Speaker: [00:00:01] people aren't being discipled.
Speaker: People aren't multiplying. We are in gross violation of the Great [00:00:06] Commission. Yet if you install any element into your disciple making [00:00:11] practice that successfully does those two things, you're going to hear some of these [00:00:16] same pushback. [00:00:21] [00:00:26] [00:00:31] [00:00:36] [00:00:41] [00:00:46] Hey everybody. Welcome back [00:00:51] to the podcast. April. How you doing today?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. Enjoying this beautiful fall [00:00:56] weather that we're having. Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Uh, amazing, gorgeous, cold [00:01:01] fire. Um, all those wonderful things about fall, I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: cold, I would say chilly. Yes. [00:01:06] It's like just the right temperature, crisp to enjoy being outside [00:01:11] without sweating to death or freezing to death.
Speaker: Yes. So good. [00:01:16] Yeah. I'm, if it were five degrees colder, I would be like, can we go to Florida? Yet? [00:01:21] Such a wimp. I love warm. Okay, but not too warm or not [00:01:26] humid, so,
Speaker 2: right. Yes, yes. We
Speaker: humans were made for very small tolerances, apparently, [00:01:31] but we must suffer. Speaking of suffering, let's talk about discipleship. [00:01:36] So, um, I wanted to talk to, to you April today [00:01:41] about, um, probably the number one pushback.
Speaker: [00:01:46] We get about disciple making is, it needs to be, [00:01:51] you need to think about discipleship as purely organic. [00:01:56] And this is not unfamiliar at all. To, to us, I believe this, [00:02:01] for many years I was actually confronted, like this whole idea of discipleship [00:02:06] came from me being confronted about that, um, by a missionary who, [00:02:11] uh, was in China.
Speaker: And he was asking me [00:02:16] how I was making disciples. I'm like, oh yeah, we make disciples all the time. We just like, we're hanging out. We're doing life. We, [00:02:21] you know, like we were doing lots of house church stuff and he was just like scratching his head saying, okay, yeah, but [00:02:26] when do you make disciples? And I was like, I just said that, like, we, you know, we're doing life.
Speaker: We're hanging out. [00:02:31] He is like, he is like, no, no, no. Like, and he literally opened his Bible to Matthew 28 [00:02:36] and it's like, okay, look at this. Look at what it says here. It says, it describes discipleship [00:02:41] right here. Jesus just finished spending three years, apprenticing them, and then tells them to go [00:02:46] and teach them to obey everything I've commanded you.
Speaker: Is that just naturally [00:02:51] happening when you're just like hanging out, doing life, being organic? Anyway, [00:02:56] I, I got more and more uncomfortable in this conversation. I was like, and I got super convicted. I was like, oh my [00:03:01] gosh, have I spent the last five to 10 years hanging out, doing [00:03:06] life and never really making disciples?
Speaker: I, I just really felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit coming [00:03:11] upon me. So as we are sending people out there that are trained in life, on life discipleship, which is a, [00:03:16] you know, which is a process that we are encouraging people to actually be very intentional about how they [00:03:21] call people to be discipled, to go through a very similar blueprint to what Jesus went [00:03:26] through.
Speaker: Jesus actually took people through what today would be called a program. It had limited numbers of. [00:03:31] Of participants allowed, right? Jesus said there were the three, the 12, the 72. He was [00:03:36] very careful about who he picked. He handpicked the ones he wanted to be with him. It says in Mark and in [00:03:41] Matthew. Then he took them through a defined process.
Speaker: He had repeated, um, [00:03:46] a particular curriculum you see in the Sermon on the Mount, but he also was giving it in Luke, uh, I think it's Luke [00:03:51] six. So you have, you have all of the makings of a very clear [00:03:56] process and an, and a clear kind of training. And along with that, there was this life [00:04:01] on life reality that Jesus hung out with them.
Speaker: He did have meals with them. He did, they did see and [00:04:06] experience his life, but the fact that he was doing that didn't, uh, change the fact that he [00:04:11] also was teaching defined people, defined topics like, [00:04:16] like those can happen at the same time.
Speaker: But today there is a huge bias. [00:04:21] In our kind of current Christian, uh, that as soon as you [00:04:26] present something that could feel programmatic, like it has intentional elements to it, when we get [00:04:31] together, who's a part of this, you know, then you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you trying to do? Like, that's.[00:04:36]
Speaker: Like, can we just hang out? Can we just be organic? Um, and so we're a lot of people that we [00:04:41] are training to make disciples in a way consistent with how Jesus did it and what is defined [00:04:46] in Matthew 28. We're getting a lot of pushback. So, um, I wanna talk, you talk a about a few of those examples, [00:04:51] but Yeah.
Speaker: April, how do you think about this topic?
Speaker 2: I think with a lot of surprise when I [00:04:56] start to think back through my own personal history and, and [00:05:01] think I grew up kind of in the church, in a Christian home and the [00:05:06] lack of emphasis on discipleship. And I would say it was very, very biblical church. [00:05:11] Very biblical home. Not perfect. Of course, we had our, our flaws and [00:05:16] our things that we were working through and figuring out, but um, we were.
Speaker 2: Attempting [00:05:21] to live by the Bible and there was a [00:05:26] lot of imparting going on, but imparting, imparting [00:05:31] truth, um, but not necessarily with the [00:05:36] intention of then that person continuing [00:05:41] the, the downline of then. Them imparting truth to someone else, [00:05:46] and especially in an intentional way. And so the idea of the seed [00:05:51] being in the fruit, if you're pouring into someone and you want them to then [00:05:56] turn around and be able to do this themselves, that that element.
Speaker 2: Is missing. [00:06:01] So I did receive a lot of, I was poured into a lot. I was taught a lot. I was, um, [00:06:06] you know, imparted to a lot. I observed a lot. I was around a lot of Christian [00:06:11] people growing up. But the intentional side of someone taking me and saying, I [00:06:16] wanna impart to you the ways I have learned to obey Jesus, and then I want you to do the same and I'm gonna [00:06:21] check in with you and I'm gonna see how you're doing and I'm gonna see if you need any help.
Speaker 2: Um, that element did [00:06:26] not exist.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. So.
Speaker 2: I think I sit back with a lot of surprise when I [00:06:31] ask just a, you know, a friend, a Christian friend, and say, have you ever been discipled? Most of the [00:06:36] time the answer is not really. Or there was this one time for like, this lady kind [00:06:41] of discipled me. So it is interesting.
Speaker 2: It's like kind of like a vacuum.
Speaker: [00:06:46] Yes. So when you ask people, they've been discipled, they oftentimes have a hard time [00:06:51] answering Yes. If they are answering yes, and you say, okay, are you also then making disciples in the way you [00:06:56] were? The the answer is almost always no. So people aren't being discipled.
Speaker: People aren't multiplying. [00:07:01] We are in gross violation of the Great Commission. Yet when we actually [00:07:06] present a strategy, a blueprint for how to do this to people who would [00:07:11] love to like, have never been discipled and, and aren't currently discipling, they oftentimes [00:07:16] will push back. The elements that actually make it both discipleship and [00:07:21] help it to multiply because there's a certain level of structure you have to have in a [00:07:26] disciple making process to actually cause it to be real discipleship, like intentional [00:07:31] enough so that it's clear who the apprentices are and, and who's actually doing the discipling [00:07:36] and that it be multiplying, that it's something that can be done, uh, all [00:07:41] the way to the fourth, fifth, sixth GE generation.
Speaker: If you install any element [00:07:46] into your disciple making practice that successfully does those two [00:07:51] things, you're going to hear some of these same pushback. So like an example. And we have, we [00:07:56] have a great, uh, WhatsApp group with alumni from our Life on Life. And if you [00:08:01] guys, uh, want to jump on Life, on Life, please like.
Speaker: We'll spend three months coaching you [00:08:06] how to begin a discipleship practice that both transforms people's lives and [00:08:11] multiplies. But sometimes you will, and we hear this in, this probably, like I said, the most common pushback [00:08:16] in the alumni group is that when they start to present this to people and say, Hey, let's start discipling, let's start [00:08:21] a practice of discipleship.
Speaker: They'll say things like that this doesn't feel spirit led. This is [00:08:26] putting some kind of business model on discipleship. Discipleship should not have. This [00:08:31] kind of structure, it should just be more organic. Like these are the kinds of, , things. And [00:08:36] so someone was asking like, what do you say to people?
Speaker: And a little bit snarky, I just said, well, [00:08:41] I say something like, show me your blueprint for making disciples. That's multiplying to the fourth generation, and we'll do [00:08:46] that. If you can't, I'm gonna make sure we're obeying the great commission, but say a little nicer.
Speaker: I [00:08:51] don't trust when people push back in an area where they're not obeying, [00:08:56] like I think it's totally fine. And, and sometimes I'll run into people that have an amazing discipleship and they're like, [00:09:01] oh, here's how I do it. Um, I do it differently than you, but this is what's working for me [00:09:06] and it's working for other people.
Speaker: I'm like, awesome. Please keep going. I'm not gonna give you [00:09:11] any pushback. We're we're somebody who's sitting on the sidelines. It's like, it's, it is the ultimate sort [00:09:16] of, yeah. What do they call it? Monday morning Quarterback. They're not making disciples. They haven't made a disciple in [00:09:21] years.
Speaker: There's no fruit of discipleship coming outta their life. They are engrossed disobedience of the great commission. [00:09:26] And when you come to them with a blueprint that actually begins the process of obeying the Great Commission, [00:09:31] you will get a lot of pushback from people who are currently disobeying the great Commission.
Speaker: And I'm just [00:09:36] telling you guys, there is something really wrong with that. We need to become [00:09:41] far more sensitive to. To the obedience, to the Great [00:09:46] Commission, and there's lots of ways that you can insert [00:09:51] what is spirit led. I, I love it when there are elements of when we are [00:09:56] like having any kind of structure, any kind of strategy is not mutually exclusive from being spirit led.[00:10:01]
Speaker: Like, right? Like there is a constant process of asking the Holy Spirit, what do you want me to teach? [00:10:06] You know, the people I'm discipling, there's praying over them during our coaching meetings and trying to figure out [00:10:11] how, what is the spirit saying to you? Uh, we even have gatherings where all we do is sit in [00:10:16] silence and tell somebody hears from the Holy Spirit.
Speaker: Like there's a lot of elements of trying to listen to the [00:10:21] Holy Spirit, but you need to have a structure and, and the New Testament really calls these [00:10:26] traditions. You need to have a set of traditions that facilitates the making of disciples. And [00:10:31] if you don't, then what, what you're lacking is maybe not [00:10:36] obedience to the spirit, but it could be you're lacking traditions, you, you're lacking structure.
Speaker: Paul says in [00:10:41] one Corinthians 11, hold to the traditions that I gave you because to be a group of people [00:10:46] on mission, we have to agree on basic things like when do we meet and you know, how do we meet and where [00:10:51] do we meet, right? Just to be a church, to be a body, you have to do those things. The same is true with discipleship.
Speaker: You [00:10:56] have to answer some basic structural questions so that this thing actually happens. [00:11:01] And if you have zero strategy, you're just sitting around waiting for lightning to [00:11:06] strike. Then guess what? You're gonna have zero fruit. And I've seen this over and over and over [00:11:11] again. And that's the reason why when you go overseas, you see these amazing movements that are getting to the third, fourth, fifth [00:11:16] generation.
Speaker: There's over a thousand disciple making movements that happen overseas, almost none in the West. And [00:11:21] we need to be humble about this. We've gotta stop pretending like we have something to [00:11:26] teach people. We have to stop reacting and say, well this is somehow violating my freedom or my [00:11:31] desire to be feel, you know, purely authentic.
Speaker: All these things to me just feel like. Western [00:11:36] cultural baggage that we're importing into the New Testament and suggesting that [00:11:41] our lack of obedience, our lack of intentionality is somehow spiritual. It's not spiritual [00:11:46] when it leads to disobedience. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. [00:11:51]
Speaker 2: Well, it's, it's part of the individualism too.
Speaker 2: Like, I don't wanna be [00:11:56] inconvenienced. I, I can, I can talk all day about myself and, [00:12:01] and what I've learned, but like to pour into you and then, and then help [00:12:06] you as you are then making disciples. That's gonna ask a lot of me. And so I don't. You [00:12:11] know, there, there's this like infringement on our individualistic rights Yes.
Speaker 2: Of, um, [00:12:16] the, there is an amount of sacrifice that comes with making disciples. Um, [00:12:21] and you have to know where your motivation comes from in order to do that. Yes. And I [00:12:26] think that we just excuse away so much, we use so many [00:12:31] excuses to not be doing this. Yes. Um, to the point where I feel like people aren't even entertaining [00:12:36] the question anymore.
Speaker 2: Right. Am I making disciples? Should I be making disciples? Yeah. That's not a [00:12:41] question on your average Christian's lips.
Speaker: Yep. And we need to like stir this up [00:12:46] because it's not okay to disobey the most direct and clearest command, the final [00:12:51] command given to us by Jesus when he said all authority in heaven and, and our earth has been given to me [00:12:56] therefore.
Speaker: If you're a disciple, you should be listening to the next thing. He says, go make [00:13:01] disciples of all nations. Baptize them. Teach them to obey everything I've commanded you. Like these, these, uh, basic elements [00:13:06] are really important and it's gonna require some level of structure and intentionality for you to [00:13:11] accomplish the great Commission.
Speaker: And if you do, if you attempt to do this, believe me, you will face [00:13:16] pushback because the enemy does not want this to happen. You have to [00:13:21] get steel in your spine in this area and say, I am going to obey the great commission. We are [00:13:26] going to make disciples. If you do not have a blueprint currently for how to do this, please join [00:13:31] us and help us give you one.
Speaker: Now, one of the things that's gonna happen. This is part of what I wanna unpack and I wanna make this, you [00:13:36] know, also practical, not just rant about this, even though I would love to, I'd love to keep going. [00:13:41] Part of what I wanna do is help you guys and understand that just in terms of what you need [00:13:46] is you are going to send people an email and invite them into a process as a [00:13:51] discipleship.
Speaker: They're going to feel some level of dissonance when they get that email from [00:13:56] you, because all of a sudden you're going to say some things that are going to be a little bit hard for them to [00:14:01] swallow. You're gonna say, let's go into a seasoned discipleship. I would like to disciple you, and [00:14:06] that is putting them in the position of apprenticing, right to you. We're like [00:14:11] that, like, like are, is there a hierarchy all of a sudden? It's a, it's a season. It's like five or six months. But [00:14:16] yes, during the season I'm going to personally take responsibility to help you grow. [00:14:21] I know that's gonna offend you. Like I know that, oh, like how dare you.
Speaker: This is you. You [00:14:26] know, let's just like sit around a fire and smoke a cigar and maybe you might say [00:14:31] something that organically comes out that might affect my life. I can [00:14:36] choose at that moment whether or not to listen to you or not. Like I can. We just do discipleship that way? No, [00:14:41] I am going to actually like study and understand what is the spirit doing inside of you, and I'm going to [00:14:46] exhort directly into those, those areas.
Speaker: I'm gonna take responsibility to actually try to help you obey the [00:14:51] commands of Christ. Like these are, this is what discipleship is all about. So, yeah, they're gonna get that [00:14:56] email. They're gonna feel some dissonance because it's going to cause them to [00:15:01] realize that, wow, somebody's about. Now some of you guys, if you got an email like that, you'd say, oh my word.
Speaker: That would be so [00:15:06] amazing. I mean, imagine getting an email from somebody 10, 15, 20 years older than me that I really respect in the faith, [00:15:11] telling them they wanna spend the next five to six months investing in me. Wow, that would be amazing. [00:15:16] But I'm telling you guys that a lot of people are getting these emails.
Speaker: When they get them and it's got a little structure to it, [00:15:21] you know, even something as, as uh, as daring is saying, Hey, maybe you should pay your own way. [00:15:26] 'cause we have a couple getaways, those can cost money. We go to hotels, we go camping, whatever it is, and [00:15:31] say, Hey, could you pay for yourself, you know, and be as a part of this.
Speaker: And some people are like, how dare you [00:15:36] ask for money? It's like, wow. Like how dare you stop [00:15:41] obeying the great commission. Like why isn't this worth a little bit of money to, to support yourself? [00:15:46] And trying to be discipled, and I'm going to volunteer my time and make sure that you [00:15:51] give that I'm not asking you to pay me for my time, although, you know, the New Testament makes that perfectly [00:15:56] acceptable.
Speaker: I'm asking you to pay for yourself so I can invest in you. And there are people [00:16:01] who are pushing back even on that. And that that is, I'm finding really frustrating.
Speaker 2: [00:16:06] There's a lack of passion. There's a lack of passion among Christians today. I think we've, [00:16:11] we've gotten so comfortable with consumerism that we are just consuming, [00:16:16] um, when we're told that the bar is to attend a, a, a lecture, [00:16:21] essentially a sermon on a Sunday morning, and that's the bar.
Speaker 2: And then if you're really, really [00:16:26] committed, then you're gonna spend your extra time going to a house community within the, you [00:16:31] know, like a community group or something like that within. Your church, and that's gonna be an extra night [00:16:36] a week. Then you're like, that's like a really committed person would do something like that.
Speaker 2: And [00:16:41] it's just this like, okay, I can consume and consume and I can pick which group I wanna go to based on if [00:16:46] it's the proper affinity for me and what I want, if I think I'm gonna grow or I'm gonna, [00:16:51] you know, get anything out of it. And so we've, we've stopped asking the question. [00:16:56] What did Jesus ask us to do?
Speaker 2: You know? He said, go and make [00:17:01] disciples and I will build my church. Yes, and I think we're so focused that we have [00:17:06] it upside down and have completely just forgotten the, the. [00:17:11] Command, it is a direct command from Jesus that we're supposed to be making disciples. Yes. And [00:17:16] so I think when you, when you're dealing with pushback from that, it, it can feel [00:17:21] hard because it's a cultural, it's like our cultural at culture at [00:17:26] large, the way it's reflected in the Christian culture.
Speaker 2: So like we don't wanna tell anyone that [00:17:31] they need to work on anything. We don't want anyone to feel judged or we don't want anyone [00:17:36] to. Um, heaven forbid think that they, they might have areas that they could grow [00:17:41] in or something like that. So if you're, you know, I think that people in leadership positions [00:17:46] find it difficult to want to promote the idea of discipleship because they are feeling like they're [00:17:51] gonna lose some of their sheep or their, their, um, you know, people [00:17:56] if they start to promote this way of life where you're.
Speaker 2: Being [00:18:01] challenged and being told that, like maybe you have some areas where you let, let's take this to the Lord, let's [00:18:06] find some scripture to combat. This let's you know, so when you're walking alongside someone, [00:18:11] um, through, through, um, you know, discipleship, it's, that's the [00:18:16] life on life component. Life on life is not just sitting around and [00:18:21] like hoping that a good conversation gets, gets struck up.
Speaker 2: It's like you're intentionally coming in [00:18:26] with a specific amount of time and you need to like. Make the most of it [00:18:31] and get down to get down to it. And so we need, um, we [00:18:36] need to pray that the Holy Spirit will just, um, you, like breathe fresh wind [00:18:41] on people's hearts and give them a passion and a desire to, to [00:18:46] be discipled and then to want to therefore also make disciples [00:18:51] out of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: I love, you know, you bringing up the, [00:18:56] that contrast that we're, we're always wrestling with, which is Jesus saying, you know, go and make [00:19:01] disciples and I will build my church. And what we tend to say is, you know, we will build the church and disciples will [00:19:06] somehow just magically appear. Yeah. And what it appears to be to me, uh, to [00:19:11] be is that we are called to intentionally make disciples.
Speaker: If there's anything that [00:19:16] you should intentionally structure. The obedience to that direct command because there is [00:19:21] something that organically will come out of discipleship that is the church. And I do think that there are [00:19:26] structures and traditions we need for the church as well. But I think if you had to put [00:19:31] like structure initially into something, make disciples, and it's amazing [00:19:36] when those disciples start to gather, there are things that can start to happen.
Speaker: Yeah, that is called the church, the body, that the elements that [00:19:41] start to occur, and again, I, I'm in favor of church tra traditions as well, but the, it's, it's [00:19:46] very, you know, back ass words as they say to say, oh, let's [00:19:51] be organic about discipleship, but structured about church. Um, that is very strange to [00:19:56] me, uh, from a New Testament perspective, you know, Jesus.
Speaker: Like modeled a [00:20:01] lot of structure when it came to his approach to disciple making. So, um, I [00:20:06] think just to, you know, take this down another level of, of practicality. One [00:20:11] of the reasons why I think we've really struggled with this is because there has been a slippery [00:20:16] shift happening in the definition of discipleship.
Speaker: So it now just means anytime [00:20:21] that you might learn something, you're like, wow, that really discipled me. You know, heard a good sermon or listening to a cool [00:20:26] podcast like this, and you're like, oh. That, you know, that's part of my discipleship and sure, [00:20:31] I understand what people are saying there. It's part of my, my general spiritual growth.
Speaker: But discipleship [00:20:36] in the New Testament needs to actually be consistent with what the [00:20:41] disciples would have recognized as discipleship, right? When Jesus said, go and make disciples, what did [00:20:46] they think? And this is how we try to constrain the definition of discipleship [00:20:51] to make sure we're obeying the great commission.
Speaker: That's the reason why I think it's really important to, to be very hard on this definition. [00:20:56] Yeah. 'cause I do not wanna get to, uh, stand before Jesus and say, I, I [00:21:01] thought I was obeying you, but I didn't actually think deeply about what you actually commanded. Mm-hmm. Um, [00:21:06] and so let's think deeply about it.
Speaker: What, what would the disciples have thought? And so the, the definition of [00:21:11] discipleship that I think makes sense of what the disciples would've thought is that discipleship is the [00:21:16] process of taking on apprentices to train them. How you follow Jesus. The [00:21:21] process of taking on apprentices. To train them how you follow Jesus.
Speaker: Right, because that's [00:21:26] exactly what had just happened. Jesus took them through a process. It involved a lot of elements where he, [00:21:31] again, picked specific people for a specific period of time. It took them through a number of [00:21:36] trainings. Yes, there was lots of life on life components, and that's an important critical part of it, and that is a important, critical [00:21:41] part of apprenticeship.
Speaker: If somebody were to apprentice under you to become a carpenter, you'd have all these elements. It [00:21:46] would be a certain amount of time, a certain amount of money. Uh, there would be a, um, a [00:21:51] process of things that you would be training them in and there'd be lots of organic moments where you would see how they did [00:21:56] certain things.
Speaker: All of that's important, but you can't cut out all the structural parts. So [00:22:01] that's an apprenticeship. Now we aren't familiar with apprenticeships today. Yeah. And, but that's an critical [00:22:06] component. It's a process taking on the apprenticeship and it's gotta be how you follow Jesus. The way that I [00:22:11] think most people today want discipleship to be defined is the organic experience of hanging out with friends to [00:22:16] discover how each of you does life.
Speaker: That's what we think that is not discipleship. The [00:22:21] organic experience of hanging out with friends to discover how each of you does life. [00:22:26] Like guys, I understand where that's coming from. Okay. That is not [00:22:31] discipleship. There's no way that Jesus would've recognized that definition. Uh, the [00:22:36] organic experience.
Speaker: You just hanging out with friends. I know why you want to do that. Like, I like that, doing that too. [00:22:41] Like I find it very, it's a lot more work. To initiate a process to take on apprentices, [00:22:46] to train them how I follow Jesus. That's a lot more work than the organic experience [00:22:51] of hanging out with friends and discovering how they do life.
Speaker: Um, and I'm all about that. That's, that's [00:22:56] called fun. That's called free time. That's called friendship. Those, those are a lot of things you can call [00:23:01] that. And I think those are really great experiences, but that is not discipleship. Like we have to get [00:23:06] more narrow if we care about obedience. Yes. [00:23:11]
Speaker 2: Yeah. I, I really feel like the, the way that we, the lackadaisical [00:23:16] attitude that we can take towards it.
Speaker 2: Let's say you're having a conversation about, about discipleship and [00:23:21] the things you brought up at the beginning, the, the things that bother people about it. Like, oh, that's so [00:23:26] intentional. You're taking away, like you said, we, we did that. Like we tried that [00:23:31] and we really believed that for a long time.
Speaker 2: Like, no, no, no. Don't put structure that puts too much. [00:23:36] Weirdness into the, we're just gonna like, let things unfold and they're gonna, you know, be next to [00:23:41] me while I'm like taking care of my kids. And there is definitely a part of that that is, [00:23:46] is effective and, but, but we're not teaching [00:23:51] the ways of Jesus to them.
Speaker 2: I think another thing [00:23:56] that people struggle with is even if you say, okay, convince them, okay, I [00:24:01] should be making disciples, but wait, wait, wait. Who am I to make a disciple? Who am I to [00:24:06] say to someone? Would you like me to disciple you? So I feel [00:24:11] I felt, uh, kind of like in the trap for many, many years of believing this lie that [00:24:16] I kind of have nothing to offer or that I haven't figured enough out [00:24:21] yet.
Speaker 2: And so therefore I couldn't be used in this way. And that one, one [00:24:26] day I will get to this place of having figured out like 90% of life. [00:24:31] And then I could start like, pouring into people or people would. Care about what I have to say, [00:24:36] or I'll get older enough than them that then I'll be able to say something.
Speaker 2: And I felt like, you know, I had this [00:24:41] realization like, what a slap in the face to the Lord and what [00:24:46] he has taught me and the things that he has brought me through. Other people could [00:24:51] really benefit from that and learn from those things. And, you know, [00:24:56] the things that I have learned about Jesus, I want to pass on to other people so that [00:25:01] they can, um, you know.
Speaker 2: Follow him more closely, [00:25:06] and I think that. It's a lie of the enemy. You have to be really careful if you find yourself saying like, [00:25:11] oh, but who am I to do this? Um, you're a creation of God. You're someone [00:25:16] who has, if you have a relationship with the Lord, then you can teach someone, um, [00:25:21] what God has taught you.
Speaker 2: Now, you're not perfect. You're not Jesus. Like we're, the analogy kind of breaks down as like [00:25:26] Jesus. Was the ultimate disciple maker. You know, [00:25:31] he, he had it all figured out. And so for, for us to be like, oh, I only have this many [00:25:36] years on this earth and I've only been a Christian for this long, I've only learned this many [00:25:41] lessons.
Speaker 2: That is true. I mean, we are like partial. Well, we're not perfect. So that's why [00:25:46] I think it's okay for people to be discipled multiple times by multiple [00:25:51] people across their Christian life, but to, to not then. [00:25:56] Pour that back out into someone else in a life stage or two before you, [00:26:01] um, and say like, oh, okay.
Speaker 2: You know, I do have something to offer you in this [00:26:06] area. I think that that's really honoring to the Lord. And it's a good steward of what he's given you.
Speaker: [00:26:11] Yeah. Yeah. And to me it's a perfectly analogous to what it means to become a parent. Yes. If [00:26:16] you ask yourself the question, who's the perfect mother or father, the best [00:26:21] person that I know in the city to raise my children.
Speaker: Until I'm a [00:26:26] better mother or father than them, then I have no business having kids. Uh, that's what we [00:26:31] are saying when we say, oh, I can't make disciples. And what's amazing is that God does [00:26:36] entrust children to broken people like us at stages in our life when we're, you know, [00:26:41] much less mature. And when we send our last child off.
Speaker: We're like looking at [00:26:46] each other, April and I are like, okay. I think now we're about ready to raise kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, [00:26:51] that is kind of the way that God chose to do it. Right. And we have to be, uh, [00:26:56] totally okay with his decision to entrust children to us. And in the same way you do, [00:27:01] you are stewarding really important lessons that need to be imparted to other [00:27:06] people and their spiritual life will be greatly enhanced.
Speaker: Part of it is that our [00:27:11] blueprint says you don't have everything. You only give what you have to give. Yeah. So we want to constrain [00:27:16] discipleship to the areas where you are following Jesus. There might be areas where you're like, look, I'm still in process on this thing. [00:27:21] On this thing. Great. Let somebody else do that.
Speaker: Imparting you, impart what you have, 'cause [00:27:26] you're stewarding those things. Uh, so we wanna really let and release you and help you [00:27:31] find ways to do that. So if you guys are interested in this, obviously we feel very passionate about this. [00:27:36] Uh, we really want to help you guys obey the great commission. And if you are, think [00:27:41] if you either.
Speaker: Are not currently making disciples, or if you are making disciples, [00:27:46] they're not making disciples. We really invite you like we are available to help coach you. [00:27:51] We'll spend months working with you and helping you get a disciple making movement going, so you can go to [00:27:56] one k.org. Um, and apply for Life on Life Discipleship.
Speaker: Let us know you're interested. [00:28:01] We would love to spend time with you. We just, uh, finished up one cohort. Uh, we we're kicking off another one [00:28:06] next week. Uh, really excited to get that started. So, uh, we, this is what we love to do. We love to [00:28:11] see disciple making movements, uh, bubble up, but we really feel like it's important that we [00:28:16] understand what this actually is, and you're gonna get pushback.
Speaker: And so part of what we wanna do is also be a [00:28:21] community. For you guys, a community for those who are in the process, in the trenches, trying to [00:28:26] fulfill and obey the great commission in various ways. Like we want to be [00:28:31] together doing this together.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Awesome. Well, thanks April for letting [00:28:36] me get that off my chest.
Speaker: So this is a really important bet, uh, important topic. Thank you guys for listening.
Jeremy: [00:28:41] Yeah.
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