What is the bare minimum of disciple-making? (part 1)

[00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the STOKE IT UP podcast, a podcast encouraging you in your journey with God. I'm Alan Stoddard and I'm here with Kenneth Priest and we want to talk this week on a book idea. So we're going to get you guys in on the front end of it. I have one of my wild ideas, pitched it over to Kenneth and he didn't fire me on it. So I'm still working it with him. But it's this, it's the idea of what would the minimum requirements be for

[00:00:30] three areas of ministry. One, new believer discipleship. Two, discipling small group leaders. And then three, what does leadership development as a whole look like in a local church? Kenneth, as I talk to pastors, I find that they are wanting to do these three things. Most medium to smaller churches are not doing it. Now you will be able to speak more to large churches,

[00:01:00] but what do you think about that? Are churches accomplishing these three things? Is it a need?

[00:01:07] No, I definitely believe that, Alan, that we've got a need out there in these three areas. I believe that there's a shortfall. And so I don't believe it, I don't think it matters what size the church is.

[00:01:21] There are going to be. There are going to be some churches that are doing these things. But I think when we look on that mass scale, the majority of churches are not doing any of these, or they may be doing one, but then you get to the question of how effective are we doing if we are doing one of these.

[00:01:41] And I think there's probably a level of dissatisfaction among those in ministry that even if we're doing it, it's not where it needs to be.

[00:01:52] Well, let's flesh this out. I put us into a category of three things. New believer follow-up, small group discipleship, which what I mean by that is dealing with the leaders and making sure that they are vibrant and leading the small group, what I call apparatus or strategy in a church.

[00:02:15] And then the leadership development of all leaders as a whole, what would be the minimum requirement for that?

[00:02:23] So let's start with new believers. Now I categorized new believer follow-up in four categories, four approaches to new believer follow-up.

[00:02:34] One, the church that does nothing. Two, the church that resources people, but that's all they do.

[00:02:45] Three is the classroom. And four is to actually disciple new believers.

[00:02:55] Now, there may be other categories for that. I think most churches fall under the do nothing.

[00:03:03] And I don't believe they mean to, because I was this guy for 20, you know me, 20 plus years.

[00:03:10] Well, if somebody came and got saved and baptized, I would point them to spiritual places and spiritual resources, connect them to a small group.

[00:03:18] But the hard reality is I should have taken them and discipled them myself and let go of something else.

[00:03:27] So I think most churches fall into category of they're not doing anything.

[00:03:31] Now, what do I mean by anything? I don't really mean nothing.

[00:03:39] If you put a small, if you put a new believer in a small, healthy small group, Larry Osborne says that's good.

[00:03:46] He said that's, that's their new believer follow-up at North Coast.

[00:03:53] Then resources only online and paper. I've researched some of that. Some churches do provide online resources.

[00:04:02] I don't know of anyone that's doing a good classroom environment.

[00:04:08] And I do know of some people now who are cranking up the discipleship.

[00:04:14] So if I were to ask you for a model, what model would you just, could you just paint a model for us of what new believer follow-up would look like for you?

[00:04:27] So could you, would you just talk that out without me?

[00:04:30] I don't want to, I'm not going to make, I'm not going to take what you say and make it the only picture.

[00:04:35] I give you freedom to change the picture.

[00:04:37] But for right now, what would that look like?

[00:04:39] Right. So, yeah, as we look at this and the understanding of this, that the first steps, again, you're talking bare minimum.

[00:04:49] I really think we go back to the crusade evangelism model, right?

[00:04:54] And so you look at the Billy Graham model for doing this, and that gives us the idealized, anyway, of what should happen.

[00:05:03] If you've ever participated in a Billy Graham crusade and you've gone in for the training, the decision guide training that takes place after a citywide crusade,

[00:05:13] and I'm sure Franklin has continued this today, there is this model that they encourage, which is we're going to give a resource.

[00:05:23] We're going to put a book in the hand of this person that makes a decision at a crusade.

[00:05:29] And we're going to take that person's name and we're going to put in our hopper.

[00:05:34] And every church that signed up to be a part of this, the very next day after a crusade, those pastors are going to receive a packet that's got everyone that made a decision that first is connected to your church.

[00:05:51] And so, you know, if you go to that, somebody makes a decision, they can list, hey, I'm a part of Allen's church, right?

[00:05:56] Whatever the name of that church is.

[00:05:58] And then as the pastor of that church, I get this and I go, oh, look, this person indicated my church.

[00:06:04] So they've got some connection.

[00:06:06] This is just like when you get that phone call from the hospital and Betty Sue has listed your church and you're like, I don't have a clue who Betty Sue is, but she said she's a part of my church, man.

[00:06:19] So I'm going to go connect with her and we're going to love on her and minister to her and try to bring her into the family.

[00:06:24] So someone is giving you this open door.

[00:06:28] Then they take the list.

[00:06:29] If you did not indicate a church and they try to find, maybe you indicated a denomination on that form.

[00:06:36] You didn't put a church name, but you said, hey, I am a part of a Calvary Network church.

[00:06:41] Well, they look for Calvary churches that are here and they find the closest one to that address.

[00:06:45] They send it to that pastor.

[00:06:47] Again, this is an open door.

[00:06:49] You have an opportunity to connect.

[00:06:52] Well, that's phase one of their model.

[00:06:54] They're putting a book in their hand and they're giving the church the opportunity to follow up.

[00:07:00] Go get this person.

[00:07:01] Bring them into your family.

[00:07:03] Now, at the Graham model, what they encourage you to do as a church is not just bring them in and plug them in to a group, although they encourage that.

[00:07:14] The whole point of the New Believer material that they would pass out, it was kind of this two-week devotional.

[00:07:21] And it covered kind of the spiritual practices that you should have as a new believer.

[00:07:26] Number one, you should be baptized by immersion.

[00:07:29] Number two, you should engage in church membership.

[00:07:33] Membership is important.

[00:07:34] So go find a church and link your life with this church.

[00:07:37] And number three, you need to connect to a small group in that church.

[00:07:41] Go to a small group.

[00:07:42] And so they would list these things.

[00:07:45] You need to read your Bible.

[00:07:47] And so it was these spiritual practices.

[00:07:49] And so when I think about bare minimums, I go back to that Graham model and I say, you know what?

[00:07:55] The bare minimum any church should do is what's expected of you at a crusade, which is to make certain that you have a pathway to lead people through why they should be baptized,

[00:08:09] why they should join a church, why they should connect in a small group,

[00:08:13] why they should be studying their Bible, why they should be giving to the kingdom.

[00:08:18] These spiritual practices.

[00:08:20] And so finding the bare minimums.

[00:08:24] We're not saying that this is the only way.

[00:08:26] We're just saying this is a way.

[00:08:28] To me, doing nothing.

[00:08:30] And I hear you and I agree with you.

[00:08:33] Look, getting somebody, like Larry says, into a small group is, you know, their model of new believer follow-up.

[00:08:40] But just putting somebody in a small group doesn't teach them about the spiritual practices that they need to be doing.

[00:08:48] And so you're missing out on some bare minimums.

[00:08:51] You've kind of said, okay, worship in small groups.

[00:08:54] Yeah, yeah, that's important.

[00:08:55] But you've not covered these other areas.

[00:08:58] Because it's almost when we do that, Alan, we almost have this expectation that somehow by osmosis or something,

[00:09:06] you automatically know what you're supposed to do.

[00:09:09] Because you got saved.

[00:09:11] And so because you were saved, the Holy Spirit has supernaturally imposed all this information into you.

[00:09:16] And I don't need to tell you anything.

[00:09:19] And to me, you're selling short the Great Commission, which said to go make disciples.

[00:09:24] And how do you do that?

[00:09:25] By teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you.

[00:09:29] And so to me, the bare minimums has to be in this intentional developmental process.

[00:09:42] I'll stop there.

[00:09:43] There's more I could say about it.

[00:09:44] But we'll stop there to see where this goes.

[00:09:47] No, I like it.

[00:09:48] Okay, so you know, I took Roy Fish at Southwestern Seminary.

[00:09:54] Here's Alan.

[00:09:55] Alan comes out of the Army, has no idea what he is doing.

[00:09:59] Not much of anything except for the Army.

[00:10:02] And so I go to class.

[00:10:03] And he teaches basically the Billy Graham model on steroids.

[00:10:10] And I'm going, okay.

[00:10:11] And then I met you.

[00:10:12] And then you got totally fired up on Dr. Ken Hemphill's whole thing of reaching people through Sunday school and doing it right.

[00:10:25] And we're being immersed in all this.

[00:10:27] And then you go to a church.

[00:10:30] And I want to do two things.

[00:10:31] One, you go to a church that doesn't do that model.

[00:10:36] Matter of fact, the church is nowhere near that model.

[00:10:39] The church is so far off the follow-up model.

[00:10:45] Next, here's what happens at the crusade.

[00:10:47] So a guy goes.

[00:10:49] He goes to the crusade.

[00:10:50] And I've worked a Billy Graham crusade.

[00:10:53] And I worked a Greg Laurie crusade.

[00:10:55] Yep.

[00:10:57] And somebody makes a decision.

[00:10:59] Okay, you're going to get a call from the church.

[00:11:00] So they go home.

[00:11:01] They're excited.

[00:11:02] They made a decision.

[00:11:03] We put one of Greg Laurie's Bibles in their hands.

[00:11:05] I'm all for that.

[00:11:08] And what does the person need?

[00:11:11] Okay, you're going to get a call from a church.

[00:11:13] And you need to be in church.

[00:11:15] And then, you know, you can't do.

[00:11:17] You can only do so much.

[00:11:20] The plan would be, let's, hey, can I meet with you?

[00:11:24] Where do you live?

[00:11:24] If the person lives near me, I want to own the follow-up on that person.

[00:11:30] Yeah.

[00:11:30] However, let's just say the church calls.

[00:11:34] And they call, let's say, during the day, the person's at work.

[00:11:39] They get home.

[00:11:40] They finally check their voicemail.

[00:11:42] They call the number back that was left.

[00:11:44] Well, let's say it was from the church.

[00:11:46] Well, now nobody's at the church because it's evening.

[00:11:49] You go back and forth on that a couple of times.

[00:11:52] Life starts to hit and people get busy.

[00:11:54] And the person's falling through the cracks.

[00:11:57] Yep.

[00:11:58] And I'll tell you, I'm burdened these days.

[00:12:00] And I want to turn that burden into a positive burden.

[00:12:05] That I think about people that I, as a pastor, and really not as a pastor, as a person, man.

[00:12:12] I wish I would have known, okay, don't just put this person in a big group thing.

[00:12:18] Don't assume, as you said, by osmosis, that this thing is going to happen.

[00:12:24] No, that person needs more than direction.

[00:12:28] That person needs relationship.

[00:12:31] True.

[00:12:32] And Billy Graham, I can remember, they expect that you're going to do that.

[00:12:37] Yeah.

[00:12:37] They expect that you're going to Velcro the person to the church.

[00:12:42] That's right.

[00:12:44] Absolutely.

[00:12:45] Yeah, it's such a, so the key operator, and this is, I know where you are, is relationship.

[00:12:54] There has to be a relationship.

[00:12:56] And we've talked about this before, I'm sure, but all the research continues to show a person

[00:13:03] has to be connected to five or more relationships within three to six months in order to, and

[00:13:12] it's going to be meaningful, in order for them to want to come to this group.

[00:13:18] So church, if you want to come to this church, you got to connect with five or six people

[00:13:23] within three to six months, or you're going to fall away.

[00:13:27] You're not going to keep trying.

[00:13:29] Why in the world do I want to keep trying to go to a church that nobody's trying to connect

[00:13:34] with me?

[00:13:35] There's no desire for that.

[00:13:38] Yeah, Coleman says that in his book.

[00:13:41] I think it's in the chapter on association where he says, if we leave newer, younger believers

[00:13:47] to themselves with all they face in life, the odds are they're not going to make it.

[00:13:54] And so there's the aspect of the recipient getting the discipling, but there's also the

[00:14:01] philosophy that we need to have that says nobody falls through the cracks.

[00:14:05] Now, of course, people are going to fall through the cracks, but that's not going to be something

[00:14:09] we're comfortable with at all.

[00:14:12] Well, as an army boy, it's no man left behind, right?

[00:14:17] We can't.

[00:14:18] We just can't, man.

[00:14:19] And we do that.

[00:14:20] But here's what happens by osmosis falling through the cracks.

[00:14:23] I mean, all of a sudden we don't have a plan and it's unreal to me how pastors and leaders,

[00:14:31] we'd start making these excuses.

[00:14:33] And I'm like, we don't have to make excuses.

[00:14:35] Let's just do something.

[00:14:37] So churches do nothing.

[00:14:39] Now I've researched this a little among Calvary Chapel churches.

[00:14:44] There are churches that will put resources online.

[00:14:49] They'll put their teachings online.

[00:14:52] They'll have a four-part teaching series on the basics of church life.

[00:14:58] And it'll be from Acts 2.

[00:15:00] It'll be the simple good stuff.

[00:15:02] It's good stuff.

[00:15:02] It's stuff that we would use.

[00:15:05] And it'll be online and they'll point people there.

[00:15:07] And Greg Laurie, if you ride in to harvest and say, I made a decision for Christ, they'll send you one of his Bibles.

[00:15:17] The problem with online and even paper is that it lacks relationship.

[00:15:25] So I don't know of anyone that is doing classroom.

[00:15:30] Everyone wants to do classroom.

[00:15:32] There's a couple of the Calvary churches that I know of that are doing it.

[00:15:35] It's the bigger churches that have enough volume of newer, younger believers.

[00:15:39] That's the key.

[00:15:40] Or let's say it's an introductory class to the church.

[00:15:44] I'm not against this, by the way.

[00:15:46] Please, listeners, we're not against any of this.

[00:15:48] Because we're just fleshing out that there ought to be a minimum.

[00:15:52] And I believe, of course, I do, that the minimum is to actually disciple the person.

[00:15:58] Most churches, I would argue now, you don't have the volume in those churches to where you could go, well, we're waiting to get enough people to do the class.

[00:16:08] I remember saying that myself.

[00:16:10] Shame on me, man.

[00:16:11] I should have said, no, dude, let's do this.

[00:16:14] Let's meet up once a week.

[00:16:16] Yeah.

[00:16:16] That's the reality.

[00:16:19] If they met up once a week with the leader.

[00:16:21] I'm a new believer.

[00:16:23] And you tell me I have to wait six months, eight months, ten months before you're going to offer a class for me to go through to better know what I'm supposed to do.

[00:16:34] Bare minimums.

[00:16:36] Look, I want you to get engaged in spiritual practices, but it's going to be ten months probably before I can teach you how to do that.

[00:16:44] So until then, you go to this small group, you go to this Sunday school class.

[00:16:48] Well, by then, if I'm connected to the church and I'm connected through small groups, when you offer it, I don't want to leave the group I'm in to come to your new group.

[00:16:59] Right?

[00:16:59] But yet you're offering something that is a necessity.

[00:17:03] It's a lifeblood for a new believer.

[00:17:06] So you're right.

[00:17:06] The reality is this has got to be a discipling opportunity.

[00:17:11] We have got to figure out how to get in to that group.

[00:17:19] I'm willing to be flexible on this.

[00:17:22] We're going to have to figure this out in the days ahead.

[00:17:25] In other words, I just wrote a book, self-published a book called New Believer.

[00:17:32] And I stumbled on this through John Burton, a guy that used to work for Campus Crusade for Christ.

[00:17:36] And I tell people, Billy Graham, Campus Crusade for Christ, Navigators, Young Life, FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

[00:17:44] Those are the ministries that really get newer, younger believer follow up right.

[00:17:49] Right.

[00:17:49] Because it's built into the DNA of their ministries naturally taking place out in the world.

[00:17:55] Yeah.

[00:17:56] As opposed to when you come to church, it's like you have to, it's like you're stealing something if you try to implement that.

[00:18:02] However, I would use the Campus Crusade for Christ model.

[00:18:07] Now, what I want us to explore in this book, what other content would we use?

[00:18:15] I would argue, and I'm going to send you the book tomorrow.

[00:18:21] Your brother here has been a slacker.

[00:18:24] But we would argue that externals need to come about six to ten months after.

[00:18:31] And by externals, we mean things like Navigator's content.

[00:18:36] The things you listed, for the most part, we would consider that externals.

[00:18:41] And what we consider internals are things that are more spiritual formation, confidence in your relationship with God,

[00:18:48] experiencing the love and forgiveness of God, living filled with the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit.

[00:18:54] And walking in the Spirit transitions into the things you listed.

[00:18:57] But here's the thing that we do.

[00:18:59] We say it's going to, our discipleship strategy is relational.

[00:19:04] And John Burton would hammer that.

[00:19:07] Intentional with content.

[00:19:09] We mean content there.

[00:19:11] But then what we do is we say to the newer, younger believer, we tell them up front,

[00:19:15] we're going to disciple you to where you can actually give this away.

[00:19:18] You're going to be able to give the simple stuff of this.

[00:19:21] The first part of it, you're going to be able to do this yourself.

[00:19:24] And at first they look at us like wide-eyed and they're going, what?

[00:19:28] But then they hang in about five or six weeks and they start going, this is what Bob Verula said in Montana for FCA.

[00:19:35] He goes, wow, I'm noticing people are starting to say they realize they can do it.

[00:19:40] They say, I can do this.

[00:19:42] Yeah.

[00:19:43] But what I want to do with you, and I want you to be thinking through this with me, besides the content, intentional content that I'm talking about, what else would we do?

[00:19:54] Because I think we have a responsibility to say, okay, there is more than one way to do it.

[00:19:59] Oh, absolutely.

[00:20:00] How would we disciple new believers?

[00:20:03] And let's assume the relational part.

[00:20:06] We're going to assume that's going to be full on.

[00:20:09] But what other content, now I'm not going to change the content that I use at this point because it works, but that doesn't mean it's right for everybody.

[00:20:18] And I'm going, okay, could we do this?

[00:20:22] Right.

[00:20:23] Could we put together a list of things that's not a four-week class and it doesn't have to be one year either?

[00:20:31] Right.

[00:20:32] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:32] What are you thinking as I blabbed all that out?

[00:20:34] Well, that's the kind of, so, you know, a couple of things, right?

[00:20:37] So, like you said, the internals, the externals, you know, where do you find those?

[00:20:47] The reality is creating the different models.

[00:20:53] It's more about looking at the church and say, look, there's going to be churches that we're not going to be able to get them to do this model, right?

[00:21:04] Right.

[00:21:04] So, there's going to be churches that aren't going to do your model, right?

[00:21:07] No, that's right.

[00:21:08] Whenever your model works, it's effective.

[00:21:10] It's proven.

[00:21:11] It's been tested multiple times.

[00:21:13] It works.

[00:21:14] But there are churches that's not going to do this.

[00:21:16] So, you go back to that bare minimums.

[00:21:18] Okay, but what are you willing to do?

[00:21:20] I have this conversation often in church revitalization.

[00:21:24] Okay, it doesn't matter what I want you to do.

[00:21:29] And I try to help pastors understand this.

[00:21:31] It doesn't matter what you want the church to do.

[00:21:35] The question is, what is the church willing to do?

[00:21:41] If you live in a metropolitan city, and if you're dealing with high-capacity leaders that are traveling a lot and their job requires them to work 70-plus hours a week,

[00:21:55] all of these things that they have to do, right?

[00:22:01] Asking them to give up a night during the week for a small group may not be realistic.

[00:22:08] They may look at you and say, man, if I get to go home one night, I'm not going to a small group, all right?

[00:22:17] If I get to go home one night, I'm going to spend some time with my kids, my family.

[00:22:23] We're not going to say, this is the one night that I get to be home.

[00:22:27] But guess what?

[00:22:28] We're all getting in the car to go to Bible study.

[00:22:32] What they do to say is, look, Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, whatever their primary worship time is, they go, look, I'll give you three hours during this primary worship time.

[00:22:45] I'm going to protect this three hours.

[00:22:47] And so if you want me to go to a Bible study, if you want me to go to worship, if you want me to serve the church, it's all going to happen during this three-hour block.

[00:22:56] So when we start talking bare minimums, we have to come back and say, okay, how can I help the pastor who have people that are only willing to do this?

[00:23:05] I'm not saying it's right.

[00:23:08] But I'm saying until you have a culture shift in your church, you have to work with the church where they are, not where you are.

[00:23:18] As a pastor, you should be further along than where they are.

[00:23:22] You should be in a different place in your journey than they are.

[00:23:25] But what are they willing to do?

[00:23:28] So let's work with them.

[00:23:29] Okay, I can only get them on Sunday morning.

[00:23:31] Then I'm going to figure out a way how to disciple somebody on Sunday morning through a small group format.

[00:23:38] And so I'm at a smaller church.

[00:23:40] So I don't have the critical mass that you're talking about like a larger church.

[00:23:44] We don't have 10 to 15 people getting saved every single week.

[00:23:48] We may be lucky if we get five an entire year.

[00:23:52] And so when that one person gets saved, what do I do with them?

[00:23:56] Well, if they're giving me three hours, I have to be willing to say, you know what?

[00:24:01] Yeah, it's a bit of a hardship even for me as a pastor when I need to get up and preach Sunday morning.

[00:24:06] But here's what I want you to do.

[00:24:08] Would you come to church at eight o'clock Sunday morning?

[00:24:11] And let's have some one-on-one time so that I can disciple you as a new believer.

[00:24:17] And then at 915, you're going to go to a Sunday school small group.

[00:24:21] And then at 1030, we're going to do our worship service.

[00:24:25] And so would you be willing to do that?

[00:24:28] And so you get this person that you're like, okay, I've committed to give you three, four hours for it.

[00:24:33] So yeah, I'll come and I'll do that.

[00:24:36] And so, and maybe you say, hey, we're only going to meet twice a month.

[00:24:39] We're going to meet every other week and do this.

[00:24:41] It doesn't have to be every week.

[00:24:42] And so you've got to create these models.

[00:24:45] And so that's the conversation you and I are having, right?

[00:24:48] How are we going to help churches do this?

[00:24:50] And the idea is multiple churches creating multiple models, meeting the bare minimums.

[00:24:57] And so that's how I would do it.

[00:24:59] I would look at the church and say, look, yeah, pastor, I know it's hard.

[00:25:03] But for a season, you need to do this.

[00:25:06] Or it may be that, you know what, you've got some guys that you can train to do this.

[00:25:12] And they're going to spend their Sunday morning doing this while you're doing these other things that you normally do as a pastor on Sunday mornings, right?

[00:25:21] Whatever we need to do, that's the bare minimums.

[00:25:24] So looking at the different bare minimums is the conversation.

[00:25:30] And so we've got to figure out, and that's where you and I have to sit down and continue to do our research and say, what are churches, what are church members willing to do?

[00:25:40] I'm willing to give you another day during the week.

[00:25:44] Praise God, right?

[00:25:45] That's what we want.

[00:25:47] Hey, I've got 15 coming.

[00:25:49] Every month we have 15 people getting saved.

[00:25:52] Okay, well, here's you a classroom model of how to do this.

[00:25:56] And basically once a month, you're going to have a group starting.

[00:26:01] And you've trained up leaders that you can start a new group once a month and take them through the process.

[00:26:07] The other thing, and I like this from Craig out at First Baptist Colleyville, or it used to be First Baptist Colleyville.

[00:26:18] They created their discipling model with on-ramps and off-ramps.

[00:26:23] And that's the other part of this.

[00:26:24] You've got to realize, you know, look, if it's November and I reach somebody for Christ, and let's say they're a CPA.

[00:26:33] I had this happen at my church in Maui.

[00:26:35] I had a CPA that basically January to April, this guy, he committed to be at church on Sunday morning for worship.

[00:26:43] But that's it.

[00:26:45] He's like, man, I can't do anything but show up for worship.

[00:26:47] I will be there for worship.

[00:26:50] I'm more than happy to serve as a greeter or an usher before worship or for worship.

[00:26:54] And then I got to go.

[00:26:56] I can't come before and I can't stay after.

[00:26:58] I'm not going to be there during the week for prayer meeting.

[00:27:01] But tell you what, after April 15th, I'm there on Wednesday nights.

[00:27:04] I'm there on Monday nights.

[00:27:06] I'm there for Sunday school.

[00:27:08] And so part of your own ramps is off-ramps is understanding people have a life stage.

[00:27:13] And where are they at their life stage?

[00:27:15] And so they've got cycles that they go through.

[00:27:18] They may have a season that they can't be at church as much as you want them to be at church.

[00:27:22] And you have to be okay with this.

[00:27:25] And so you create ways, say, okay, look, normally, as a new believer, I would spend six months, eight months, a year, whatever.

[00:27:33] But because you're going to be gone for four months, you're not willing to meet with me.

[00:27:37] Here's what we're going to do.

[00:27:39] I'm going to expect to see you at worship.

[00:27:40] We're going to touch base briefly before or after the service.

[00:27:43] But what it's going to take is it's going to take us two years working through this for us to get through this.

[00:27:52] That's great.

[00:27:53] Yeah, but that's what you got to do, right?

[00:27:55] You have to create.

[00:27:56] We found that longer is better.

[00:28:01] And we have found that, well, I thought about this.

[00:28:09] Jesus went three years.

[00:28:12] Yeah.

[00:28:13] Three years.

[00:28:14] And that just really kills me because I'm like, wow, I think so much shorter.

[00:28:21] That's probably a slightly separate conversation.

[00:28:24] Not completely.

[00:28:25] That church growth is the enemy of disciple making sometimes.

[00:28:30] It can be.

[00:28:30] It gets us moving too fast and it doesn't work.

[00:28:34] It doesn't work like that.

[00:28:36] I'm also thinking you could do online things.

[00:28:39] I have found Zoom call conversations.

[00:28:42] I'm discipling some pastors right now and it totally works online.

[00:28:49] Now, the relationship part can be, it's a little bit different.

[00:28:53] But here's the kicker.

[00:28:55] If I were a new believer and I got to hang out with Kenneth Priest online, let's say for one year,

[00:29:03] every week working through whatever you tell me to do, I can guarantee you this.

[00:29:09] If we both make 80% of those meetings, I will grow.

[00:29:15] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:29:17] I will grow.

[00:29:18] As a matter of fact, I would probably at this point, I would recommend go eight months with

[00:29:23] Kenneth Priest instead of four to eight weeks in a class.

[00:29:27] You're going to grow so much more at that pace.

[00:29:30] You'll get much more in that type of ongoing relationship.

[00:29:34] Here's the reality, Alan.

[00:29:36] And you're talking about, you know, it's the enemy of church growth or it's enemy, church

[00:29:43] growth, enemy of discipleship and all that.

[00:29:44] And it is.

[00:29:45] But the reality is it's our mental models have got to shift.

[00:29:51] The things that we have thought, because the pastors are the ones that think these things.

[00:29:57] It has to be done.

[00:29:58] It has to be done in this timeframe and it's going to be done in this way.

[00:30:03] And it, again, usually it's stemming off of what can I do?

[00:30:07] And part of that's the, and this kind of goes back to a conversation with Ken Hemphill,

[00:30:11] right?

[00:30:11] It's part of the, we've got to begin giving away the ministry.

[00:30:16] And in order for you to give away the ministry, you have to find people that are called to

[00:30:22] serve, gifted to serve, and you empower them to serve and use those gifts.

[00:30:29] And so you've got to be able to figure out what your method is.

[00:30:34] This is one of those, this is a disruptor for the church, right?

[00:30:39] If you're going to begin discipling new believers, it's a disruptor for the church because everyone

[00:30:44] knows that it should be done, but they don't know how to do it.

[00:30:50] And when you know it needs to be done, but you don't know how to do it, what do you do?

[00:30:56] You bury it.

[00:30:58] Yeah.

[00:30:59] You bury it.

[00:31:00] You don't talk about it.

[00:31:02] You don't, you don't address it.

[00:31:04] You just bury it because if I don't know how to do it, then that's an embarrassment to me.

[00:31:11] And so I just need to bury it, get out of the way.

[00:31:13] And what we're saying here is, look, we're wanting to provide you some tools to do the

[00:31:17] bare minimums.

[00:31:18] Don't bury it.

[00:31:19] Get out the shovel, dig this thing up and do something.

[00:31:25] Yeah.

[00:31:26] Amen.

[00:31:26] We'll, we've got some work to do.

[00:31:28] This has been a good conversation.

[00:31:29] We could keep going on this for 30 more minutes, but we're not going to do that.

[00:31:34] We're going to put a pin in it next week.

[00:31:36] We're going to come back and I'm going to ask you about small groups.

[00:31:40] What would be the minimum for small group leadership?

[00:31:45] That'll branch off into some other things, but be thinking about what would be five to

[00:31:51] seven things about small group leadership that you would say, okay, here are the minimums

[00:31:56] that if you were to ask me if this small group strategy, whether it's on campus or off,

[00:32:04] I don't care.

[00:32:05] This is the way you would be able to tell if, if it's a value in the church, let's put

[00:32:11] a pin in this conversation.

[00:32:13] We've got some good research we can do.

[00:32:15] And if you're interested in learning more about new believer follow-up, of course, I'm

[00:32:21] going to give you a shameless plug for the book, new believer.

[00:32:24] If you don't have the book and you can't afford the book, just reach out to me.

[00:32:27] I'll send you the book.

[00:32:29] I would love to partner with you in any way to show you what we're doing with disciple

[00:32:34] making of new believers.

[00:32:36] We take new believers, newer, younger believers, we call them.

[00:32:39] And we try to spend anywhere from six to eight to oftentimes it's 10 months with them.

[00:32:45] To teach them just some core things.

[00:32:49] But thank you for tuning into the Stoke It Up podcast.

[00:32:52] We're a part of CGN media, media that points to Christ.

[00:32:57] We're excited about the days ahead and we'll see you next week.

[00:33:00] God bless, Kat.

[00:33:01] I'll see you then, man.

[00:33:02] God bless.

[00:33:03] Have a great week.

[00:33:04] Later, bro.