What might a disciple-making movement look like among college students? Recently, RENEW.org’s point leader Bobby Harrington and editorial director Daniel McCoy caught up with two disciple-making leaders who are seeing disciple-making groups multiply effectively among college students and move beyond that to churches. Carl Williamson is a professor of discipleship and church planting at Harding University, and he and his wife Alicia helped Bobby write Trust and Follow Jesus, which is the discipling resource these groups start with. Grant Fitzhugh is the college minister for the College Church of Christ in Searcy, AR. Here’s what Carl and Grant had to say about what God is doing among college students.
Q. I’m so pleased that we get to interview you, Carl and Grant. You are seeing God grow college disciple-making groups into a movement. Tell us what’s happening because we want to give God the credit.
Carl: Well, what we’re seeing at Harding University is just an onslaught of disciple-making groups that are forming and multiplying, which is super exciting. We have over forty groups on campus right now, both men’s and women’s groups. And what’s exciting about this process is that some of these students are going to their local churches and doing disciple-making training there, so that groups are forming in those local churches. So, we’re seeing our on-campus groups multiplying, but also in churches in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Oregon, and California. What we’re seeing is the start of a network forming of disciple-making groups.
Q. What size is each group typically?
Carl: These groups are made up of four to five people. So, when they multiply, it makes it easy because two groups are now starting, each with at least two people from the original group. Many of these groups launched when we did trainings on campus where we encouraged people to come and hear how to start a group. Then, after a group has been together about a year and a half, it multiplies. So, what we’re seeing now is groups multiplying with leaders that don’t even know who Grant and I are.
Just last night at church, I met a young lady whom I didn’t know was in one of the disciple-making groups using the Trust and Follow Jesus manual for disciple making. We were just in a discussion at church talking about Jesus principles. And she said, “Let me tell you about my disciple-making group. I just shared my testimony with them, and I shared sins that I had never told anyone before.” She told us about what God was doing in her life through this disciple-making group. Again, she didn’t know I had helped launch these, and that’s a beautiful thing. God’s taking this way beyond myself and Grant.
“After a group has been together about a year and a half, it multiplies.”
Q. Grant, what are some things that you and the leadership in your congregation are doing to work toward a disciple-making culture in the college ministry?
Grant: When I started as a college minister two and a half years ago, I spent time wrestling through what it would look like for us to encourage a culture of disciple making, with Carl’s input. We realized that if our college group is going to have a disciple-making culture, we would need to get clear on what exactly a disciple is. We’ve adopted the definition that many churches are using, that a disciple of Jesus is somebody who’s following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and committed to the mission of Jesus.
Our college ministry then focuses on five convictions we should have as disciples that lead to a life sold out for King Jesus. We call them “GC5”: The Gospel of Christ gives us a Great Calling, which requires a Great Commitment to the Greatest Commands and the Great Commission. This is the language we use over and over to try to create a disciple-making culture.
Even yesterday, I had two different people come up and ask me about how they can start groups. They’re hearing about it from their friends who told them, “This group has been really impactful for me.” It’s a matter of talking about these convictions and living them out. People do that consistently, and it becomes a culture.
“It’s a matter of talking about these convictions and living them out. People do that consistently, and it becomes a culture.”
Q. Tell us some of the fruit you’re seeing in these groups.
Carl: We’ve been able to identify parts of Harding’s campus where individuals might be more likely to get involved in a disciple-making group. For example, we’re identifying individuals on sports teams and trying to encourage them to start disciple-making groups among those athletes. So, we’ve seen groups form on the football team, basketball team, etc.
The fruit we celebrate is always individual stories of people learning to follow Jesus.
So, for example, on the women’s softball team, there was a girl last year learning disciple-making principles and then sharing it on her team. One of the softball girls was asking her about her faith and was recently baptized.
There are three groups that have formed on the men’s basketball team with both non-Christians and Christians participating. What’s been really exciting is how one of the individuals starting these groups had a huge life transformation last year. So, as he’s become sold out for Jesus, he’s become a great disciple-maker. When he shares his testimony, it has created opportunities for him to invite his teammates to participate in these disciple-making groups.
It’s been so exciting to see students learning disciple-making principles and starting groups based on those principles. And those groups are leading not only to conversion, but also to maturity. Remember, Matthew 28:18-20 says that we are called to make disciples by going, baptizing, and teaching people to obey everything that He has taught us.
“Those groups are leading not only to conversion, but also to maturity.”
Q. What longings do these college students have that are being met in these disciple-making groups?
Grant: I think one thing is just the deep longing for relationship. College students often live in a world in which so many deep relationships can already happen right where they live (e.g., on campus). And it’s through those types of relationships that students are challenging each other and holding each other accountable to living for Christ.
Carl: The other day in one of my disciple-making groups, four of us guys were down on our knees praying together. We’re praying that God would send us people to train as disciple-maker makers. Lo and behold, that week two young adult students came into my office at Harding and said, “Hey, could you tell me about disciple making?” So, I walked them through how to start a disciple-making group, and at the end of it, I said, “You know, four of us guys were praying that God would send us somebody to train—and you’re here!” Later that day, another student came into my office and said, “Hey, tell me about these disciple-making groups.” I’d agree with Grant that these college students are longing for relationship, and they’re also seeing transformed lives and desiring that, too.
Q. As the groups are coming together, how important are the natural connections people already have?
Carl: Natural connections are huge. And that’s why you hear us saying that we train them how to start a group. We’re not the ones facilitating the groups, saying, “Here, you four get together. And you four get together.” We want this to be fueled by prayer and the Holy Spirit using the relationships they already have.
We see that Jesus, before he chose his twelve apostles, spent the entire night in prayer. These groups don’t start with me or Grant brainstorming and logistically thinking about who needs to be in what group. First, again, it starts on our knees in prayer. And then whenever people ask us about starting groups, we say, “Let me walk you through how to start a group because you probably already have people that you are already doing life with.” Then you add some intentionality, and it becomes an intentional disciple-making relationship.
We don’t want these groups to be such that the only time they ever talk is that one hour that they get together during the week. Jesus was doing life with his disciples.
So, we don’t really have sign-up sheets for these groups. We don’t piece them together ourselves. We want them to be led by the Holy Spirit. We want to see the providence of God putting people together.
“We want to see the providence of God putting people together.”
An example of this is my wife who was at church connecting with a non-Christian woman who was there asking questions about Jesus and Scripture. My wife went home that night and felt this nudge from the Holy Spirit that someone really needed to invite this woman into a disciple-making group. She clearly needed some relationality and intentionality in order for her to find strong, true faith in Jesus. Then eventually, it dawned on my wife that she needed to invite the woman into a disciple-making group. So, my wife invited her into a disciple-making group with two other women from church. Just a few weeks ago, this woman was baptized into Christ.
And it’s not a matter of letting her go now that she’s become a Christian. It’s continuing to train her to have mature faith, which is an integral part of these disciple-making groups.
Q. Carl, tell us a little bit about your role at Harding University. It’s not your job to start all these groups, yet it’s coming out of the overflow of your heart for the students. Tell us about that.
Carl: Yeah, this is really an overflow of what God is doing and has done in the past. I was part of two church plants in New Jersey. My wife and I were praying for God’s direction with our next move. I said, “You know, I would probably take a job where I was teaching the Bible but also able to train people to be disciple makers and church planters. But that job doesn’t exist.” We kept praying about it, and eventually she said, “Well, what if we just wrote down a job description?”
So, that’s what we did. Two days later, somebody called me from Harding University and said, “We’re creating this new job. And we’re not sure what the job description would be.” I said, “I’ll send something to you in the next thirty minutes.” So, I typed what we had written down and sent it. And that became the job that I’m doing at Harding now.
So, I believe God has sent me here to make disciples who make disciples who plant churches. And so, it really is a move of God.
“I believe God has sent me here to make disciples who make disciples who plant churches.”
But part of that job description from several years ago that we prayerfully wrote down was that I had to be in the classroom, teaching the Bible, and connecting with students who are not Christians. Not everybody at Harding is a Christian. I had to be in the classroom enough to where I could invite myself into relationship with someone to then say, “Hey, would you be interested in being a part of a disciple-making group where we learn to follow King Jesus together?” This is the same thing that people can do in their workplace. We have to be close enough in connection and relationship where we then feel the call of the Holy Spirit to say something.
If I were to add something, I would want all of you to know that you can be part of God’s mission here in North America of making disciples who make disciples. Grant and I call those people disciple-maker-makers. The amazing part of God’s story at Harding is watching students go and train others and participate in God’s mission. We have had students train their youth groups, leadership teams in large churches, and small rural churches that are struggling to grow. The reality that God is still at work in our world and that his Word does not come back empty has been a powerful reminder to us of how the Holy Spirit is at work on Harding’s campus. Every week we hear stories of God answering prayers and we see how He is on the move.
