Efficiency of Discipleship

A lot of models for spiritual growth within churches involve a primary teacher and a group of people who sit around and listen. Obviously, those environments have some significant benefits: they usually use the gifts of a "master teacher" who has invested a significant amount of time planning and can be more easily held accountable for the validity of his message. Also, they ensure the entire group is being led in a similar direction. Those environments are critical for keeping everyone on the same page.

However, if your goal is truly spiritual growth, smaller environments will always yield better results. In fact, rather than a person sitting under a master teacher for their spiritual growth, people will grow more as soon as they can become the master teacher for someone else.

William Glasser did some studies in the area of retention and learning styles and estimates that we remember:

10% of what we read

20% of what we hear

30% of what we see

50% of what we see and hear

70% of what we discuss with others

80% of what we experience personally

95% of what we teach to someone else

If you really want someone to grow, simply hearing the message is horribly inefficient. Instead, put them in an environment where they are responsible for teaching someone else.

That's why the discipleship model works so well.