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EQUIP Discipleship Charter

MAYFLOWER CHURCH

EQUIP Discipleship Charter

Streamline System 06 — Team Charters

DRAFT for consideration by the Servants Council at its meeting on July 11, 2026. Not yet ratified. Upon ratification this becomes a standing charter, reviewed at each August Leadership Summit and re-ratified on material change.

Governing Principle

We do not leave growth to chance; we lay out a path and walk people down it.

A new believer should not have to guess how to grow. This team builds the structured road from first faith toward maturity, and trains the people who walk it with others. The aim is settled disciples, not finished programs.

1. Oversight (the home)

Overseeing board: Elders (Bylaws Art. II §B 1.c.2, discipleship explicitly under the elders). Day-to-day point person: Senior Pastor. Every team has a home; this team works first with the elders.

2. Purpose

This team exists to grow believers into maturity through structured, ongoing discipleship. It builds and maintains the church's learning pathways, develops the curriculum that fills them, and trains the facilitators who carry them. Its concern is not the running of classes for their own sake but the forming of disciples: that members move along a clear path from first faith toward settled, biblically grounded Christian living.

3. Priority-ministry link

This team serves Disciple-Making Pathways (System 01). It is the structured backbone of how Mayflower moves a believer from new faith toward maturity.

4. The Commission

The elders commission this team to own the church's structured, ongoing discipleship and its learning pathways. The work has a steady scale across the year. First, build: develop or adopt sound, theologically faithful curriculum and lay out the learning pathways that carry a believer from new faith toward maturity. Second, train: recruit and equip the facilitators who lead the cohorts, so that the teaching does not rest on one or two people. Third, run: convene the discipleship cohorts on a regular rhythm through the year and shepherd participants along the path. Fourth, receive: take new believers handed in from the Evangelism Team and the assimilation process and set them on the path. This is a curriculum-and-cohort team, not a fellowship-group network; it carries the structured training of the church and trains the body to carry it too.

5. In scope / Out of scope

In scope:

  • Developing or adopting the church's discipleship curriculum and learning pathways.
  • Recruiting, training, and supporting EQUIP cohort facilitators.
  • Convening structured discipleship cohorts on a regular rhythm through the year.
  • Receiving new believers from Evangelism and the assimilation process and setting them on the path.
  • Keeping a pastoral record of who is moving along the pathways for the elders, not a completion scoreboard.

Out of scope:

  • Ongoing small-group fellowship and study. That is the Bible Fellowship Groups' charge (see Coordination); BFGs are ongoing fellowship and study, EQUIP is structured cohort training with a curriculum.
  • The church's direct gospel witness and the early follow-up of new believers. That belongs to the Evangelism Team, which hands followed-up new believers into EQUIP.
  • The membership process and new-member orientation as such. EQUIP supplies the discipleship content the path runs on; the membership pathway is the church's to administer.
  • Treating a finished course as the goal. The measure is a maturing disciple, not a completed syllabus.

6. Scale

Shape: a small permanent core that builds curriculum and trains facilitators, expanding through the facilitators it raises to run cohorts across the year. Commitment categories are drawn from the Volunteer Chapter (System 06). The team multiplies facilitators rather than teaching every cohort itself. Leadership is one appointed EQUIP Discipleship Leader (System 07).

7. Key responsibilities

  • Build or adopt sound discipleship curriculum and maintain the learning pathways.
  • Recruit, train, and support cohort facilitators so the teaching is not carried by a few.
  • Convene structured discipleship cohorts on a regular rhythm through the year.
  • Receive new believers from Evangelism and assimilation and set them on the path.
  • Keep a pastoral record of participants' progress for the elders.
  • Communicate plans, encouragements, and needs to the elders.

8. Coordination

  • Evangelism Team (Elders): mirror boundary. Evangelism hands new believers and followed-up gospel contacts INTO EQUIP; EQUIP receives them and sets them on the structured path. The dividing line is the stage of the journey, not who does the work: Evangelism carries first witness and early follow-up, EQUIP carries the ongoing structured training that follows.
  • Bible Fellowship Groups (Elders): clean boundary. EQUIP runs structured cohorts with a set curriculum for a season; BFGs are ongoing fellowship and study with no end date. EQUIP develops the leader-track training that BFGs draw on; BFGs are where formed disciples keep growing in community. The two are complements, not competitors.
  • The assimilation and membership process: receives and feeds the discipleship pathway alongside Evangelism.

9. Resources

Budget line: "Discipleship and Evangelism supplies," administered by the Elder Chair (Purchasing Policy). This is a shared line with the Evangelism Team; the two coordinate their draws on it. Facilities needs for cohorts are coordinated with the Trustees. Cohort scheduling and volunteer requests run through Planning Center.

10. Health indicators

Faithfulness-shaped signs the team is alive, not a course-completion scoreboard. The year's specific targets live in the System 11 annual goals, set with the elders each August.

  • Cohorts are running on a steady rhythm, not starting and stalling.
  • A widening bench of trained facilitators is carrying the teaching, not a few.
  • New believers handed in from Evangelism are reliably finding a place on the path.
  • Curriculum stays sound and is reviewed for faithfulness, not just kept running.
  • Participants are visibly maturing in the Word and in Christian living, the path bearing fruit beyond attendance.

11. Review and approval

Standing charter, reviewed annually at the August Leadership Summit. Re-ratified by the Servants Council on material change. Escalation beyond the team's or elders' authority follows the Decision-Making Framework (System 09). Leadership succession follows the Leadership Handoff Guidelines (System 12).

Commissioned by: Elder Chair ____________________________ Date __________

Ratified into the operations documentation by: Servants Council ____________________________ Date __________

Sources

  • Mayflower Church Constitution and Bylaws, Art. II §B 1.c.2 (discipleship under the elders); Art. II §B 4.c.7 (Servants Council receives and approves Ministry Team charters).
  • Streamline System 01 — The Five Priority Ministries We Guard (Disciple-Making Pathways).
  • Streamline System 06 — Team-to-Board Oversight Map; Volunteer Chapter.
  • Streamline System 07 — Role Clarity, "27 — EQUIP Discipleship Leader."
  • Streamline System 09 — Decision-Making Framework; System 11 — Annual Goals; System 12 — Leadership Handoff Guidelines.
  • Purchasing Policy (Discipleship and Evangelism supplies, Elder Chair; shared with the Evangelism Team).
  • Evangelism Team Charter and Bible Fellowship Groups Charter (sibling forms for parallelism); Team Charter Standard, this folder.
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