A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Growth, & Creating a Discipleship Pathway - with John Whittaker

[00:00:03] What is a discipleship pathway and how do you go about creating one? What is the process by which people grow spiritually and how do we help them do that? Dr. John Whitaker has served as a pastor and theologian for many years in different capacities

[00:00:19] He's the author of the listeners commentary and audio commentary on the Bible that is available online And he is the host of the Bible in life podcast John and I collaborated on this episode to release it on both our podcasts at the same time

[00:00:34] So definitely check out the Bible in life podcast and the listeners commentary And I hope you'll enjoy this discussion about spiritual growth About halfway through this conversation I show John our church's discipleship pathway and he gives his raw

[00:00:49] Unscripted feedback on it so make sure to listen until then to see if our discipleship pathway passed John's test I'll be back at the end with some final words

[00:01:01] Hey John good to talk to you. Yeah, hey Nick good to see you again and talk with you as well So John you and I were sitting in the Oakland airport. That's right. Yeah, we're sitting in the Oakland airport hanging out and

[00:01:15] We we said, you know what we should do we should do a podcast episode together Well, yeah, and then it was like well, what are we talking about? So here we are I talked about theological method and you said Let's talk about spiritual growth instead

[00:01:32] Yeah, that's true and not because I don't like theological method I just wasn't so sure that I had a lot to contribute to that conversation So well, you know what it's when you're a hammer everything's a nail and

[00:01:46] When you study theological method, that's the solution or the the issue for everything So I'm sure it'll come up in whatever we talk about Probably so So John for the sake of my audience, could you introduce yourself?

[00:02:01] I've shared your resources with a lot of people and so I'm excited for you to be on Yeah, thanks Nick. Yeah So my name is John Whitaker

[00:02:09] I have been a pastor and Bible college professor for a long time still serves an adjunct professor here where I live in Boise, Idaho But the main thing I'm doing right now is creating a whole bunch of online kind of Bible teaching resources

[00:02:24] The main one of that is this thing called the listeners commentary Which if you're familiar with what a Bible commentary is right? It just guides you through a Bible book gives you a little bit of the back story and then guide you paragraph by paragraph through

[00:02:36] What this Bible book is saying to understand well, I'm creating one of those in audio fashion or The average ordinary Christian who just says man, I need some help understanding this thing called the Bible

[00:02:47] Which you guide me through it so I like to describe it as kind of blue jeans theology theology for everyday life theology for ordinary people So rooting and serious scholarship because I taught the Bible still teach the Bible at the college level to undergraduates but

[00:03:02] Aimed in a way to help just someone who really wants to understand the Bible grasp it So listeners commentary that's kind of the heart of what I'm doing But it got a bunch of their irons in the fire as well. Yeah, that's gonna mean so what about you?

[00:03:13] Yeah, my audience doesn't know who you are Yeah, so I pastor a church in Longmont, Colorado, which is just right outside of Boulder We I always say we're the Chloe Kardashian to Boulder's Kim Kardashian

[00:03:26] I would say it was a very similar city and you know really has all the same Culture and all of that as Boulder were just less known But I think in many ways that's what makes I think Longmont so charming

[00:03:40] And so yeah, we're right on the foothills of the Rockies I grew up in Denver and when I was 18 years old I moved to Hungary as a missionary. I plan to stay for eight months I ended up staying for ten years got married there had Couple kids there

[00:03:56] Planted two churches with Calvary Chapel while I was planting the first of those churches I was working with missionaries from another organization from Wycliffe Bible translators and they got me connected to a school in England and I started doing my theological studies there at the University of Gloucestershire

[00:04:16] Right outside the great city of Gloucester in the west of England And I intended to just take a few classes to improve my knowledge of the gospel of Luke But turns out that I really enjoyed it and got so much out of it

[00:04:30] So I did my undergrad there in Gloucester and then I did my Master's degree in integrative theology, which is about theological method I did that at London School of Theology and I have been kicking around the idea of

[00:04:46] Continuing my education and I probably will at some point. Yeah. Yeah, that's good That's good. All right, so well on the listeners commentary John You just came out with a great app for iPhone. Yes, and I used it this morning

[00:05:02] I had a long drive listen to you and so I tell anybody Check it out. It's really cool because a lot of times, you know pastors will listen to other pastors preach a sermon

[00:05:12] I'll be an audio about that. I just think you know, they're preaching to a different audience They they they are doing a different thing And led by God in different ways if you're looking for a preparation resource

[00:05:24] I think that having a like the listeners commentary is very helpful because it's not intended to be a sermon It's it's a commentary and you can listen to it while you drive or ride a bike or whatever you do

[00:05:35] Yeah, and that's kind of my heart behind it. So I'm glad glad you're finding useful Hopefully other people as well The the app is only for iPhone right now the Android developer is getting close

[00:05:45] So hopefully we'll have one for Android as well pretty soon awesome. Yeah, and so why were we in Oakland? It's because you and I served together on the leadership team of expositors collective and you should all check that out as well

[00:05:58] Yeah, yep. So very good. We were there flying home after a training event. So yeah All right. So what we're going to talk about today is spiritual growth You know, you had said that this is a passion of yours

[00:06:10] I had heard you say that and another occasion as well that like I think it was a previous Exposers collective we had been at you talked about how every church needs a discipleship pathway And I had kind of always had a discipleship pathway in mind

[00:06:25] In fact, I had even talked about our discipleship pathway when I spoke at conferences and things like that on leadership But after that conversation that we had the previous time I went home I

[00:06:38] During our church staff meeting. I wrote it all out on a big whiteboard that we have in the conference room And then my executive pastor took it and made it into like an infographic And I thought cool now we have a discipleship pathway but

[00:06:52] I want to run that pathway by you because I want to see if we did good or not And if we didn't then I don't know what i'm going to do John. I don't know Because we've invested so much in this already

[00:07:05] Yeah, maybe maybe some fine tuning. We'll see we'll see when we get there. Okay, but anyway you had I want to talk to you about The topics of spiritual growth. So yeah, first of all, let's start with a biblical theology of spiritual growth

[00:07:19] Yeah, and obviously we could spend a long time talking about that that topic itself and developing that whole thing And then one of the key things is just we actually have a well-grounded well thought through biblical theology

[00:07:32] of spiritual growth is pastors and as churches and unfortunately most churches don't you ask the average pastor So how does a person change? How does a new believer actually become like jesus? And a lot of times you get kind of blank stares and

[00:07:49] Which means they haven't thought about it and they don't have it right there. So At the heart of a biblical theology of spiritual growth is is that I mean, that's the goal That's the target becoming like jesus that a disciple is not above his teacher, but

[00:08:09] When he's fully formed shall be like his teacher that that's jesus assumption about what it means to be a disciple And that's what he was forming. That's what we're called to make his disciples and so his his

[00:08:20] His just bare bones assumption is a disciple when he's fully formed will be like his teacher in our case That means like jesus and so that at least sets the target and the goal for it, right? Becoming like jesus and

[00:08:33] So what what what's involved in that? How does that happen and some of those sorts of things and You know, you've got things related to Sin and salvation and justification and new life

[00:08:46] It all have to be thought through and kind of in some fashion integrated into a biblical theology of spiritual growth. So I always default towards things like the sermon on the mount as

[00:09:02] um a person who is growing spiritually is somebody who is becoming like that person described in jesus teaching on the sermon on the mount So that gives you know more than the big broad category become like jesus, which could be so big

[00:09:17] That we don't fully, you know, it says nothing because I don't well. What does that mean? Well Means that you're you're becoming the kind of person who doesn't just not murder You're replacing anger with peace and patience you're becoming the kind of person who

[00:09:31] Doesn't just not having a fair, you know, you're also becoming the kind of person where your sexual desire is And now arrange so much under the leadership of jesus that you don't even look at another person to lust for them

[00:09:43] You're becoming the kind of person who you're so whole that when you give your word you will keep your word You don't you don't have to cross your heart and hope to die, right or anything like that

[00:09:52] You'll actually keep your word you're becoming that kind of person that jesus describes and this are on the mount so You know that at least begins to set some kind of competencies or criteria or objectives if you will for our

[00:10:07] Spiritual growth or spiritual formation plan or program in the church. So as far as at least Outcomes and what we're after targets that we're after that I think that begins to help us at least get some sort of Target in mind rather than well, we're growing spiritually

[00:10:24] And a lot of times we don't even know exactly what that means So those are at least some of the targets Then there's obviously the strategies and methods behind it and we can talk more about that even biblically as well But at least that gives us

[00:10:36] You know target. We're aiming at yeah So usually when I think of like biblical theology, I mean obviously you could talk about theology which comes from the bible Which would be almost more of like the term we might use for that as more like a systematic theology

[00:10:52] But I think when I think about biblical theology, I'm thinking more of like sometimes called narrative theology by like Yeah, anti-right. I think refers to it as narrative theology as opposed to biblical theology But how does it how does this fit into the grand narrative of scripture? Yeah

[00:11:10] Good thanks for pressing on that question because that's an important question and it's really important I think for us as pastors to think through as well as church members to think through So much of the way the churches talk the last 50 years in my experience

[00:11:25] Again limited experience my experience has started post genesis three rather than pre genesis three And so when we talk about spiritual growth, what we're talking about is helping people become human again

[00:11:38] That the more holy you are the more human you are so when god first made the world genesis one and two um God deemed humans as good and Um, and they were the kind of the culminating moment in its creative process and humans were good

[00:11:56] And they were put in the garden with a specific objective to live in partnership with god and um In that partnership with god extend his purposes and his agendas into this world As sort of like small little kings and queens under his the high king of heaven authority

[00:12:13] Extending his project and its purposes into the world. So that's what we were created to be and created to do Then you get to genesis three Where we decided we're going to go our own way You know forget the high king of heaven. We'll just do it ourselves

[00:12:28] That's where the project got off track. That's where we went awry and that's where that's not only Nature got messed up, but our human nature got messed up as well If fall in genesis three and so the grand narrative of scripture is

[00:12:45] The story of how god intends if you will to make humans good again um and And you know calls abraham genesis chapter 12 right calls abraham and through abraham He says that he's going to

[00:13:01] Bless all the nations of the earth. So he's going to reverse the curse and bring his blessing back to the world through abraham and his seed The initial fulfillment obviously is the nation of israel who recapitulates the sin of

[00:13:16] Adam and eed by breaking faith with their creator not being faithful to the covenant And thus they experienced their own version of the curse and are exiled from their land God brings them back to their land

[00:13:27] At least in part and then we get the ultimate seed of abraham and the person of jesus himself Who is Not only god in the flesh, but the model human by which we now have a template for what it looks like to be genuinely human again

[00:13:41] So the process of spiritual growth is ultimately becoming like jesus Because when we become like jesus we're becoming who god originally made us to be And now we can extend his purposes and his agenda is back into the world again

[00:13:54] So that's that's the sweep of scripture in a nutshell And how spiritual growth fits into that so individually i'm not just becoming You know by my own spiritual growth is not just my personal thing. It's

[00:14:06] It's part of the human thing. We are we are becoming more human more like christ we become Yeah, I mean do you think that there's uh, i've thought about this with biblical theology is that sometimes it's talked about You know we talk about creation fall redemption restoration

[00:14:24] And and sometimes people have suggested well, maybe we should actually think beyond just restoration of what was lost in eden pre fall As we should think of it as um, sometimes this use different terms right like fulfillment or Something like that in other words

[00:14:42] What we see at the end of the book of revelation is not just that we've come full circle and we've been returned to eden But that what we've come to is now something different. It's it's the fulfillment bigger and greater almost

[00:14:55] It's like yeah, it's like garden of eden on steroids. Yeah, it's like it's bigger and greater and And so this process of redemption doesn't just take us back to eden. It takes us forward So that What was supposed to grow out of eden now is already there

[00:15:14] In some form it seems in the new earth, you know, and that they'll be They'll be this partnership between humans and god again, but we're not starting at the beginning We're starting somewhere further down the line in the project that there's some sort of fulfillment Some sort of

[00:15:31] Yeah, it's it's it's a garden city there You know revelation 21 and 22 not just a garden And so how does that apply then to what god's doing with us through spiritual growth? You said bringing us back to what was lost making us more human

[00:15:47] But is there a way that we go then beyond just what was lost? yeah Yeah, um I mean, I suppose yes In some sense we go beyond what was lost

[00:16:04] I'm not sure I have a real clear handle on what that would be and I think it that may be I haven't thought enough about it. It also may be that the pictures of what what's to come in scripture are

[00:16:15] Incomplete partial and vague enough that I don't think we can fully conceptualize Hmm what it will be. You know what I mean? Yeah, we know it'll be We know it'll be eaten like but it'll be more than that

[00:16:29] We know it'll be a reunion with our maker in a sense that goes beyond the current reunion we have right now We know it'll be a reunion with loved ones, right? And we will all be together with the lord forever We know all that

[00:16:43] It's just hard to picture exactly what that looks like and I guess I've I've accepted the fact that the lord has seen fit not to fill us in on the details Probably because we couldn't fully grasp them all because they're so beyond our wildest imagination

[00:16:56] Yeah, I don't know. What do you think? Do you have thoughts on what that beyond might be? Well, I can think about the physical aspects of it, right? Like I think that the

[00:17:04] The new the resurrection bodies will we will receive are more than just perhaps what adam had in the garden Yeah, definitely that seems to be the case. Yeah But then like the spiritual growth like is there a way maybe I mean you could say that what we have

[00:17:22] In the eschaton right is actually like the marriage supper of the lamb Which seems to be even something greater than what adam experienced in walking with and knowing god Yeah, and and adam needed a companion remember it was not good that he should be alone

[00:17:38] But jesus says that in in the kingdom of heaven People will not be given in marriage Because there will be this they will be essentially wedded to the lord And uh, so anyway, those are some thoughts. Yeah. Yeah that in some sense

[00:17:55] Now I I think so I also think that one of the other differences will be In what however the lord pulls it off We will have seemed to have been confirmed in our capacity for faithfulness and thus The option of unfaithfulness

[00:18:11] Doesn't seem to be there and right like there's not gonna be sin anymore, right? And so There won't be a tree of knowledge of good and evil in the in the new heavens and the earth by which we could choose

[00:18:22] because we don't need to make that choice anymore because our Enduring faithfulness to the end will have confirmed us in our faithfulness forever in some way Um I don't know what that looks like and I don't know how that plays out. Dang we should write a book

[00:18:37] All right Yeah, you just wrote a book john could you share about that free moment? Yeah, I uh just me and a friend of mine wrote a book aimed at helping Christians do a better job in 2024 election year in the united states than we did in 2020

[00:18:55] It's called following jason a politically divided world and so it's trying to provide a little bit of Um a biblical and theological framework for how to think about what it means to be the church and christians

[00:19:09] In relationship to a country or society that we are citizens first and foremost of heaven And and thus outposts of heaven in whichever city or country or community we live in Uh and then as such how can how can we think intentionally christianly and biblically?

[00:19:29] About the issues that are plaguing whatever country we're living so it's really guided to be created to be interactive and uh Help us think like a disciple of jesus with regard to

[00:19:43] Our own country the hot button issues in our country and some of that so following jason politically divided world That's what it's called cool. Yeah, i'm gonna check it out Yeah, okay, so back to spiritual growth. Uh here's question number two

[00:19:56] The what is the role of grace in spiritual growth? yeah, and I just think that's so important because You know we're not just we're not just like Saved to get our ticket to heaven and that's what happens by grace right like grace intends to be the

[00:20:16] The engine that drives spiritual growth and the environment in which spiritual growth happens And so everything about our own spiritual growth and our becoming like jesus and our

[00:20:28] Putting off of the vices that ruin our humanness and putting on the virtues that embody our humanness right all of that Is supposed to be enabled and empowered by the grace of god And so having a big huge view of grace is critical. So whenever I talk about

[00:20:44] Discipleship spiritual formation spiritual growth whatever phrase you want to use whenever I talk about that. I always try to emphasize You know that Uh the two big truths about grace that show up in the new testament with regard to conversion first truth is

[00:21:00] Often associated with the doctrine of justification right that we are justified that is declared Right, we're put into a right relationship with god by means of our faith in jesus And so that we have this now that regardless of where we're at

[00:21:14] We're 100 for given and we're in a perfectly right relationship with god So I usually summarize that truth as grace makes it safe to be a work in progress Sometimes i've said it as dramatically as grace makes it safe to be a center

[00:21:26] But people have taken that the wrong way Yeah If taking that to mean that it's safe for me just to keep on sinning. That's not what i'm saying It's saying it's safe for me to come to god as I am warts and all sins and all

[00:21:39] Be completely honest and transparent confess my sins and god's gonna welcome me and not reject me And even once i'm part of his family, he's not going to reject me in spite of the fact that I continue to

[00:21:50] To sin and i'm still trying to learn to be like you so it's safe to be a work in progress John I have a clarifying question. Are you saying that we should sin so that grace may abound? And paul would say may genoita may it never be

[00:22:05] Uh, and but that's the right question to ask Yeah, and when paul preached the doctrine of grace in romans 3 4 5 and 6 And he he anticipated that very question because he preached this first truth so strongly grace makes it safe

[00:22:19] To be less than perfect be a work in progress that we can be justified by virtue of god's grace through the redemption That's in christ jesus romans 3 24 and following and so It's safe for us to be

[00:22:34] Um, not perfect. It's safe for us to be okay. I'm trying to figure this out. I'm stumbling my way forward, right? So that's the first great truth about grace that we're justified. We're putting this right relation with god and that I think when it comes to spiritual growth

[00:22:49] One of the obvious implications of that is it makes it safe for me to to to own my junk To confess my sins and you can't You can't change if you can't admit your mistakes Can't change if you can't receive feedback

[00:23:06] But if i'm completely loved and fully welcomed by my creator, who knows everything about me, right? Like if my house is full of hidden cameras and all of a sudden discover that now I know crud someone knows all the secrets of my life

[00:23:19] Right and then that person turns out to be the my creator And he loves me anyhow and welcomes me into his family anyhow and Uh calls me his son anyhow and that okay

[00:23:35] No one could no one else could find out anything about me that he doesn't already know and he already proved how much he loves me He literally loved me to death in the person of jesus

[00:23:43] There's a lot of security and safety in that so now it's safe for me just to confess my mistakes and take the honest feedback And that's going to actually lead to more change than anything else. So first great truth about grace. I think it's so important

[00:23:56] Second the second one follows right after the question us So should we continue and sin that grace may abound? Paul says Man never be may gnoita in greek. No way god forbid depending on your translation

[00:24:08] And then he goes off this is romans chapter 6 and what he tells us is That grace doesn't only make it safe to be a work in progress grace makes it possible to be transformed And what he explains in roman 6 is that we've been set free

[00:24:24] From sin as our master He talks he uses that imagery multiple times in roman chapter 6 and says that you know your slaves to the one you obey and Grace has actually liberated you from the slave master sin

[00:24:38] And now given you a new master righteousness and now you're actually free to obey righteousness And you don't have to listen to sin anymore. You know and all of it. I mean like if you're gonna If you got a new job

[00:24:49] Right, you're not going to call your old boss before you go to work in the morning Say anything you need me to do before I go to my new job. He's not your boss anymore And grace has set us free from sin being our boss and

[00:25:00] That's really important But one of the things that's often missed in roman 6 right around verse 5 and 6 Paul also says that Knowing this he just assumes the wrong. He didn't start to roman church

[00:25:13] But he assumes they know because this was apparently just a stock part of early christian evangelism and teaching Knowing this that our old man was crucified Um that our body of sin should be uh, nolin void that we should no longer be slaves to sin

[00:25:31] Um that statement is incredibly profound when we understand what paul just said That in our coming to christ somehow grace made it so that our old in adam identity Was crucified not should be crucified, but it actually was So that

[00:25:49] This body that was dominated and controlled by sin no longer is in charge With the result that we should no longer be slaves to sin. So that's powerful and grace makes it Makes it possible now to actually live the kind of human life

[00:26:04] We were created to live because we've been set free from the power of sin not just the penalty of sin Yeah That's really good. So grace isn't just the way that we're justified. It's also the means by which we're sanctified

[00:26:16] Yes, and have you ever tried to like take a stab at like defining the word grace? I try to do it all the time actually Well, I mean obviously there's the the standard, you know unmerited favor, right? Uh, I've heard a little um

[00:26:34] Crossed a cracker name for god's riches at christ's expense, but that only gets it part of it But hey it gets it some of it, you know and um so What grace seems to be At well that someone else wants to describe grace's love that stoop

[00:26:52] These are descriptions of part of it. Yeah Grace seems to be uh an expression of god's love that grants His help and his gifts To people who were not capable of helping themselves

[00:27:10] I don't know if that's totally accurate, but I mean that would be kind of a descriptive summary of some of those Yeah, I think the difficulty with it is that grace Has many aspects right it has multiple aspects

[00:27:22] And so you don't want to be too reductionistic what I found I I like to you know I think a part of teaching is defining things and so I um, I've given several definitions of faith

[00:27:35] And I've given you know try to come up with my own kind of definitions of grace Of course sometimes using those ones that you just mentioned but the one that I was uh mentioning to my church recently was that Grace is in essence its god's provision

[00:27:50] To meet your need Whatever that need might be, but I think that your definition Covered that and and maybe it was better than mine. So I don't know you're just nice and short and succinct and that's always sticky and helpful to people

[00:28:05] Okay, so my next question for you How can a church be structured in order to facilitate spiritual growth? And I say this as a church that's really striving to do this. In fact our um mission statement for our church is to facilitate gospel transformation

[00:28:24] through yeah teaching the word of god Engaging in the mission of god and raising up leaders And so that idea of facilitating spiritual growth. How do you think a church can best be structured to do that? Yeah

[00:28:39] We should probably just kind of brainstorm together on this because you have a lot of pastoral practical experience and you might have learned some things from it too, but I mean I I guess one of my concerns is Is that

[00:28:55] It seems like again for the last 40 or 50 years or so in the evangelical church at least The churches, you know, you and I tend to be familiar with Um, we've put all our eggs in the basket of the sunday morning service almost right like

[00:29:13] We get people to church on sunday Maybe they go to a you know adulthood sunday school type class Maybe not but if they can come to church and We give them some good worship and sing some good songs and we preach some really great sermons

[00:29:32] That's that's gonna do it. You know, I mean I just whether we theoretically believe that or not practically We we operate that way in our churches, you know what I mean? You know where does

[00:29:45] You know, how does this pastor the bulk of our time and energy during the week Goes towards debriefing last week service and planning next week service writing next week sermon

[00:29:55] Having a staff meeting about what's coming up in the next week service. And so our budgeting both of time and money goes towards hiring staff to make sure we put on good weekend events which Practically says we think that's the way to help people become like jesus

[00:30:15] You know, yeah What do you think about that? Do you ever would you agree with that assessment? Do you think that's? Yeah, I've seen that for sure and um You know, I was just telling you before we started recording that i'm doing a A class on church structure

[00:30:30] Uh for a bible college in ukraine and one of the things that i'm talking about is actually how that happens And in our movement and people Think well, what do I need a structure for what do I need a discipleship pathway for? because

[00:30:45] Listen if people just come on sunday mornings, they're going to get everything that they need I think there's a lot of problems with that. I think that that they they are failing to see That there are things that those people need to need in order to grow

[00:30:59] Which sunday morning is a part of but it's not the only part Yes, and so yeah, we need to have more of a holistic view of discipleship Here's the other thing that um, I I often tell this story Um

[00:31:14] Somebody came to me one time and it was my wife and she knows this because I've told this story many times Okay, so she said to me kind of in passing. She just said

[00:31:25] You know our church, we don't really do discipleship and then she like went on to make her point It wasn't her point. It was just like an aside Yeah, and I was just like so bothered by that and And I realized two things one was um

[00:31:41] Maybe it's just one thing the thing I realized was that we had failed to communicate Um what we were doing and why we were doing it and what we hoped that people would Get out of our their experience with our church

[00:31:56] Because in my mind everything that we did was about spiritual growth and discipleship and um And I think that many people when they think about discipleship They might have a specific motor Method of discipleship that they have in mind

[00:32:15] And so that's what they assume that discipleship is discipleship is meeting one on one With somebody in a in a coffee shop and going through a book That asks you certain questions and has you read certain verses and when you've completed that book

[00:32:29] You've been discipled and now you need to go meet with somebody else Right now that's certainly a method of discipleship. I don't necessarily think it's scalable And i'm not sure that it's even holistic in itself

[00:32:42] Because I think it's leaving out a lot of things that I think are part of spiritual growth and needed for it Yeah, so yeah, no I 100% agree and I think you're right on that people have a particular picture in their mind

[00:32:55] So when you start talking about discipleship people have a picture of what they think it should be And if you're not doing that, you're not doing discipleship and and that's why Yeah, I uh, I just I do think that's you know, there's a lot

[00:33:09] There's some unlearning that has to be done in order for accurate learning to be achieved I do think that's important I don't think most people have a clear definition if we were going to talk about a definition of grace

[00:33:21] Most people have a clear definition of a disciple. What is a disciple? You know and and so I think we're gonna have to If we're gonna if we're gonna structure a church in a way that's going to create a culture of disciple making and discipleship

[00:33:38] A clear definition is gonna be really important Right my definition that I use all the time Uh, it's not the only one. It's just one that I think works and it's accurate clean

[00:33:49] Is that a disciple someone who arranges their life to be with Jesus in order to become like Jesus? That's good. That grows out of You know places like luke 642 where Jesus says what he says, you know that a disciple is not above their master

[00:34:06] Whatever he said was fully trained becomes like their master He's just assuming the discipleship world of their day that a mathe tastes a disciple was somebody who left Life as normal behind to be with a rabbi and the goal was not to know what the rabbi knew

[00:34:20] But the goal is to become what the rabbi was that was the way Education worked in Jesus's day. And so if you were a town he didn't Hebrew or a mathe taste disciple Greek Um, that's what you did

[00:34:31] So that's what Jesus is assuming. So when he says go make disciples, that's what he's assuming that model That that you're going to help people rearrange their life to be with Jesus With the express goal of becoming like him specifically like him in character and admission

[00:34:45] The character of your life will substantially be like Jesus's and the mission of your life Will also become significantly substantially like Jesus's mission. So Having that one sentence definition You can say that over and over and over again in a church which begins to help people

[00:35:01] Hear who what they're supposed to be that alone is powerful. I just had a 20-something teaching my class at Boise Bible Cause this semester. She's been christian for a while. She's in her upper 20s

[00:35:12] Going to a church here in town church that the pastor there and I put together the discipleship process they're using And uh, she said I've gone to church a long time and now that I've been going to this church the last couple years

[00:35:24] It's the first time I realized oh, I'm supposed to become like Jesus As pastors we kind of assume people would just automatically know that Yeah, but they don't right and so I decide, you know, are you a disciple Jesus?

[00:35:37] That means you're you're ranging your life to be with Jesus to become like him you say that In every platform in every venue, you know a lot of events now you creating a culture where that's the norm

[00:35:46] That's the assumption that alone is powerful. Just having a clear definition. I think it's really helpful But then you got to think through okay, so Is Are we doing that are the activities that were you know in our in our church body? Are they facilitating people to

[00:36:06] Are they helping people learn how to be with Jesus and facilitating being with Jesus so that they they are learning how to be become like Jesus How do we do that? And I

[00:36:16] So I think there needs to be a lot of just kind of practical ecclesiological thinking along those terms of how do we do that And if we have an activity that isn't

[00:36:26] Isn't fostering that can the activity be tweaked so that we can do the same thing differently to achieve that Or does the activity need to be scrapped because it's just just in the way at this point, you know I think that's really important I also think

[00:36:41] One of the things we see in the new testament is that discipleship always happens through a life on life transfer always The disciples with Jesus they're learning from him right and then the disciples themselves are supposed to go make disciples of Jesus

[00:36:58] But they're offering themselves as a pattern and so you get repeatedly in paul's writings where he says imitate me as I imitate christ or Philippians chapter four verse nine

[00:37:07] The things you've seen and heard in me practice these things and the god of peace will be with you right he's Calling people look at his pattern for how he's following Jesus as as an example for other people to follow And so it always happens that way

[00:37:23] People need concrete patterns of what christ likeness look like so Do we have things within our church systems and structures that? That facilitate that that help people Have concrete examples right I mean I think we have to think that through

[00:37:41] I was also thinking you know the exposters collective where that's how we got connected We do these training events. That's where we were at where this conversation started Well think about how we help people grow in their their

[00:37:54] Private study at you know in public proclamation of god's word right like how do we do that? Well, we don't just stand up front and speak to them. There are some of that But then we also break him into groups

[00:38:06] And we practice a little bit and you know they actually deliver a short message and we give feedback Right, it's more of a coaching model Uh-huh Coach stalker for nine years right it's more of a coaching model where you drill and practice drill and practice and you

[00:38:22] You give feedback and you help people change When do we ever do that in the church? You know so think thinking through some of those things like how could we create environments and systems where where People could begin to actually

[00:38:41] Live out the sermon on the mount where the expectation was they would and we would actually help them do that go make disciples Baptizing the fire some holy spirit teaching them to obey all I commanded you not teaching them to know but to obey

[00:38:54] Where do we do that right like where does that coaching happen where it's like? Uh, you know the way you're currently talking to your your son and your daughter. I've listened to you do that Um, that doesn't seem to embody the the kindness and the wisdom of Jesus

[00:39:08] And I help you figure out how to do that a little bit better Do we have that assumption and would people be open to that? I mean, I don't know that we've created that environment where that's that's what's expected and that's what's supposed to happen

[00:39:20] Yeah, just thinking about like andragaji. I heard somebody teaching on this a while back and Oddly enough when I was in Hungary pastoring that church a couple of the people in my church were you know andragaji majors

[00:39:33] So andragaji is kind of the opposite of pedagogy pedagogy is about How do you teach children effectively andragaji is how do you teach adults effectively? Yeah And the thing about andragaji that I learned through these folks at my church Was that adults learn best by by doing things

[00:39:52] So for example, I watch a lot of basketball A lot of basketball and I understand a theory in theory like what it takes to play basketball well But I probably wouldn't actually be able to do it because I haven't actually

[00:40:07] Done it like and so I think that doing things is A critical way in which adults learn which is why Um, as you're mentioning with exposters collective part of it is that it's not just lectures about how to preach good and do other stuff

[00:40:21] Good too. It's it's actually like okay now. You're gonna try it and then yeah, yeah, and so Um, I'm feeling pretty good right now John about my discipleship pathway that I created because Um, I think that that was our goal in doing it. Okay, and uh, yeah

[00:40:39] It's like how do we get people to to actually do Things that are going to help them to grow so yeah, shall we do it? Shall we have you? Okay, I texted you our discipleship pathway infographic and

[00:40:56] In the show notes, let's put a link to where people can view it for themselves Okay, but I'm also going to just kind of describe it for people That's the difficulty of audio. I'll give a seat here. Right. Yeah. Okay. So here's here

[00:41:08] It's like a gray background and it has on the top level It has this kind of like progressive arrow system and it has four Headings under that one is connect next is grow then is serve and then is multiply

[00:41:23] And so the idea is that you're moving from connecting to multiplying and then on the bottom There's a subsection that says spiritual disciplines and we listed eight spiritual disciplines There are more but these are the eight that we mentioned

[00:41:37] And the idea with this if we were to like present it to somebody which we do actually all the time Is that we would say The goal of the top section is to give you opportunities To practice the spiritual disciplines which we believe will help you to grow

[00:41:54] And so these are different ways that we facilitate You putting these things into practice That exist in our church and what we would say is that every Single thing we do in our church has been strategically designed To help you to grow into a disciple of jesus

[00:42:13] So yeah, um the first section is connect So we consider this like person walks in the door Here are the things that we believe that they need to do In order to start out Attend worship services. We actually believe that is foundational

[00:42:29] It's not secondary to us. We believe that being in the worshiping environment worshiping god hearing his word proclaimed And taking communion which we do every sunday at our church. We believe that that is

[00:42:42] Foundational next is we say we also think you need if you're getting connected to to jesus christ, you need to be baptized and Once you've believed yeah, and then we would say okay, then that what it says next steps That's a class that we do at our church

[00:42:59] Next steps class which essentially introduces you to our church our values and Ways that you can take your next step with us Usually we try to our goal with that class is to answer any questions that somebody has and then connect them to

[00:43:16] A community group or a service team And the reason is because we believe that in order for people to grow as disciples They need to be practicing spiritual disciplines in community. They need to be reading scripture they need to be praying together

[00:43:32] And those are the two main things that happen at those at those gatherings and fellowship Yeah, and we also believe though that serving Is a necessity for being a disciple of jesus because jesus identified himself as the greatest servant

[00:43:48] He's called the servant of the lord in the old testament And so to be like him means to serve with the same heart and motivation that he had So we have a mantra join a group join a team That's what we want everyone in our church to do

[00:44:03] Gotcha. So next level is grow. So this is for the person who's connected. What do I do next? How do I grow? We have a foundations class. That's kind of like foundational theology And you know, who is god who is man kind of it's actually drawn from

[00:44:18] The heidelberg catechism Not directly, but the big questions that we ask and answer are drawn from the heidelberg catechism And then community groups that's kind of our main vehicle. I always tell people this is our main vehicle for

[00:44:34] spiritual disciplines in the church. These are where you meet with other people and you Practice spiritual disciplines reading scripture praying together fellowshiping together Serving together resting together perhaps even fasting together, right and Yeah, and then bible studies that means like men's and women's bible studies

[00:44:53] And then bible learning center, which is our classroom style Kind of like bible college light Types of classroom style adult education Okay next level Serving we have ministry teams. We have outreach events and we have mission teams

[00:45:10] And then the final level is multiply. This is at the point where you are now ready to begin leading other people And so we'd say you can serve as a ministry leader Cultivate is our church planter training program

[00:45:23] If you if god's calling you plant a church, we would want you to get involved and cultivate And then mentoring so we do one-on-one mentoring. We make that available So the mentoring one could be moved to different and another area perhaps but

[00:45:38] Yeah, so that's the big picture now john Go ahead actually yeah, I I can see why you're feeling pretty good about you guys have put a lot of thought into this

[00:45:50] It's better than most churches I've seen so kudos to you at least for me what for what that's worth Yeah, thanks. Yeah, no I um There's Part of that. I mean part of the reason we want to do this is uh

[00:46:07] You know a lot of churches have what I call more of an organization You know kind of involvement or assimilation process than a discipleship process Oh, no, it's not what that's what ours is And it's it's got some of that It does have some of that um

[00:46:25] You know because someone You know, you're gonna have someone in your next steps class who may have been a believer for 15 20 years and may have intentionally been following Jesus and are substantially like Jesus right they're really

[00:46:36] In their own personal growth. They're more down at the multiply stage than down here at the connect stage, right? Yeah But they're still going to go to your next steps class, which is beginning right to get to know white fields and all that

[00:46:47] So there's some sense of okay. That's kind of an organizational involvement or assimilation, you know requirement But you also have some things that are very intentionally more like how does an individual go from New believer to mature believer And to me, that's what a discipleship pathway

[00:47:05] It has to chart that that path of how does somebody go from I'm brand new with Jesus to I now am substantially like Jesus so that my life is Truly reflecting him in the world

[00:47:18] Whatever artist have a ship pathway has does it has to chart a path for people most churches just don't have that um And yours has some of that. I mean yours definitely has You know, so you're ain't you're pointing people in a direction

[00:47:33] So if they're if they are a new believer, where are they supposed to get to? Well, they're supposed you're supposed to get to the multiply stage Where you're using your life helping other people become believers and growing in christ, too

[00:47:43] I'm assuming that's what you communicate in that multiply stage. Yeah Yeah, yeah, plus you got the spiritual, you know, the individual spiritual disciplines down here that kind of You know are done individually, but they can also be done corporately and collectively as well um

[00:47:57] So I like a lot of what you've done. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know the the The one that I've I've used quite a bit and I've recommended before on my podcast here is

[00:48:09] Uh just using the language of faith so pre-faith new faith young faith growing faith mature faith Um, so it's just pointing people towards, you know, your your goal is to become mature in the faith So even if you're pre-faith, which you don't really totally have on here

[00:48:22] But if you're pre-faith, hopefully there's people come into white people or whatever church where that okay I'm curious. They're not opposed to the faith. They're pre-faith. They're I'm curious I think I might need god

[00:48:32] I'm not sure what this church thing is all about but I want to go and check it out and they got questions So that's a that's a distinct stage, you know, where an individual might be at

[00:48:41] All the way down to mature faith where it's like your life is substantially like Jesus from the inside Trying to chart a course. Well, the first time I ever put that pathway up on the screen to the last place I was pastoring at

[00:48:54] I had a guy come up to me between services in the lobby Wait till it kind of cleared out to hey, you know that that pathway thing you put up on the screen I was like, yeah, he said like I have been a Christian for like 10 years

[00:49:06] And I would put myself still down in like the newer young faith stage And I was like, well, why is that? He's like because no one ever told me where I supposed to go He was like so I knew I was supposed to go to church

[00:49:19] serve volunteer in the church and tithe That's what I'm supposed to do the big three right 10 You know the church service serve in some way kids ministry greeting at the door

[00:49:30] You know, whatever it is and make sure I give my 10% if I do that I'm being a good Christian What you're being is a good church member at that point But you're not necessarily becoming like Jesus And Because no one had told him that he was supposed to

[00:49:44] Well, that he was supposed to become like Jesus and how to do that So that's you know, that's that's the one thing I would say on yours is it would be worth Be worth making sure in how you communicate it That the goal of all of this

[00:50:00] Is for you to clean the inside of the cup in Jesus language right the goal for all of this is for you to be full on the inside of

[00:50:09] The dispositions that we call the fruit of the spirit love joy peace patience right like when your heart when you're when your internal Furniture is full of those things the external actions

[00:50:19] Look a lot like what Jesus would look like if you were in your place. Yeah, that's what we're after So however you communicate that as part of your process You know, I think that would be important I The one I use has little arrows underneath

[00:50:34] The little chart that says, you know be with you know be with Jesus become like Jesus do what Jesus would do And so it points people in that direction. You know that's where we're at

[00:50:46] Yeah, I can see that the character aspect is um the transformed character aspect isn't really Mentioned online Yeah, even though it's mentioned in your mission statement. Yeah Yeah, and so

[00:51:02] I you know, whether you put it on the infographic or not or whether you think about how we communicate that With the infographic that would help as well as having a crystal clear

[00:51:13] One sentence definition of what a disciple is. I think that becomes the peg that hangs us on So all of this is aimed at helping you do that. Yeah, but he is the one I gave you, you know earlier or not something where it's like

[00:51:25] That becomes the hook on which all this is these are means to that end The end is for you to rearrange your life to be with Jesus in order to become like We're offering some things to help you do that

[00:51:38] You know, I found that many of the things that I've done in ministry that I'm really glad about were birthed out of Frustrations That at first I was frustrated and then I realized that actually I had failed to do something well and

[00:51:55] So I'll give you an example with the discipleship pathway. It's very similar to like the guy you're talking about I remember having a young believer in our church Who was just like so pumped and ready to go and he's like man

[00:52:08] I want to spend my life like pursuing the lord. What should I do? And the best answer I had to give to him was Um, you know, you should like join our setup team and you should come to church on sunday

[00:52:22] And maybe join the men's group and then I realized man that is so I don't know like that's I'm not helping this person Because he he needs to know what do I do next? How do I know if I'm

[00:52:35] Moving in the right direction. What's the destination that I should be aiming towards? What am I working up to? and um And so that that led to me thinking along discipleship pathways and then when my

[00:52:48] No, my wife made this statement about that. We're not a church that does discipleship That was also again frustrating, but then it made me realize that okay. No, no I have failed to communicate why we do the things that we do yeah, and um

[00:53:04] Yeah, and and I could go with exposters collective here's a quick story And it's a bit of an aside, but it goes into what we're talking about here I had this guy who was in our church and he had a degree from a well-known evangelical seminary

[00:53:19] And so I was going out of town one weekend and I said hey you should preach this sunday Or maybe it was a few weeks out, but he said to me. I'm not a very good preacher and I said

[00:53:30] Never mind. I thought it was like sound of false humility Turns out he was not being humble. That was just a matter of fact He was not a good preacher and he preached

[00:53:41] I mean it's like one of those messages that you have to like take off the internet to make sure that no one ever listens to it And I remember telling they had much smaller staff at the time and I told our administrator. I said I am

[00:53:53] never going to let that guy preach again And my administrator wisely said back to me Well, did you train him? Did you teach him? Did you tell him what you expected? Did you help him succeed?

[00:54:06] And I said well no and he said well then how would you expect him to succeed? and I was like Dagger to the heart 100 correct and then I I realized that I need to be actually like training people to do things and um

[00:54:25] And you know a lot of really good things happen in a church once you start training people to do things Yeah, it changes the church It's one of the the core values that has to undergird our whole forming a culture of discipleship. We have to go from a

[00:54:41] You know like just a teaching mentality to a training mentality where what we're really trying to do is form people And so how do we create that training mentality that training environment for all You know and not just for the way we want it done in our organization

[00:54:57] But training in the sense that we're actually forming people Character and mission wise whose heart is like Jesus this beats and rhythm with Jesus if we begin to think in terms of from Exclusively telling to training and forming that begins to shape things, you know

[00:55:12] And so I do think that's really critical. And so I think your your pathway has got, you know, super solid Um, you know the character side. I think is important

[00:55:21] Um, one of the things I think is important to help people identify where they're at and that's one of the things maybe Why I like like mine maybe over you

[00:55:30] You know, it puts it in the model of a kind of a growth pattern that you go from pre faith to new faith What does an what is someone who's new in the faith need?

[00:55:39] Well, as I try to identify the top two or three needs one of them is they need to be reading their bible and praying And they need to be doing it in relation with someone who's further down the path

[00:55:48] You get a new believer reading their bible and praying in relationship with somebody who's a little further down the path They'll both grow right? You know or what does a mature believer need? Well mature believer need actually one of the things he needs is

[00:56:01] relationships with people who are in the new and young faith stage because they ask questions that force him to learn and grow They remind him of things that he forgot about when he was a new believer and some of the energy of that

[00:56:11] It'll energize them and help them now learn new things because this guy's asking questions He's never thought about because he's a new believer at this stage in history And he has questions that this guy never asked and now he's got to learn and everyone grows right?

[00:56:24] So it helps people and then you can also begin to think through how do we move some from each through each stage Like organizationally, what do we offer resources and opportunities wise? It'll help some go from new believer to young believer the growing believer

[00:56:39] So what's needed at each sort of growth stage? So that sort of You know, it's sort of almost like that parenting model where you know your toddlers need something different than your

[00:56:47] Elementary schoolers to your pre teens and early teens to your later teens. They're all different stages, right? And they have different needs and so figuring out some of that You know with with an individual I think it's helpful too

[00:56:59] And how do you address those various needs all towards the end of helping them become like Jesus? But yeah That's good. John. I think we I think we solved it I don't know if we solved it, but We just killed 56 minutes talking about it

[00:57:14] So well, I think it was good. It's helpful. So yeah, yeah. All right. Well, let's wrap it up John Where can people follow up with you online or connect with your stuff? Yeah, uh two websites john wicker net um that's got

[00:57:30] My bible life podcast as well as some online courses and other resources there Or listeners commentary.com, which is where they can find the listeners commentary They can listen to it there, but they can also then subscribe on

[00:57:43] YouTube or download the app or something like that. So listeners commentary.com those easiest places to find me What about you? Yeah, you can I have a website nick katie.org So that's n i c k c ad y dot or g

[00:57:56] I wrote a book a while back. You can find that on there. I've got my podcast on there as well as articles that I've written um I used to do a call-in radio show for like seven years and

[00:58:07] I took some of the questions that I had received from there and I started answering them in Article format and so there's tons of articles on the website just kind of responding to questions and

[00:58:18] Dealing with things like that. So yeah, feel free to check that out and you can also check out my church's website at whitefieldschurch.com All right awesome. All right. Thanks. Thanks john Thanks for listening to this episode of theology for the people

[00:58:35] This was my last episode for several weeks as I will be taking a sabbatical and spending some time Connecting with the lord and with my family this summer

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[00:59:03] If you'd like to support the show financially, there is a link in the show notes where you can make a donation to support the show Until next time. Thanks for listening and god bless you