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Modern Disciple/ship

@moderndisciple.ship

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Luke Thigpen: Ordained UPCI minister & founder of Modern Disciple/Ship. Offers consulting, training, & preaching to build biblical discipleship. DM!

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Meet the Founder of Modern Disciple/Ship

Hello, I’m Luke Thigpen — founder of Modern Disciple/Ship.

I’m an ordained UPCI minister with a deep passion for helping churches and believers walk in authentic New Testament discipleship. I hold a Master of Arts in Theology (High Distinction) from Colorado Christian University and a Bachelor of Science in Religion: Apologetics (Summa Cum Laude) from Liberty University.

Over the past several years, I’ve served in various ministry roles focusing on expository preaching, curriculum development, discipleship training, and mentoring believers in sound theology. I also serve as a Teaching Evangelist, bringing biblical teaching, evangelistic preaching, and practical discipleship resources to churches and leaders.

Through Modern Disciple/Ship, my heart is to equip pastors and congregations with a clear biblical understanding of discipleship, while also providing Word-based, Christ-centered preaching, along with seminars on Apostolic Pentecostal doctrines, eschatology, apologetics, hermeneutics, and exegetical practices.

I believe strong teaching, preaching, and relational discipleship go hand in hand — and I’m committed to helping the Church become everything Jesus has called her to be.

Luke has been married to his greatest blessing and best friend (Megan) since 2017.

If you’re a pastor, leader, or believer longing for deeper roots in Scripture and more effective disciple-making, I’d love to connect with you.

Welcome to the journey! by @moderndisciple.ship

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3 months ago

Excited to announce the launch of @moderndisciple.ship !

I am thrilled to step into this new season as Founder and Lead Speaker of a ministry dedicated to strengthening the local church through biblical discipleship.

Modern Disciple/Ship exists to help churches and their leaders understand what it truly means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and how to cultivate a healthy, thriving discipleship culture. We also provide powerful evangelistic preaching and in-depth seminars on Apostolic Pentecostal doctrines, eschatology, apologetics, and foundational hermeneutics and exegetical practices for ministers.

As an ordained minister with the United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI), I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Apologetics and a Master’s degree in Theological Studies, both earned with honors. I am a certified “Simple Church” consultant through @churchanswers with years of experience in church planting, relational discipleship, and curriculum development.

Whether your church needs discipleship training, leadership consulting, revival preaching, curriculum development, or equipping for young ministers, Modern Disciple/Ship is ready to partner with you. by @moderndisciple.ship

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3 months ago

Jesus is gone. The mission isn’t. 📖

“The Helper, the Holy Spirit... He will teach you all things” (John 14:26). Jesus’s physical presence was gone after the ascension — but the Great Commission still stood: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). Making disciples became the disciples’ job.

From day one, it showed up in practice. “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship” (Acts 2:42) — even the newest converts were formed through teaching and relationship.

Paul lived this out with Timothy. Trained under Gamaliel, he understood exactly what the teacher-disciple bond was worth — so he poured it into Timothy, equipping him for leadership and servanthood: “Entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). “Continue in the things you have learned... knowing from whom you have learned them” (2 Timothy 3:14–15).

Paul didn’t just repeat a rabbi’s pattern — he carried Jesus’s. Teach to lead. Lead to reproduce.

Swipe through 👉 and save this for your next study on discipleship.

Who’s your Timothy? Tell us below. 👇

#Discipleship #PaulAndTimothy #BiblicalDiscipleship #ChurchLeadership #ModernDiscipleship by @moderndisciple.ship

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5 hours ago

Everyone carries a cross. The world is watching *how* you carry yours. ✝️

Jesus never said *if* you carry a cross. He said “take up your cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). But a disciple isn’t defined only by the carrying. It’s the way we carry it.

Paul says we are “epistles read by all men” (2 Cor 3:2). So in the classroom, the workplace, the hard season, people are reading us. Are they seeing a burden, or a disciple?

A disciple doesn’t carry the cross in their own strength. We carry it filled with the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8), fixing our eyes on Jesus, who endured the cross “for the joy set before Him” (Heb 12:2).

So whatever is happening in your life, you’re still a disciple. Put one foot in front of the other, because the joy of the Lord is your strength (Neh 8:10). 🙌

Are you carrying it with joy or just enduring it? Tell me below. 👇

#CarryYourCross #DisciplesOfJesus #TakeUpYourCross #JoyOfTheLord #FollowJesus by @moderndisciple.ship

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4 days ago

What actually happened the moment someone said yes to Jesus? 📖

For the Twelve, it started with repentance — walking away from the comforts of their old life. After the ascension, that same response took on new shape: repentance, baptism, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

At Pentecost, the 120 who received the Spirit were called *martures* — “witnesses,” the very root of our word “martyr.” When the crowd asked Peter what to do next, his answer was simple: repent, be baptized, receive the Spirit (Acts 2:37–39).

That pattern shows up again and again. The Ethiopian needed a guide (Acts 8). Saul submitted to Ananias’s teaching (Acts 9). Cornelius’s household received the Spirit mid-sermon (Acts 10). The jailer asked the same question Peter’s crowd did (Acts 16). Even John’s disciples, who already believed in Jesus, still had more to receive (Acts 19).

Every story carries the same elements: belief, instruction, Spirit, baptism. Believing coincides with receiving.

Swipe through 👉 and save this for your next study on discipleship.

Where are you in that journey right now? Tell us below. 👇

#Discipleship #BookOfActs #BiblicalDiscipleship #HolySpirit #ModernDiscipleship by @moderndisciple.ship

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6 days ago

Carrying your cross isn’t a look. It’s a witness. ✝️

Jesus tells us that following Him means carrying a cross. Not for aesthetics. Not for attention. For the joy that comes with it.

It may be heavy. It may be costly. But Jesus went to the cross because of the joy on the other side, and we’re invited to follow Him there. 🙌

Put Him at the center, and your cross becomes a witness. It’s the Cross that leads others to repentance, and one more person coming to the feet of Jesus makes every bit of the weight worth it.

When we carry our cross with joy for the sake of others, that’s discipleship-based evangelism.

Who is watching you carry yours? 👇

#Discipleship #CarryYourCross #DiscipleshipEvangelism #FollowJesus #ModernDiscipleship by @moderndisciple.ship

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14 days ago

Discipleship isn’t just following — it’s participating. 📖

Ignatius once said only the martyr is a true disciple. Hyperbolic, maybe — but it points to something real: following Christ has always required self-sacrifice. Jesus put it plainly — deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Me (Matthew 16:24–25). Paul echoes it in Romans 12:1 — offer your body as a living, holy sacrifice.

That surrender isn’t always dramatic. Most days it’s logikos — a reasonable, daily surrender of our will, considering what Christ already gave.

We can’t replicate Calvary (Hebrews 10:12). But we can partner in it — in service, in purpose, sometimes in suffering (Mark 6:7–13, Matthew 10:17, John 15:18).

Bonhoeffer said it best: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Like Matthew at the tax booth, discipleship means leaving the calculable life behind for complete trust in Christ.

Even the phrase “follow Me” carries more weight than we often give it. In the Greek, it’s closer to “come after Me” — walk behind, in His footsteps. A call to action, not just belief.

A disciple models and participates in Christ’s life, purpose, and often sacrifice.

Swipe through 👉 and save this for your next study on discipleship.

Where is God asking you to participate, not just imitate? Tell us below. 👇

#Discipleship #ChristCenteredLiving #BiblicalDiscipleship #ChurchLeadership #ModernDiscipleship by @moderndisciple.ship

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14 days ago

**They weren’t called Christians for attending church. They were called Christians for making disciples.** 🔥

Acts 11:26 says the disciples were first called *Christians* at Antioch. Look at what they were doing: Barnabas and Saul taught a great company of people there for a whole year (Acts 11:26). The name wasn’t a label they gave themselves. It was what the watching world called people who looked, spoke, and lived so much like Christ that they were making more followers of Him.

That’s the pattern from Acts 2, where the church devoted itself to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42). Disciples formed disciples. Jesus commanded it in Matthew 28:19: “Go and make disciples.”

To be Christian is to be a disciple, and to be a disciple is to make disciples. It’s not an optional add-on for the “serious” believers. It’s the very thing that earned us the name.

👇 Who are you helping become more like Jesus right now?

#Christian #MakeDisciples #Acts2 #Discipleship #GreatCommission by @moderndisciple.ship

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21 days ago

What Jesus meant when He said, “Follow Me.”

In the New Testament, the Greek word mathetes appears roughly 250 times from the Gospels through Acts. It describes far more than a student absorbing information. A mathetes was someone who had committed to a standard—one inseparable from a relationship with a teacher.

This idea was not unique to Jesus. In the Greek world, disciples of Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Epicurus, and others shared their teacher’s beliefs and values and were expected to perpetuate them. Discipleship was never merely intellectual; it was relational and formational.

The Hebrew roots reinforce the same pattern. Though mathetes itself does not appear in the Greek Old Testament, the related family of words (from manthano, “to learn”) occurs dozens of times and echoes the Hebrew lamad and limmud: learning God’s law in order to know it, live it, and teach the next generation.

In Jesus’s day, the rabbi–talmid relationship followed a clear path. Students sought out a rabbi for training in all things Jewish, with the goal of eventually becoming rabbis themselves—imitating their teacher’s instruction, traditions, and way of life. Rabbis typically selected the most qualified candidates.

Jesus reversed the pattern. He initiated the call and chose the unqualified. The relationship He offered was marked by humility and deep personal commitment.

The decisive difference, however, is this: Jesus is not simply a teacher. He is Kyrios—Lord. Because of that, His disciples remain disciples even after His departure.

Discipleship, then, was never just the transfer of information. It was—and remains—a relationship that forms people and multiplies itself.

In a culture that often reduces growth to content consumption or skill acquisition, this ancient vision still challenges us: Are we merely gathering knowledge, or are we living in a relationship that shapes how we walk and whom we invite to walk with us?

Keep learning. Keep walking. Keep making disciples.
What aspect of this understanding of discipleship resonates most with how you approach growth, mentoring, or leadership today?

#BiblicalDiscipleship #DisciplesofJesus #Discipleship by @moderndisciple.ship

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21 days ago

The rabbi knew he wouldn’t stay forever… so he poured into the next generation.

He didn’t just teach information—he trained disciples to become teachers, expositors, and expounders of the Word. Their assignment? Do exactly what he did: make disciples who make disciples.

This is the exact model Jesus left us. He invested deeply in a few so they could multiply the Kingdom long after He returned to the Father. The church today isn’t called to produce spectators—we’re called to raise up disciple-makers who will carry the truth forward.

Who are you intentionally training? The legacy of the gospel depends on it.

#Discipleship #MakeDisciples #NextGenLeaders #JesusModel #ChurchLeadership by @moderndisciple.ship

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25 days ago

Ignite is a Wednesday night series built to stir the 🔥 within us, and we’re excited to begin this new series @sulphurupc

It’s casual and conversational, with time around the tables to talk honestly about discipleship, share your faith, and grow together. It’s relaxed on the surface, but our prayer is that it will be spiritually transformative, igniting our spirits and setting our hearts on fire for God.

Join us at Sulphur UPC every Wednesday at 7:00 PM, beginning tonight and running through November 18. Come as you are and bring someone with you.

#Ignite #ModernDiscipleship #WednesdayNight #SulphurLA #SulphurUPC taken in Sulphur United Pentecostal Church by @moderndisciple.ship

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a month ago

Discipleship didn’t stay theoretical in the Old Testament — it got personal. 📖

Deuteronomy is the manual: complete devotion to YHWH, taught and reproduced through a mentor. But it’s in the prophets that we watch this play out person to person, not just people to God.

→ Isaiah’s word *limmud* — “disciple” — describes a bond rarely found outside the family unit. Personal. Intentional.

→ Moses handed Joshua more than knowledge — he handed him authority (Joshua 1:1–3).

→ Elijah’s mantle on Elisha’s shoulders wasn’t symbolic flair — it was succession made visible (1 Kings 19:19).

→ Samuel trained a company of prophets. Isaiah mentored his own disciples — the only explicit use of “disciple” in the Old Testament (Isaiah 8:16).

Same pattern, over and over: learn, teach, influence by lived behavior, then hand it off. It’s the blueprint Jesus picked up centuries later when He chose twelve men and prepared them to carry on without Him.

Swipe through 👉 and save this for your next study on discipleship.

Who’s someone pouring into you right now — or someone you’re pouring into? Tell us below. 👇

#Discipleship #OldTestament #BiblicalDiscipleship #ChurchLeadership #MakeDisciples by @moderndisciple.ship

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a month ago