'Good preaching is not enough': Pastor Marco Garcia urges churches to embrace a 'discipleship culture'

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, October 21, 2026

WASHINGTON — A megachurch pastor has called for a “discipleship revolution," urging church leaders gathered at the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference's 25th Anniversary Summit to realize that good preaching and music are not enough to make disciples. 

The NHCLC, headed by Pastor Samuel Rodriguez, held its 25th Anniversary Summit at the Museum of the Bible on Tuesday. Among the speakers was Marco Garcia, senior pastor of The Way World Outreach, a multicampus church with locations in Arizona, California and Kenya.

“We serve a God that’s the Lord of the harvest. He believes in the harvest. We must get prepared for the harvest. The problem is not the harvest. We don’t have enough workers. It’s time to realize what our assignment is,” he proclaimed. “Our assignment has not changed. Jesus spoke it to His 11 disciples.”

He identified that “assignment” as the Great Commission, found in Matthew 28:16–20. He noted that the command called on the first disciples to “Go and make disciples of all nations" and “baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Garcia urged the crowd to start “a discipleship revolution in our churches, in our personal lives, in America and the world.”

“It starts today," he said. "We need to believe that America needs to be discipled again. That’s how it will be great again."

The translator interpreting his speech into Spanish, along with others at the conference, noted that the phrase “great again” closely mirrors President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

'We’re not passing on our faith'

“There’s no way that America, our churches, will be healthy and strong, if we are neglecting the mission, the commission, to make disciples,” he said. “Most Christians today identify themselves as Christians, as believers, as church members, but I don’t know many Christians that identify themselves as disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Much of Garcia’s speech focused on the difference between disciples and Christians.

“We’re not passing on our faith to the next … generation, and the reason is we’re not discipling," he continued. "We’re just doing church services. A disciple is a student that’s enrolled to be a scholar. How can we make disciples if our churches are not schools? Every church must become a school.”

“We need to create a discipleship culture,” he added. “Everybody today says they’re Christians and then they cuss right after it. We got church members that come to church to be entertained, and we pastors are the entertainers. We’re supposed to be equipping the Church to do the work of the ministry and pass on the responsibility to the people that they must be disciples that make disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Garcia said today's generation is "hungry for the word of God" but doesn't not simply "want to be entertained."

"They want to be taught the word of God, they want to be disciplined, they want the discipline of the word of God, and they want purpose," the pastor said. 

“Until we develop leaders, our church can’t grow. Good preaching is not enough,” he insisted. “A great worship team is not enough. We must train our children, our next generation, the disciples, to be disciple makers. Go and make disciples of all nations. The word ‘make’ means to teach.”

'Holy Warriors'

Garcia outlined The Way World Outreach's “discipleship system,” which includes a “Holy Warriors” program. The program’s first level teaches aspiring disciples the principles of “radical Christian living,” showing them “the standards of Christianity for five weeks” and training them “on all the foundations of Christianity.”

“They grow in five weeks more than Christians grow in 10 years,” he said of the participants. “The second group of classes is called freedom. We help people get delivered and set free so they can start doing ministry unhindered by their past, unhindered by their failures and unhindered by demons.”

The third level of classes works to “teach Christians how to live a successful, powerful and prosperous life,” Garcia said. The last group of classes trains aspiring disciples on “how to be small group leaders, so they know how to reproduce themselves.”

Garcia closed by sharing statistics on his church’s growth.

“We’ve been doing that for 22 years. We started on the streets, loving people in the neighborhood; people came to church,” he recalled.

He said 500 people attended the church’s “grand opening day” and that it now has 10 campuses with more than 15,000 people attending weekly.