Without an invitation, the person being discipled can't count the costs.

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Justin, have you, um, have you ever walked into a situation where you've had like all the different feelings? Uh, L let me explain a little bit. I you're giving me that. No one can see the look that you're giving me right now, but you're like Tony, I don't know what you're talking about. Uh, the feeling of it.

Butterflies deep inside your stomach, your palms are sweating and you're like, ah, maybe even got a little sweat on the brow, perhaps. Um, I don't know about you, but for me when this happens and this could be because I'm a bigger guy, I tend to pit out. I don't know if you've ever heard that expression before, where you sweat through your armpits and all of a sudden you can see I'm sure you've seen it before.

Right. And all of those feelings. Um, ha have you ever had those kinds of moments before, or do you ever, uh, ever walk into a situation where that's the case? Well, it's, it's happened to me at a couple of times in my life. First of all, I'm totally kidding. I was like, oh man, Justin's extremely confident in everything.

I appreciate that. Yeah. It reminds me of like, you know, asking a girl out or something before I was married or situation that I go into where I'm really nervous or feel a lot of anxiety around something. Yes. And, you know, it's, uh, I've been married, uh, over 18 years and, um, there's now only one situation in my life where I get that feeling.

Do you know where that situation is? No. I'm really interested though. It's inviting someone into a disciple-making relationship really well. It's just, so it feels so foreign to everything that I've experienced growing up. So would you say that that's still true of you like today or, you know, I've had a couple, you know, a few cracks at it now.

Right? Is it getting easier? So, yes. Right. There's a lot less sweat involved. Thank the Lord. Cause that's just awkward. Um, but the truth is, is, is that now through some reps, it's not as scary, but when I talked to my guys who I'm discipling about inviting someone to disciple, um, I get like. That same feelings from them.

D do you notice the same thing? Yes. Yep, absolutely. So I think Tony, what you're describing most new disciple makers, they have that experience. It's this intense anxiety or dislike around the thought of inviting somebody into a disciple making relationship. And a lot of people just don't do it anymore, or they don't do it ever because they don't want to have it.

Those feelings. Like you're asking somebody out on a date, especially when it's the same gender person and that's not, that's not where you are. Right. And so, um, but there's a, there's a concern about a few things. So one is just that awkwardness, right? Well, man, if I go into that conversation and try to invite somebody into a disciple-making relationship, that's going to be really relationally awkward for us.

Um, and certainly for the person asking, cause they know going into it, what's what's about to happen. Yeah. Um, and other people just think, well, it's not, we don't have to do it. Let's just start, I'll just start discipling them. We don't need to talk about it. It's more important just to do it. And so I'll just start doing it.

And then other people worry that, you know, it might be, uh, uh, taken as an offense, right? Because if, if I'm inviting somebody and I'm saying, Hey, you know, would you pray about becoming into a disciple-making relationship? And I will help you, et cetera, et cetera, that the other person might be offended. Oh, well, you think you're further along than I am or something like that.

And so we have all these sorts of insecurities and fears, um, around this idea of inviting someone into a disciple-making relationship. Um, for me, I always go back to the foundation that we talk about a lot on this podcast and that is Jesus style discipling. And so we look at the example of Jesus, what did he do here?

Right. And so we know, right. He explicitly. And so I think we should too. Yeah. And, and I want to be clear about something, right? We're not, um, we're not talking about just going up on like a, uh, a blind date here with somebody that doesn't already have the same viewpoints as you, you want to make sure that you're, you're talking and only discipling Christian.

Because non-Christians have a place in our life as disciples, right? We, we need to have non-Christians in our life as a disciple to help share right. The gospel and to, to be, you know, it's, I think it's one of the core identities of being a disciple is surrounding yourself with people. Don't believe in Christ so that we can help be the light in those circumstances.

But those aren't the people that we want to start discipling because you're not building a house on the same foundation. Right. Like you're not starting from the same base. Right. That's important. Right. Because some, there are some places that teach discipling and that talk about, well, you should be discipling and non-Christians and you know, I get their point.

Like their point is yeah. In some ways, Um, what we're doing, the way that we walk with non-Christians relationally, relationally feels similar to the way that we walk with those that we disciple, but what we're doing is very different in that process. And so we just want to be real clear that yeah, it's really a gift.

When, when you begin to, uh, kind of lay out the groundwork on, on where. And what the terms that you're using are right. Cause I have intentional friendships with people that are non-Christians, uh, one, cause they're great people to be around and two because, um, it's really easy for me to get insulated and, and we'll even have a, I'm sure a different podcast episode to talk about non-Christian friendships and how important they are.

Hmm. But when it comes to discipling like Jesus did he didn't, he didn't explicitly invite someone who didn't already believe. What he believed. Right. You know, he there's, no, there's no evidence in scripture to suggest that he was out there discipling Romans for example, or people believed in other versions of God or, you know, those kinds of anything outside of that, his people that believed in your way.

Right. Like, you know, there's, that was kind of, that was kind of the idea. And then he invited them in to that relationship. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, today, as we talk about inviting, we want to recognize that there is often tension around that, especially for those who haven't discipled others very frequently, or maybe they're on their first one or their first few.

And so they don't really know how to do it. And so, but we want to draw out something here that there's a very good reason to make the invitation explicit and we'll get into how we explicitly do it here in a bit. But some of the reasons why we need to have an invitation. Yeah. Without an invitation, the person being discipled can't count the costs.

Right. And so, you know, with Jesus, he asked people to count the cost, right. To think about it before they, they sign up and say, yeah, I'm going to follow you. Right. So, so it allows them that opportunity. It gives them the opportunity to intentionally observe how this disciple-making relationship is going to be different, look different and feel different.

From a friendship or from a mentoring relationship. And so it allows them to observe as they're experiencing and allows them to own the process. Right. And to take ownership of, oh, okay. So, so you're helping me become like Jesus and a discipler like Jesus. And so they can engage it, um, as much as they would like to, or as little as they'd like to, but then you guys are in it together and that allows them to see the vision.

Right. Not only the vision that we've talked about previously, And one of our episodes around, you know, motivation for discipling and, you know, becoming like Jesus, like we just talked about a few weeks ago. Um, but also the vision to reproduce that fruitfulness of our lives really means bearing fruit of new disciples and, uh, more, more disciples who are growing in maturity.

And so, um, you know, there is all that tension, but we have these really clear and really important reasons why we need to have this initiative. Yeah, I think it's definitely one of those things. That's a both, and right. Like it, we need to be explicit in the invitation. We need to be intentional in the invitation and we need to be relational in the invitation as well.

Like it all lives together. Um, and, and it's so important to understand that, that this is a muscle that gets stronger. The more reps that you do it, and the more time that you spend with people and, and we can be really honest, In the world that we live in today, it's not uncommon to, to get to a place where you're not really being intentional with people.

You're being intentional with social media. Maybe you're being intentional with, uh, projects or work, but it's not very often adults aren't really that great at fringe. Hmm. You know, and, and intentional friendship in the name of our. Feels even more awkward. And so I, you know, I'm kind of curious if we're kind of shift a little bit to the practical side of this, Justin, how do you, uh, how do you do it?

How do you do it? And then, and then I'll share some of my tips. Yeah. Sounds great. So for me, the way that I do it, so first of all, again, we're dealing with a believer already, somebody who's following you. It's not my first time meeting them. Right. And so I have some sort of relational foundation with them, but the way that I do it is I just initiate a conversation with them about disciple-making.

I share a little bit about my story, about why I'm so passionate about it and how it's changed my life. And then I say, you know, I've been praying about, you know, who God would have me disciple. I feel like I have some time to do that some more time to do that. And God brought you to mine. And so I wanted to talk with you about, you know, would you pray about, you know, engaging in an intentional disciple-making relationship with me?

And I say, you know, I want to draw out what that means or spell out what it means so that you can pray about it. And I say disciple-making involves three things. The first thing is a relationship. And so that we would build, you know, in a disciple-making relationship here, we would build an actual relationship, a friendship where I care about you.

You care about me. I know what's going on in your life. You know, what's going on in my life, both the, the good things and the hard things, things I'm struggling. And so that's the first thing. And so it's not an academic setting is one of the things I'm communicating there. The second thing I want to communicate is that disciple-making involves life and ministry skills.

And so I distinguish these by saying that a life skill is anything that would help somebody be successful in their life, whether they're Christian or non-Christian. So it's stuff like, you know, how do I handle conflict? How do I love my spouse? How do I parent, how do I manage my finances? I mean, all of these things are life skills that we need to have if we're going to be successful in life, whether we're following Jesus or whether we're not.

And then ministry skills are all the other stuff, uh, that helps us as believers who are disciples. How do I get into the word? How do I pray? How do I share my faith? How do I help somebody else grow as a believers, a disciple in Christ. And so these are ministry skills. And so we're going to focus on building a relationship.

We're going to focus on life and ministry skills. And the third one is character development. And so character development are those things in our lives that, um, you know, aren't in alignment with. And so these are normally the harder things that we see. Um, you know, I know in my life there was a time that I was always taking the best seat at Bible study and the guy that was discipling me, um, loved me enough to ask me about that because it really got back to my character.

I did it because I was thinking about myself and not others. So I explained all these things, right. Disciple-making involves three things, relationship, life, and ministry skills, character develop. And then, because I'm in a conversation with them, not a presentation. I asked them, I say, well, out of these three, which do you think is most often left out and why?

And most of the time they tell me, um, character development, which I think is most often left out. But sometimes they tell me relationship, which also is sometimes left out because people are more interested in information exchange sometimes. Um, but then I ask them why they think it is well, character developments most often left out because it's the hardest, right?

Because it's no fun for me, Tony, to go into those meetings where I know I have to have that conversation and it's certainly no fun to be on the other side. And so, as I explained, all that, we had that conversation. Then I asked to have any questions and then I just said, You know, God's really put me on your heart because, uh, put them on my heart rather, because I believe that he wants us to engage in this together, but I need you to pray and to hear from God.

And would you take the time to just pray about it and, um, and most of the time, yeah, that's great. There are some times when they've already been praying and asking God. Somebody would come to them and start discipling them. And so they they're like, Hey, I've already been praying, sign me up. And so that's kinda how I do it, Tony, those three things.

Oh, I love that. I love that. I, I, you know, it's, it's super interesting cause I love to see our personality types, um, kind of really be illustrated pretty well in these examples. So one of the interesting things for me when I meet with somebody, um, is as a, as a vocation. Pastor. And, and I think that, you know, anybody can be a pastor, right.

But as a vocational pastor, people oftentimes want to meet with me so that they can get some sort of wisdom that they believe that I have. Um, I don't really have any wisdom, just so we're all clear about that. But, um, I do meet with people and oftentimes that will become a regular meeting place. And so when, one of the things that I'm committed to.

Is making sure that I have disciple-making relationships in my life. So when somebody begins to meet with me, um, I set limits of how many times I'll meet with them prior to introducing the idea of disciple-making kind of figuring out where they are on their spiritual journey, their faith walk.

Typically, if people are coming to me, um, they know. They know who I am. They know my I'm going to use the word brand here. I don't, I can't think of a better word to use, right. That I'm Jesus. I'm for Jesus. Uh, I'm a big Jesus guy. So typically when people come in, we begin to develop this relationship. I'll say, listen, in order for this to continue.

Um, I want you to begin to pray about something. I want you to pray about intentionally entering into a disciple-making relationship. Right. And I think maybe God has very similar to what you say. God has brought us together for a season. Um, so that maybe we can both grow. And the way this looks is, is we'll go over, um, your relationship with Christ and how that looks and plays out.

And when we both think that you're ready, I'm going to ask that you do the same thing with someone else. And so I'm super intentional about, Hey, this isn't just meeting for pastoral counseling. This is meeting for reproduction. And I think that that's really important. Now, if, if there's someone who I'm meeting with that's outside of the church, um, I generally will, will take that same approach.

Um, maybe not, uh, as kind of, uh, upfront as I do the other way. I'll, I'll slow play that a little bit longer, you know, just to see where somebody is in their faith walk again, because I want to make sure that foundationally, we believe the same thing. Before we enter into a relationship that we're going to try to multiply, because it's really hard to multiply something that, that you don't agree on.

Hmm. So, you know, I think that that's kind of how I approach my invitation and, and for the most part, people will either run towards it or they'll run away from it and you'll know right at that moment. Right. Well, I really liked that though, because it does. It provides that opportunity for decision. Yeah.

Right. Because either I'm in on this or I'm not. And so if you're on the same page at the beginning, then it really helps it go well from there on out. Right. Because if there's not clarity at the front, then if they're not meeting the expectations that you have, that they don't even know that you have, then it's hard for you to be like, Hey, you know, why aren't you doing this?

But at the same time, if you're agreed at the front end, Okay, we're going to do this together for this purpose. Then later on, if things aren't going well, then you can always go right back there. Yeah. Right. And you can say, Hey, you know, remember when we talked about this, I felt like we were on the same page.

Has something changed for you? Right. And so then you can begin to have that conversation that really helps course correct. As time goes on. And again, this is all dialogue driven, right? So it's not, it's not a monologue. People always ask questions like, oh, what does that entail? And, and I'll say it usually entails about an hour and a half every other week.

It'll almost always have homework. You know, there will be expectations of you to bring some intentionality into the relationship. And, uh, and, and we're going to hold each other accountable. Right? I expect you to hold me accountable too, which is sometimes a little awkward for people at first, until they realize that I'm just as messed up as anybody else.

Yeah. So here's the question, Tony. So we've been talking and most of our contexts, we generally do one-on-one right. But would anything change if you were doing a triad like you and two others, are you in three? Or would you just kind of go about the same way? Um, I think I would mostly go about it the same way.

The only thing I would add to that is, is I would want to be very intentional about the three of us making sure that we connect with each other. Right. And so that it's equally, it's an equal connection across every relationship and not just one relationship where like, if it was me, you and Connor, I would want to.

Um, Justin and Connor are talking just as much as me and Connor are me and Justin. Right. I would want the connection to be fortified across all fronts. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I think for me, it'd be similar, right. That, that we would be saying, all right, we're doing this together. And so if it's three of us or four of us, and how do we support one another's growth through that?

You know, just like what you're saying in the cohort, we always talk about we're a team on this, right? Like when, whenever we're kind of teaching people about some of the foundations of disciple-making we talk about, Hey, we got to do this as a team. Cause it's, it's hard to do on your yeah, absolutely. Tony, how, how about you take us out from here.

Kind of wrap us up with our takeaway or action step. What are we looking at? Well, today's tech takeaway is simple, but not easy. If you want reproduct. An invitation is required. If you want reproduction, an invitation is required and the action step, Hey, decide in, develop your invitation and guess what invite somebody you can do it.

Tell us about it afterwards. Love to hear how the invitation went. We want you to know that we're walking alongside you in this journey. We believe in you, and we know that you can do it as always. We want to thank you. Thank you so much for being a part of our community. Thank you for taking the time to live.

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