It was a genius move by Ray Kroc to make cooking a hamburger and fries doable by anyone. He singlehandedly pioneered the fast food industry by refining hamburger-making into an easily replicable process.

If our disciplemaking methods are going to reach thousands and thousands of people in every walk of life, we need to learn a lesson from Ray Kroc and make them doable for everyday people. If teenagers in their first job can learn how to flip a burger, anyone can!

When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, His first response was not to do a study of all the prayers in the Old Testament (not that this wouldn’t be worthwhile at some point). See what Jesus did?

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

 ‘Father, hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins,

for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

And lead us not into temptation.’” (Luke 11:1-4)

Jesus then went on to tell them a story and share a couple principles that they’d be able to remember and pass along to others (Luke 11:5-13).

Why is it that certain disciplemaking tools have been around for decades and are still loved and useful? Why has the concept of a “quiet time” or 7 Minutes With God continued to be used by millions of believers? Or how about The Bridge to Life, the Four Spiritual Laws, or Lectio Divina?

It’s because all these things are pass-on-able and simple.

Effective disciplemaking is pass-on-able.

If the people we are discipling are going to disciple others, what we give them needs to be simple and easily replicable. (Please don’t hear me contradicting the lesson from my last blog post – we still need to stay relational and attentive to the particular needs of those we are helping spiritually!) But, if our discipleship tools and resources only work for us, our influence will die after one spiritual generation.

Let’s be creative, like Jesus, and come up with tools and methods that work for everyday people in the busyness of real life. Then they will be passed along for generations and years to come!

Have you ever been introduced to a method of spiritual growth that worked for the teacher or pastor, but did not fit with your current situation in life? How did you feel?

What methods or tools do you still use? What characterizes them?