Church Culture - Equipping

What does it mean to become an equipping church?

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 
Ephesians 4:11-13

The Greek translation of the word equipping is katartismos and means to fit or prepare the saints fully for the work of service.  According to this passage, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are to be equipping the church for works of service.  The purpose of equipping people is to make the truth, understandable and usable through allowing a disciple to engage with the truth in a personal way.

Since we all have unique learning styles, we must be careful to lean on the Holy Spirit and not only proclaim truth, but also coach people in a way that works for them personally.  Eventually, the goal is to provide accountability while that person steps out and begins to do good works of service using their spiritual gifts and then pass their learning on to others.  This is the pattern and way of Jesus and how He modeled discipleship for us while on this earth.

Pastors who use the proclamation approach (preaching the Word from the pulpit) to making disciples are not seeing the results that they would expect.  Therefore, many leaders have gotten together to take a look at Jesus’ approach and systematically developed what is known as Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship. As these leaders united with other leaders, they began to look into the Scriptures and focus on Jesus: His model, His method, His mission, and His mandate for the church.
 
The purpose of Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship is to develop mature and equipped followers of Christ for the lost world.  Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship is defined as: Laboring in the lives of a few with the intention of imparting one’s life, God’s Word and the gospel in such a way as to see them become mature and equipped followers of Christ, committed to doing the same in the lives of others. (Life on Life Ministries, Perimeter Church, Georgia)

Jesus, in Matthew 10:4-8, sent out his disciples in pairs.  In the passage, it is clear that Jesus not only called and equipped His disciples to do the task of ministry, but He gave them the authority to do so.