From Strong Programs to Multiplying Generations
Gloria Dei Lutheran Church already had gifted leaders, meaningful ministries, and an active congregation. The deeper question was whether people were moving beyond participation to become confident disciple-makers who could help others follow Jesus.
The church was active. The challenge was multiplication.
Gloria Dei Lutheran Church had many genuine strengths: gifted pastors and staff, strong worship, Bible studies, small groups, mission involvement, committed volunteers, and people who sincerely wanted to follow Jesus.
The problem was not a lack of ministry activity. The deeper challenge was determining whether the church’s ministry systems were consistently helping ordinary disciples grow in Christlike character, understand their calling, and reproduce that life in someone else.
Staff and key volunteers still carried much of the ministry responsibility. Programs could gather people and provide valuable content, but the church needed a clearer pathway from participation to transformation—and from transformation to leadership and multiplication.
The question became more personal and urgent: How can we thrive in disciple multiplication?
“Before Disciples Made, we were good at gathering people into programs. Now we have a clearer pathway for helping people grow in character, live their calling, and begin discipling others.”
Success had to mean more than attendance.
Gloria Dei began developing shared language and intentional environments that helped people understand discipleship as a life to be practiced and multiplied—not merely content to consume.
Start small. Pray first. Invite personally.
Rather than making a broad stage announcement or launching another open enrollment program, the first disciple-making experiment began through prayer and personal invitation.
Pray
The starting prayer was simple: “Jesus, who are You already preparing?”
Invite
Four men and six women were personally invited into the first experience.
Practice
Participants practiced Scripture, prayer, accountability, mission, and application in trusted community.
Multiply
Participants were gradually equipped to take ownership and disciple others.
Ordinary disciples began owning the mission.
The strongest evidence was not simply that people completed a course. It was that participants developed confidence, took responsibility for others, and began reproducing intentional disciple-making environments.
Stephen Solis
Stephen grew from participant into a trusted lay disciple-maker. He led a Followers Made group and continued developing through Leaders Made, demonstrating the ability to guide an intentional environment from launch through completion.
Travis McGrady
Travis stepped into disciple-making leadership and helped launch a Followers Made group alongside Pastor Randy, showing how ministry ownership could extend beyond professional staff.
Stephanie Knea
Stephanie’s investment multiplied to the third generation, providing one of Gloria Dei’s clearest examples that intentional disciple-making could reproduce beyond the original leader.
Sara Leimkuhler
Sara led four Followers Made groups and witnessed significant life transformation in the women she discipled. Her own confidence and identity as a disciple-maker grew with every group.
Sara discovered that her season of life was an opportunity—not a limitation.
As an empty nester and kindergarten teacher, Sara Leimkuhler could have assumed that disciple-making belonged primarily to pastors, ministry professionals, or people in a different season of life.
Instead, Sara stepped into intentional disciple-making and eventually led four Followers Made groups. She witnessed significant life transformation in the women she discipled while also experiencing transformation herself.
Sara’s story represents the larger cultural shift at Gloria Dei: ordinary followers of Jesus began recognizing that they were not merely recipients of ministry. They could become disciple-makers.
The change became visible in people, language, and generations.
Shared Language
Leaders gained clearer language for character, calling, impact, disciple-making, and multiplication.
Greater Ownership
Participants increasingly saw themselves as people capable of intentionally helping someone else follow Jesus.
Deeper Relationships
Smaller trusted environments created space for honesty, accountability, spiritual practice, and meaningful life transformation.
New Leaders
Leaders such as Stephen, Travis, Stephanie, and Sara emerged from within the congregation rather than depending exclusively on staff.
Reproducible Pathways
Experiences such as Followers Made and Leaders Made created a more intentional progression from being discipled to discipling others.
Multiplying Generations
The ministry moved beyond isolated transformation to demonstrate multiplication through at least the third generation.
Transformation does not automatically become multiplication.
Gloria Dei’s story is compelling because it is not an instant or overly polished success story.
People experienced meaningful growth, but some still hesitated to lead. Staff and systems did not always align at the same pace. Technology could support the work, but it could not replace trust, modeling, prayer, and patient relational investment.
One of the clearest lessons was that participation must come before leadership, and ownership must come before responsibility. People needed to experience intentional disciple-making before being expected to reproduce it.
The work was slower and less predictable than launching a program—but the fruit was deeper.
You do not need to start big. You need to start intentionally.
Discover your church’s current capacity for disciple multiplication and identify the clearest next step for developing leaders who can help others follow Jesus.
Case study published with church and participant approval.