As the website states, "The Discipleship Pathway Assessment is an online assessment tool that allows individuals or groups to assess their current spiritual maturity. The survey asked church leaders to rank on a scale of 0-5 if they strongly disagreed or agreed with the statement, “I found the 8 biblical guides helpful in identifying spiritual maturity in my church.” They were then asked an open-ended question that allowed them to “share what they found helpful or did not find helpful about the 8 Biblical signposts metrics for measuring spiritual growth." The survey then had eight statements that the church leader could rank on a scale of 0-5 if they strongly disagreed or agreed with the usefulness of each signpost.
Go on to Maturity
William Lane focuses on this connection between training and the distinction between good and evil when he writes: “The presence of the participle γεγυμνασμένα. This “milk” they were to drink had to be “pure.” The Greek term is the negation of the word translated "deceit" in the previous verse, so the contrast between the two is intentional.
Mature in Faith
The focus of the passage is on the church's inner growth rather than on its mission to the world. The initial step of the development process was to identify and validate the functional characteristics of a disciple from literature in the field. Have an awareness of the reality and presence of God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit;.
A big part of the spiritual formation process is being a diligent student of God's word and having a hungry, learnable spirit. It often includes words and actions, but it goes beyond them to the focus of the mind and heart. Domain six represents the pursuit of the Triune God and the practice of worshiping Him.
One of the main reasons I live my life the way I do is to please and honor God. The fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control) is evidence of a genuine relationship with God. Sam Emadi writes in his book for new Christians: “The mission of the church is to make disciples of the Lord Jesus.
Thus, people must enter this path and walk in the footsteps of the Master.
Identify the Needs of Churches
One church leader in Canada who used the assessment over a three-year period stated that they decided to use the DPA because they “wanted to go deeper than just using anonymous measurements to know if their people were really maturing. A church leader in Kentucky said he used an assessment in the first year of his new role at the church to establish a baseline for spiritual health in the church and then built a discipleship plan based on the results. From these results, we can conclude that churches are more interested in fulfilling the need to discover the state of discipleship health in their church than the need to measure and track their discipleship strategy.
One of the more common phrases in the results and interviews was that churches are "looking for a starting point for where people are in their discipleship journey." DPA does not present itself to churches through name and website marketing. Rather, it identifies the spiritual maturity of individuals and consequently establishes a starting point of spiritual health in the individual's church.
Focusing on assessing the spiritual health of a church should change the way Lifeway talks about, markets and positions DPA to churches. If they focus on these three biggest needs and how the DPA meets those needs, I think it will help increase the utility of the tool because it sets realistic expectations for churches and helps them understand how to use the tool .
Determine the Usefulness of the DPA
Church leaders who agreed or strongly agreed that the DPA was helpful said it did so because it gave them objective, tangible data about where their people were in their walk with Christ and highlighted points of strong and weak in their people's discipleship journey. These churches were hoping to lay the foundation for the spiritual health of their church, and when it came to meeting that need, they found the DPS helpful. In an interview, the church leader shared that they created a Back to School campaign centered around DPS.
One of the best ways to determine how helpful a church found the DPA was to ask if they would recommend it to another church. Another caveat is that a common theme raised in the video interviews surrounding the discussion of utility was the ability to get church members to actually participate in the DPA. One of the best examples of this was Beulah Church, which has been using the DPA for over three years.
Even in the best year of participation, only 11 percent of their church met the DPA. Summarizing these results and interviews, even with these caveats, church leaders found DPA useful in their local church.
Evaluation of the 8 Biblical Signposts
To this end, question 10 asked at a high level whether the church "found the 8 Biblical Directions useful in identifying spiritual maturity in their church." The mean for this question was 4.15 while the standard deviation was 0.90. As the results show, churches generally more than agreed that they found the 8 Biblical Directions useful in measuring the spiritual maturity of their people. Another wrote: “I found it helpful that they measured what was actually practiced, not just stated beliefs.
I also found it helpful in identifying the 5 criteria for spiritual maturity that we will use as a church. Another church leader who is a pastor in Canada said the same thing: “The sign language is written in a very 'churchy' language. One church leader stated that it is “difficult to create a class and a growth plan for the Exponent of faith and life without shame.
It was difficult to understand exactly what these signposts cover and measure.” A few church leaders suggested linking the Signposts to a smaller number. With the results of these nine questions, one essay question, and the video calls, this goal was successfully accomplished and resulted in the determination of the 8 Biblical Signposts that are helpful to local churches in measuring the spiritual maturity of their people.
Evaluation of the DPA Next Steps
In all of these cases, these tailored Next Step initiatives were formulated on their own and not with the consultation of Next Steps that were offered after the DPA was taken by their church. Because of this, even with the average of 3.69, I would consider the next steps offered after the assessment to be below average in usability. Another simply wrote, "we didn't implement the next steps." Another manager said, "I asked participants to develop measurable goals for growth based on their revealed next steps."
Only one church leader rated Next Steps a 2 when it came to usefulness, and they wrote,. During the video call interviews, one church leader said that Next Steps are easy to miss and not easy to find. Another church leader stated that they wanted more actionable Next Steps for how churches can actually make changes on the ground.
With results from a survey question, an open-ended question, and video call interviews, this goal was successfully achieved and resulted in the determination that the Next Steps provided by DPSH are below average in clarity and usefulness. Because of this, this part of the DPA can again be thought of as an opportunity to share ideas and best practices for churches to create their next steps and action plans based on the results of their church's DPA .
Areas of Improvement for the DPA
This goal was measured by having church leaders who used the DPA select all the needs they sought to meet that applied to their church. This objective was considered to have been successfully achieved when all those given the opportunity to answer question 6 on the survey responded and all those given the opportunity to be interviewed responded to the question about the needs they had with the DPA wanted to meet With the results of these three questions, the open-ended responses and video call interviews, this goal was successfully achieved and led to the determination that the DPA is useful for local churches to develop spiritual maturity in individuals and the entire congregation. measure.
This goal was measured by having church leaders who had used DPA answer nine questions. With the results from the one survey question, an open question, and the video call interviews, this goal was successfully met and resulted in the next steps offered by the DPA being below average in clarity and usefulness. The fifth objective was to determine areas of improvement for DPA so that it is more useful in local churches.
This objective was considered met when all those who were given the opportunity to answer question 25 of the survey responded and all those who were given the opportunity to be interviewed answered the question about ways to improve the DPA. The major weakness of the project was the inability to get churches that had taken DPA and were on the contact list to respond to the survey request and complete the survey.
Would Do Differently
This project succeeded in its stated goal of measuring the usefulness of the Discipleship Pathway Assessment. The following survey was sent to buyers of the Discipleship Path Assessment to measure the usefulness of the Discipleship Path Assessment in the local church. The research you will be participating in is designed to help measure the usefulness of the Discipleship Pathway Assessment in your local church.
The following is the latest version of the Discipleship Pathway Assessment published by Lifeway Christian Resources. Hunt - Author of The Mind of Christ and The Doctrine of Prayer Mary Kassian - Professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of In My Father's House. Waldemar Morales Roca- Director of Guatemala Baptist Seminary Leonard Sweet- Professor at Drew University and author of The Gospel Among the Starbucks.
The following topic guide was used during the video call interviews with buyers of the DPA. An exploration of the relationship between a process-driven design for church ministry and church growth." EdD, dissertation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2005. MEASURING THE USEFULNESS OF THE DISCIPLESSHIP ASSESSMENT IN THE LOCAL CHURCH Chandler Keith Vannoy, DEdMin.
The chapters show why there is a need for an assessment tool that measures spiritual growth, while also compiling the research that has been collected to measure the usefulness of the DPA.
