2026 Personal Discipleship Plan
Here at the start of the year we’re doing our yearly discipleship check-in and planning process, which we call the Personal Discipleship Plan. You’ll notice that the plan looks a little different this year from last year, but the intent is the same, to give you a tool designed to help you grow in following Jesus this year.
Need digital versions of our discipleship resources? Personal Discipleship Plan | 30-Day Devotional
Below is a guided discussion for your community group to work through your individual Discipleship Plans. You’ll notice that we will, for the most part, simply discuss outlaid the reflection questions from the plan itself, with one or two adjustments and a little message for you to read to set up the discussion. It will be most fruitful if folks have had a chance to fill out their plan ahead of time, and it’ll be most helpful for everyone if you shoot out a message asking your folks to complete their plan before your CG discussion. You’re welcome to bring blank copies to group for anyone who might need it.
To ground it in the Scripture, our discipleship plan and discussion is all before the backdrop of our yearlong thematic verse Luke 9:23-24:
Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.”
This is optional, but if your discussion would feel bare without a reading from God’s word, feel free to read Luke 9:23-24 after the prayer below.
Discussion
Intro
– To get started, take a moment to pray for the whole Discipleship Plan process, that God would use it to meet with each of us and grow us closer to him.
– After you pray, Eric would love for you to read this paragraph out loud:
Hey everyone! This is a little note from Eric (the discipleship pastor at Downtown). I wanted to say, before y’all get started with your discipleship plan discussion, that my deepest hope is for this whole process to simply be a tool to help you grow in your discipleship to Jesus. That’s my hope not because this discussion, or any attempt to organize discipleship, is sufficient in and of itself, but because Jesus is more than capable of taking our imperfect and incomplete attempts at following him and making them into something real and lasting. Where this plan is helpful, well and good; where it gets in the way, modify it or do something else. Whatever you do, in all things press on toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Shoot me an email if I can answer any questions or help with anything at all. (eric.spivey@vintagenc.com)
Know
– Under Knowing the Gospel, what does your engagement in these practices currently look like?
– How would you like to grow in Knowing the Gospel this year?
Live
– Under Living the Gospel, what does your engagement in those practices currently look like?
– How would you like to grow in Living the Gospel this year?
Advance
– Under Advancing the Gospel, what does your engagement in these practices currently look like?
– How would you like to grow in Advancing the Gospel this year?
Wrapping up
– Having worked through the above three sections, what do you hope for your relationship with God and discipleship to Jesus this year?
– The last box on that page asks you who you will share this plan with. How do you think we can help each other in our discipleship growth this year?
– Now take a moment to close in prayer. Ask that God would use our discipleship plans, that he would add to it or simplify it however he sees fit, and that he would work in our lives in whatever way he pleases.