WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.940 Hey, we're going to get you to that podcast in one second, but before we get there, I, Jeff Reed, the Church Digital, Stadia Church Planning, I wanted to have a conversation with you, churches that are out there. 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:23.360 One of the greatest things I arguably think that I've done in my life, other than married and kids, okay, that aside, one of the greatest ministry things I've ever done is this idea of the fidgetal learning communities that we are offering through Stadia Church Planning. 00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:31.780 We want to help you, we want to help your church learn to thrive, grow, and multiply fidgetally, physically, as well as digitally. 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:38.320 We've seen about 200 churches go through this already, and it's been a phenomenal result of it. 00:00:38.380 --> 00:00:40.620 Culture is changing within these churches. 00:00:40.760 --> 00:00:42.640 They're understanding what it is to thrive. 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:52.500 They're understanding how to grow people, how to grow their church, even in the midst of this COVID, not COVID, wherever we are in the season. 00:00:52.500 --> 00:00:58.460 And they're even starting to understand what it means to multiply in fidgetal space. 00:00:58.620 --> 00:01:01.880 There's no secret sauce to doing a digital strategy. 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:04.940 There's no secret sauce to doing a fidgetal strategy. 00:01:05.080 --> 00:01:09.960 There's no secret sauce to making your church thrive, grow, and multiply. 00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:10.760 It takes work. 00:01:10.820 --> 00:01:11.660 I'm not going to lie. 00:01:12.140 --> 00:01:16.680 But through the framework, through the questions, through the learning communities, we connect you with churches. 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:17.940 We give you some content. 00:01:17.940 --> 00:01:31.740 We coach you along the way to help you make the decisions that you need to make so that your church's strategy can thrive, grow, and multiply your church along the way. 00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:34.080 This is a great opportunity for your church. 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:35.500 We would love to have you be a part of it. 00:01:35.500 --> 00:01:40.920 For more information, check out stadiachurchplanning.org slash fidgetal. 00:01:41.460 --> 00:01:44.260 Stadiachurchplanning.org slash fidgetal. 00:01:44.340 --> 00:01:47.840 P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:48.500 All right. 00:01:48.580 --> 00:01:49.320 Hey, that's it. 00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:51.240 We're going to get you back to that episode right now. 00:01:51.460 --> 00:01:52.120 All right. 00:01:52.160 --> 00:01:53.540 You got the Church Digital Podcast. 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:56.800 Once again, it's powered by Stadia Church Planting. 00:01:57.100 --> 00:01:59.000 I love this conversation. 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:04.760 And this was really facilitated by the family over here with Stadia. 00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:09.200 Timothy Initiative is a disciple-making organization. 00:02:09.200 --> 00:02:12.520 And I've had some history with them over the years. 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:21.480 So we utilized some of their content in context of disciple-making when I was the digital pastor over at Christ Fellowship Miami. 00:02:21.780 --> 00:02:29.360 And I've just loved seeing the fruit of what came from the relationship through CF Miami during the time when I was there. 00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:35.700 And I've been blessed as Stadia has a very rich relationship with the Timothy Initiative. 00:02:35.860 --> 00:02:38.440 It's one of their partners, one of our partners. 00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:43.760 And as a result of it, I get to have cool conversations like the one that we're having right here. 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:48.960 Kevin Marcico is the U.S. Director of the Timothy Initiative. 00:02:49.100 --> 00:02:54.220 Now, we're going to go into detail talking about what TTI is and how it works digitally and all of this. 00:02:54.280 --> 00:02:56.960 This conversation is incredibly rich. 00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:04.500 But the heart of this really gets to this place of how are we as a church, how are we multiplying individuals? 00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:08.760 How are we planting, how are we growing churches? 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:12.000 What does it even look like to multiply a church? 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:14.780 And what does that process look like? 00:03:14.860 --> 00:03:20.880 Now, the majority of this conversation is really centered around not technological things. 00:03:20.940 --> 00:03:24.480 This is one of those conversations where you need to kind of turn off the tech side. 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:27.820 If you're the techie guy in this, you need to lean in. 00:03:28.040 --> 00:03:29.220 You need to listen to this. 00:03:29.600 --> 00:03:32.840 Because the heart of this is not tech. 00:03:33.700 --> 00:03:38.400 Once again, rarely in this podcast is it ever really about tech. 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:49.380 The heart of this really does come into this core of discipleship, of disciple making, of disciples who are making disciples. 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:58.340 And really, maybe some of the challenges that the Western church has, the USA church, the American church has today. 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:05.980 And how, maybe just how we can get past this and move on and start growing again. 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:09.060 There are plenty of trends pointing out the negative. 00:04:09.420 --> 00:04:16.660 80% of people called to Christ are not interested in our church services, whether physical or digital. 00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:18.140 It's coming out of Barna. 00:04:18.200 --> 00:04:19.240 We talk about it a lot. 00:04:19.700 --> 00:04:21.920 Gallup, we talk about it in this podcast. 00:04:22.820 --> 00:04:31.320 Gallup are showing that we are now 47% church attendance, church involvement here in 2020, 2021. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:36.780 That's not just Christian churches, that's mosques, that's synagogues. 00:04:36.780 --> 00:04:43.020 Less than 50% of Americans today are involved in church. 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:47.820 That's at a decline all the way from 70% involved in church from 1999. 00:04:48.500 --> 00:05:00.420 So, there's lots of trends showing us maybe some of the stuff we've been doing isn't working in your physical church, in your digital church, in whatever context it is you're doing it in. 00:05:01.320 --> 00:05:03.040 Let's have an honest conversation. 00:05:03.240 --> 00:05:07.520 Let's pause and evaluate if what we're doing is being effective. 00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:13.860 And maybe listen to some of these ideas that Kevin's talking about towards looking at it differently. 00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:26.700 And maybe redefining or maybe even creating a new word, a new idea centered around this discipleship, around this disciple making, around disciples making disciples. 00:05:26.700 --> 00:05:43.680 And so, for the conversation, we're bringing in Kevin Marsico, once again, U.S. Director of the Timothy Initiative, and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting, in a conversation that I'm calling Disciples Making Disciples in the Multimodal Church. 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:45.460 Okay, everybody, here you go. 00:05:46.260 --> 00:05:55.100 Yeah, so back in the early 90s, mid-90s, I graduated from school, but I had always had this compulsion to start churches. 00:05:55.720 --> 00:06:07.600 And in the Maryland-Delaware region, which is where I live, just outside of Washington, D.C., they begin to ask, you know, back with the old stuff from Bob Logan, you know, the leaders are from the harvest, right? 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:12.320 They're in the harvest now, the future leaders, we begin to ask what a church plant movement would look like. 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:23.540 So I ultimately planted a church in 2001 in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and we began to plant churches out of that, ultimately started nine churches in the first seven or eight years out of the church. 00:06:23.980 --> 00:06:28.420 But when we started planting churches, you know, people were saying, hey, would you help us plant churches? 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:29.420 Would you train our leaders? 00:06:29.460 --> 00:06:30.580 And I was doing that. 00:06:30.900 --> 00:06:41.460 But as I began to train other leaders, I began to look at my church and realized every time we sent out a group of people to start a church, we had all of these gaping holes in our church. 00:06:41.460 --> 00:06:47.640 Like I had all these coffee makers and greeters and Sunday school teacher type people that would go out with the new church. 00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:52.620 And then we had all these holes left behind, and I kept trying to fill the holes. 00:06:52.780 --> 00:06:57.560 I kept going, I got to reteach coffee and reteach, you know, children's ministry. 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:01.720 And I realized, hey, we need to do a better job of reproducing our leaders. 00:07:01.960 --> 00:07:09.100 And I realized, man, I'm doing a really poor job being able to fill all these holes with greeters and coffee and all the things we do. 00:07:09.940 --> 00:07:23.940 But about seven years, I'm really a slow learner, by the way, about seven years into it, as we're starting churches and training leaders, I realized, wait a second, I can't even reproduce a coffee maker and get someone making coffee to reproduce a coffee maker. 00:07:24.540 --> 00:07:27.180 And then it occurred to me what's happening with discipleship. 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:28.060 I'm like, wait a second. 00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:31.460 No wonder we can't get any disciples to reproduce. 00:07:31.640 --> 00:07:35.420 Like we're doing some of this stuff fundamentally incorrect. 00:07:35.640 --> 00:07:36.580 And I did really well. 00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:44.800 What I learned about myself is I trained one level really well, but I never trained leaders how to train the second level well. 00:07:45.420 --> 00:07:53.260 And that's where the breakdown began because we had the heart and we had the vision and we had systems in place from a movement perspective. 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:54.940 But we didn't have the fundamentals. 00:07:54.940 --> 00:07:56.940 But we didn't have the fundamentals correct. 00:07:56.940 --> 00:07:59.700 And here's what I found out. 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:06.320 If the foundation is correct, no matter how you build your building, the building will be wrong. 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:12.920 Like you can't have a crooked foundation with a straight building without unless you have a lot of manipulation. 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:18.160 And so we were doing some foundational things incorrect. 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:30.160 We were not actually teaching the correct, like from my perspective now, the basic skills and practices and habits and beliefs, those basic things. 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:34.860 We did not create them to be easily reproducible from the very beginning. 00:08:35.420 --> 00:08:38.360 And so we kept trying to fix a building that had already been built. 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:43.240 And I could make a wall inside the building look good, but it just wouldn't. 00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:44.360 I couldn't get it to reproduce. 00:08:44.640 --> 00:08:46.900 And I realized it's because the foundation was off. 00:08:47.400 --> 00:08:58.020 So I began to back up and began to work harder on what are those core principles and practices that we need to actually make discipleship reproducible. 00:08:58.340 --> 00:09:06.980 And at the same time, by the way, what I realized is I was doing amazing jobs starting new churches and training leaders to start new churches. 00:09:07.460 --> 00:09:16.460 But, you know, now looking back, what we realized is the vast majority of them, we were planting churches we hoped would do discipleship. 00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:26.280 And instead of doing discipleship that led to church planting and it began a journey, it took me years to figure it out. 00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:34.360 And as I began to work through stuff in my church planting world, it was actually going back to some of the basic stuff that I had missed. 00:09:35.020 --> 00:09:40.300 And I actually began to learn stuff from my great grandma and my grandma. 00:09:40.620 --> 00:09:47.260 It occurred to me, even when I was young, my grandmother used to pick me up every Sunday morning and she would drag me to a local nursing home. 00:09:47.520 --> 00:09:59.200 And we would walk from room to room inviting people to come to church and I would put out Bibles and set up chairs and drag over a piano and a preacher would come in and talk and people were coming to Jesus. 00:09:59.540 --> 00:10:02.520 And I realized, man, my grandmother was a church planter. 00:10:03.040 --> 00:10:07.800 And so as I started looking through my history, I had always been a part of church planting. 00:10:08.160 --> 00:10:19.960 But where I ended up, I actually became a part of church planting, not discipleship making that was reproducible that led to church planting. 00:10:20.160 --> 00:10:21.420 So I did well setting up. 00:10:21.560 --> 00:10:26.400 I did well evangelistic wise, but I didn't do well reproduction wise. 00:10:26.880 --> 00:10:37.620 And so that's been the journey for the last 10 years for me is trying to figure out how do we do the reproduction well, which I think most of us would argue is what Jesus was asking for. 00:10:37.860 --> 00:10:42.760 But I think what we fall short on most of the time, especially in the American church. 00:10:43.140 --> 00:10:50.940 You know, a lot of times funny, I joke, like if you line up 10 pastors and ask them what discipleship means, you'll probably get 12 different answers. 00:10:51.480 --> 00:10:59.780 And so like even the word discipleship, I kind of twinge on when I say it, because it varies in concept. 00:10:59.960 --> 00:11:13.100 And even the word like disciple making or disciples making disciples, which really kind of gets to that place of that second generation, that third generation, some of the things that you were talking about. 00:11:13.160 --> 00:11:15.740 So let me just ask, let me get your impression. 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:21.620 Discipleship, like when you say that, let's let's let's put meaning behind that word. 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:23.540 What what what are you what are you referring to? 00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:25.640 So I'm not going to give you a quick answer. 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:28.640 I got to give you at least a context because I'm in agreement with what you just said. 00:11:28.760 --> 00:11:34.820 Listen, the number one problem from my perspective in discipleship is we're all using the same word with different meanings. 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:39.680 So that is a major issue because we're making some assumptions. 00:11:39.820 --> 00:11:46.460 You know, when we come to that word, I almost wish if I almost wish we could just restart with the whole new word. 00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:51.620 But hey, listen, I make up words all the time. 00:11:51.980 --> 00:11:52.800 That's what I do. 00:11:53.100 --> 00:11:54.200 Fidgetal multimodal. 00:11:54.300 --> 00:11:55.940 Like we need to come up with a new word. 00:11:56.200 --> 00:11:56.800 Let's do it. 00:11:56.900 --> 00:11:57.980 We think about it. 00:11:57.980 --> 00:12:00.220 And I love digital multimodal. 00:12:00.280 --> 00:12:02.840 If I understood what it meant, I'd probably use it more often. 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:03.800 But, you know, you will. 00:12:03.900 --> 00:12:04.340 You'll love it. 00:12:04.360 --> 00:12:04.940 We'll talk later. 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:07.420 I know it is something like multi personality, too. 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:08.580 Like there's lots of them there. 00:12:08.900 --> 00:12:12.480 So here's the thing with discipleship. 00:12:13.420 --> 00:12:18.980 At the end of the day, listen, there's a lot of different ways people will define the word disciple. 00:12:19.300 --> 00:12:25.540 Really, but really just means from my perspective to look more like Jesus and love more like Jesus, live more like Jesus. 00:12:25.540 --> 00:12:25.860 Right. 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:28.920 They're going to add all kinds of qualities and characteristics. 00:12:28.920 --> 00:12:30.780 But here's here's what I'm going to argue. 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:36.960 Let's say go ahead and define discipleship however you want, because even the word like what? 00:12:37.160 --> 00:12:43.800 Who is a follower versus a disciple versus a discipler versus disciple making, right? 00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:45.600 Versus disciple making a disciple. 00:12:46.300 --> 00:12:48.000 Let's let's leave this part. 00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:52.660 I'll give lots of freedom to however we decide the definition of disciple. 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:56.120 But let's make sure let's talk about the system in the process. 00:12:56.460 --> 00:13:09.020 When Jesus said go make disciples, there was this basic understanding that if I had a faith relationship with Jesus where I'm trying to look like Jesus and live like Jesus and love like Jesus. 00:13:09.020 --> 00:13:09.440 Right. 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:17.880 If I'm doing those things, then the natural outflow as you are going would be that new disciples are made. 00:13:18.580 --> 00:13:25.240 So I'm not arguing about the definition of disciples, but whatever disciple it is, there's an assumption that more of them would be made. 00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:38.500 And the assumption is, if that's true, then if I'm a disciple, then at some point, the proper definition of discipleship would mean I'm engaged in that same process, whatever it is. 00:13:38.500 --> 00:13:45.160 Okay, so let's stop arguing about disciple, what it means, but make sure we understand the end result process. 00:13:45.680 --> 00:13:49.020 If I'm a disciple, which let's just go love and look like Jesus, live like him. 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:52.980 I should be helping others love, look and live like him. 00:13:53.460 --> 00:13:59.240 But the piece I miss is then if they become a disciple, they have that same basic mandate. 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:03.680 They need to love, look and live like Jesus that helps other people do it. 00:14:03.680 --> 00:14:05.540 And so that's the reproduction. 00:14:06.100 --> 00:14:10.660 So our problem is we're fighting so much about what we say a disciple is. 00:14:11.080 --> 00:14:13.380 We forget what the end result is. 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:15.920 It's the end result of whatever you think a disciple is. 00:14:16.300 --> 00:14:18.420 That needs to place it into somebody else. 00:14:18.640 --> 00:14:22.780 And that person should also be able to place it into someone else. 00:14:23.100 --> 00:14:26.400 And that person should also be able to place it into someone else. 00:14:27.100 --> 00:14:31.680 So we're fighting so much about the means, we're forgetting about the end result. 00:14:32.620 --> 00:14:41.560 And that's where we need to change the conversation is, listen, however you want to argue about what you think a disciple is, at the end of the day, if that's not being reproduced, it's being reproduced. 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:45.420 We are missing out on the most basic mandate. 00:14:46.420 --> 00:14:47.900 So, I mean, it's just like the evil one. 00:14:48.140 --> 00:14:53.940 Get us arguing about this simple topic when it actually just the results of what the expectation is. 00:14:53.940 --> 00:14:56.640 So we can't get to a movement by making disciples. 00:14:57.100 --> 00:15:03.960 We can only actually make disciples who make a disciple because that's what the definition would ultimately mean. 00:15:04.060 --> 00:15:05.940 That's the end result of what it means. 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:11.260 So that's where I would argue there's a difference between that system and process piece, right? 00:15:11.280 --> 00:15:19.120 We're talking about this argument on a definition, but we're forgetting the result of it, of what that definition should lead to. 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:26.640 And that's why I've also said, we joked before, this is where I think the difference between the goal of a pastor and the role of a pastor. 00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:27.840 It's the same thing. 00:15:28.060 --> 00:15:30.980 There's a goal of discipleship and a role of discipline. 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:34.080 And I think we look at those and get those things confused quite easily. 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:38.520 The goal and the role of a pastor, that sounds like a tangent I would love to go down. 00:15:38.700 --> 00:15:40.160 I'm not going to do that right now. 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:43.560 But that's an intriguing idea. 00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:54.300 When it comes towards this multiplication angle, and it's funny, like I've worked with church staffs that I'm more explicit. 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:56.380 Hey, we literally need to say multiplication. 00:15:56.820 --> 00:15:59.360 We need to have on mission activation. 00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:05.980 We need to have that part of clearly stated in our strategy, because if we don't, it's often forgotten. 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:20.780 But in some churches, it's more understated, which means that if it's not stated, it's not done by the staff or by the volunteers, the attenders, things like that. 00:16:22.100 --> 00:16:25.760 What's the struggle in churches right now? 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:36.180 And I'm more generically speaking here, but it feels like, especially in this COVID season, it's been much more inward facing. 00:16:37.020 --> 00:16:49.280 It's been even before then, though, when we're looking at Gallup just recently came out, the church is in a 20-year decline, going all the way back to 1999 for the first time, at least domestically here in the United States. 00:16:49.280 --> 00:16:57.460 We are under 50% church involvement, and that's not just Christian church, that's mosques, that's synagogues. 00:16:57.660 --> 00:17:03.620 Like, involvement with organized religion overall is under 50% here in America. 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:10.000 And so the idea of, I mean, shoot, even like the millennials think the word evangelism is a bad word. 00:17:10.260 --> 00:17:16.540 And we've talked about that recently on podcasts and in other areas with some recent episodes. 00:17:16.800 --> 00:17:28.000 So, like, what's the struggle maybe organizationally with evangelism, with sharing our faith, with getting to that multiplication piece, even at an individual level? 00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:30.640 And, like, how do we get past this? 00:17:31.380 --> 00:17:32.220 A couple things. 00:17:32.280 --> 00:17:32.940 It's interesting. 00:17:33.080 --> 00:17:38.920 You know, the millennials and the younger generation, one of their interesting things is there's a rise in Buddhism right now in the USA. 00:17:39.280 --> 00:17:41.760 And when asked, why do you choose Buddhism? 00:17:42.120 --> 00:17:48.480 And they said, it's because from our perspective, it's one of the only religions that puts into practice that which they learn. 00:17:49.280 --> 00:17:56.720 And I thought, wow, that's a pretty telling thought that someone who's a Christian would choose Buddhism because they actually put it into practice. 00:17:56.720 --> 00:17:58.980 But this is what their argument was. 00:17:59.660 --> 00:18:03.700 Christianity is content-oriented, right? 00:18:03.760 --> 00:18:04.740 It's content-oriented. 00:18:05.660 --> 00:18:17.440 And so in this aspect, I think we've come through generations where knowledge was the key, that if I had a superior level of knowledge, that was part of spiritual growth, right? 00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:20.740 If I could quote it, if I could share it, if I believed it. 00:18:21.340 --> 00:18:26.440 But we've left off, for mostly in the USA, we've left off the practices. 00:18:26.760 --> 00:18:29.000 And I don't mean private practice. 00:18:29.400 --> 00:18:33.280 So, you know, a lot of people work on spiritual disciplines. 00:18:33.420 --> 00:18:35.380 But those spiritual disciplines, those are good. 00:18:35.800 --> 00:18:38.900 But, again, they should all result in something. 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:42.240 There's got to be some level of impact that's out there. 00:18:42.460 --> 00:18:49.060 So where you're seeing that breakdown is I believe in evangelism, but I don't think I have to do it, right? 00:18:49.760 --> 00:18:58.580 And so when I start this dialogue with people and I'm trying to process in what's keeping you from being everything you should be as a disciple, like what's keeping you? 00:18:58.940 --> 00:19:01.980 Most all of them, they've got a level of belief down. 00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:04.100 They've got this knowledge-based act thing. 00:19:04.100 --> 00:19:11.600 But what they don't know, they've got a belief, but they don't have the skills to put that belief into action. 00:19:12.140 --> 00:19:13.740 It's the skills that is the problem. 00:19:14.260 --> 00:19:19.400 And then if they have developed skills, they don't have a system to help them practice it. 00:19:19.760 --> 00:19:22.400 So let me just say when it comes to evangelism, for example. 00:19:22.800 --> 00:19:27.600 So if I went into the average evangelical church in America and I just said, hey, guys, raise your hand. 00:19:27.700 --> 00:19:30.900 Do you believe you need a personal relationship with Jesus to go to heaven? 00:19:31.380 --> 00:19:33.540 Well, many would say yes. 00:19:33.580 --> 00:19:36.940 In fact, the vast majority above the millennial age would say yes. 00:19:37.540 --> 00:19:40.780 Millennials, again, they'd argue that evangelism may be a bad word, right? 00:19:40.780 --> 00:19:47.000 But if you said, how many of you need a faith relationship with Jesus, the vast majority would say yes. 00:19:47.500 --> 00:20:00.220 But if you ask the second question, how many of you have been trained and equipped by the leaders of your church or by somebody that you could actually sit down and dialogue with somebody about how to come to faith in Jesus? 00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:01.240 What does that mean? 00:20:01.660 --> 00:20:04.540 The vast majority of the rooms will have crickets. 00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:05.760 It'll be silence. 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:14.160 So I have this belief, I think people need Jesus, but then I have this second issue, which is now do I have a skill? 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:17.560 Could I actually share my faith with somebody? 00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:20.020 Could I have a biblical conversation with somebody? 00:20:20.120 --> 00:20:20.780 Could I dialogue? 00:20:21.180 --> 00:20:22.400 So most don't have the skill. 00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:26.540 Then you say, okay, well, as a leader, let us train our people for those skills. 00:20:26.660 --> 00:20:28.280 So I began working on training for skills. 00:20:28.660 --> 00:20:30.400 But then the third thing happens. 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:37.340 So now I've got a belief and I've got a skill, but then now there comes the question, so how do I put it into practice? 00:20:37.980 --> 00:20:50.400 So if I've been trained in something on church on Sunday, what's going to help me put that into practice on Tuesday or Thursday when I'm at my work or I'm at my sporting event with my buddy bowling pre-COVID when I could actually bowl or something like that, right? 00:20:50.540 --> 00:20:51.680 I'm out with my people. 00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:58.160 How do I intentionally work, you know, have a practice in my life that somebody's saying, hey, have you done this? 00:20:58.220 --> 00:20:59.420 Hey, have you worked on it, right? 00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:03.300 So it's that belief skill and then ultimately that practice. 00:21:04.060 --> 00:21:13.480 But then when we have beliefs and we've been trained in skills and we put it into practice, that's what actually begins to change our values. 00:21:13.760 --> 00:21:17.600 I think people often think, well, I have to change my value to put something into practice. 00:21:17.740 --> 00:21:18.520 Well, that's true. 00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:21.920 But until you put it into practice, it won't actually change your value. 00:21:22.140 --> 00:21:26.880 So I could value good food, but that doesn't mean I'm giving a pizza today, right? 00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:32.580 I mean, like, so until I actually stop eating pizza, which is, by the way, the best food. 00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:37.080 So let me clarify, you know, maybe just until I add a vegetable to my diet or something, right? 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:47.840 So I need that belief skill and practice, but that'll grow my values, which will create new habits in my life that'll make me look, live, and love more like Jesus. 00:21:48.340 --> 00:21:53.640 So knowledge alone is not going to move us towards living, loving, and looking more like Jesus. 00:21:53.640 --> 00:21:56.620 It is a practice in skills. 00:21:57.220 --> 00:21:59.820 And here's the sad part in our churches on Sunday morning. 00:22:00.320 --> 00:22:05.300 I believe the average person, I'm going to be generous and say only 90%. 00:22:05.300 --> 00:22:20.180 I think 95% of people sitting in the pews this Sunday do not know how to have a basic quiet time, do not know how to pray, do not know how to share their faith, are struggling with their basic understanding of scripture. 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:25.300 And we're preaching messages to them, trying to encourage them in their spiritual journey. 00:22:25.980 --> 00:22:32.660 And we keep trying to inspire for somebody who doesn't know how to do the basic skills. 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:35.980 And we're actually, we built a faulty foundation. 00:22:36.980 --> 00:22:49.440 And the picture on the other side I would give, it's kind of like every week I get up and talk about here's a hammer, here's a nail, here's a saw, here's a screw, here's wood. 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:59.120 And I constantly describe wood and saws and hammers and nails, but I've never actually walked out back and let someone pick them up and actually build something. 00:22:59.740 --> 00:22:59.900 Right? 00:23:00.560 --> 00:23:07.560 And this is where discipleship, we've gone from content and I think we need to go back to discipleship as apprenticeship. 00:23:08.180 --> 00:23:15.040 That for someone who wants to build something, they actually want to pick it up and learn how to do it. 00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:21.620 If I wanted to golf, you don't sit there reading books and all day long and talking about it in dialogue. 00:23:21.800 --> 00:23:25.960 And at some point, you grab a club, throw a ball on the ground and you take a swing. 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:26.400 Right? 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:33.940 And we believe discipleship can happen with a knowledge-based where nothing is trained like that. 00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:36.840 You've got to get, if you're going to be a pilot, you've got to fly. 00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:40.720 If you're going to be a doctor, you go through this training, but you've got to get your hands on. 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:48.560 We missed out on the basic components of practices and skills so we actually apprentice. 00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:56.160 And we know, I think, most Christian leaders, just go look at the basic world that Jesus lived in. 00:23:56.800 --> 00:24:05.600 When you use the word disciple, there was this automatic reality that whatever my master teachers teaches, I will put into practice. 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:07.160 That was an automatic assumption. 00:24:07.660 --> 00:24:09.280 And we've missed that today. 00:24:09.280 --> 00:24:13.900 Is that what our masters, our pastors, leaders teach, I will memorize and learn. 00:24:14.280 --> 00:24:16.300 It's not I will put into practice. 00:24:16.460 --> 00:24:18.240 And I think that's actually anti-biblical. 00:24:19.060 --> 00:24:20.520 You know, and that even pulls the thread. 00:24:20.600 --> 00:24:31.880 We've talked here a little bit, going back to a podcast with Ricky Bailey centered around digital discipleship, where we're actually talking about Timothy Initiative, the organization that you're championing and working with. 00:24:31.880 --> 00:24:38.400 But the conversation was really centered around knowledge-based discipleship versus obedience-based discipleship. 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:43.100 And Ricky is much more in that obedience-based. 00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:48.340 And obviously, Timothy Initiative really leans more towards that obedience side. 00:24:48.520 --> 00:24:55.020 So maybe could you speak towards that, what that relationship is between like a knowledge-based and an obedience-based? 00:24:55.340 --> 00:25:00.660 Well, so let's make sure we're on the same page for anybody who wants to question anything. 00:25:01.480 --> 00:25:03.100 Listen, I'm not that smart. 00:25:04.120 --> 00:25:07.720 I'm more attractive than I am smart, and that doesn't say much, okay? 00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:10.260 So let's go with this. 00:25:10.300 --> 00:25:11.040 I'm not brilliant. 00:25:11.040 --> 00:25:14.660 But here's what I would argue just to make sure we're all on the same page. 00:25:15.380 --> 00:25:18.380 Jeff, you shouldn't give a crap what I personally think. 00:25:18.860 --> 00:25:20.800 I mean, really, you shouldn't care what I think. 00:25:21.340 --> 00:25:24.520 And most leaders out there shouldn't care what I think. 00:25:24.660 --> 00:25:28.140 The question is, is what does the Bible say, right? 00:25:28.340 --> 00:25:34.260 And there's this assumption that what I'm saying as a leader is what the Bible is saying biblically, right? 00:25:34.660 --> 00:25:38.400 But often that assumption is a very bad assumption, all right? 00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:43.600 So when it comes to obedience-based versus knowledge-based, here's what I'm just going to argue simply. 00:25:44.260 --> 00:25:47.400 Show me in Scripture what the Bible says, right? 00:25:47.660 --> 00:25:49.940 And if you go to Jesus, here's Jesus. 00:25:50.120 --> 00:25:53.540 I mean, he finishes this entire Beatitudes, Sermon on the Mount. 00:25:53.800 --> 00:25:55.240 He goes through all of this stuff. 00:25:55.280 --> 00:25:59.520 For chapters in the book of Matthew, he's talking about all these practices in life. 00:25:59.880 --> 00:26:07.760 And he gets to the very end, and he tells a very, very familiar parable that most people seem to forget the context of the parable. 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:11.880 He gets to the end, and he talks about this wise man and this foolish man. 00:26:12.040 --> 00:26:17.540 And he says, the wise man built his house upon the rock, and the foolish man built his house upon the sand. 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:21.560 But he gives a definition for the distinction of the two. 00:26:22.060 --> 00:26:31.080 He says, whoever hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is a wise man. 00:26:31.600 --> 00:26:38.200 Whoever hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is a foolish man. 00:26:38.200 --> 00:26:41.640 And so we talk about all this stuff of a wise man and a foolish man. 00:26:41.740 --> 00:26:42.460 It's simple. 00:26:42.580 --> 00:26:47.200 The distinction is they heard the same message. 00:26:47.740 --> 00:26:49.500 The one who practiced it is wise. 00:26:49.640 --> 00:26:51.460 The one who ignored it is foolish. 00:26:51.800 --> 00:26:57.240 And we stand up giving a message every week, and we're going, it's okay to hear. 00:26:57.840 --> 00:26:59.840 When that's not what Jesus says. 00:26:59.940 --> 00:27:03.260 I mean, he goes, when you hear it and you go put it into practice. 00:27:03.900 --> 00:27:05.820 By the way, go look at the other scripture on it. 00:27:05.820 --> 00:27:10.620 He says, he who loves me, John, he who loves me will obey my commands. 00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:12.140 They'll put my commands into practice. 00:27:12.280 --> 00:27:14.820 That's how I know you actually love me. 00:27:15.180 --> 00:27:19.360 You know, or you go into the book of James, who's not Jesus, but at least James. 00:27:19.560 --> 00:27:23.680 It's like a person looking in a mirror, and it goes away ignoring what it says. 00:27:23.800 --> 00:27:25.300 You know, you don't respond to it. 00:27:25.740 --> 00:27:32.640 So I just would say the normal outflow of a spiritual journey, it was never about knowledge. 00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:33.140 Never. 00:27:33.140 --> 00:27:36.000 Now, knowledge must lead to practice. 00:27:36.360 --> 00:27:41.120 But we're, again, so focused on the knowledge that we don't put it into practice. 00:27:41.600 --> 00:27:44.040 And so I'm not even sure. 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:48.140 We use two words, knowledge-based discipleship versus obedience-based discipleship. 00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:53.120 But listen, the definition of the discipleship would mean, like, I don't know how you get 00:27:53.120 --> 00:27:55.120 away with the definition that is knowledge-based. 00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:57.720 I just don't see it anywhere scripturally. 00:27:58.100 --> 00:28:00.600 As you are going, make disciples, you know. 00:28:00.780 --> 00:28:04.440 And so that, even that is an action-based oriented thing. 00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:09.660 And in any way that we think we can do this by knowledge, not practice, I just don't see 00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:10.480 that as being biblical. 00:28:10.700 --> 00:28:16.660 Give me an argument for anything else in scripture, and I'd be willing to have a conversation, but 00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:17.280 I don't see it. 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:18.660 Yeah, okay. 00:28:19.660 --> 00:28:26.860 My experience going through, and I've worked with several churches that, on staff, where 00:28:26.860 --> 00:28:33.100 we've tried to bring in maybe some of this obedience-based discipleship type of thing. 00:28:33.560 --> 00:28:36.500 We've got healthy, small group environments. 00:28:36.800 --> 00:28:40.460 They're used to learning things in those studies. 00:28:41.180 --> 00:28:43.060 And I'm not saying, like, it's unhealthy. 00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:46.660 I think there's an opportunity where they are learning, they're experiencing, they're growing 00:28:46.660 --> 00:28:47.300 in community. 00:28:48.120 --> 00:28:53.260 But what I've seen specifically in my own life, with my own church staff experiences, when 00:28:53.260 --> 00:28:58.260 we try to bring in some of this obedience, where maybe it's more of, hey, we want to hold 00:28:58.260 --> 00:28:58.840 you accountable. 00:28:58.840 --> 00:29:03.080 We want to help equip you with the ability to share your faith with others. 00:29:03.480 --> 00:29:11.700 That conversation always tends to go difficult, always seems to be stressed, always seems 00:29:11.700 --> 00:29:12.320 to be awkward. 00:29:12.520 --> 00:29:15.880 Like, I've never seen those transitions go well. 00:29:16.040 --> 00:29:17.340 No, eventually they get there. 00:29:17.540 --> 00:29:23.060 But it's through this giant, awkward phase of, no, I didn't do it. 00:29:23.160 --> 00:29:25.300 Yes, I know that that's what God calls me to do. 00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:29.660 And what's funny is, that's often on the staff side. 00:29:29.740 --> 00:29:31.300 Like, I haven't even gotten to the volunteers. 00:29:31.800 --> 00:29:32.640 That's us, right? 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:35.200 Yeah, it's on the staff. 00:29:36.020 --> 00:29:40.400 Sometimes it's the pastors, because we're so used to, which is why I would love to have 00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:41.660 that pastor conversation later. 00:29:41.800 --> 00:29:48.740 But it's this, we know we're supposed to, but how these organizations are built in such 00:29:48.740 --> 00:29:55.880 a way, often it's not the obedience side as much as it is gaining that knowledge and the 00:29:55.880 --> 00:30:01.440 obedience of actually doing the multiplication act gets lost in our churches. 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:06.700 And so I know you work with churches that are legacy, that are established and help them, 00:30:06.700 --> 00:30:08.820 you know, adjust and adopt. 00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:12.300 I love working with church planners because they're clean, they're fresh, you can create 00:30:12.300 --> 00:30:13.080 that healthy DNA. 00:30:13.780 --> 00:30:22.100 What does it look like to maybe convert a church that was more aimed at knowledge-based and kind 00:30:22.100 --> 00:30:24.520 of help them understand that obedience side? 00:30:25.260 --> 00:30:26.140 So a couple things. 00:30:28.580 --> 00:30:33.460 One of the hardest things for me to do is I can't believe how long of a struggle I had 00:30:33.460 --> 00:30:36.820 to go through for my personal paradigm shift to change, right? 00:30:37.520 --> 00:30:41.360 It's really tough as a leader, and people say this to me regularly. 00:30:42.540 --> 00:30:47.120 Kevin, if I'm supposed to believe this, that means much of what I've done for discipleship 00:30:47.120 --> 00:30:49.480 in my ministry is actually non-biblical. 00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:54.260 And I want to sometimes argue, well, I'm not arguing that. 00:30:54.400 --> 00:30:55.240 That's not what I'm arguing. 00:30:55.300 --> 00:30:57.380 But I am arguing you to evaluate. 00:30:57.540 --> 00:31:01.700 I mean, listen, if you're concerned, we all want to hear, well done, my good and faithful 00:31:01.700 --> 00:31:02.120 servants. 00:31:02.120 --> 00:31:04.420 And we all want to be biblically oriented. 00:31:04.420 --> 00:31:09.820 So how, when we have patterns and habits that we're doing, how do we, and they're being 00:31:09.820 --> 00:31:13.160 challenged because part of what we're saying is that that's, it's almost anti-biblical. 00:31:13.340 --> 00:31:19.220 It's hard to think I'm an evangelical Christian doing borderline anti-biblical practices, right? 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:25.100 Like, like all I do all week long is spend 40 hours a week preparing for Sunday and don't 00:31:25.100 --> 00:31:28.420 know how to disciple leaders outside of Sunday and call Sunday morning discipleship. 00:31:28.700 --> 00:31:30.520 I'm not saying Sunday morning is bad. 00:31:30.580 --> 00:31:31.980 I'm not arguing against that. 00:31:32.080 --> 00:31:35.080 We just have to ask some more questions. 00:31:35.080 --> 00:31:38.140 I think we need to go back and actually begin to look at that. 00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:43.980 So as we, as we talk with leaders and churches, I'm constantly just going back going, let's 00:31:43.980 --> 00:31:45.040 look at scripture again. 00:31:45.740 --> 00:31:47.040 This is really tough. 00:31:47.120 --> 00:31:52.740 I've struggled with this, but I've been back trying to read scripture as if I'm reading it 00:31:52.740 --> 00:31:53.480 the first time. 00:31:54.160 --> 00:31:54.640 Right. 00:31:55.100 --> 00:32:00.760 Our problem is we have, I have a fully, fully formed theology or predominantly formed theology 00:32:00.760 --> 00:32:01.960 from whatever perspective. 00:32:02.560 --> 00:32:06.420 And I'm always looking at scripture with a bent based on what I know. 00:32:06.840 --> 00:32:10.060 But if I was just to go look at scripture, if we can look at scripture and say, wait a second, 00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:12.820 what do we think Jesus is really teaching from scratch? 00:32:13.020 --> 00:32:19.160 And if you can get people to just look at scripture from scratch and then say, if I'm reading this 00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:24.620 correctly, would what I'm doing today be the end result of what I'm reading right here in 00:32:24.620 --> 00:32:25.840 scripture, right? 00:32:26.500 --> 00:32:31.460 Then, then we can let them go on a scriptural arguments, right? 00:32:31.500 --> 00:32:33.180 I think that's going to be the key. 00:32:33.720 --> 00:32:35.860 Again, it's not what I think or not think. 00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:42.760 And you added a word into there because, so you said obedience based discipleship, but you 00:32:42.760 --> 00:32:45.560 also added the word accountability in there. 00:32:46.020 --> 00:32:47.440 And here's what's interesting. 00:32:48.040 --> 00:32:49.180 Obedience isn't the issue. 00:32:49.360 --> 00:32:51.580 Accountability is the issue with most people, right? 00:32:51.900 --> 00:32:54.440 So let's just throw out the word and say, we don't need accountability. 00:32:54.620 --> 00:32:56.820 I'm just going to say, be obedient, right? 00:32:57.320 --> 00:32:58.720 Obedience based discipleship. 00:32:58.780 --> 00:33:00.100 That is biblical. 00:33:01.140 --> 00:33:03.260 Accountability is the system. 00:33:04.240 --> 00:33:06.800 It's a system to hold me accountable. 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:07.420 I like that. 00:33:07.460 --> 00:33:09.840 See, that is a system for obedience. 00:33:09.840 --> 00:33:15.540 So I'm not going to argue that accountability in and of itself is the perfect biblical paradigm. 00:33:16.180 --> 00:33:22.340 I'm going to say accountability is an answer to how I deal with the biblical issue of obedience. 00:33:22.840 --> 00:33:27.380 And what people want to do is they want to argue against accountability saying, well, you 00:33:27.380 --> 00:33:30.400 don't really see them holding each other accountable in scripture, but wait a second. 00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:32.400 Then let's talk about obedience. 00:33:32.540 --> 00:33:35.280 Are you being obedient to the things that he's asked you to do? 00:33:35.360 --> 00:33:36.900 And most of them will say, no. 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:38.840 I mean, no is going to be the major response. 00:33:39.840 --> 00:33:45.480 Then what can we do as brothers and sisters in Christ to walk with one another, to encourage 00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:47.840 one another, to disciple one another, right? 00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:53.140 So we need to make sure we watch those, that phraseology, like, because that's where people, 00:33:53.140 --> 00:33:56.980 they get stuck on something over here and argue that point. 00:33:57.140 --> 00:33:58.660 But again, it's off the point. 00:33:59.120 --> 00:34:05.020 If we can agree that disciples must make disciples, must make disciples, if we can agree on that, 00:34:05.300 --> 00:34:07.480 the whole conversation changes. 00:34:08.360 --> 00:34:13.180 If you don't agree on that, then we have a problem is we're trying to argue two different 00:34:13.180 --> 00:34:13.780 paradigms. 00:34:13.960 --> 00:34:16.600 We're seeing scripture different at that point, right? 00:34:16.820 --> 00:34:19.580 So we have to, that's where the definition is so important. 00:34:19.960 --> 00:34:25.100 So with churches, as I'm even working, you have to work back because here's what I'm going 00:34:25.100 --> 00:34:29.880 to argue if disciples, if, well, this is, you know, they, they give this credit to a lot 00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:34.020 of people, but you know, one of the definitions I heard, if your disciples are not making disciples, 00:34:34.020 --> 00:34:36.660 then you're really not making disciples, right? 00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:40.540 That's the negative phraseology that they will use for that. 00:34:40.580 --> 00:34:44.540 But if, if your disciples are not making disciples, then you're really not making disciples. 00:34:44.540 --> 00:34:49.840 So say we agree with that statement then, well, now I have paradigm shift and implications 00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:56.320 and our people's problem is they want to argue about implications instead of agreeing on the 00:34:56.320 --> 00:34:57.800 basic realities. 00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:03.880 So yes, there are things that need to change in our church, but you'll never change it until 00:35:03.880 --> 00:35:06.040 we agree upon a definition. 00:35:06.580 --> 00:35:11.160 If you agree upon the definition, then you start asking the question, okay, what does the 00:35:11.160 --> 00:35:14.960 disciple look like and what's it going to take for us to accomplish it? 00:35:15.300 --> 00:35:16.660 That's really what it comes down to. 00:35:17.060 --> 00:35:21.320 And most of our churches don't even define what a disciple will look like, but if they 00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:25.140 do, I promise you, Jeff, you, you and I've kind of played with this before, but if you 00:35:25.140 --> 00:35:30.060 just put a whiteboard on the wall and you just write on this, um, you have someone that came 00:35:30.060 --> 00:35:35.120 to Jesus today and 18 months from now, I want to see them, you know, be a disciple because 00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:35.760 I'll be gone. 00:35:35.820 --> 00:35:36.680 Say I've got 18 months. 00:35:36.700 --> 00:35:37.940 Like I was Paul, the impossible. 00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:39.320 I have 18 months with somebody. 00:35:39.700 --> 00:35:42.380 What do I want them to look like 18 months from now? 00:35:42.560 --> 00:35:47.400 The interesting thing is very little of what people will say is actually knowledge-based. 00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:49.440 They'll say stuff like, well, I want them to serve. 00:35:49.580 --> 00:35:50.500 I want them to give. 00:35:50.660 --> 00:35:51.620 I want them to go. 00:35:51.760 --> 00:35:52.620 I want them to share. 00:35:52.860 --> 00:35:53.700 I want them to pray. 00:35:53.820 --> 00:35:55.280 I want them to have a handle of scripture. 00:35:55.620 --> 00:35:57.660 Most of it's action oriented, right? 00:35:57.700 --> 00:35:59.060 It's not belief oriented. 00:35:59.520 --> 00:36:05.560 But then if you just ask this question, so then what are we going to do as a church to 00:36:05.560 --> 00:36:07.940 help that disciple look like that? 00:36:08.740 --> 00:36:09.600 What are we going to do? 00:36:10.260 --> 00:36:14.240 Most churches do not have a simple answer on how to answer those questions. 00:36:15.080 --> 00:36:17.440 And so you need to help a church walk back through. 00:36:17.520 --> 00:36:19.360 They may say, say something like small groups. 00:36:19.680 --> 00:36:19.960 Okay. 00:36:20.060 --> 00:36:21.120 So let's say small groups. 00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:23.100 How does a small group help them to serve? 00:36:23.220 --> 00:36:24.680 How does a small group help them to pray? 00:36:24.680 --> 00:36:29.200 How does a small group help them to actually, you know, grow in the fruit of the spirit? 00:36:29.340 --> 00:36:31.220 How does a small group help them in their quiet time? 00:36:31.680 --> 00:36:34.780 So you just have to ask whatever you think your issue is. 00:36:34.860 --> 00:36:40.740 We need to be honest and say, are the things I'm doing actually giving us the results we 00:36:40.740 --> 00:36:41.180 want? 00:36:41.600 --> 00:36:46.940 And most people, the results that they want, the things that they're doing will never get 00:36:46.940 --> 00:36:48.140 them to the results they want. 00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:50.880 And that's the biggest issue in America. 00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:56.000 It's not that we're doing bad things, but we're not getting the result we want. 00:36:56.340 --> 00:36:58.300 And that's the problem with this knowledge base. 00:36:58.400 --> 00:36:59.840 We gave all kinds of knowledge. 00:37:00.220 --> 00:37:05.640 It's not getting the result we want because we're not helping with the practices and skills. 00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:07.500 And by the way, they did a survey. 00:37:07.740 --> 00:37:14.360 Harvard did a survey about 12 years ago looking at the Fortune 500 companies in the USA. 00:37:14.360 --> 00:37:18.060 And even amongst Fortune 500 companies, here's what they found out. 00:37:19.060 --> 00:37:26.220 95 percent, 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies did not have the plan or structure to actually 00:37:26.220 --> 00:37:28.720 carry out their corporate goals during that year. 00:37:29.760 --> 00:37:35.560 So these are our goals, but they actually didn't have a plan or structure to accomplish that 00:37:35.560 --> 00:37:35.860 goal. 00:37:35.980 --> 00:37:38.020 But they just threw out what a goal is. 00:37:38.380 --> 00:37:41.920 And it was funny because most of these companies, they were either succeeding or not, but most of 00:37:41.920 --> 00:37:45.840 them they found, even the successful ones, didn't actually have a plan to be successful. 00:37:46.040 --> 00:37:49.540 It just worked out that way because of secondary factors. 00:37:50.100 --> 00:37:51.800 And I think that's what's happening in our churches. 00:37:52.180 --> 00:37:55.480 The vast majority of us don't have a plan to get us where we want to go. 00:37:55.480 --> 00:38:00.860 And when we do establish goals, we get some of them sometimes because of exactly what we 00:38:00.860 --> 00:38:05.480 do and a lot of times just because it's God's favor or for some other reason. 00:38:05.600 --> 00:38:10.700 But it actually rarely has anything to do with what we planned or strategized to see accomplished. 00:38:11.240 --> 00:38:12.520 That's really interesting. 00:38:12.780 --> 00:38:18.180 A whole bunch of corporations, even at the Fortune 500 level, are just randomly succeeding 00:38:18.180 --> 00:38:21.960 without having the systems or the infrastructure in place to help us help you get there. 00:38:22.120 --> 00:38:25.920 Like that's that was not expecting that one to pop up in this podcast. 00:38:26.480 --> 00:38:32.220 Well, let's let's pivot a little bit here because what Timothy Initiative, I would imagine 00:38:32.220 --> 00:38:36.180 that starting to get some practical application here. 00:38:36.180 --> 00:38:44.180 You know, you mentioned earlier about accountability and how that's some of the challenges of that, 00:38:44.260 --> 00:38:45.340 maybe even philosophically. 00:38:46.060 --> 00:38:48.180 I'm wondering kind of wrestling in my mind. 00:38:48.280 --> 00:38:53.420 Well, Timothy Initiative, what I've seen, gives some of that accountability at a practical 00:38:53.420 --> 00:38:53.920 level. 00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:55.820 So, like, what is Timothy Initiative? 00:38:56.080 --> 00:38:57.060 How does it work? 00:38:57.120 --> 00:38:57.820 How does it operate? 00:38:58.040 --> 00:39:01.820 And maybe how does it swing the pendulum the other way? 00:39:01.900 --> 00:39:05.980 How does it help solve some of these problems from a practical standpoint that we're wrestling 00:39:05.980 --> 00:39:06.740 with in the church? 00:39:07.220 --> 00:39:07.380 Yeah. 00:39:07.520 --> 00:39:12.500 So the Timothy Initiative, you know, we're just a disciple making organization that results 00:39:12.500 --> 00:39:13.580 in church plants. 00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:17.080 So that's the goal is that church plants are actually formed all over the world. 00:39:17.200 --> 00:39:18.460 Most of them are micro churches. 00:39:19.020 --> 00:39:23.960 I mean, they've started well over 100,000 churches around the world in the last 10 years. 00:39:24.620 --> 00:39:27.780 And and again, most of these principles and practices overseas. 00:39:28.740 --> 00:39:32.140 It's funny because when you go overseas, there's it's normal. 00:39:32.260 --> 00:39:33.220 You think like a missionary. 00:39:33.220 --> 00:39:39.240 You act like a missionary, you teach in basic skills, you empower laity, and then you allow 00:39:39.240 --> 00:39:41.160 them to reach their family, friends and neighbors. 00:39:41.620 --> 00:39:42.840 And then you bring it back to the USA. 00:39:43.240 --> 00:39:47.180 And it just seems like this crazy anomaly, right, that we're just supposed to show up at 00:39:47.180 --> 00:39:51.280 the weekend and serve in whatever position I get in as a church and then leave for the 00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:52.020 next seven days. 00:39:52.600 --> 00:40:00.520 So what we've done is just made a very simple foundational training. 00:40:00.700 --> 00:40:01.840 I don't want to use the word curriculum. 00:40:02.520 --> 00:40:03.820 Here's the number one thing we found. 00:40:04.240 --> 00:40:07.400 You can go online to TTI USA, whatever, and you can order a book today. 00:40:07.600 --> 00:40:11.780 If you take that book and train that material, it will make no difference in people's lives 00:40:11.780 --> 00:40:12.680 as a norm, right? 00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:14.460 And here's what I mean. 00:40:15.160 --> 00:40:19.220 I had one leader and he would his name's Rich up in Detroit. 00:40:19.340 --> 00:40:22.840 He grabbed our book and went through the curriculum and trained his leaders in 10 weeks. 00:40:22.880 --> 00:40:25.440 And then he called me and said, OK, now what do I do? 00:40:25.860 --> 00:40:27.800 And I asked him some questions. 00:40:28.380 --> 00:40:36.000 And even with the material, he had walked through the content, but trained it as knowledge base. 00:40:36.580 --> 00:40:40.080 And so we got to write a list of 30 people that you'll pray for. 00:40:40.500 --> 00:40:42.060 He never asked him to write that list down. 00:40:42.660 --> 00:40:44.160 How do you share your story? 00:40:44.280 --> 00:40:45.120 Write your story down. 00:40:45.240 --> 00:40:46.700 He never had them write their story down. 00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:53.020 He never asked them, hey, this past week, I trained you on how to have a quiet time to do a soaps. 00:40:53.300 --> 00:40:56.920 You know, if you don't, you know, if you're familiar with soaps, but read scripture and observation, 00:40:57.040 --> 00:40:59.320 application, prayer, and then ask, share it with somebody. 00:40:59.860 --> 00:41:03.060 He trained them on how to do it, but never once asked. 00:41:03.260 --> 00:41:03.380 Never. 00:41:03.440 --> 00:41:04.320 He didn't even think about it. 00:41:04.580 --> 00:41:06.940 He never once said, so how's it going? 00:41:07.420 --> 00:41:07.660 Right. 00:41:07.740 --> 00:41:10.240 He never, it just, he trained it as content. 00:41:10.400 --> 00:41:13.840 And so when we got together, I said, I said, I said, Rich, man, what are you doing? 00:41:13.840 --> 00:41:16.800 I said, most people take 25 or 30 weeks to go through this. 00:41:16.900 --> 00:41:17.400 Let me tell you. 00:41:17.740 --> 00:41:20.720 So when you train on something, here's the only thing I'm asking you to do. 00:41:20.800 --> 00:41:21.660 Let's say quiet time. 00:41:21.780 --> 00:41:23.560 Soaps, ask somebody. 00:41:23.840 --> 00:41:27.120 So at the end of the training, you train and you just ask this question. 00:41:27.660 --> 00:41:29.580 What do you think God's spirit saying to you? 00:41:29.660 --> 00:41:31.680 What did you learn today from the material? 00:41:31.860 --> 00:41:33.680 What did you learn today by reading scripture? 00:41:34.040 --> 00:41:37.460 And how do you put that into practice this week in your life? 00:41:37.860 --> 00:41:39.240 That's, that's the only question. 00:41:39.540 --> 00:41:41.560 How do you put it into practice this week in your life? 00:41:41.560 --> 00:41:43.640 And who could you share this truth with? 00:41:44.060 --> 00:41:46.880 And so at the end of all of our trainings, that that's what we do. 00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:47.500 It's a training. 00:41:47.660 --> 00:41:48.520 Again, it's not curriculum. 00:41:48.780 --> 00:41:49.760 You know, we're just not looking at material. 00:41:50.120 --> 00:41:55.360 And then the question is, what can I do as a leader to help you be more successful in 00:41:55.360 --> 00:41:55.980 that this week? 00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:57.960 Or what can somebody do to help you in that? 00:41:58.640 --> 00:42:00.860 So if someone's like, well, I've never had a quiet time. 00:42:00.980 --> 00:42:02.380 So let's stop right now. 00:42:02.560 --> 00:42:05.560 Let me practice a 15 minute quiet time in front of you. 00:42:05.600 --> 00:42:08.080 And you actually show them how to do a quiet time. 00:42:08.080 --> 00:42:08.300 Right? 00:42:08.460 --> 00:42:09.440 So that's the difference. 00:42:09.540 --> 00:42:10.380 It's not just taught. 00:42:10.560 --> 00:42:11.320 It's then shown. 00:42:11.700 --> 00:42:14.720 And then if you need me to sit next to you, well, hey, why don't we break up into groups 00:42:14.720 --> 00:42:16.820 and let's practice a quiet time together right now? 00:42:16.860 --> 00:42:17.060 Right? 00:42:17.460 --> 00:42:19.880 And then we say, so what do you want to do this week? 00:42:20.040 --> 00:42:24.980 And I remember one of my leaders named Matt down in Florida, he trained on quiet times 00:42:24.980 --> 00:42:27.000 and he had this brand new believer in his group. 00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:30.080 And he said, hey, I challenge you to do this every day. 00:42:30.160 --> 00:42:33.420 And these leaders like, I'm going to do it every day for 15 minutes this week. 00:42:33.460 --> 00:42:37.480 And he got to one guy and he looked at him and he said, hey, so what about you? 00:42:37.560 --> 00:42:39.000 What do you sense God's saying to you? 00:42:39.060 --> 00:42:42.960 He says, God's telling me he wants me to have a relationship with him and I should spend time 00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:43.620 with him doing it. 00:42:43.660 --> 00:42:44.900 And he says, so what are you going to try to do? 00:42:45.100 --> 00:42:49.500 He said, I'm going to try to have a quiet time three days this week, three times. 00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:52.360 And it's funny because I could see Matt kind of stop. 00:42:52.420 --> 00:42:55.920 And he's, he wanted to say, why aren't you doing it seven times? 00:42:56.480 --> 00:42:58.680 But then I realized what Matt was thinking. 00:42:58.680 --> 00:42:59.700 He's going, wait a second. 00:43:00.160 --> 00:43:06.400 This guy has never stopped in his entire spiritual journey and had 15 minutes alone with Jesus. 00:43:06.780 --> 00:43:11.740 Man, if he could spend three days this week with Jesus, that's better than last week, 00:43:11.780 --> 00:43:13.600 which he spent no days with Jesus, right? 00:43:13.880 --> 00:43:17.180 So instead he just encouraged him and said, man, I hope you do it three times. 00:43:17.220 --> 00:43:20.400 In fact, I hope you do it five or seven, but I'm going to challenge you. 00:43:20.460 --> 00:43:21.560 I hope you do it three times. 00:43:21.680 --> 00:43:23.980 And then the next week, here's all Matt asked him. 00:43:24.340 --> 00:43:27.240 Matt said, hey man, how did your quiet times go to Jesus? 00:43:27.340 --> 00:43:28.920 And you said you were going to try it three times. 00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:29.960 Did three times work? 00:43:30.280 --> 00:43:33.140 And the guy went, yeah, man, I actually did three times this week. 00:43:33.200 --> 00:43:35.160 In fact, I started a fourth one, but got interrupted. 00:43:35.480 --> 00:43:36.620 And he cheered him on. 00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:44.100 So the only difference in our material to go from knowledge base, you have to give him a skill. 00:43:44.200 --> 00:43:45.960 Let me show you how to have a quiet time. 00:43:46.320 --> 00:43:47.540 And then give him a practice. 00:43:47.660 --> 00:43:49.540 How could you do this on a daily practice? 00:43:50.040 --> 00:43:51.900 But then, and let me model it for you, right? 00:43:51.960 --> 00:43:52.680 Let me model, chill. 00:43:52.980 --> 00:43:55.080 But then you just simply ask the next question. 00:43:55.460 --> 00:43:57.440 How do you apply that to your life this week? 00:43:57.780 --> 00:43:58.980 And is there anything I can do? 00:43:59.520 --> 00:44:03.940 And then the next time we get together as a group, we just ask, how's your spiritual walk going? 00:44:04.300 --> 00:44:05.800 Hey, you were trying to do this. 00:44:06.040 --> 00:44:06.660 How did it go? 00:44:07.040 --> 00:44:12.160 And we use the word, that word accountability that you use is, is I'm holding them accountable. 00:44:12.160 --> 00:44:13.740 But let's just change the language. 00:44:13.880 --> 00:44:14.580 Let's use this. 00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:16.220 I'm encouraging them. 00:44:17.020 --> 00:44:20.840 Now, Hebrews 3 says, encourage one another daily as long as it's called today. 00:44:21.240 --> 00:44:25.740 So how do I encourage somebody on a regular basis in their spiritual journey? 00:44:26.020 --> 00:44:29.760 So if someone says, hey, I'm trying to learn how to do a quiet time. 00:44:30.080 --> 00:44:33.240 And I never ask them how it's going. 00:44:33.560 --> 00:44:36.000 Well, how stupid of that is, is that of me as a leader? 00:44:36.120 --> 00:44:40.260 So if I just say, what do you sense you need to do to help yourself grow? 00:44:40.740 --> 00:44:44.200 And how can I encourage you in that area? 00:44:44.720 --> 00:44:48.640 Well, now, see, for all those who want to take accountability and put this negative, like, 00:44:48.960 --> 00:44:51.220 oh, you've got to do this or else, fill all that out. 00:44:51.280 --> 00:44:52.540 Let's go with the word encouragement. 00:44:52.700 --> 00:44:57.600 Come from a grace-based perspective, not a law-based perspective, a grace-based going, 00:44:57.960 --> 00:45:01.020 hey, if Jeff looked at me and said, I'm struggling with this, 00:45:01.280 --> 00:45:04.900 then I hope Jeff would want me to say to them, dude, how's it going later, right? 00:45:04.900 --> 00:45:07.580 I mean, that would show I actually care. 00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:09.400 It would show I was listening to you. 00:45:09.740 --> 00:45:12.820 It would show maybe I prayed for you or I'm interested in how you're doing. 00:45:13.280 --> 00:45:18.720 So that's just using accountability might be a word we use, but just use it as encouragement-based 00:45:18.720 --> 00:45:23.420 discipleship that I really want to come back and say, how is it going? 00:45:24.040 --> 00:45:25.540 Are you struggling anywhere? 00:45:25.780 --> 00:45:26.800 Is there any questions? 00:45:26.920 --> 00:45:28.080 What can I do to help you? 00:45:28.580 --> 00:45:33.220 Which is exactly like if I was a carpenter and I taught someone how to build a box and 00:45:33.220 --> 00:45:37.980 I came back and the box was all crooked and they couldn't do a 90 degree corner and they 00:45:37.980 --> 00:45:42.040 weren't trying to be eclectic or something, but they really wanted a 90 degree. 00:45:42.200 --> 00:45:43.900 I would say, hey, you did a good job. 00:45:44.280 --> 00:45:46.340 Let me show you how to do the corner better, right? 00:45:46.420 --> 00:45:48.460 Like, let me show you how to, you messed up a cut. 00:45:48.540 --> 00:45:48.960 You did this. 00:45:49.240 --> 00:45:52.440 Let me, let me help you in that area and help them redo it again. 00:45:53.120 --> 00:45:58.420 So when we see discipleship as encouraging someone to go to the next level in their spiritual 00:45:58.420 --> 00:46:00.540 journey, I think it changes everything. 00:46:01.640 --> 00:46:03.300 And, and by the way, one last thing for that. 00:46:03.460 --> 00:46:08.500 I always, this is how I do the dialogue because I think it helps people to self-evaluate. 00:46:08.660 --> 00:46:12.820 I say, listen, on a scale of one to 10, and let's say 10 is high, one is low. 00:46:13.180 --> 00:46:15.900 How do you feel like your spiritual journey is going right now? 00:46:16.340 --> 00:46:17.460 How would you grade yourself? 00:46:17.560 --> 00:46:18.260 Well, I'm a four. 00:46:18.500 --> 00:46:18.840 Why? 00:46:19.380 --> 00:46:21.560 What could I do to help you be a five or six? 00:46:21.560 --> 00:46:22.860 That's my simple questions. 00:46:23.120 --> 00:46:25.240 I just want to help someone go to the next level. 00:46:25.460 --> 00:46:30.120 And the secret is, it doesn't matter what number they use. 00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:32.240 It's the dialogue that's important. 00:46:32.340 --> 00:46:36.840 If they say, I feel like I'm a one spiritually, that doesn't mean they're not spiritual giants. 00:46:37.460 --> 00:46:41.300 And here's why I would argue that the farther Paul got along in his life. 00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:46.980 In fact, at the end of his life, if I looked at Paul and on a zero to 10 scale, I would rate 00:46:46.980 --> 00:46:49.040 Paul like as a level nine leader. 00:46:49.220 --> 00:46:53.100 Like right now, if we put Jesus as 10, Paul would be like a nine from my perspective. 00:46:53.120 --> 00:46:54.940 Would you agree with that one, Jeff? 00:46:55.300 --> 00:46:55.600 Sure. 00:46:55.700 --> 00:46:56.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:46:56.220 --> 00:46:56.460 Yeah. 00:46:56.660 --> 00:46:57.020 Okay. 00:46:57.220 --> 00:47:01.540 But if you ask Paul, Paul on a scale of zero to 10, how do you rate yourself? 00:47:02.020 --> 00:47:05.240 How do you think Paul would rate himself at the end of his spiritual journey? 00:47:06.100 --> 00:47:08.800 I mean, I think he would show some meekness, some humility. 00:47:09.080 --> 00:47:10.640 He talked about the thorn on the side. 00:47:10.860 --> 00:47:13.260 So maybe a five, six. 00:47:13.980 --> 00:47:14.760 So here's the thing. 00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:17.980 It's not you and I would look at Paul and say, you're a spiritual giant. 00:47:18.120 --> 00:47:20.420 He might say, I'm a one, two, four, five. 00:47:20.660 --> 00:47:22.720 In fact, here's what Paul would ultimately say. 00:47:23.060 --> 00:47:26.360 Actually, the more I understand Jesus, the lower my number gets. 00:47:27.380 --> 00:47:27.640 Right? 00:47:28.080 --> 00:47:30.700 So the question isn't, what is your number? 00:47:30.980 --> 00:47:43.700 Because if I was just to score numbers, I might look at the most spiritual person and think they're giants, but their personal perspective says, I feel lower than I've ever felt in perspective to Jesus. 00:47:44.100 --> 00:47:47.020 And on the other side, I have some really immature people. 00:47:47.140 --> 00:47:53.380 I mean, some of the most image, I think they barely make a level one in my perspective, but they think there are nine. 00:47:53.500 --> 00:47:53.860 Right? 00:47:54.220 --> 00:48:01.400 So the goal is how do we open up a dialogue to encourage you in your spiritual journey, no matter what you think. 00:48:01.620 --> 00:48:01.840 Right? 00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:04.280 And how do we just look at someone and say, man, I believe in you. 00:48:04.340 --> 00:48:05.220 I want to encourage you. 00:48:05.500 --> 00:48:07.280 What can I do to help you do that? 00:48:07.540 --> 00:48:09.740 And then we can even identify areas. 00:48:10.520 --> 00:48:13.600 So you ask about our curriculum and stuff in the training. 00:48:13.820 --> 00:48:17.960 I think there's, you know, for us, this is how we built the most simple curriculum we have. 00:48:18.160 --> 00:48:21.840 We took some of the most foundational, I mean, just the basic stuff. 00:48:22.200 --> 00:48:27.560 And we said, these foundational issues, everyone should be succeeding in. 00:48:28.060 --> 00:48:32.180 And then everything beyond the foundation, I'll be honest, I'm not that worried about. 00:48:32.760 --> 00:48:40.280 Because if you get the foundation right, and you build the right foundation, you can build a really large building. 00:48:40.940 --> 00:48:47.940 But the exigencies, we focus on all these edge of thoughts, but we miss the most basic stuff. 00:48:48.440 --> 00:48:49.500 So here's what we're going to do. 00:48:49.900 --> 00:48:52.180 We're going to challenge for that big of a foundation. 00:48:53.320 --> 00:48:54.120 Get everyone. 00:48:54.280 --> 00:48:56.800 There's no one in the USA, I don't want to have that foundation. 00:48:56.900 --> 00:48:59.180 No one who's a follower of Jesus, have that foundation. 00:48:59.280 --> 00:49:04.200 Get that foundation down and you can build anything you want off of it. 00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:10.120 But if that foundation is messed up, whatever you build off of it will also be messed up. 00:49:11.060 --> 00:49:11.460 Right? 00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:15.120 So when the foundation's off, the whole building's off. 00:49:15.240 --> 00:49:17.280 So really focus on simple stuff. 00:49:17.740 --> 00:49:18.820 What does it mean to pray? 00:49:18.960 --> 00:49:20.820 What does it mean to understand and read scripture? 00:49:20.980 --> 00:49:23.680 What does it mean to have a quiet time relating with the Father? 00:49:24.100 --> 00:49:30.000 What does it mean to be sensitive to God's spirit if I sense him whispering to me through the word or maybe something directly? 00:49:30.140 --> 00:49:30.280 Right? 00:49:30.700 --> 00:49:35.160 What does it mean to share my story and share God's story and to live a life on mission? 00:49:35.420 --> 00:49:37.460 Like those core things to serve, to give. 00:49:37.540 --> 00:49:38.260 Like those core things. 00:49:38.260 --> 00:49:45.220 If you get those down and you're in some form of community, the community could be big, it could be small. 00:49:45.640 --> 00:49:53.980 But if you're in some form of community that's encouraging you and those foundational issues, I promise you, you'll have a successful Christian life. 00:49:54.940 --> 00:50:01.980 But if you're not in community or you have those foundational issues off, you're going to struggle at some point. 00:50:02.220 --> 00:50:09.160 This is why we can find people who've been a Christian for 40 years, but they still can't forgive their father because they're mad at him 40 years later. 00:50:09.520 --> 00:50:15.860 And you and I know that's a foundational Christian issue that because I've been forgiven much, I too much must forgive. 00:50:16.260 --> 00:50:19.500 That's part of the living and loving thing that Jesus has asked. 00:50:19.860 --> 00:50:23.100 But if I don't get that right, my whole foundation's off. 00:50:23.360 --> 00:50:31.420 Like it's just you got this whole piece of bitterness and anger and frustration and you're going, you're 40 years of a follower of Jesus. 00:50:31.420 --> 00:50:33.760 Like this is a foundational thing. 00:50:34.540 --> 00:50:36.980 So it's pieces that we've missed. 00:50:36.980 --> 00:50:42.320 Now, knowledge, they may quote that I know it, but no one's ever helped them put that into practice. 00:50:42.720 --> 00:50:48.680 Let me teach you how to release somebody and to release yourself on this process of forgiveness that Jesus asked. 00:50:48.960 --> 00:50:50.460 See, that's a skill in the practice. 00:50:51.480 --> 00:50:52.300 So, so good. 00:50:52.400 --> 00:50:53.220 So much right there. 00:50:53.340 --> 00:50:56.180 I promise I will never say the word accountability again. 00:50:56.420 --> 00:51:02.720 The context of church, I will shift entirely to encouragement that, but no, no, that's good. 00:51:02.860 --> 00:51:07.320 I mean, honestly, it's for me, it's been, hey, church, we need to figure out and I don't know. 00:51:07.380 --> 00:51:14.640 I don't, I don't know how to, we need to figure out how to hold people accountable, but even flipping the script and not making it accountable, you have to. 00:51:14.820 --> 00:51:18.380 But encouragement, let us help you get there. 00:51:18.380 --> 00:51:20.320 And so I love that. 00:51:20.640 --> 00:51:27.020 Now, you said earlier, hey, Timothy Initiative, we're all about planting churches. 00:51:27.380 --> 00:51:36.800 But everything that I've heard you say has been about helping individuals and ministering to individuals, multiplying individuals. 00:51:37.620 --> 00:51:41.060 Talk to me a little bit here, because I want to work with this a little bit. 00:51:41.700 --> 00:51:45.460 How do we get from individuals to that planting churches piece? 00:51:46.040 --> 00:51:46.440 That's good. 00:51:47.560 --> 00:51:51.680 So here's where we get the roles and the goals defined again. 00:51:53.280 --> 00:51:58.120 Maybe let me give you three minutes on the pastor thing and then just come back. 00:51:58.180 --> 00:51:59.120 We'll come back later. 00:51:59.720 --> 00:52:06.120 But this is if I come to the average pastor, let's say from a church perspective, and I say, what is your role as a pastor? 00:52:06.120 --> 00:52:07.540 What do you do on a daily basis? 00:52:07.540 --> 00:52:11.680 Or if you were just to write down everything you do, most of them are going to narrow down. 00:52:11.840 --> 00:52:14.260 Let me get what I was told as a kid before I became a pastor. 00:52:14.940 --> 00:52:17.740 Pastors protect, provide, they lead, they guide, right? 00:52:17.780 --> 00:52:18.660 So that's what you do. 00:52:18.780 --> 00:52:19.920 You train your people. 00:52:20.040 --> 00:52:20.920 You protect your people. 00:52:21.020 --> 00:52:22.680 You provide the food for your people. 00:52:22.780 --> 00:52:23.380 You lead them. 00:52:23.460 --> 00:52:26.380 You guide them just like a good shepherd would his sheep. 00:52:27.220 --> 00:52:30.200 But that's the role of a pastor. 00:52:31.060 --> 00:52:33.820 The goal of a pastor is different. 00:52:34.160 --> 00:52:35.780 Now, the end result goal. 00:52:35.780 --> 00:52:40.660 So if I go to a shepherd and sheep, I protect and provide, lead and guide my sheep. 00:52:40.780 --> 00:52:42.420 I take them beside the still waters. 00:52:42.540 --> 00:52:44.120 I get them to the green pastures. 00:52:44.540 --> 00:52:46.300 You know, that's what I do on a daily basis. 00:52:46.460 --> 00:52:51.320 I fight the lion and tigers and bears just like David did for his sheep, right? 00:52:51.380 --> 00:52:52.600 Like that's what David did. 00:52:53.120 --> 00:52:57.420 But people forget David didn't do that just because David did that. 00:52:57.420 --> 00:53:05.620 At the end of the season, what David wanted was a whole bunch of pregnant sheep that were starting a new generation of sheep. 00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:11.020 And then he wanted to shear them all because all the sheep had been able to produce a product. 00:53:11.020 --> 00:53:13.680 I didn't save a sheep just because I like the sheep. 00:53:13.680 --> 00:53:19.340 I saved the sheep because I want them to have baby sheep and I want them to be sheared. 00:53:19.480 --> 00:53:22.580 Like there was a reason that he did all he did. 00:53:23.240 --> 00:53:31.000 So a shepherd that protects and provides leads and guides but forgets why he does it would be a very bad shepherd. 00:53:31.680 --> 00:53:42.040 If you got to the end of a season and not one sheep was pregnant, if you got to the end of the season and not one sheep was sheared, you haven't actually done the job of a shepherd. 00:53:42.540 --> 00:53:45.420 But you've done the role of shepherding. 00:53:46.420 --> 00:53:49.060 And so when you come over to the church, here's how I look at it. 00:53:49.340 --> 00:53:58.680 We know pastors were made to equip the saints, not teach them material, equip them for things that they were created to do. 00:53:59.060 --> 00:54:04.720 And if disciples make disciples, make disciples, that is the multiplication. 00:54:05.420 --> 00:54:08.740 I have sheep that have baby sheep who have baby sheep. 00:54:09.340 --> 00:54:18.340 And one of the things that we've messed up is we've got so focused on our weekly role that we forget the ultimate goal. 00:54:18.500 --> 00:54:19.840 We forget the implications. 00:54:20.180 --> 00:54:26.620 There's this assumption that if I teach and I teach and I teach, it will give me the result that I want. 00:54:26.620 --> 00:54:28.520 But that's where it's not occurring. 00:54:28.660 --> 00:54:34.560 And it breaks down because I'm doing a role that isn't actually accomplishing the goal. 00:54:35.460 --> 00:54:36.780 That's where the breakdown is occurring. 00:54:37.140 --> 00:54:38.320 That's a system issue. 00:54:39.040 --> 00:54:42.100 So I can get up and talk about people going, you've been created. 00:54:42.320 --> 00:54:43.040 You have gifts. 00:54:43.160 --> 00:54:43.720 You have this. 00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:44.200 You have that. 00:54:44.320 --> 00:54:45.240 Now go do it. 00:54:45.280 --> 00:54:46.580 And none of them know what to do with it. 00:54:46.840 --> 00:54:48.020 They still don't know what it means. 00:54:48.220 --> 00:54:48.820 I'm a prophet. 00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:49.820 What does that mean? 00:54:49.940 --> 00:54:50.880 Or I'm an evangelist. 00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:51.760 What does that mean? 00:54:51.820 --> 00:54:55.660 So we don't help equip them and then actually help them be successful. 00:54:56.060 --> 00:54:57.200 That's where the whole breakdown. 00:54:57.660 --> 00:55:00.660 So now you come all the way back to the question you asked with me. 00:55:01.360 --> 00:55:07.960 So when we come back to the groups, our end result is always seen that churches would be planted. 00:55:08.340 --> 00:55:12.560 But churches being planted always starts with disciples being made. 00:55:13.480 --> 00:55:20.660 So our process, I was talking about the process that we train and equip on these simple things with the end result of this. 00:55:20.800 --> 00:55:26.240 If I have a disciple that makes a disciple that makes a disciple, then all of a sudden I'm going to have a crowd. 00:55:26.700 --> 00:55:29.520 If you have a crowd, you have one of two options. 00:55:30.020 --> 00:55:33.320 You can either gather them together or in one place or another. 00:55:33.680 --> 00:55:39.820 So either I can make lots of little groups of disciples and then say, hey, let's all go to that building on Sunday or during the week. 00:55:40.040 --> 00:55:51.940 But then as it morphs out, as another group begins and another group begins, they either have to all come to one location or at some point we release them and say, hey, why don't you just consider that your proper location? 00:55:52.140 --> 00:55:58.620 So whether it's here in my house, over at a coffee shop or online while playing Roblox, right? 00:55:58.740 --> 00:56:01.180 It doesn't matter where you gather. 00:56:01.340 --> 00:56:07.820 The question is, is ultimately, if we go through this simple process, what's the end result that we're looking for? 00:56:08.020 --> 00:56:08.960 And here's what I find. 00:56:08.960 --> 00:56:20.020 If I make a disciple that makes a disciple, I will have community being created on the other side, whether I want it to or not, because that's the natural result. 00:56:20.740 --> 00:56:30.380 But if I teach in a large group with the assumption that that natural result will happen, it almost never does. 00:56:31.040 --> 00:56:34.280 There has to be a level of intentionality about it. 00:56:34.660 --> 00:56:40.060 So we're really going, listen, and don't feel guilty about the word accountability, Jeff. 00:56:40.060 --> 00:56:46.680 I just realized, just like all our other definitions, everyone has a perceived notion when you say that word, what is it they think? 00:56:46.700 --> 00:56:47.740 And it's always negative. 00:56:48.060 --> 00:56:49.040 It's never positive. 00:56:49.440 --> 00:56:52.320 But listen, how can we talk about encouragement being negative, right? 00:56:52.340 --> 00:56:54.480 So I'm hoping they see that as a positive reality. 00:56:55.120 --> 00:56:57.440 But that's the goal is, hey, I can multiply. 00:56:57.600 --> 00:57:00.220 And then we believe the biblical principle. 00:57:00.820 --> 00:57:02.380 Things always multiply. 00:57:02.520 --> 00:57:07.920 If I make a disciple, then the natural result is they should make a disciple, right? 00:57:08.220 --> 00:57:11.520 So that's a natural reproduction that's built into the system. 00:57:11.520 --> 00:57:15.060 And then all we need to do is bless and release. 00:57:15.620 --> 00:57:24.100 So our foundational training, which just takes, you know, you can really do it in less than six months, is just how to be a good disciple, which is these basic skills. 00:57:24.520 --> 00:57:28.700 But we teach you, how could you teach someone else these basic skills? 00:57:29.140 --> 00:57:32.640 So we just make that as reproducible as quickly as possible. 00:57:33.100 --> 00:57:33.880 Basic skills. 00:57:34.220 --> 00:57:37.300 I train you to do these basic functions and skill sets and practices. 00:57:37.720 --> 00:57:40.460 You can teach someone else how to do it the same way. 00:57:41.060 --> 00:57:48.180 And then what we find is the people that do that best, then all we need to do is come in and say, now, how do you create a community out of that? 00:57:48.560 --> 00:57:52.440 How do you actually get biblically trained and qualified to lead a group like that? 00:57:52.440 --> 00:57:54.440 And that becomes a secondary training. 00:57:54.520 --> 00:57:57.640 So our discipleship foundation, you can do in six months. 00:57:58.120 --> 00:58:10.900 And then the reproduction and developing as a leader, really about two years to have ongoing growth development, just to have a good biblical perspective, solid theology, good practices for what functions as a church. 00:58:11.300 --> 00:58:21.720 So the goal is to get discipleship communities created, and many of those will grow to a format that you should actually maybe call them a church in the future and have qualified leadership for that. 00:58:21.720 --> 00:58:24.740 So we have the material to be able to serve that also. 00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:26.060 That's beautiful. 00:58:26.540 --> 00:58:27.340 And it's funny. 00:58:27.460 --> 00:58:30.180 I said the word multimodal, and you were like, hey, what is that? 00:58:30.560 --> 00:58:33.060 This is really the heart of what Stadia wants to do. 00:58:33.280 --> 00:58:37.740 For us, multimodal, there's multiple types of churches. 00:58:37.900 --> 00:58:38.940 It's multiple steps here. 00:58:39.100 --> 00:58:41.780 Number one, there's multiple types of churches. 00:58:42.900 --> 00:58:47.900 Discipling and growing people looks different in the context of the type. 00:58:48.060 --> 00:58:53.340 So, you know, giga church, mega church, multi-site church, established church models. 00:58:53.480 --> 00:58:57.000 I mean, that's kind of like the one, the building-esque type of stuff. 00:58:57.080 --> 00:58:59.700 Then you've got digital-only expressions of church. 00:58:59.780 --> 00:59:03.140 You've got digital churches that are doing physical and digital and working them together. 00:59:03.380 --> 00:59:07.800 You've got house churches, you've got prison church, you've got workplace ministries. 00:59:08.060 --> 00:59:12.140 Like, there's so many different types of churches out there. 00:59:12.520 --> 00:59:19.460 And for us, Stadia, one of the things that we're encouraging, and honestly, I didn't think I was going to pitch this, but you set me up. 00:59:19.460 --> 00:59:27.120 It's this idea of, hey, church organization out there, let's look at doing multiple strategies here. 00:59:27.440 --> 00:59:37.520 The building is reaching a certain type of person, but we're discovering as the majority of churches are doing the building ministry, hey, we're at a 20-year decline. 00:59:37.900 --> 00:59:42.540 And even in this mid-post-COVID season, I don't think that the building's going to reach everybody. 00:59:42.540 --> 00:59:55.820 Just recently, I can tell testimony of a guy I know that has recently accepted Christ through a digital-only expression of church, Lux Digital Church, a church that meets on Twitch. 00:59:56.160 --> 01:00:00.080 He accepted Christ through a Twitch church, a video game church. 01:00:00.460 --> 01:00:03.980 In his testimony, 10 years ago, religion was shoved down his throat. 01:00:04.440 --> 01:00:06.620 He swore he'd never go back to a building. 01:00:07.020 --> 01:00:13.840 And so, literally, we're seeing people come to Christ through these different other approaches. 01:00:14.020 --> 01:00:17.420 So, why are we not, church, why are we not looking at multiple models? 01:00:18.140 --> 01:00:32.420 And even building off of this, how can we not empower and grow and encourage our people not to be consumers watching one man exude his spiritual gift behind the podium to thousands? 01:00:32.420 --> 01:00:54.480 How can we not encourage these thousands of people to exude their spiritual gifts, to share the gospel within their circle of influence, their oikos, the 10, 20, 50 people that they know and to follow their own passions and find ways to create more of these churches, even in the organic realm. 01:00:54.980 --> 01:00:56.760 I've been a centralized guy. 01:00:56.860 --> 01:00:58.200 I've never been an organic guy. 01:00:58.320 --> 01:01:06.100 But the more in this COVID season, the more that I'm realizing, man, if we could really figure out how to create church. 01:01:06.260 --> 01:01:11.980 Now, I mean, it only needs to be formal church expressions, but get people on mission within their influence. 01:01:12.640 --> 01:01:14.680 Man, God can do some incredible things. 01:01:14.800 --> 01:01:22.300 And I think looking at the struggles that the buildings have had, I think this is how the gospel is proclaimed in the future. 01:01:22.300 --> 01:01:34.060 Not in our cathedrals or temples, but in our living rooms and in our houses and in the circles that we have Monday through Friday, much less on that one hour on Sunday. 01:01:34.480 --> 01:01:36.580 So, how are you seeing this? 01:01:36.640 --> 01:01:41.720 Like when you interact with churches, are they catching this vision even to the idea of planting churches? 01:01:41.880 --> 01:01:44.120 Has it been more of a struggle? 01:01:44.340 --> 01:01:55.140 Like how are they responding, not only with the disciple making piece, the multiplication at the individual level, but even maybe going out and starting to call these new churches. 01:01:55.140 --> 01:02:00.440 Like releasing to multiply as opposed to gathering to get bigger. 01:02:01.100 --> 01:02:02.820 So, a couple of things where we are in agreement. 01:02:02.960 --> 01:02:05.220 I want to make sure everyone knows I'm not anti-big. 01:02:05.280 --> 01:02:06.900 In fact, I've never said that, making sure. 01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:09.680 I am pro every mode also. 01:02:09.880 --> 01:02:20.100 I'm going, what is it, what modes can we offer in a biblical framework that would provide opportunity for people to be able to grow in their spiritual journey to look in love and live more like Jesus, right? 01:02:20.500 --> 01:02:22.220 And from that discipleship perspective. 01:02:22.220 --> 01:02:24.600 So, I'm pro all the modes. 01:02:24.980 --> 01:02:26.960 And so, I'm in agreement with you. 01:02:27.120 --> 01:02:35.900 We need to help churches see different perspectives on how they can rethink discipleship. 01:02:35.980 --> 01:02:38.760 That's what most of them are struggling with in the church right now. 01:02:39.100 --> 01:02:40.760 So, you're asking, especially COVID. 01:02:40.840 --> 01:02:47.400 What COVID did, I think, for most churches, and I'm just, I'm telling you, I'm hearing this across the board as loud as can be. 01:02:47.780 --> 01:02:50.580 They're saying, we've done discipleship poorly. 01:02:50.860 --> 01:02:51.560 That's a reality. 01:02:51.760 --> 01:02:53.920 And I understand that because I did it poorly, right? 01:02:53.960 --> 01:02:55.260 And I'm not saying I'm doing it well now. 01:02:55.300 --> 01:02:56.940 I'm just wrestling with it. 01:02:57.840 --> 01:03:03.160 Maryland, Delaware, with the Baptists and the Maryland, Delaware Convention, it was back in like 2008, 9, 10. 01:03:03.260 --> 01:03:05.120 They did a long survey with Lifeway. 01:03:05.880 --> 01:03:10.400 And they went out and asked pastors, and they said, what do you think your number one role is as a pastor? 01:03:10.900 --> 01:03:15.280 And over 90% of them said, my number one job is to make disciples. 01:03:15.960 --> 01:03:26.260 Then the second question they ultimately add is, if there could be one thing that we'd help you with as a leader, what do you wish we did more than anything else, the thing you struggle with most? 01:03:26.640 --> 01:03:29.900 And 95% of them said, I don't know how to do discipleship. 01:03:31.440 --> 01:03:32.560 So, it was interesting. 01:03:32.560 --> 01:03:37.160 The number one thing that they said is their job was even a higher percentage. 01:03:37.560 --> 01:03:38.660 I don't know how to do it. 01:03:39.280 --> 01:03:41.720 And so, this is part of the struggle in America. 01:03:42.260 --> 01:03:50.380 I think one of our big issues is the vast majority of us would never disciple well, which makes creating a new generation of disciples really tough. 01:03:50.680 --> 01:03:54.060 We came out of, I think, a faulty form or a broken. 01:03:54.160 --> 01:03:55.260 It was just a partial form. 01:03:55.600 --> 01:03:56.660 So, now I meet with churches. 01:03:56.880 --> 01:04:01.060 And listen, I planted an attractional model church that led lots of people to Jesus. 01:04:01.060 --> 01:04:02.760 So, I'm not talking against the attractional. 01:04:02.840 --> 01:04:07.300 I'm just – I'm telling one dialogue I had with one church, one of the largest churches in America. 01:04:07.520 --> 01:04:08.900 You would know it if I talked about it. 01:04:10.060 --> 01:04:19.920 But in their conversation, what they talked about is how the attractional model – you know, one guy said, hey, I've had multiple families that I've been able to invite to our church over the years. 01:04:19.920 --> 01:04:21.580 And their lives have been radically changed. 01:04:21.960 --> 01:04:23.120 And he's talking about it. 01:04:23.300 --> 01:04:29.700 And over a 20-year period of time, he says he can identify 20 different families that came to his church. 01:04:30.320 --> 01:04:33.400 And three of them, like the whole families, came to Christ. 01:04:33.480 --> 01:04:34.740 Like 10 complete lives changed. 01:04:34.880 --> 01:04:36.920 I mean, there's nothing but a celebration on that. 01:04:37.200 --> 01:04:41.680 So, he goes, that's why our church is so pro-attractional that we're trying to get everyone to invite everyone. 01:04:42.180 --> 01:04:51.120 And I just said in a casual conversation, I just said, hey, imagine what could happen if you're really high number of attenders. 01:04:51.160 --> 01:04:52.940 If I gave numbers, it would narrow down the church. 01:04:52.940 --> 01:05:13.440 Let's say if you got over 10,000, if you got 10,000 people that are inviting, imagine how different it would be if 10,000 people were actually praying for their family, friends, and neighbors, if 10,000 people could actually present the gospel, if 10,000 people could actually share their story, and if 10,000 people were actually trying to engage their workplaces and their stuff. 01:05:13.440 --> 01:05:23.320 I mean, what would you do if 10,000 people were actually engaging, not just inviting to your church, but actually equipped to engage with the gospel? 01:05:23.520 --> 01:05:24.720 What would you do with that? 01:05:25.340 --> 01:05:28.180 And it just led to dead silence for a while. 01:05:28.940 --> 01:05:32.060 And even what they were doing, they were trying to start a new mode. 01:05:32.200 --> 01:05:36.360 They were trying to get, well, with COVID, we're trying to start stuff in people's living rooms. 01:05:36.480 --> 01:05:41.540 But it was still pumping the church to there and pointing back to the church, which, again, I'm not anti. 01:05:41.720 --> 01:05:42.700 You hear me. 01:05:42.780 --> 01:05:43.720 I'm pro at all. 01:05:43.880 --> 01:05:44.320 I am. 01:05:44.380 --> 01:05:45.720 The people's lives have changed. 01:05:45.780 --> 01:05:49.480 But I'm thinking I would never do that initially overseas. 01:05:49.480 --> 01:05:52.580 As a missionary, I would say, how do I engage the lost? 01:05:52.580 --> 01:05:53.820 How do I help them come to Jesus? 01:05:54.000 --> 01:05:56.600 And how do I help them impact their own community? 01:05:56.940 --> 01:05:58.100 That's my first thought. 01:05:58.500 --> 01:06:02.040 But in the USA, we begin from an ecclesiology perspective. 01:06:02.280 --> 01:06:09.360 This is what the church does versus the missiological perspective, which is this is how people should be developed in that sense and go. 01:06:09.960 --> 01:06:13.960 So I think what we need to do is switch that conversation to this is how I do church. 01:06:14.060 --> 01:06:21.060 Therefore, this mode should work to make the church continue to grow because we look at the church as that building or that location. 01:06:21.060 --> 01:06:21.460 Right. 01:06:21.960 --> 01:06:24.160 And instead, look at it from a missiological. 01:06:24.160 --> 01:06:32.300 How do I help people be missionaries actually understand and live out that philosophical mindset and train them to do it? 01:06:32.740 --> 01:06:36.900 And so we need to shift back that mentality to the empowerment of the laity. 01:06:37.320 --> 01:06:38.280 It's just that simple. 01:06:38.280 --> 01:06:42.880 We need to move from you've said it, you know, that the one headed pastor, which, again, is good. 01:06:43.200 --> 01:06:44.400 It's got a purpose. 01:06:44.500 --> 01:06:45.840 We're not anti that purpose. 01:06:46.500 --> 01:06:49.680 But the equipping leaders, no one can can can. 01:06:50.320 --> 01:07:03.040 If you can look at your church and with your one hour on Sunday, if you can tell me the vast majority of my people in my church are being equipped to do ministry and they're actually doing it on a regular basis, then I won't argue with anything that you're doing. 01:07:03.540 --> 01:07:10.820 But if they're not equipped and they're not doing it, then I'm going to ask, how are you going to carry out that biblical function in your current model? 01:07:10.820 --> 01:07:15.140 You need to challenge at least what we're doing to make it more holistic. 01:07:15.840 --> 01:07:18.020 So I think that's a lot of what's happening. 01:07:18.140 --> 01:07:22.540 Churches are now relooking at I'm not getting the results when they look at it. 01:07:22.780 --> 01:07:24.800 Discipleship from the results perspective. 01:07:25.440 --> 01:07:26.600 I think covid is screaming. 01:07:26.920 --> 01:07:28.840 We are not getting the results we want. 01:07:29.300 --> 01:07:32.740 Therefore, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. 01:07:32.740 --> 01:07:33.000 Right. 01:07:33.080 --> 01:07:34.420 And expecting a different result. 01:07:34.900 --> 01:07:39.120 I think for the first time, we're not first time, but we're relooking at a larger level. 01:07:39.620 --> 01:07:44.620 OK, maybe we need to change some of our systems and structures, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. 01:07:44.780 --> 01:07:45.300 I like it. 01:07:45.720 --> 01:07:52.820 But like you said, if 40 percent of Americans won't even walk into an existing church the way that it is, what are we going to do to reach them? 01:07:53.240 --> 01:07:53.400 Right. 01:07:53.460 --> 01:07:56.860 And people are not anti Jesus, per se. 01:07:57.120 --> 01:07:58.180 It's still an issue out there. 01:07:58.180 --> 01:08:00.760 But most people are still open to the spiritual conversation. 01:08:01.680 --> 01:08:05.980 They're just against the institution, you know, with the pain and hurts that it's caused. 01:08:06.500 --> 01:08:07.680 So, yeah. 01:08:08.220 --> 01:08:13.860 Yeah, we've talked a lot about Barna, December 2020, 80 percent of people called to Christ. 01:08:13.980 --> 01:08:17.060 They're not interested in a physical or even a digital church service. 01:08:17.260 --> 01:08:21.560 And so effectively, I mean, it's something I've suspected. 01:08:21.760 --> 01:08:22.660 It's something I've referenced. 01:08:22.660 --> 01:08:30.520 But I think that was like the first time there's actually like research backing this up where somebody asked the question and they got the hard answer back. 01:08:30.640 --> 01:08:36.060 And so, you know, realizing that evangelism, it's not moving forward. 01:08:36.100 --> 01:08:37.160 It's not happening in the building. 01:08:37.320 --> 01:08:42.940 And so, if your primary strategy for evangelism is that weekend service, congratulations. 01:08:43.660 --> 01:08:45.140 You probably should shift. 01:08:45.280 --> 01:08:47.060 Really evaluate if it's working. 01:08:47.600 --> 01:08:48.160 And it's funny. 01:08:48.260 --> 01:08:59.780 One of the conversations I'm working on, talking with churches that have, one of the future episodes we're having on Clubhouse is like, how is God moving spiritually, digitally, physically? 01:09:00.020 --> 01:09:01.580 Like, how are we seeing God move today? 01:09:02.420 --> 01:09:11.060 And so far, the churches that are having like the 50 people baptized, 100 people baptized, it's not tied to the weekend service. 01:09:11.300 --> 01:09:12.500 I mean, yeah, there's some there. 01:09:12.820 --> 01:09:17.220 But it's really like the revival that's happening as people are moving outside of it. 01:09:17.340 --> 01:09:20.180 And so, even just recognizing that's where it's happened. 01:09:20.180 --> 01:09:27.940 And hey, as we see God move, maybe we as churches, we need to join in that and kind of understand the different mindset. 01:09:28.160 --> 01:09:30.780 And so, this has been a phenomenal time. 01:09:30.940 --> 01:09:33.540 So, let me ask this, even just moving forward. 01:09:33.720 --> 01:09:38.640 You know, here in the audience, this is digital pastors, executive pastors, senior pastors. 01:09:38.980 --> 01:09:40.440 It's literally the church digital. 01:09:40.580 --> 01:09:42.060 And so, we normally talk about digital. 01:09:43.420 --> 01:09:47.560 It's digital discipleship for me, disciple-making in digital space. 01:09:47.620 --> 01:09:49.000 This is the challenge of 2021. 01:09:49.380 --> 01:09:56.000 This is the thing if the church can figure out how to do discipleship in 2021 in digital space. 01:09:56.220 --> 01:09:57.820 This is where I think we see revival. 01:09:57.980 --> 01:10:10.160 And even in context of the churches that I was just talking with, like a lot of this is done digitally, where they're training, where they're empowering, and they're sending, not only in physical space, but in the digital influence as well. 01:10:10.160 --> 01:10:18.280 So, TTI, Timothy Initiative, are there training, are there obstacles, are there challenges, successes? 01:10:18.540 --> 01:10:21.420 What does it look like doing some of this stuff in digital space? 01:10:21.840 --> 01:10:26.380 Yeah, so, interestingly, Jeff, this past year, because of COVID, we're forced. 01:10:26.760 --> 01:10:28.020 Here's what I can tell you. 01:10:28.460 --> 01:10:31.260 I spend most of my times mentoring pastors. 01:10:32.080 --> 01:10:36.340 And I don't think I'm not in any way breaking confidence or doing anything. 01:10:36.520 --> 01:10:38.560 I do groups of cohorts with pastors. 01:10:39.200 --> 01:10:44.980 And the fascinating thing about these pastors is they would just say, I'm redoing discipleship in my journey. 01:10:45.080 --> 01:10:47.740 We literally are just disciples making disciples together. 01:10:47.740 --> 01:10:51.500 We're just brothers ironing, sharpening iron, struggling through these basic stuff. 01:10:51.680 --> 01:11:01.240 And when we're teaching some of the most basic concepts, like it's stunning to hear pastors just go, man, I haven't practiced this in years. 01:11:01.480 --> 01:11:03.020 You know, like, oh, I've never taught this. 01:11:03.120 --> 01:11:03.460 I've never changed. 01:11:03.540 --> 01:11:04.500 So, it's funny. 01:11:04.580 --> 01:11:07.820 And we're doing it all through Zoom, all of it's through Zoom. 01:11:07.820 --> 01:11:18.340 And what I can tell you is for us, these groups of pastors that I'm doing cohorts with are my best friends in my community all online, right? 01:11:18.740 --> 01:11:25.320 And we are equipping each other and challenging each other and pushing each other and encouraging one another. 01:11:25.460 --> 01:11:27.540 It flat out works. 01:11:27.700 --> 01:11:28.300 It's simple. 01:11:29.100 --> 01:11:34.020 And so, what we're watching, a lot of these guys, most of them are doing it live with what they're doing. 01:11:34.020 --> 01:11:36.700 But a couple are adding online stuff. 01:11:36.800 --> 01:11:44.200 And we're now having a younger generation go into spaces like you that are going into specific venues, targeting those venues. 01:11:44.740 --> 01:11:46.740 So, here's what I found that with them. 01:11:46.980 --> 01:11:48.180 Here's the key with it all, Jeff. 01:11:48.240 --> 01:11:49.200 It's just this. 01:11:49.880 --> 01:11:52.000 What is it you're trying to get after and disciple? 01:11:52.340 --> 01:11:53.600 I'd like them to do this. 01:11:53.840 --> 01:11:59.280 And the question is, whatever space you go into, how are you going to accomplish it in that space? 01:11:59.700 --> 01:12:00.740 That's the big question. 01:12:01.300 --> 01:12:04.120 And then figure it out in that space. 01:12:04.400 --> 01:12:08.080 You know, like you and I made a comment a couple months back. 01:12:08.120 --> 01:12:09.200 We were talking about prayer walking. 01:12:09.440 --> 01:12:13.460 So, one of the things that, not that it's a skill, but one of the things we want to do is pray for people. 01:12:13.560 --> 01:12:16.200 And one of our guys said, hey, man, how do I just pray walk for my neighborhood? 01:12:16.500 --> 01:12:17.740 Well, that's a great question. 01:12:17.740 --> 01:12:21.320 So, let's just talk about how you could do a person of peace and pray through your neighborhood. 01:12:21.720 --> 01:12:26.240 So, now I would just ask, how do I do that on roadblocks, right? 01:12:26.300 --> 01:12:27.940 Because, again, my kids are always on roadblocks. 01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:30.160 That's why it always jumps out to me or in this space. 01:12:31.260 --> 01:12:35.360 Or I made a mistake in my community. 01:12:35.520 --> 01:12:38.240 Somebody had asked me, like, hey, I'm on Nextdoor, right? 01:12:38.380 --> 01:12:40.280 And so, here's our community. 01:12:40.600 --> 01:12:45.520 I did not realize how much Nextdoor is the community of our community. 01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:47.560 Like, there's so much happening on there. 01:12:47.820 --> 01:12:56.340 And I didn't realize when I had signed up to do my one post that I am now being blitzed with 22 emails a day and text about what's occurring on my Nextdoor post, right? 01:12:56.360 --> 01:12:57.680 I'm like, I got to get off of this. 01:12:57.980 --> 01:12:58.980 But here would be the question. 01:12:59.440 --> 01:13:01.660 How do I prayer walk that Nextdoor? 01:13:01.760 --> 01:13:03.260 How do I learn what's happening? 01:13:03.360 --> 01:13:04.980 How do I engage what's happening? 01:13:05.040 --> 01:13:11.660 So, just look at that digital space and then look at discipleship and go, the same thing I would do if I was face-to-face here. 01:13:12.080 --> 01:13:14.020 How do I do that same concept? 01:13:14.280 --> 01:13:16.040 Is there a skill I could teach? 01:13:16.500 --> 01:13:24.800 Is there a practice I could do in that space which would help me to accomplish the same thing as if you and I were sitting here together, right? 01:13:24.940 --> 01:13:28.140 So, I don't have an answer for what it is, but I have a process. 01:13:28.400 --> 01:13:31.940 The process is just to say, what is the result I want out of that person? 01:13:32.120 --> 01:13:38.500 And if I want them to pray, how do we figure out how to do prayer and grow them in prayer there and encourage them in that, right? 01:13:38.880 --> 01:13:39.600 How do we come back? 01:13:39.680 --> 01:13:42.800 And by the way, encouragement is one of the number one things for discipleship. 01:13:43.160 --> 01:13:49.000 How do we figure out a system where we regularly gather and encourage one another if that's what it takes, right? 01:13:49.320 --> 01:13:50.360 So, just look again. 01:13:50.540 --> 01:13:51.700 Here's what I want to accomplish. 01:13:51.800 --> 01:13:56.060 If I only had 18 months, here's the top 10 things I would want to see accomplished. 01:13:56.160 --> 01:14:03.980 And then when I go look at my fidgetal space, whether, you know, in any capacity, how do I carry it out in that environment? 01:14:04.120 --> 01:14:06.120 Let's figure that out in that environment. 01:14:06.460 --> 01:14:08.380 That's going to be the secret to what we have to do. 01:14:09.340 --> 01:14:10.220 So good. 01:14:10.360 --> 01:14:16.540 Yeah, the idea of you're discipling people differently in the different contexts. 01:14:16.820 --> 01:14:29.680 How you would do that at an established giga church versus how you would do that at a 200-person church versus what that looks like on Facebook or next door, Roblox. 01:14:29.680 --> 01:14:34.760 So, you know, I love you keep saying, you know, the Robloxian church idea. 01:14:34.860 --> 01:14:37.740 Daniel Aaron, Robloxian Christians, is a good friend of mine. 01:14:38.260 --> 01:14:49.680 And so the more that we can contextually look at these different areas, whether it's even if it's a house church, how you're able to do that, it's going to be different. 01:14:49.680 --> 01:14:55.680 All these different modes, all the different models allows for contextualization. 01:14:56.540 --> 01:14:57.160 It has to. 01:14:58.100 --> 01:15:12.240 And the more that we can do that, the more that we can engage and actually do things at this, encouraging, not accountability, encouraging people towards, you know, the disciple making it in that multiplication piece. 01:15:12.880 --> 01:15:13.800 That's beautiful. 01:15:14.640 --> 01:15:17.640 So, hey, Kevin, we're going to wrap. 01:15:17.740 --> 01:15:19.220 Man, this has been a great conversation. 01:15:19.220 --> 01:15:21.340 Thanks for jumping in. 01:15:21.400 --> 01:15:22.940 I had Daniel Aaron now in my head. 01:15:23.160 --> 01:15:23.980 That's all good, man. 01:15:25.280 --> 01:15:26.280 He's smarter than me. 01:15:26.340 --> 01:15:26.820 I know that. 01:15:28.100 --> 01:15:36.140 I mean, when Daniel Aaron, he just transitioned out of the Robloxian Christians. 01:15:37.180 --> 01:15:40.440 He just had literally had his 10-year anniversary, like, yesterday. 01:15:41.140 --> 01:15:42.860 And already, he's 21. 01:15:43.320 --> 01:15:45.220 And he's moving on to the next phase of his life. 01:15:45.220 --> 01:15:45.780 Isn't it funny? 01:15:46.000 --> 01:15:47.520 It's 21 on transition. 01:15:48.860 --> 01:15:54.580 He's like, yeah, I mean, I've successfully connected with 40,000, 50,000 people on Roblox. 01:15:54.980 --> 01:15:57.120 I'm trying to figure out what God's got for me next. 01:15:57.500 --> 01:15:59.740 And so, he's already done the succession plan. 01:15:59.860 --> 01:16:04.460 I don't know any 21-year-olds out there who can say, yeah, I've done a succession plan. 01:16:04.800 --> 01:16:06.900 And now we're moving on to what's next. 01:16:07.040 --> 01:16:09.400 But that's a whole other conversation. 01:16:09.540 --> 01:16:11.260 But, hey, Kevin, thank you for this. 01:16:11.380 --> 01:16:12.300 Love Timothy Initiative. 01:16:12.520 --> 01:16:13.000 Love this. 01:16:13.060 --> 01:16:15.540 And I will never say accountability again. 01:16:15.680 --> 01:16:16.540 Thank you for that lesson. 01:16:16.840 --> 01:16:18.920 Well, hey, by the way, you're a word changer. 01:16:19.100 --> 01:16:20.940 If you have a new word for it, do it. 01:16:21.280 --> 01:16:23.220 But encouragement is at least a biblical word. 01:16:23.400 --> 01:16:25.620 And that is the heartbeat behind it. 01:16:25.720 --> 01:16:26.440 Don't ever miss it. 01:16:26.700 --> 01:16:30.960 Anyone who wants to take accountability and put a negative spin on it, it's just encouragement. 01:16:31.140 --> 01:16:32.200 That's all we want. 01:16:32.220 --> 01:16:33.200 I want to encourage one another. 01:16:33.460 --> 01:16:35.920 I want to spur one another on to love and good deeds. 01:16:36.140 --> 01:16:37.280 I love that. 01:16:37.520 --> 01:16:40.860 I will adopt encouragement into my language. 01:16:41.780 --> 01:16:52.100 And I'm going to spend some time, and if listening audience out there, if anybody has ideas on a new word for discipleship, a new word, let's go ahead and make a new word. 01:16:52.280 --> 01:16:53.540 I don't need prayer for that one. 01:16:53.940 --> 01:17:00.280 Listen, and the great part about the audience, I pray that that word would just change America because there's so few. 01:17:00.280 --> 01:17:05.520 I mean, we are in such a desperate time for a need for encouragement in our country. 01:17:06.200 --> 01:17:10.260 And literally, that is if we could just encourage one another in their spiritual journeys. 01:17:10.540 --> 01:17:14.740 I mean, if Sunday, by the way, that's what Sunday should be about also, isn't it? 01:17:15.140 --> 01:17:16.900 I never want to beat my sheep. 01:17:17.000 --> 01:17:18.400 I don't want to encourage them. 01:17:18.860 --> 01:17:26.820 So if we could just change our mentality, that value of encouragement, of challenge from an encouragement perspective, I think it would change so much. 01:17:27.100 --> 01:17:29.220 But you got to get a practice and a skill to go with it. 01:17:29.480 --> 01:17:31.740 Yeah, and that even gets back to that. 01:17:31.840 --> 01:17:44.940 It's better to ask questions than make statements, draw people into it, get them talking rather than you telling them, listening to them, and creating a dialogue by listening as opposed to a monologue by lecturing. 01:17:45.020 --> 01:17:46.460 It totally pulls that same thread. 01:17:47.080 --> 01:17:48.780 And by the way, we want to keep it all biblical. 01:17:49.100 --> 01:17:51.100 Let's keep it biblical instead of practices. 01:17:51.440 --> 01:17:58.680 Like, I'm not going to do it just because it's been my practice, but let's go back and look at the Bible and just say, okay, let's make sure we got down with the Bible saying and how that implies. 01:17:58.680 --> 01:18:06.820 What are the implications to what we're doing now, no matter what venue we're in, no matter what space that we're in, too. 01:18:07.220 --> 01:18:07.740 Love it. 01:18:07.920 --> 01:18:09.080 Hey, so we're going to land the plane. 01:18:09.160 --> 01:18:09.760 This has been beautiful. 01:18:09.860 --> 01:18:13.340 Kevin, thank you for the time and joining in here. 01:18:13.440 --> 01:18:14.640 We'll have to do this again. 01:18:14.760 --> 01:18:16.100 I'm such a fan of TTI. 01:18:16.260 --> 01:18:18.660 We'll find ways to work it in down the road. 01:18:18.980 --> 01:18:19.640 Thanks for the partnership. 01:18:19.840 --> 01:18:26.360 I'm so excited, y'all, of broaching the gap and going out into the digital world ahead of what most ministries are willing to do. 01:18:26.440 --> 01:18:29.760 And I'm so glad you're finally set free to be able to do it, man. 01:18:29.860 --> 01:18:34.120 Thank you for leading out in this area and helping us grow also. 01:18:34.380 --> 01:18:34.780 So blessings. 01:18:35.080 --> 01:18:39.200 For Kevin, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning. 01:18:39.340 --> 01:18:42.360 Thanks for joining us here on this episode. 01:18:42.880 --> 01:18:44.020 Catch you again on the next pod. 01:18:44.220 --> 01:18:44.680 Y'all have a good day.