reChurch Podcast
Welcome to the reChurch Podcast, hosted by Justin and Brooke Knoop.
As we speak, there is a massive number of people leaving the institutional Church...but interestingly, they aren’t walking away from Jesus. Many of us have noticed a significant gap between what we see in the Bible and what we experience on Sunday mornings. Let’s talk about it.
reChurch Podcast
How To Plant Churches Like Jesus | #reChurch Ep. 11
Let's talk about how Jesus made and multiplied disciples. Hint: It's not like the current model.
✅ Follow Justin:
https://www.instagram.com/justinknoop
https://www.youtube.com/@justinknoop
True repentance is. A lot of people get us on this. It is a change of mind. But the Bible also says confess your sins to one another. Healing takes place Bringing it into the light. Yes, you're bringing things out of darkness into the light and the Bible says when you bring things out of darkness into the light, it becomes light.
Speaker 2:The current traditional model. There may be offshoots in programs where people can go deeper in Bible study, but generally the Sunday service is a one size fits all. That's where the major issue comes in is you have believers, you have non-believers, you have people that think they're believers and people that know they're not. You got all these people mixed into one and you're trying to speak one message to all those people. It does not work. How do we gather them? Because there's a big difference in gathering with a group of non-believers versus a group of people that are just brand new, born again, versus somebody who's been in the church for 20 years. Those are three very different scenarios. You're not going to be able to handle those groups the same way. Welcome to the ReChurch podcast. If you're tired of business as usual Christianity and you're ready to live just like Jesus, you found yourself in the right place. I'm your host, justin Knoop, and I'm here with my wife, my princess of a wife, brooke.
Speaker 1:He only does this on camera. Called me princess.
Speaker 2:I don't call you a princess in real life.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, but every time we're on here this is real life.
Speaker 2:I do call you. You are the princess, you know it.
Speaker 1:I am the princess in the house. I like your shirt. Tell me about your shirt. It's Georgetown. That's where we're building a house, right now in Texas.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Georgetown.
Speaker 1:I know, that's why I wore it. I'm like I'm a represent, I'm a Texan now.
Speaker 2:Here we are. My buddy over at the Jesus is Offensive podcast. This is his new merch, so check that out if you're looking for some good merch from a good person. Support a good work and yeah, so we're excited. Today we're going to hit some practical stuff. It's a really good topic. It's a really important one. I noticed that when I came out of the institutional, traditional mindset of church, one thing that really shifted for me was the idea of multiplication and how that works, so transitioning from an addition mindset of how the gospel goes out, how disciples are made to a multiplication mindset, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So you're growing outward, you're not adding to and just growing your personal ministry, your personal building. Now we're going to talk a little bit about that today, but we're going to give. Basically, we're going to go deep into three specific examples, because we've noticed that it really helps if you talk about practical situations and examples so people know how to walk through those things. That's right. What we're going to discuss is I guess you could call it organic church planting 101. So if I have this group of people that is in this stage of their walk with Christ or they're on their way to being Christians, what do we do? How do we gather them? Because there's a big difference in gathering with a group of non-believers that are interested in Jesus but have not actually committed their lives to Christ, they've not repented from their sins and turned to Christ, versus a group of people that are just brand new born again.
Speaker 2:Right, Six months old in the faith versus somebody who's been in the church for 20 years is now stepping out of the institutional style of church and now they're in an organic setting.
Speaker 2:Those are three very different scenarios and you're not going to be able to handle those groups the same way, even though there's going to be some common principles. We want to kind of hit all of those aspects and walk people through what it might look like to successfully disciple those group of people. Each one of those might have slightly different goals and, more importantly, each one of those might have slightly different barriers to overcome or obstacles to overcome. They will. So does that sound exciting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is one of my favorite topics because this is like what I did back home, so cool.
Speaker 2:So let me hit the multiplication aspect real quick. Um, it's's, it's this. This threw people off when we first talked about this, and then we'll get into those specific thing. And the way that we add, the way that we get members in our church or our church grows, is by us inviting people in one at a time. They experience it and then, hopefully, they stay.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That's a one by one model.
Speaker 1:It's addition mode.
Speaker 2:I guess there are some benefits to it, but I think there are way more negatives to it. The benefits would be it's very simple, it doesn't create a whole lot more responsibility because, it's almost like going from kid number three to kid number four Right, as opposed to a whole nother family starting.
Speaker 1:There's a whole.
Speaker 2:Nother level of responsibility but the reach aspect is so much greater is very limited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, oh yeah, limited if you add greater, if you multiply yes, sorry yes, sorry.
Speaker 2:Sorry I might have messed up. No, you said it right I added something wrong, okay yeah. So basically, uh say people, people come to us and they're like, hey, can I just come to your Sunday church gathering? And we're like, yeah, I mean you could, but that's not going to be the most beneficial thing for you. And I'll give you an example. You just met with a girl recently from this area and we were talking to her.
Speaker 1:We did our first baptism in Texas y'all. It was Saturday, and we have one more coming up, so that's cool too.
Speaker 2:I know I almost, I'm almost tempted to get into testimonies already just from this podcast. Maybe we'll have to do a whole episode, the amount of phone calls and texts and fruit. Fruit is amazing. Yeah, I'm so encouraged All over the place, all over the place.
Speaker 1:Different states Like people we haven't talked to in 12 years are reaching out and they're like God's been showing me this, you know the past year or whatever and it's just been really cool.
Speaker 2:It's so cool. So just to encourage you guys, like there's so many people that are on this journey, just go down to the comments and start reading the comments.
Speaker 2:So many people are on the same journey different stages, but going through a lot of similar things and we can all learn from each other, grow from each other and understand that we're not in this alone. So that's right, it's one of the goals of this podcast. But what was I talking about? The multiplication aspect. So in that example we could have said the typical person would have said yeah, just join us on Sundays. This is when we meet, get plugged in and just kind of go with the flow and you're gonna grow, you're gonna be fed all of that stuff, right, and then we can train you to evangelize from there.
Speaker 1:That sounds right.
Speaker 2:Now the difference is, what we advise is yeah, let's connect, let's be friends, let's hang out, but don't come to the gathering that we already have established. Let's start something new with you Meaning if that's just one person, let's start discipling you in your sphere of influence and then try to reach your friend group. That's right, okay, because, for example, in this exact scenario, we don't have a wide reach in Texas because we just moved here five months ago. She does.
Speaker 1:Yep, she's been here for four years.
Speaker 2:Right. So why in the world logically, if we're trying to reach a large amount of people would we separate her from her sphere of influence, bring her into ours and kind of put her in our Christian bubble and disciple her within that, as opposed to disciple her in her environment, kind of the Jesus style go to the harvest right.
Speaker 1:Stay with them if they receive your peace. Yep.
Speaker 2:And then reach those people, two things we talked about. One thing was typically, when someone comes into an established meeting, they're going to be more passive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Especially if the Christians there are more mature, it's going to be harder for them to open up or utilize their giftings or feel like they have a place. Then if you just worked with them and went into their sphere of influence, they're going to feel more they're the more mature one, correct?
Speaker 2:Like in their friend group and stuff, and so, if you understand, in past episodes we talked about the goal of leadership. The goal of leadership is not mediation, it's facilitation. We're facilitating and utilizing our gifts to train that person to do the ministry. Are you getting this Like? I'm going to say this one more time, because the difference in those two scenarios is us bringing a person in, using our giftings to minister to that person, which is the typical model, as opposed to us going where that person is, using our gifting to train them so they can reach their friends. Boom, addition, multiplication, so we can. If you guys have questions about that, we can go deeper into that, but what we really want to get into is those three examples, and we're going to start with number one. The first example, if you remember, was starting a group with non-believers. Now, these are not uninterested nonbelievers, these are people that are seeking God, but they've not entered into that. They're not born again yet. They're not born again. So what would you do with that? You got a couple people like that.
Speaker 2:Or maybe there's just one person and they've got a couple friends that are interested. How would you address that?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to do two scenarios for this topic. So this is talking about people that are. So you can disciple people to Christ and you can disciple people in Christ, but the application and practicalities are different, right? Because if I'm talking to an unbeliever but they're interested in the Lord, I'm discipling them to Jesus. I'm not going to talk to them like they're a believer, I'm not going to hold them accountable like they're a believer. I'm just going to preach Christ to them and salvation. I'm going to address sin and I'm going to point them to what gets them free from sin, and that's the death of Christ and that is being born again, right? I?
Speaker 2:want to point out one thing real quick, just so you, just so it's very, very clear for the people listening in the current model, the current traditional model. There may be offshoots in programs where people can go deeper in Bible studies or specific groups, but generally the Sunday service is a one size fits all program, that's right.
Speaker 2:So that's where the major issue comes in is you have believers, you have non-believers, you have people that think they're believers and people that know they're not believers. You got all these people mixed into one and you're trying to speak one message to all those people, right? It does not work.
Speaker 1:Well, you can't give a filet to a two month old, right? You can't give mashed potatoes to. You know someone has no teeth. I mean you can't give a filet to a two month old, right? You can't give mashed potatoes to. You know someone has no teeth. I mean you can't give a steak to someone who has no teeth, but they need mashed potatoes. You know you can't give somebody who is really mature in the faith and they're exercising their gifts, you know, a protein bar and think they're going to be sustained. You know what I'm saying. They actually need nourishment, you know. So a heftier meal of some type, which we both know like practicing, is what truly is the meat of scripture, the meat of what Jesus was feasting on when the disciples were like what you been eating. You know he said I'm doing my father's will.
Speaker 2:My food is to do the will of my father, who sent me.
Speaker 1:So I think that we have to understand we can't like a Sunday service is like kind of like, yeah, a one size fits all. And that doesn't necessarily. That does not work. It might work with your yoga pants, but it does not work with Christianity.
Speaker 2:Have you ever tried on one size fits all clothes? It's either an exact match or it is not.
Speaker 1:Somebody else is not going to wear it. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Who wears? I mean, I could see a hat, but who wears? One size fits all clothes.
Speaker 1:Anytime I see that I would never even buy it. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. But anyways, maybe if it was like what do you know those hoodies that are like blankets, oh Snuggies, oh Snuggies, Snuggies? Maybe if it was a Snuggie, I would never buy a Snuggie, but no offense to anybody who buys Snuggies.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Snuggies if you want to sponsor this podcast, 10% off. Is that what they're called? I feel like it's wrong, but that might be what they're called.
Speaker 1:Snuggies. I think you're right, snuggies, it's probably wrong.
Speaker 2:People make fun of Okay. Sorry, I got you way off track, but your example was.
Speaker 1:You had two different scenarios, yes, two scenarios, no-transcript very interested, and it's just one person who's very interested into like being discipled into Jesus or to Jesus. That person I'm going to meet with on probably a weekly, maybe even a twice a week basis, just depending on how hungry they are and how really close they are to surrender. The closer they are to surrender, the more time I'm going to give them out of my life, because sometimes seven days apart from one another or six days apart from one another gives enough time for the enemy to start snatching seeds. So I'm going to check in constantly Not constantly, but regularly, just through a text Like, hey, thinking about you, praying for you, I'm going to really cover them in prayer heavily during that period of time Because the spiritual warfare around them is intense.
Speaker 1:Y'all Think about, before you first fully surrender to Christ, the term of events that took place in your life. It was probably kind of crazy, I know. For me it was. So I will check in on them. I'll meet them once or twice a week. I'll spend time with them. I'll continue to hold them accountable in the sense of where are you at with Jesus, not like you need to stop sinning because they don't have the Holy Spirit yet. You know what I'm saying. But continue to say like, hey, if you have that conviction, this is God Just again trying to facilitate them, to see how God is drawing them to himself. So let's say there's that scenario where you have somebody who's very, very interested. Or what if somebody's just kind of interested? They're not fully in, they're just testing things out.
Speaker 1:I'll give them once a week, we'll meet once a week and as they begin to stir up hunger, that time will be more and more. And once they're born again kind of what we discussed earlier and they're surrendered, they're born again. I'll walk them through repentance, and repentance is not me wanting to know all their little secrets of sin. I even tell them please don't spell things out for me, because that could take for hours and some things like I just don't need to know the details, you know.
Speaker 1:But just what do you need to be saved from? Because everyone needs to be saved from different things. We cannot do blanket prayers like to be saved from different things. We cannot do blanket prayers like Father, forgive me of my sins. That is not repentance. True repentance is. It is, and a lot of people get us on this. It is a change of mind. You just change your mind, which then changes your behavior. Yes, but the Bible also says confess your sins to one another. So if somebody's getting born again, they're becoming a brother and sister in that moment and they need to confess things. Not because you need to know the nitty gritty, you don't need to know the details, but the Bible says healing takes place.
Speaker 2:Sure, you're bringing it into the light.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're bringing things out of darkness into the light. And the Bible says when you bring things out of darkness into the light, it becomes light. No longer can the devil plug you with that thing anymore and keep it a big, fat elephant inside, you know. So we bring it into the light. They confess, you know, and it's as simple as Lord. I just repent from all idolatry and pornography and sexual immorality, whatever that may be. You know, again they didn't spell it out Like on January 6th I did da da, da, da, da, da da, unless God really tells them to do that, because I've had some people that are like, nah, I really need to like share with you what happened that night because it haunts me, you know, and they'll share then, but not everybody needs to do that. So you walk them through true repentance, like confession of repentance, um, and then, once they do that, you baptize them immediately afterwards and you read with them Romans eight. What does Roman eight say about true?
Speaker 2:surrender, you don't wait until three months when they've got enough people on the list to baptize.
Speaker 1:No, I fill up my bathtub. I mean, there was a season of our life we were filling up our bathtub, sometimes twice a day, you know, and stuff. So we baptized them immediately and I walked them through Romans 8. I'm like this is not an inward, what is it?
Speaker 2:Talking about Romans 6. Yeah, Romans 6.
Speaker 1:Sorry, this is not an outward expression of an inward. What is it Talking about? Romans 6. Yeah, Romans 6. Sorry, this is not an outward expression of an inward decision. Like the church says, there's no scripture that says it is a prophetic symbol. When it talks about a symbol, it's talking about something that happened in Old Testament. It's symbolizing something, it's quoting something that happened and they're bringing it into the new and they're like like that was a symbol. Now, when we do this, we actually meet Christ in his death, burial and resurrection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're talking about 1.
Speaker 1:Peter yes.
Speaker 2:It uses the ark Noah's ark as a symbol of baptism, not baptism as a symbol of something else.
Speaker 1:Baptism is not a symbol of something else, that's right. So when someone gets into the water in Romans 6, I said 8, right, I meant to say 6. In Romans 6, it says that it's three things a burial, a bath and a resurrection. Right, you're burying the old you, so the old brook is dying in this water right now. And then it says not only is the old brook dying when you come up out of the water, you're coming up in the very nature of Christ Jesus. And then it also says it's cleansing your conscience of all iniquity, so your conscience is now pure before God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, For scriptural reference. That's what 1 Peter says. It is for people that get all worked up. We're not saying water saves you. We're not talking about baptismal regeneration. But we're also not saying that it's purely symbolic.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:We're saying that the action of baptism is an action where Jesus actually meets you and does something supernatural in that place. What does he do? I'm just going to quote the scripture to you. First, peter says that your water baptism is an appeal to God for a cleansed conscious. That's right, okay. And so the picture we get out of the Old Testament is Israel leaving Egypt, coming to the Red Sea. Red Sea splits. They go down in what comes after them, their old life Egypt, egypt, which is symbolic of the old life.
Speaker 2:Old life comes after them goes down in the water with them, the same way your old life goes down in the water with you. But who's the only one that comes up out of the water? Israel comes up, god closes the water. The old life is gone. They've been rescued at that point, yeah, like Jesus is doing that supernaturally in water baptism. So we see a lot of people that either skip or delay or push off or don't. They're not water baptized. We see them a lot of times struggle with the old life coming back.
Speaker 2:There's stuff powerful. We've seen demons manifest in the waters of baptism because they they understand. I'm like most Christians don't understand the power of water baptism Demons do. We've literally watched people tremble and demons hold people back from getting in the water. I'm like, after seeing that, I'm like demons don't want you to get in the water, Like they're scared for you to get in the water so bad that they manifest and try to pull you out.
Speaker 2:And you're going to tell me that it's just something that you just kind of we do it because it's a little fun thing Christians do.
Speaker 1:It's like get out of here and again. We do not believe baptism saves you. We believe Jesus saves you. Jesus saves you. Jesus is the savior of the world.
Speaker 2:And that's what the scripture says, that's what first Peter says. It says baptism, which now saves you, not by washing dirt off your skin or your body, but an appeal for a cleansed conscious. But Jesus, it says, through Jesus, through the resurrection, excuse me, that's right so. Jesus saves you through the resurrection. Baptism is the command, it's your appeal to God for the cleansed conscious. So then you look in Romans 6, and she says it's a bath, a burial, and a resurrection or a burial bath and resurrection.
Speaker 2:I like to say it's a tomb in a womb.
Speaker 1:That's helpful.
Speaker 2:for me it's a tomb in a womb, according to Romans, six. So that's what's taking place. I mean, there's so many, we could do a whole episode on on water baptism, but um and how it's, it's so neglected and pushed off. I'm just saying.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying if you look at that book of Acts, that's the only place you see people converting from Judaism or Gentile becoming born again. Right, it's the only place you see Documented conversion experiences.
Speaker 2:Convergence, yes. Post resurrection.
Speaker 1:Post-Christ, yeah, post-resurrection of Jesus. You see, people responding to the gospel is in Acts and I think there's, like what 10 accounts where you see sometimes 3,000, sometimes a whole household, sometimes a whole city, different things like that.
Speaker 1:But what you see is every single one of those accounts mentions baptism, but not every single account mentions praying in tongues. Not every single account mentions even them confessing sin, but baptism was mentioned every time. So I think it's more important than the evangelical church has made it, but I think the Catholic church has abused it and and created it that it saves you in and of itself.
Speaker 2:They're both wrong.
Speaker 1:So you're baptizing babies and babies are now saved because they were baptized. So then, you have the. Protestant side of things, evangelical, that turned too hard to the left and they're like it has no purpose or meaning. It's just what you do if you want to.
Speaker 2:It's work that's wrong, or that's a work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's wrong as well. The Bible, it's in every single documented one-again situation.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know for sure. Maybe you're right that every single one of those it is.
Speaker 1:I've read them, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But the greater thing is that when you see an urgency, you see Paul going into the household of the jailer when he's released and baptizing them some point between midnight and the morning. That's right, they were in prison at midnight. He gets born again. They go to his household baptize his whole household. You see the I think it's the Ethiopian eunuch who's like there's water. What withholds me from being baptized right now?
Speaker 2:In the middle of the desert, all these experiences, not only do you see water baptism, but you see an urgency to get in the water. And this is the last thing I'll say about it. If you study church history, you'll understand why things went a certain direction. Why was baptism de-emphasized? Why was it? Well, it was because, with the popularity of the large evangelistic meetings by people like DL Moody and Billy, Graham it would be very hard to baptize.
Speaker 2:40,000 people, or however many people, came to his crusades, and so they were trying to figure out 40,000 people, or however many people, came to his crusades, and so they were trying to figure out what they could do with all those people, and so they began to replace that with a repeat after me style prayer.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:So, if you're wondering the history on things, dl Moody came up with that and then it was more popularized by Billy Graham, the sinner's prayer. So water baptism gets replaced by the sinner's prayer and eventually, because people look up to those people.
Speaker 1:Like the sinner's prayer is only like a hundred years old.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that it's not. It's not not that old. They start to implement it in their church services and now we don't know where to put baptism. But if you look at the scripture, baptism was the response. It was part of the response to the gospel. So people responded to the gospel by getting in the water and getting baptized and stuff like that. So that's all we'll say about that, and then we can jump back into.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so I will walk that person through, you know, just helping them talk to the Lord on what does it mean to really turn from your sin, what does it mean to be baptized, and baptize them, and then I'm going to tell them like, hey, you have to receive the Holy Spirit, you know. And so I'll lay hands on them so that they may receive the Holy Spirit, and in that moment I trust that God is doing something supernatural in their life, and then the fruit will speak, does their life change, you know, and in this time we'll do deliverance If the person's ready for that. Some people aren't ready for that right away. Some people are like, get it out now, you know. So it just depends on the situation. But yeah, so then I begin to meet with that person regularly, you know, and now that person is in Christ Jesus and now they're a part of the body of Christ Gosh. We could do like four episodes on this topic, because I'm thinking of so many things we can talk about, but then it will lead into other things, but so let's kind of stay there. So so many things we can talk about, but then it will lead into other things, but so let's kind of stay there. So this person now that's discipling someone into Christ Okay, and it could be one person, or you could have multiple people kind of in the same place, coming into a place of surrender and let's say, all three of them get born again within a month of each other, but none of them maybe know each other.
Speaker 1:You could start meeting together with all three of them, because they're in similar places for sure. Or you can disciple all, if you have the capacity to disciple all three separately and disciple them into their communities of people. So, okay, hey, you go, start sharing your faith with your family, your friends, your coworkers, and if anybody shows interest, let me know or I'll go with you If you feel uncomfortable. Let them share their faith and I bet you two or three people around them are going to be interested and want to know more. So then you can go with them to walk with them and disciple those people, or you can send them and, as they need help, they just call you.
Speaker 1:Because what I've noticed is when I get there, because I have a lot of experience and I have a lot of answers, the person doesn't want to rely on this new believer because they look at them as like meh. But really you just have to be one step ahead of the person you're discipling, so that person's born again and they're not, so you're one step ahead of where they're at. So sometimes they want to become my disciple and I'm like no, no, no, no, my goal is to disciple Christina. Justin said I need to change up the name.
Speaker 1:We have a Bobby Joe too that is a friend of ours and he's like yeah, I'm not talking about Bobby Joe and Argamini, but Christina. My goal is to disciple Christina, as then Christina goes and makes disciples so that people will come to her and she can bear fruit, because I cannot disciple 15 of Christina's friends when I'm also discipling other people. It's going to be a much faster, healthier multiplication and lack of dependency on me and giving her something to do. Christina responsibility in the faith and now she can be responsible to those people. So I just help Christina as Christina pours out what she's now received in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2:Again, if it gets confusing for you, always go back to the family model. That's right, the family model. What does it look like to raise a child and then, when that child gets older, they raise their children? What does your role look like as grandma and grandpa, versus just parenting? There are scenarios, there are plenty of scenarios out there where grandma and grandpa are parenting their kids' kids. That's right, and it's not the tip. It's not.
Speaker 1:It's not what you want, they don't bring. They don't like you don't bring your. Well, some people may, but you don't bring your kids to your grandparents' house and say, hey, raise them and discipline them for me, Now you do that part. If that's happening, it means that there's something unhealthy and there's something that went wrong. That's right, um, and we're trying to reproduce healthy, full term babies and not premature babies.
Speaker 2:And I just want to make a quick just to let people know um, we, we have a very apostolic sway to our lens. Every single person that's gifted in different areas could be fivefold ministry. You got a shepherd or a teacher. They're going to have their sway Someone who's apostolic. So we're always going to be geared towards and if you don't like this, I'm sorry, but we're always going to be geared towards building healthy communities and multiplying outwards. So the gospel going out.
Speaker 1:I think, too, like what you're saying about being apostolic, though it's not just geared towards communities and healthy communities. It's healthy foundations in people's lives.
Speaker 1:That's why we always talk about the gospel, y'all? Because we do have that apostolic slant in our lives. We've been called to be foundation checkers. So we hit the gospel so hard because we realize that we're trying to disciple people who have not even responded to the right gospel and we're wondering why they're not becoming mature. You know so, as foundation checkers like we, you always have to go back to the gospel. So, like you're going to be, like you keep beating that horse, you know, brooke and Justin, but it's because it's like it's what God's called us to do is be is found foundationally, check where the church is at and people personally, individuals, um, so that's what we're we're here to do. So, yeah, that is discipling somebody. That would be your kind of textbook scenario. Again, be led by the Spirit. But your textbook scenario on discipling someone to Christ right Then now you have let's talk about. Well, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can talk about next topic. There may be a situation where you're starting a group, so this is kind of like church planning. This is church planning the Jesus way, just so you know, not the institutional church way. Yeah, so you may have another scenario where you meet a couple people and they're already born again but they're brand new in the face, so they don't have a lot of skin in the game, but they do want to gather.
Speaker 2:They're on fire and you're meeting with those believers, as opposed to a group of mature believers. What would that situation look like?
Speaker 1:And what would you-? So are you talking about people who have been institutionalized or have never really been in the institutionalization?
Speaker 2:There's so many different ways that you can go. Let's just say you have a mix. Okay, so we have brand new baby believers, but everybody in the group is under six months old.
Speaker 1:In the faith, yeah, so brand new group of believers six months old, in the faith. Let's say some have been churched and institutionalized like they were raised in church, but they didn't really respond until six months old.
Speaker 2:That's a typical situation. Yeah, Grew up in the church but, now have just really got born again, born again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they're going to have a little bit of religion on them, a little institutionalizational mindset, but they're very easy to disciple because now the Spirit of God is there and they're very quickly going to see the institutionalization, the fakeness of it and the lack of um maturity that comes from it, the like, the issues they're going to see it starts going on.
Speaker 1:Yes, they're going to start, they're going to see that really quickly and they're pretty easily easy to disciple, um out of that institutional place because, um, they're not uh heavily indoctrinated really. They kind of just went mainly because maybe their parents made them go or whatever the case may be. So they're pretty easy to disable. But you'll still smell a little bit of stench of religion there, but it burns off pretty quickly as they begin to really walk with the Lord. Those kinds of people, you'll see them struggle to pray in tongues sometimes. You'll see them struggle to walk in the gifts, because a lot of these people have left the institutional church and they didn't even have never seen gifts operate so they didn't even know that was a thing. So these people, they're on fire for the Lord, they have hunger and passion, but they maybe lack how to actually use the gifts or use them properly, or even like lack using them at, because they they're afraid to, because it's kind of new and they've never seen it before. But they have been somewhat churched even though they weren't born again yet. So it takes them a little longer to like really like, take the, the pick up the gifts and start using them right. It takes them a minute to get into that, but once they get it, they normally do really well, you know. But it just takes them a minute to get into that. But once they get it, they normally do really well, but it just takes them a little longer to get started.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're talking about six-month-old baby believers that have never been churched at all and didn't come from any form of institutionalization or religion, man, when the Holy Spirit comes in, y'all watch out, because the amount of zeal and power that these little babies walk in and the faith is absolutely phenomenal. It keeps me stirred up. You know what I'm saying? Because they're seeing things for the first time. They normally receive the gift of tongues pretty quickly and operate in it. They'll see miracles, they'll see healings, they'll see deliverances, they'll see things happen and take place. And I never put water or a blanket on their zeal. I know when I first got born again, everybody would be like you're just really zealous, you're just really zealous, you're just really zealous. Well, ask my friend.
Speaker 2:Jennifer, it'll wear out. It'll wear out, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I'm still very zealous and if you read the scriptures it says we should stay zealous. But zealousness should then come with wisdom, as you mature, you know. But the Bible actually, like, rebukes people who lose their zeal. So I'm sorry, you know, and I used to feel people try to put that on me, Like you're just young and zealous.
Speaker 2:This will die, you know? Yeah, well, because they're uncomfortable 100%, 100%, that's exactly.
Speaker 1:And I look back and that's what I see Like they're still lukewarm and complacent, you know. So I just would throw the wet blanket off and my prayer would be when I would get in the car, away from those people Lord, never let my zeal go out, never let this fire burn out, or you're challenged by a young person in the face of zeal.
Speaker 2:Yes, let it challenge you. Okay, like I need to step it up, and I've been there.
Speaker 1:I've been there, I've been around new babies in the faith and like they're making me uncomfortable and I'm like Lord, I have, I have lost my passion here, like re-spark that in me.
Speaker 2:You don't realize it until you're standing next to something that's contrasting.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right. Um, so just humble yourself and respond. You know, don't be offended by their zeal, Let their zeal restrike a zeal in you. But you just now have wisdom that maybe they don't have and they're going to learn. And they don't have to learn it overnight, they're going to learn it. But yeah, if you get somebody that's not in religion, fresh out of the world, never been institutionalized, they really get the gifts very quickly and it's like the Corinthian church. They might use them. Not right, but I do not spank people.
Speaker 1:I just want to say shame on you, pastors shame on you pastors who spank and criticize and discipline in harshness young believers who have gifts and are not maybe doing it exactly right, because they have to practice somewhere they have to try. So when they miss it or they abuse it, you lovingly correct them and guide them to maybe how to handle that gift better, right. But if you smack them down and say don't do that or kick them out of the church first, they're going to run away from the church potentially, or they're going to be hurt or they're never going to use that gift again because the last time they used it they got bit. You know what I mean. So the body of Christ is a place where they can safely practice the gifts to where it's not devastating. That's where we tell people when they start in a community like this is a place to practice the gifts. I'd rather you practice them here than try to go out there and do something and cut somebody open with your new machete that you got or your new.
Speaker 1:Ferrari, run them over, you know like, practice them here and then we'll teach you like how maybe to do it in love or how maybe to handle it differently next time. But I'm never going to chastise a child or person for using their gifts.
Speaker 2:And I want to clarify too when we say practice the gifts, we're not talking about some charismatic circles of like close your eyes and just picture a car. What color is that car? And this weird Christian fortune telling.
Speaker 1:We're not talking about that. No, what we're talking about is you're in a healthy environment. Sorry, I just cut you off. Go, for there's people that know what is of God and what is of the flesh and what is of the devil, and we're in prayer and somebody's like. I keep hearing this over and over again, but I've never prophesied in my life, this has never happened to me, or I have a tongue and it feels really weird to do this right now. I've never done this before, but I just can't get this song out of my heart or this tongue out of my heart. Then practice it. Don't muster up something. That's when you start to tap into demonic things potentially, but if there is something impressed upon your heart, do it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Share it and let people test it and let us test it and work together and be open for correction, but then also be open that God might be speaking to you.
Speaker 2:This always got me. You know people typically cessationist stuff like that people that are more conservative would be like it is not biblical to practice the gifts. If it's a gift of the Spirit, it just comes out or blah, blah, blah and it's like, yeah, but it's coming through a human being, Right? So the filter of our flesh is really why we need to. We need to practice understanding if we're listening to something that's fleshly or we're listening to the Holy spirit, and so you learn kind of what the Lord um sounds like over time.
Speaker 2:But the funny thing is the same people that say you shouldn't practice the gifts go to school for teaching.
Speaker 1:And practice teaching in a school setting.
Speaker 2:And you hear, even people like Billy Graham and stuff like that would preach in front of the mirror to practice their gift of preaching and teaching. That's right, it's like you've just got to understand. You're doing it too, that's right, it's all across the board. It's not about doing it or not doing it. It's about just doing it the right way. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's a really good point too. To bring up is like um, when you, when you come into the faith, like when you're practicing these gifts on one another, like it actually edifies you, you know, because the person you're practicing with or to is going to encourage you. And like, bring um, uh, bring loving correction to help you grow in these things, for instance, what Justin was talking about, filtering it through a human being. I feel like I'm very prophetic. The Lord's given me this ability to discern and see into things, or even see where things may play out, how something may play out. And so I remember getting a prophetic word for someone and I gave them the word. This was years ago and they received the word. They were super excited about the word, it was an awesome word.
Speaker 1:And a couple of years later it seemed like the word didn't come to pass. And they came to me and they told me I was a false prophet and I'm like, oh Lord, like I repent, oh my gosh, like if I did. And I'm like, hey, I hear what you're saying, let me take it before the Lord. If I'm wrong, I'll repent, but like, let him teach me in this. So I took it before the Lord. I'm like Lord, did I miss it? Like, if I missed it, like I'll go back to this man and say I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:And the Lord said to me he was like no Brooke the word and interpret it.
Speaker 1:Yes, your interpretation of the word was off. So when you gave the word, the interpretation was your understanding was so small Cause, again, I'd not been born again very long. I had very little life experience and experience in the body of Christ. When I interpreted what I thought was being said, it came through my fleshly lens of what I had experienced and understood to be truth at the time. That was not what God was trying to say to this man. So the word was actually accurate.
Speaker 1:My interpretation was off because, again, I'm filtering through my lenses of how I see things when God was trying to teach me something and tell this man something and I just went and interpreted it and it was the wrong interpretation. So now he's like you're a false prophet because it actually went the opposite way and I'm like, well, actually, because of my crappy lens and my flesh got in front of it, I processed that word to you when what actually happened is actually the word I gave you and he was kind of just looked at me in silence and we just kind of had to leave it there because it wasn't the way he wanted to play out. But it's actually like the most fruitful situation ever. It just was like different than he wanted it to look, you know. So that's how you can practice the gifts, but just be okay with it. The flesh can get in the way sometimes and we have to work through that together.
Speaker 2:You mean, god's ways doesn't always look like our ways?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, we don't. I've learned that from experience?
Speaker 2:no, I don't. I've learned that from experience. So what would you say is the greatest barrier to you know, a group of of fresh believers you know you had mentioned, like the benefits are, there's not a lot of old mindsets to renew or to work through. What would be some of the barriers you might run into?
Speaker 1:Well, then you have zeal. You know they're running full blast and they they might hit the wall on the on the way out the door or hurt.
Speaker 2:you know or hurt each other's full thing. That's right.
Speaker 1:Emotional there's emotions. There's a lot of flesh still working its way out. There's deliverance that needs to take place, you know I want to read one scripture because it's helpful.
Speaker 2:Most people don't know of this scripture, but it's in first John, chapter two, and he says I'm writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I'm writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. And I believe he says I don't have the rest of the verse here, but I've written to you, children because, your sins have been forgiven.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And so he talks about three maturity levels. Most people don't understand. He's talking about the maturity levels of the. Christian, the brand new baby believer, is very focused on the fact that their sins have been forgiven.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Wow, my old life has been erased. I'm a new creation in Christ Moving on into the maturity level of the young man or the teenager in the faith who the enemy is trying to come at very hard, because he knows that he still has a window to get them to turn back. Yes, if he can.
Speaker 1:That's right Okay.
Speaker 2:So, in the same way that our teenagers are tested with a lot of temptations that once we overcome as adults, we may be tempted with those, but he's not going to use the same tactics on an adult.
Speaker 1:Once you become a mature father in the faith, persecution is how the enemy and distraction comes at you. It's just different, yeah father in the faith.
Speaker 2:Persecution is how the enemy and distraction comes at you.
Speaker 1:It's just different.
Speaker 2:He's not going to tempt me with alcohol abuse or things that I've overcome, but that's what it says in there. Young men, because you've overcome the evil one, so you're in this battle. How you move beyond that young man faith, that young woman faith, is by overcoming the enemy. How, biblically? By resisting the enemy and submitting to God. Once you learn to do that on a regular base again, what I'm not saying is you're never tempted again or you never have to battle the enemy again, but you enter in this place in maturity, where now it talks about ending into fatherhood, motherhood of the faith. Your eyes get off of you and start to be on the responsibility of taking care of other people.
Speaker 2:And what does it say about the father and the faith? You know him, who is from the beginning. Well, what does that mean? That means that you now have a perspective that is less. It's just about me battling the devil and overcoming the devil and fighting sin and overcoming temptation, and all this too, I know God. I know God, we've built a history together, we have a relationship.
Speaker 2:I understand, beginning to end, like, what this whole story is about. Your eyes are no longer in ground level and you have that drone aerial view. You can see a wide scape of the direction things are going.
Speaker 2:So then when you start to disciple people and younger people in the faith, instead of just having your eyes right here looking at the single tree in the forest, you can see the whole forest and you can see hey, you're freaking out because there's no water, but I can see 200 yards away there's a whole reservoir of water and you start to have a different perspective of the Christian life. And so if we can understand those phases of Christian maturity, then we actually know the direction of where we're going and we know how to disciple people to that direction.
Speaker 2:We mentioned this multiple podcasts ago and probably mentioned in almost every podcast. The goal of discipleship is maturity in Christ. Paul himself says my goal is to present you as a mature believer to. Christ. If we're producing tons and tons of baby Christians that never mature, then we are fouling at what we have been called to do, especially as leaders and disciplers in the church. So I would say that, and so we'll go ahead and get into our third.
Speaker 1:Real quick. I have one more thing I want to say on this topic. So once that those baby believers, like the ones that have come out of institutionalization but are just now really born again, and the ones that are, you know, never been institutionalized at all and are six months old in the faith after, after they've come into this place of like hey, I really want to like know the Lord. You go through biblical literacy, you read the new Testament with them and you get them to read through the whole New Testament with them. You know like take books at a time and study those scriptures together, make sure they understand the teachings of Christ, make sure they know how to hear his voice, make sure they understand it's through John 15, abiding and remaining that they will bear much fruit. And once they have biblical literacy of the New Testament Old Testament is important too, but like really understanding the life of Jesus and have biblical literacy of the New Testament Old Testament is important too, but like really understanding the life of Jesus and that biblical literacy in that and they begin to obey those things, then you start to do life together and hang out together, test each other's fruit, hold each other accountable, love one another, submit to one another and once they reach maturity, your group disperses and dissolves and you should all be going to make disciples.
Speaker 1:So that one group died of five brand new baby believers, but now all five have become mature in the faith. It could take a year, it could take two years, it could take five years. However long that group needs, you'll know, and some might peak to maturity quicker than others. Release them, if they need to be released. They all peak maturity. Now you have five healthy, mature disciples that are going to go affect at least 10 people a piece, and now you have 50, right? Is that the right math? I'm not going that way. Now you have 50 people that are going to be affected and those 50 are then going to reach 10 a piece. And now you have how many? A lot, a lot. It's 50 times 10.
Speaker 2:Not a math teacher.
Speaker 1:That'd be a hundred out of zero. Yeah, I mean, that would be 500. That'd be 500 people, yeah, in the course of a few, a short period of time, and they're mature. That's the thing 500 mature disciples in 10 years.
Speaker 2:That'll. That'll change the world or less less. You even notice how long that would take, difference between 500 babies and 500 mature adults in real life. So you think of the same thing. We wonder why our our leaders in our churches are so overwhelmed and over and bogged down, it's because they have thousands of babies that's right and they're what do I do about this?
Speaker 2:We've got so many problems and so many issues. Let's make more babies and logically, the logical person would say, yeah, we just want to continue preaching the gospel, but if you're not caring for those babies, it's dangerous, like we all know. Situations like that where women keep having children, but they don't take care of the children that they have and they just keep having more children.
Speaker 1:You just reproduce broken people, correct?
Speaker 2:And so we would do ourselves a lot better if we would actually take time to train and mature those disciples Um, and then over over a long time. That's the multiplication process. We would actually see more numbers, because those babies would now be mature enough to make their own disciples, instead of us just making thousands of babies.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right, that makes sense Okay.
Speaker 2:Last scenario. I want to rephrase it a little bit because in the beginning I said like a mature group of disciples. But generally when you're talking about older people in the faith coming out of the institutional church, they're not always mature in the faith.
Speaker 1:So you've got to humble yourself and realize that a lot of people have been in the church building for 20 years, but they're not mature Christians.
Speaker 2:No, because they're not practicing what they've truly been given Correct. So remember Hebrews five talks about what is a mature disciple.
Speaker 1:They're mature in Christian ease, but they're not actually mature in practicing it's because you got gray hair it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you could be. Hello, you could be younger in age in a more mature Christian than someone who is older than you in age. That's right. So the most beautiful thing I've seen is when older aged, younger believers in the faith humble themselves enough to receive and learn from younger believers in the faith that have been walking thoroughly with the Lord, yeah. You see, just such an amazing fruitful blessing on their life because God understands, like the humility that takes to listen to somebody younger than you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a pastor come to our house. This was probably what four or five years ago that they came and I first of all I didn't know they were a pastor when they came and I was like hey, what do you do for a living? He's like I'm a pastor. I'm like why are you at my house Like pastors don't normally talk to me? Um, cause we cast out demons and we uh kind of preach heavy on um what they're they get paid to do. And he's like no, I'm very intrigued by what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And this man has got a master's in theology, very smart man, been doing church, he's been a pastor for 25 plus years. And I'm like what do I have to offer this man? He is way more versed than I am. And so he comes and he's like I'm hearing what you're doing. And he makes the comment if I see fire of the Holy Spirit somewhere or in someone, I'm going to get as close as I can and I'm okay if I get burnt. And I was like, wow, shout out to my peeps, they know who they are. I love these people so much.
Speaker 1:And he came to our home, he asked us questions and humbled himself in such a way I even got a prophetic word for him. That was very powerful and I'm pretty sure it came to pass, because he told me it did, and it was just a really amazing time to watch him and his wife humble themselves. And then they went through deliverance with us and just got super radically free. And then they invited us to come preach at their church and lost their had to leave their church because the true gospel was being preached and the true Jesus was being preached. And now they're in their home just making disciples, baptizing people, praying for the sick, praying for demonized people, and seeing God move in a mighty way. And they'll call and ask us questions, you know, and I'm like again, who am I? This man's could be my father almost, and I mean he has girls not far from my age and I'm just like so humbled by that, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to let people know like we love pastors. Oh my gosh, we love pastors People might hear certain things we say and think we're like attacking pastors.
Speaker 1:We're actually going to have a few pastors on the podcast. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We don't like the position.
Speaker 1:The abused position of pastor.
Speaker 2:The abused business CEO model. Position of pastor. We love the people.
Speaker 1:We love shepherds, though we love the gifting, the shepherding and gifting is so needed. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's something that Neither one of us are very shepherds, I'm not really good at that, yeah, yeah. But it's so needed. It's just needed in the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, removing the titles, the paychecks and the position and just shepherd people.
Speaker 2:Watching people function in a shepherding gifting outside of a stage and just in homes and in places is just beautiful and it's, it's very needed.
Speaker 1:One of my best friends is a shepherd and I'm so grateful for her friends as a shepherd and I'm so grateful for her, yeah, so let's, uh, let's wrap up by talking about that group of older disciples coming out of the church system into the home.
Speaker 2:But these people have all been in the institutional church for 10 years. Uh, what does that group look like? What are the benefits, cause there are some, and what are the obstacles? Yeah, um, so that group look like.
Speaker 1:What are the?
Speaker 2:benefits Cause there are some, and what are the obstacles?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, so that group. Let's talk about the benefits first. So the benefits.
Speaker 2:I do want to touch on one thing real quick and that is most people would skip over sharing the gospel with that I still share the gospel with him.
Speaker 1:Like when that pastor came to my house, um, he didn't get. They didn't get deliverance the first time, it was the second or third time we met. The wife came first and I'm like, hey, I'm going to share the gospel with you. And she's like, what? And I'm like I have to.
Speaker 1:I share the gospel with everyone because, again, I don't know what you heard 20 years ago when you responded. You could have heard just come to Jesus and hope for the best. Or you could have heard just come to Jesus so you can get your best life. Or you could have heard come to Jesus and you ain't got to repent. Or you ain't got to do nothing, just come to Jesus. Or Jesus loves you.
Speaker 1:But they never told you to repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit. So I share the gospel always, no matter how old you are in the faith, how old you are in numerical numbers, or how long you've been walking this earth. You're, how old you are in numerical numbers or how long you've been walking this earth, you go and hear the gospel every time. So share the gospel with them, no matter how long they've been in the church. Share the gospel. I can't say that enough.
Speaker 1:So these people that have been in church for 10, 20 years, we preach the gospel to them. If they've never been baptized, we baptize them. If they've never truly repented and they're still living in sin, we walk them through true repentance and hold them accountable and baptize them. Or let's say they do have all those parts and they just know something's missing and they don't know what to do. This is going to be your hardest group to honestly disciple, because they are the most institutionalized. It's like trying take a prisoner out of prison for 20 years and put them back into society with zero warnings. You know, kind of like halfway house situation they're going to be like what am I doing?
Speaker 2:No transition. Yeah, it's very cold, turkey it is.
Speaker 1:It's a little shocking. It's shocking for their system.
Speaker 2:You need a church anonymous.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's, that's hilarious. That would be funny.
Speaker 2:Um, but it's a shock to their system.
Speaker 1:It's a shock to everything they've ever known. Everything's now different and new and they've got to literally like it's harder to undo things and read, learn things than just to learn things the first time. So they're now unlearning things. They're uncomfortable. It's like trying to start a diet for the first time, like if you've been eating biscuits and gravy and sausage every single day for 20 years and then somebody's like, by the way, that's a heart attack ready to happen. You need to eat. You know some grains or some some minerals, some fruits, some vegetables, you know things like that that are really like sustainable.
Speaker 1:It's so hard. The first the person's not going to desire it because it's not what their taste buds are used to. And then they got to relearn how to think about food and that relationship with food. So it's the same way with the institution of church. They have to relearn the way they do church and it's very hard for them and it could take them six, seven, eight years to relearn something. So this group may mature slowly because you're undoing things while adding new things to the mix.
Speaker 2:I want to throw in on that. One of the obstacles that I've noticed is these people have also they haven't had relationships outside of the Christian circle they know in 15 years. So don't beat yourself up if you're 10, 20 years in the institution of a church and you step out and now you struggle with reaching people for that obstacle.
Speaker 2:You step out and now you struggle with reaching people for the gospel, because you're not in the same scenario as a younger person who still has access to a lot of non-Christian relationships, right? So don't beat yourself up, you're going to have the hardest time.
Speaker 1:You're going to have the hardest time because your audience is now just your church friends. And now you're trying to convince your church, religious, institutionalized friends on what God's showing you and 80% of them probably are going to think you're crazy. So now you feel like you've lost that community because they now think you're crazy. Maybe a few have got it and now you have this new community and now you're and they're telling you everything you ever learned was like is actually not biblical and institutionalized, and you're like so you're the most uncomfortable one, you're the most stretched. It's the hardest group to disciple. But the one thing I do know about this group of people that is really good is they're amazing servers. Normally they're huge servants in the community.
Speaker 2:Strong character.
Speaker 1:Strong character is normally there and they're not necessarily dealing with heavy-hitting sins anymore like pornography, addictions or things like that. They're just having to relearn how to actually be the body of Christ, how to do church properly and how to be evangelistic. Now, now you have to go into the world, into your workplace, and actually share your faith.
Speaker 2:And sometimes these are the most frustrated people with the institutional church because they spent so many years being deceived.
Speaker 1:And they feel like they've been bamboozled. Yes, yeah, and so just walking them've been bamboozled. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so just walking them through that and being like I know this sucks. So there's a time of grieving of time lost.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:But also we've got to get over that and move past that and be like thank the.
Speaker 1:Lord, that my eyes were opened.
Speaker 2:And now I can you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There it is. Moses was ready, there it is, yeah.
Speaker 1:They just have the hardest time in the sense of like now they actually have to go practice their faith in the work world. And it's hard when maybe you've been working at a job for 10 years and you've never shared your fate. They just think you're a really nice guy or a really nice lady, you know, and now you're like by the way, I've been a fake this whole time. Or, by the way, I had no and I've never shared it with you. Can I talk to you about it, it's just harder.
Speaker 1:It's harder. So, yeah, and people are going to think you're crazy but possible. We've seen it happen multiple times and people become very successful. But those groups high character, high serving one another, deep love for each other, because you do have a true love for the body and an understanding of its importance and its place. But when it comes to the actual obedience of Christ on doing the things of Jesus in the mission of Christ, it's not as natural for them. But again, I've seen so many people overcome it and actually do it and it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:But they can be the most critical though too. You people can be the most critical. High commitment yes, not as flaky, not as flaky Some younger people, that's right.
Speaker 1:But yes, the most critical can get critical, that's right because they, they again, you, just you just got to get all the religion out of you and just be okay with yeah, so this is real life and this is.
Speaker 2:We want to do this because it's like you may think. You may think what you're going through is not normal and, man, I wish just like I got to experience what Justin and Brooke experienced and it looks like everything's so fruitful and amazing and it just works. But these are all the obstacles that you have to overcome with different groups of people and different scenarios and stuff like that. We want to encourage you. You can overcome that, that's right you can grow through them and when you grow through them not just go through them.
Speaker 1:That's a good that needs to be on a t-shirt yeah, grow through.
Speaker 2:We have lots of slogans we would when you grow through, yeah things when you grow through difficulties. Uh, it builds your character it builds your endurance. It builds all of those things that make you more like jesus, right maturing to be like jesus, and that's the end goal. So, in all these different scenarios, you just have to have the perspective that all of these obstacles are going to make me more Christ-like, but as the discipler or the person that's helping facilitate the community.
Speaker 2:We just wanted to give you some practical examples of what situations might look like when you're dealing with non-believers versus new believers, versus mature believers, because we wanted to give you uh most people coming out of the institution, institutional church. Their biggest obstacle is uh biggest difficulty, especially if you want to disciple others or teach others. The organic way of church is is um the responsibility of having to help walk people through this and not wanting to just give up yeah. And so we want to encourage you with those, the practical advice One more practical thing about those institutionalized older folk.
Speaker 1:They, when the spirit really starts to move, they can get uncomfortable and want to systematize it or stop it because it's uncomfortable. And then maybe there's not a pamphlet or a book on how to go through it. You know, um, don't do that. That squelches the spirit. Let the spirit lead your community. Don't try to systematize your community. Don't try to put programs in play to make it feel more, more safe. Um, and when the spirit moves, like, really let him, let him move and Don't try to put programs in play to make it feel more, more safe. Um, and when the spirit moves, like, really let him, let him move and don't try to shut it down because you're uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean that goes back to. I think we talked about that last episode or two episodes ago, when we talked about institutionalizing your house church.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:It's a temptation, and it's it's. Everybody has that temptation that has come out of the institutional mindset. But, like you said, if you've been in it longer it's going to be more good, Like if you've eaten biscuits and gravy for 50 years it's going to be easier.
Speaker 1:Oatmeal might not taste so good at first. Well, when you're put in, uncomfortable situations. That's when you want to revert to what's comfortable and you've got to press through and it takes time.
Speaker 2:The longer you've been in it, the longer it takes for you to build those new habits, those new work, those new faith muscles and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So I hope this episode was helpful to you and practical for you. This is all out of scripture and real life experience. We've seen these things, we've seen at work, we've gone through these actual obstacles that we're talking about. So we just want to give that to you in hopes to help equip and train you guys, uh, to really see people mature and become more like Jesus. So if you've got additional questions, shoot them down in the comments and we'll do our best to either respond or talk to them on future podcasts.
Speaker 2:So, thanks again for joining us, thanks to my beautiful princess of a co-host.
Speaker 1:King Justin, that's weird yeah.
Speaker 2:We'll see you in the next episode. Bye guys.