Multiplying Disciples in the Local Church: A Conversation on Disciple-Making Movements with Joey McLaughlin
- Andrew Estes
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
How Elevate City Church is integrating Sunday gatherings with a disciple-making movements mindset
The modern church faces a tension every pastor knows too well — how do we build a thriving Sunday gathering without losing the mission of making multiplying disciples?
On a recent episode of the Nexus Church Planting Podcast, I sat down with Joey McLaughlin, founding pastor of Elevate City Church in Atlanta, Georgia, to unpack how his team is living out this balance.
Joey is known for asking one convicting question drawn from 1 Thessalonians 2:19:
“If disciples are supposed to be our crown, does your calendar actually reflect your crown?”
That simple question drives everything at Elevate City — a church where disciple-making is not a department, but the DNA.
The Journey: From Attractional Models to Disciple-Making Movements
Joey’s ministry story is raw and relatable. He describes himself as a “nitty-gritty practitioner” whose hands are still dirty from real ministry — broken lives, family struggles, and the everyday work of shepherding.
After years in large, attractional churches, Joey began to wrestle with whether these models were forming the kind of disciples Jesus envisioned.
“COVID revealed a lot,” Joey shared. “It showed that the kind of disciples a Sunday-centric experience produces weren’t resilient enough to withstand what the world was throwing at them.”
That realization pushed him to rebuild from the ground up — moving discipleship from a spoke on the wheel to the center of the wheel itself.
He and his team made a radical shift: staff could only spend one day per week preparing for Sunday.
The rest of their time? Invested in multiplying disciple-makers.
What Is the Equip Journey?
At the heart of Elevate City’s model is a 10-week experience called Equip — what Joey jokingly calls “a 20-week disciple-making journey disguised as 10.”
Equip is where most people at Elevate first encounter Jesus and community. Participants gather weekly in small groups led by one or two disciple-makers and ten to twelve others.
The journey unfolds like this:
Weeks 1–3: What is the Gospel, and how do I share it?
Weeks 4–6: What is the Bible, and how do I read it?
Weeks 7–9: What is prayer, and how do I do it?
Every participant learns through one clear lens: you are being trained to train others.
“You haven’t gone through Equip until you’ve led Equip,” Joey said.
The relational and transformational depth of these groups is remarkable — stories are shared, lives are changed, and baptisms follow.
In fact, 95% of Elevate’s baptisms happen through these groups, and they’re almost never performed by staff.
“The person who baptizes you,” Joey told me, “is whoever played the most significant role of discipleship in your life.”
EquipX: Deep Formation for Disciple-Makers
As the church matured, Elevate introduced EquipX, a one-year spiritual formation pathway for people ready to go deeper.
Participants meet weekly for 90 minutes in groups of four — one disciple-maker and three disciples — focusing on five key practices:
Prayer and Hearing God’s Voice – Learning 52 prayer practices rooted in Scripture and Church history.
Encouragement & Challenge – Speaking both truth and grace into each other’s lives.
Living on Mission Together – Serving, evangelizing, and blessing their city.
Fasting and Dependence – Growing spiritual resilience through rhythm and surrender.
Biblical Formation – Reading through the Gospels together using Joey’s Know, Follow, Lead curriculum.
“We want discipleship that’s simple enough to be repeatable, robust enough to be impactful, and flexible enough to be adaptable,” Joey explained.
Redefining the Role of Sunday
Joey still loves the Sunday gathering — the creativity, the worship, the energy — but he refuses to let it define the church’s mission.
“Sunday is not the game; it’s the locker room,” he said. “It’s where we celebrate the wins, realign vision, and send our people back out onto the field of disciple-making.”
At Elevate, Sunday serves as a celebration and recalibration, not the destination.
Even within the service, discipleship is woven into every element — from community members reading Scripture to disciple-makers baptizing those they’ve led to Christ.
Base Camp: The On-Ramp for New Believers
For newcomers, Base Camp is a four-week introduction that begins immediately after Sunday services.
Week 1: The Story of Jesus — hearing the Gospel in a relational, conversational environment.
Week 2: The Story of You — discovering your gifts and purpose.
Week 3: The Path of Discipleship — learning how to step into Equip or EquipX.
Week 4: The Mission — committing to a life of disciple-making.
Many meet Jesus in Base Camp rather than the main service — a reminder that transformation happens most powerfully in relationship, not rows.
Movement Is Messy — and That’s Okay
When I asked Joey how he handles the chaos of releasing new disciple-makers (many of whom are brand new in their faith), he laughed:
One story involved a new believer from a Hindu background who wanted to launch his own Equip group immediately after finishing. Rather than stop him, Joey paired him with a mature co-leader and let the Holy Spirit work through the process.
“We’re not trying to sanitize discipleship,” he said. “We’re trying to multiply it.”
Encouragement for Church Planters
For church planters wondering where to start, Joey’s advice was simple:
“Just get started. You already know more than you think you do. Shoulder tap a few leaders, share your life, teach them what you know — and teach them to teach others. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be multiplying.”
That’s the heartbeat of Elevate City Church — and a powerful reminder for all of us that the Great Commission was never meant to stay theoretical.
Key Takeaway: The Church Is Only as Good as Its Disciples
If your disciples are your crown, then your calendar should reflect your crown.
Elevate City Church is living proof that a local church can hold both — a vibrant Sunday gathering and a multiplying disciple-making movement.
Learn More
Explore Elevate City’s discipleship resources at equip.impact.app
Listen to the full conversation on the Nexus Church Planting Podcast: nexus.us/podcast
Discover clarity for your church’s disciple-making vision at visionclarity.org
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