and might shows up, not coincidentally, from a giant discourse from Moses. It immediately follows the shema, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4-5). The instruction starts with hearing. The primary way we grow in Christ is by listening to what is foundational and true. 

Give attention to the way God has revealed himself (sometimes letting guys like Moses monologue about it for a bit) and let it affect you. Let it stir you to follow the commands God has given to those who desire a relationship with Him. Let the Bible’s teachers teach you how. What follows in that discourse of Moses is a fountain of application to the heart (the moral law), soul (instructions for worship and reverence), and strength (laws of love towards your neighbor and of diligent work). Many passages of Scripture model how to instruct large groups of people in a meaningful and effective way, shaping the heart, soul, and strength.

But what about the mind? Many times, due to a lack of intellectual depth in youth ministry contexts, we can overcorrect by teaching the mind at the expense of the other three categories. But that isn’t biblical discipleship either! Consider the large group teachings from Paul, or the sermons of Peter, or the discourses of Jesus in Matthew. Once again, there is no shortage of explanation for the mind, stirring the affections of the heart, doxologies for the soul, and commands and instruction for our strength. The examples of large group teaching throughout Scripture are balanced, integrated approaches to crafting disciples of Christ. 

Balancing Your Large-Group Teaching

If your large group teachings are primarily intellectual, you may be creating a disciple with one exceedingly strong limb out of four. Admittedly, this is where I tend to reside if I’m not being intentional in my own preaching and teaching. If your approach is largely affective, emotional appeals, you’re also only targeting one limb. If you are emphasizing doxology, that’s another limb. If your teaching is one verse with 200 applications, that’s still, you guessed it, only one limb. And when you’re only strong in one quarter of discipleship, you tend to create wonky disciples. 

Teach only to the mind and you’ll create trivial nitpickers, or Pharisees. Teach only the affections and you’ll likely create antinomians, who rely on their efforts instead of God’s grace. Teach only doxology and you’ll likely create soul-stirred heretics who feel deep things about God that may not even be true. Teach only application and you’ll have some grade A legalists, pursuing their self-righteousness as they keep track of all the ways they are “living for God.” It is only when all four elements are targeted consistently that you’re building disciples who look like their savior.

Learning From Large Group Teaching

Thanks be to God that he has given us many Scriptural examples that appeal to all four! If your interpretation and teaching of these texts are accurate, you’re guaranteed to reach the heart, soul, mind, and strength of your students. You’re also going to begin to identify your own particular “over-strengthened quarter,” and that one you’ve neglected to exercise. Don’t beat yourself up too much, but find opportunities to read and hear from preachers and teachers in the past that favor your weaknesses and learn from them. Need some mind work? Listen to some Tim Keller. Need some affections stirred? Billy Graham can show the way. Need a bit of doxology? Read some Augustine or Gregory of Nazianzus. Weak on application? Listen to Mark Dever or Bryan Chapell. 

In addition, find older saints in your church who tend toward your areas of weakness. Learn strength from the do-it-yourself deacon who is always asking for application points. Learn doxology from the worshipful saint enraptured by Sunday morning songs and prayers. Learn affection from the greeter who knows the names and struggles of everyone who walks through the door. And that person walking through the church door with a Greek New Testament and a dog-eared copy of Reformed Dogmatics, grow your mind with them. Ask how they strengthen these aspects in their own lives and grow with them! Don’t be surprised if your teaching starts to sound like your teachers. Then, watch your students grow into the image and likeness of these saints as they grow in the image and likeness of their Savior.