Disciple making is not merely about transferring knowledge but about fostering transformation, building faithful followers of Christ, and equipping them to multiply. To achieve this, equippers and disciple-makers must intentionally integrate the WHAT, HOW, and WHY into their teaching, equipping, and disciple-making. These components provide a holistic approach that ensures clarity and retention, fosters engagement, and inspires lasting impact.

The WHAT: Defining the Core Message

The WHAT is the foundation of disciple making. It answers the question, What are we teaching? For the disciple-maker, this involves discerning and clearly articulating the core truths, principles, and actions that learners need to understand and embrace.

• Purpose: To establish clarity and focus by defining the content of disciple making.

• Key Question: What is the central truth(s) or principle(s) that learners need to grasp?

Role of the Disciple-Maker:

A disciple-maker is a steward of truth, tasked with carefully curating and communicating content that is both thorough and ample in scope and sequence. This means ensuring that essential concepts are not only covered but also organized in a way that builds understanding progressively. The disciple-maker goes to great effort to be precise and comprehensive, stripping away distractions and focusing on the core message. This clarity enables learners to anchor their understanding and engage deeply with the truth.

The HOW: Building Proficiency and Engagement

The HOW bridges knowledge and action. It addresses the strategies, methods, and steps through which disciples engage with the core message(s). For the disciple-maker, this involves creatively presenting the material in ways that are are memorable, relatable, and reproducible—while also ensuring that learning is interactive, experiential, and adaptable to different learners.

• Purpose: To equip learners with practical tools and processes—mental, emotional, relational, and experiential—for living out the truth in daily life.

• Key Question: How can this teaching be applied in a way that resonates deeply and can be passed on?

Role of the Disciple-Maker:

A disciple-maker is both a teacher and a facilitator, ensuring that learning is not just received but embodied and practiced. This requires:

• Diverse learning modalities: Engaging visual, auditory, kinesthetic, interpersonal and reflective learners.

• Pacing based on learners' needs: Adjusting depth, speed, and at time focus, to match understanding, retention and other needs of learners.

• Various group formats: Using various groupings, such as one-on-one mentoring, small group discussions, and larger communal learning, to deepen engagement and accountability.

• Discovery-based learning: Facilitating active exploration of Scripture to extract truths and revelation. Through this process learners grow in drawing out insights from Scripture, as the only reliable source of knowledge and as God's ultimate and final authority through which everything else can be weighed and tested.  

• Interactivity and hands-on experiences: Using small group discussion, practice, and immersive exercises that go beyond passive listening.

• Real-life application: Creating opportunities for learners to practice and integrate what they are learning in real-world contexts.

The leader not only communicates content but equips learners with reproducible methods and strategies. This ensures disciples experience transformation and are able to pass on what they have learned to their own, future disciples, creating a ripple effect that extends beyond the individual and into their communities.

The WHY: Cultivating Motivation and Perspective

The WHY provides the deeper purpose and motivation behind disciple making. It connects the WHAT and HOW to the greater narrative of God’s kingdom, inspiring learners to engage not just out of duty but from a heart aligned with Christ’s.

• Purpose: To inspire and sustain engagement by connecting actions to God’s eternal purposes.

• Key Question: Why does this truth or practice matter in God’s plan and in our lives?

Role of the Disciple-Maker:

The leader nurtures intrinsic motivation by showing how each teaching fits into God’s redemptive plan and connecting them to ultimate goals of disciple making. This perspective helps disciples engage with purpose and joy, sustaining their growth even through challenges.

Integrating the Framework

When the WHAT, HOW, and WHY are integrated, discipleship becomes a dynamic and transformative process. It provides a clear path for learners to:

1. Understand Core Truths (WHAT) – Grasp the foundational message or practice being taught.

2. Engage with Effective Practices (HOW) – Learn, apply and embody practical steps to live out the truth.

3. Embrace God’s Purpose (WHY) – See the eternal significance of their actions and align their hearts with Christ’s.

A Reproducible Vision for Disciple-Making

The ultimate goal of disciple making is not just to teach but to equip disciples to become disciple-makers themselves. By focusing on the WHAT, HOW, and WHY, leaders ensure that the process is not only transformative for individuals but also reproducible for generations to come.

This framework empowers disciple-makers to:

1. Plan intentionally – Identify core messages, effective methods, and motivating purposes.

2. Teach and empower creatively – Use engaging techniques and provide adequate support that resonate and inspire.

3. Equip purposefully – Ensure disciples can confidently pass on what they’ve learned, how and why they learned it.

By following this guide, disciple-makers fulfill the Great Commission, building a community of Christ-followers who live, love, and lead in alignment with God’s will.