"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." — Jesus
Every One Equipped To Serve
Healthy Churches need godly pastors equipping members for ministry. As every member uses their spiritual gifts, the body will grow and Christ will be glorified (Eph. 4, 1 Cor 12-14). We encourage each other towards Christ. We gather often to pray, feast, worship, and grow in God’s word. We share the gospel and strive to make disciples.
We are a Disciple-Making Community. Not a service. Not a club. A community of apprentices who follow Jesus and who are training others to follow Him too.
The Great Commission is our mission
After His resurrection, Jesus gave His church one job:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
— Matthew 28:18–20
This is the church's primary mission until Jesus returns. Everything we do — our gatherings, our households, our hospitality — exists to make and multiply disciples of Jesus.
Why we make disciples
- Jesus is worthy of the obedience of the nations.
- Jesus commanded us to make disciples.
- Disciple-making expands the Kingdom of God across cultures, generations, and geographies.
- Disciple-making is essential to how people are saved — faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ carried by His witnesses.
- God's strategy is multiplication, not addition. He didn't gather a crowd; He trained twelve.
Addition vs. multiplication
This is what makes disciple-making the best strategy the church could possibly adopt. The math is staggering:
Addition
365 new believers a year, over 32 years.
Multiplication
2 disciples making 2 disciples a year, who each make 2 disciples, over 32 years.
The same time, the same effort, very different fruit. This is why Jesus didn't just preach to crowds; He poured his life into twelve. Those twelve trained others, who trained others, who eventually trained us. We are a link in that chain — and we are determined that the chain keep going.
What disciple-making is
Our working definition:
Discipleship is the process of a follower of Jesus taking on an apprentice to train them how he or she follows Jesus.
Three things this means:
Process. Discipleship takes time — a season of life-on-life training, not a six-week class. Jesus spent three years with His disciples, teaching them to obey the Father with head, heart, and hands.
Apprenticeship. Jesus had twelve, with a tighter three and a wider seventy. He didn't lecture them from a stage; He invited them to follow Him so they could see how He prayed, how He loved, how He confronted sin, how He rested, and how He served. They learned by watching, asking, and doing.
Training others to obey Jesus in the ways you obey Him. We don't make people followers of us — we pass on what we've received from Jesus. We give away what we've been given.
Our season of discipleship
At Light House Church we invite people into a focused, six-month season of training. A typical season looks like this:
- A kickoff getaway. Two or three days away to set vision, share three milestones of our spiritual journeys, train, pray, and bind the group together.
- Twice-monthly group trainings. From a catalog of impartations — marriage, fatherhood, prayer, the household, walking by the Spirit, repentance, contentment, and more — each anchored in Scripture, testimony, and an activation.
- A monthly coaching or counseling meeting. One-on-one (or in pairs) to face reality, decide next steps, and pray together. Coaching helps you take ground; counseling helps you go deep.
- An open door. Sabbath dinners, morning devotions, life-on-life moments. The 1,000 little lessons that come from being together as a parent and child are together.
- A Discovery Bible Study. Each apprentice helps co-lead a group during the season, learning to teach by teaching.
- A sendoff getaway. A final commissioning to launch your own discipleship group when the season ends.
Disciples who make disciples
The aim is not to build a discipleship audience. The aim is to multiply disciple-makers. We talk about multiplication on the very first day of a season. We use tools that are simple enough to be passed on. We give assignments that practice multiplication early. The fruit always includes a seed.
And we count it — and we celebrate it. When a disciple of ours launches their own group, a new branch of the family begins.
Am I ready to make disciples?
The right question isn't Am I the most ideal disciple-maker? It's Am I mature enough in Christ to reproduce?
Like raising children, you don't need to be perfect to start. You need to be committed to Jesus, stable in your life, present to others, and willing to give away what you've received. If you're walking with Jesus and following Him in any area — prayer, marriage, fatherhood, work, generosity, rest — you have something to give.
Pray for names. We look for people who are FAITH:
- Faithful — they do the small things you ask them to do.
- Available — they will give time and bend their schedule.
- Initiative-taking — they push into the gap others won't.
- Teachable — they take what they hear and put it into practice.
- Hearted — their heart is clearly for God and for people.
If the Lord puts names on your heart, write them down. Take it to prayer. Then come talk with one of our pastors about your next step.