(bright music) - Well, in the missionary task of church planting, it begins with engaging the city with the Gospel. - Right. - And then hopefully, by God's grace and by the work of the Spirit, there are new converts made.
- Right. - And in church planting, I mean, we talk all the time at Send Network how we're not just starting services, but we're planting churches. - Right.
- And so when we've got these new disciples, these new converts, well, you gotta do stuff with 'em. - Right. - You can't just add 'em into the service or just add 'em into the church.
You've got to make them into fully formed followers of Christ, to use some of the language that Paul uses. - Yeah. - When he wants to see Christ formed in- - Right.
- To the Galatians. And so, Bryan, as we think about making disciples, let's think about a baseline understanding of making disciples. What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?
And I think of a couple buckets, about you wanna believe in Jesus. - Right. - Trusting Him for salvation and the right doctrines about Him.
- Right. - And then to be with Him in communion and being formed by Him. And then also becoming like Him.
So Bryan, what are some ways that you think about, just baseline understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Christ? - Yeah, so for sure, I would definitely have that bucket, right? And then I think about disciple-making, I'm always beginning with the end.
'Cause I think the end is, I wanna be able to produce a reproducing follower of Jesus Christ, so that idea of multiplication. Well then, at least let me ask the question, what do I want them to be able to reproduce? And so that kind of forces me to focus on the essentials, right?
And so the essentials are not necessarily what I deem to be important, but what are the essentials of the faith? What does it mean to share your faith, live out your faith? What does it mean to grow into Christ's likeness?
Those kinds of a thing, so that you can be able to pass it on and reproduce to other people. I got a buddy of mine who pastors a church, and he kinda looks at it as, I mean, I know I would've made a disciple when I can drop them into any city in the world and they can kinda start a church at the end of the day. It's not like I'm trying to raise up a specific church planter, but at the end of the day, I'm looking to release a multiplier, right, who can go anywhere in the world and produce reproducing followers of Jesus.
- That's good. So let's think about the, you kinda mentioned the end. - Yeah.
- So if you think about discipleship as, I want to become like Jesus, I wanna be like Jesus, if you were to take that sponge, that, you know, we soak up all this Biblical truth of what does it mean to be like Jesus. I mean, there are a lotta cults out there that is like, "You can become divine and you can do all the stuff we want. " - Right, right.
- And we know we wanna avoid that. So if we wring out that sponge of what does it mean to become like Jesus and just squeeze out that sponge for a church planter, what are some things that rocket out of that? - So I think that the challenging part, to me, Jeff, as we, and I'm not talking our conversation.
I'm just general, the discipleship conversation in America. And I wanna temper this by saying, yeah, we need to give people content. And yes, I do believe there's gotta be some organization, some structure, it's gotta be systematized.
I'm not hearing enough about the relational part of it. Right? So as I engage you relationally, and this is a strong statement, I'm actually giving you a picture of what it should look like.
- Yeah. - Like, I think the number one reason, this is the hopeful part of me, the number one reason I think so few American Christians have made a disciple, it's not because they don't want to. But discipleship demands a level of relational vulnerability.
Discipleship exposes you. You know what I'm saying? - Yeah, yeah.
- The most fulfilling thing I've ever done in ministry is, I discipled about 70 guys. I would take six a year, and they'd come to Memphis and there's a whole thing that we did with that. But when I'm talking about discipling these guys, I'm not talking about sitting in the classroom.
- Yeah. - Although we did some of that, right? There was a preaching cohort.
There was leadership development stuff. These guys were at my house at my dinner table, and they're (laughing) seeing, you know, a decent Bible teacher whose own kids wouldn't listen to him during devo, right? (Jeff laughing) - Right.
- They're seeing conflict resolution between my wife and I. We're on planes together traveling places and show up at the hotel, and seeing how I react when my assistant forgot to make the reservation. Like, there's that level of life-on-life, relational vulnerability, where they're seeing all of it.
- Yeah, it's good. - And so when I think about how Jesus made disciples, I'm just like, "I think our biggest enemy is not only the relational vulnerability, but just the margin for it, the time for it. " It's Jesus going, "Hey, we're gonna hop in this boat.
We're gonna go over here. We're gonna walk through this grain field, and you're gonna come with me to this synagogue thing. " So that's the intimidating part of it for me is, do I have the time, the relational time Jesus had, to invest in it?
- Yeah. - And so it's that relational piece that I really feel like is a challenge for us here in America making disciples. - I think you nailed it.
That is a huge, huge piece. And you think about Jesus, it is not just Sermon on the Mounts. - Yep.
- It's not just lectures. - Yep. - It is time, walking.
I mean, three years of intense relationship with them. - Right. - And so to be a disciple-making church planter is that, I mean, kinda like when Paul says, "Imitate me as I'm imitating Christ.
" - Yep. - And so to cast that vision of, hey, to be like Christ is like, well, hopefully, I mean, by God's grace, it should be, "Do what I'm doing. " - 100%.
- "Walk with me. Follow what I'm learning from the Lord, what I wanna teach you, how I'm responding in reality to real. " - Yeah.
- It's not just content. - Yeah. - Like discipleship can't just happen online.
- Yep, 100%. That's why I would always say to a church planter, you know, "Those first couple years are really important. " It's almost like you're pouring concrete when we think about the culture of a church.
And after three years, you are who you are, right? So I think, if I'm trying to create a discipleship culture at my church, yes, I need to preach on it, teach on it. Yes, we gotta talk about putting some systems in place.
But I think my job as a church planter is grabbing some people, you know? And I love the idea of Jesus spending a period of prayer and fasting. - Yeah.
- Before he goes out and picks the disciples. So there's a measure of discernment that has to come. But I wanna challenge church planters to relationally pull people close after a period of discernment in the early days of your church plant, and invest in those people who will invest in those people.
I think that's how you create the culture. - Yeah, it's, you know, if we're gonna be like Jesus, we wanna think character, His reflexes, His emotions, His godliness, His obedience to the Father, all those things. But we also want to think, "I wanna make disciples like Jesus did.
" And sometimes we kinda go around the ways at which Jesus made disciples. - Yeah. - As though that's not for us.
- Yeah, so you know, I spent, you ever heard of a guy named Ray Vander Laan? - No, no. - He's amazing.
Anyway, he does all these trips over to Israel. And back, I don't know, 2008, 2009, I spent 17 days with him and a group of other people, and you're just following him around. Anyways, he's really, he gives you the context to discipleship from a Jewish perspective, which Christianity arises out of that tradition.
And he says pretty much everybody goes to school from like five to 12 in the Jewish culture of Jesus' day. Once women turn 12, that was kinda the age of betrothal, 12 to 14 typically. Guys were pretty much done.
They're apprenticing in the family trade. But if you had done really good in school as a guy, now again, we understand there's a little bit of a different outlook on things gender-wise, girls were kind of excluded from this, but if you did really well, a rabbi would show up at your door at the age of 15 and would say, "Follow me. " And for the next 15 years of your life- - Wow.
- You're attached to this rabbi. If you did really well, at the age of 30, you're going back, you're a rabbi, and you're grabbing other people. And he makes a compelling argument, how old is Jesus when he first starts, so on and so forth.
But what struck me is, now just imagine being a 15-year-old person, leaving your home for 15 years. - Wow. - To relationally attach yourself to someone.
I'm not making a push that that's how we should do it at all, but I am saying I'm concerned in our technological age, in our age of busyness, that we don't even have the relational margin to be able to invest deeply- - Yeah. - In discipleship. - That's good, that's good, yeah.
Relationships, discipleship, those things, they have to go together. And so as planters think about, "Okay, I wanna disciple these people. I wanna teach them how to be with Jesus on their own and teach them how to be with Jesus together as the community, as disciples of Christ, as we're both, you know, striving together to walk with Jesus.
I wanna teach them how to become like Jesus. " And I started our conversation with what to believe about Jesus. And so that's some of the content piece.
- Yeah. 100%. - And so, I mean, we gotta have it.
We are given a book. We are given a book to read, a book to memorize, a book to know, a book to live on. So we don't wanna ever downplay content, and I know you don't either.
And so as you think about a planter now, in North America, 21st century, there's these kinda two stages of believing Christ. The first one is believing that He is the son of God, incarnate in flesh, crucified, died, buried, resurrected as your savior, forgiving all of your sins, giving you new life, the great exchange of His righteousness given to you, your sin given to Him. I mean, all this beautiful Gospel content that we gotta believe and confess with our mouths, yes, that is Christ for me.
- Yeah. - But then there's also the we'll continue believing things from Him that He says about marriage, about the womb, and we go on and on. So as we kinda end up this conversation, what are some things that you think planters need to be teaching new converts of continue believing Jesus about this and about that and so forth?
- Well, to grab kind of the essentials piece, I just think church planter, you've got a doctrinal statement that's on your website. I think that's where you begin to unpack these things. And if there's a pet peeve that I have, I think, and it's a challenge to my own self, I think a lot of discipleship stuff is giving people books about the book to the detriment of never really getting to the book, right?
So I don't think we're just talking about handing people systematic theology, although I'm not opposed to systematic theology. But I would see that in more of a supplemental way. So let's just unpack the doctrinal statement, because that's what your church is believing, and I want leaders who are grounded and saturated in that.
The other thing that you're talking about, a wonderful category is, I think we've gotta have some deep Biblical convictions as it relates to marriage, as it relates to life in the womb and outside of the womb, as it relates to spiritual practices and habits and what does that look like, and how do I steward time, and parenting, and what does that look like. You could almost take the qualifications for elder, right, and unpack that with people as well. Because I wanna grow you up into spiritual maturity, which is the way of Jesus.
The importance of sharing your faith, and you know, what does that look like and so on and so forth, absolutely. - It is a thrilling thing to be a Christian. - Yes.
- I mean, we are in the adventure, not even just of a lifetime, but of eternity. To be walking- - 100%. - With the risen Christ, to be a co-heir with Him.
And so we have a great vision of life to share with people. - Yeah, yeah. - And what a privilege, man.
- Yeah, absolutely. - What a privilege. - Absolutely, love it.
