For spiritual infants. Yeah. They, they have a saving faith in Jesus and they're beginning to walk it out, but all right. There's still a lot of habits and a lot of just mess that they make everywhere. Yeah.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the petitioner's podcast where we're applying Jesus style disciple-making to everyday life. This episode is powered by navigators church ministries, which focuses on helping churches, make disciples who can make disciples for more information, check out their website, navigators, church ministries.org, Justin, how are you this morning?

Doing great. It's a good day. I'm good, man. I'm feeling, as we record this, now it is mid March and I'm feeling a little bit like spring is finally here. We are done with the snow it's on its way. Although we had that ice storm last night. So that was, that was super weird. That was super weird, but I, I, you know, it's Ohio and so anything is possible.

I wouldn't even put one more, you know, a little flurry past us, but nothing's sticking it. Yeah. That's right. Yep. We're on our way out. Super exciting. I'm glad to, to be done with winter. You know, one of the things I love about this season is that it feels like a season of growth. You know, it's a, it's a little messy, it's a little awkward at times in terms of like, man, I need a coat in the morning and a coat in the evening, but during the day I need a t-shirt or something like that, but I love the signs of growth everywhere.

Amen to that. Yes, absolutely. And very awkward. I don't know what else to say that. Yeah, no, I like that growth and growth. It can be a little awkward at times and that's why I'm so excited that we're jumping into. phase one of this series that we talked about last week, we talked about kind of the different phases of growth in the disciple-making process, what that looks like.

And today we're going to start at the very beginning because it's a very good place to start. If I can quote the, the old Disney song. and tell us a little bit about where we're starting to do. Yeah. So today we're going to talk about infant disciples. Tony loving infant is like right. Newborns, right.

And, and a little bit after that, but certainly newborns. Give us a, give us a good image, a picture of what an infant disciple is kind of, or maybe a story from your past. Yeah, sure. So let me tell you a story about a guy named Greg, who, I was fortunate enough to know and to help bring into the kingdom number of years ago.

And, Greg at the time was 18 years old, college student. And I'd been walking with him for a number of months and kind of sharing my faith with him and sharing about the gospel. And, and then he decided that he was going to, you know, embrace Jesus and begin following him. Man Tony, there is there's few things as exciting as seeing somebody take that, that next step, right from non-belief or skepticism into faith and believing.

And so I was super excited for Greg and, began to disciple him and kind of walk with him as an infant believer. And I still remember one time that I was, I walked over to his door. It was like a Monday. And, we sat down in his dorm room and, and he said, well, you know, weekend was okay, but, but I got into a couple of fights.

And I was, I said, who are you? Who are you fighting? And he was like, oh, this, and he's dropping all these, you know, F-bombs and he's like, you know, these guys in my dorm and yada yada, and, and I remember just sitting there thinking like, what happened? I thought that we'd really turned a corner here as far as, you know, faith and following Jesus and, and yeah.

That, that was the reality of his life, where sometimes I would go to meet with him and he would be telling me things that were, you know, really indistinguishable from, what he was doing and what we would expect nonbelievers to do. And now over time, what I realized is. You know, this was super normal, that Greg was just being who he was as an infant disciple.

And just in the same way that, you know, when you have a, a physical baby, there's not much they can do, on their own. And they make a lot of messes everywhere. And so it's kind of the same thing with infant disciple. Yeah. And, and I think that, you know, and to talk about this disciple-making process and where you are in the different phases of disciple-making, I think the first thing that's really important to note is that, even if you're an infant disciple, it doesn't mean that you're not saved, right?

Like if you're an infant disciple, you've already made that commitment to Christ. You're saying, I believe in Jesus and. Working on living out what it means to follow him. Right. And I think that scripture that you are a new creation in Christ, right. And, and if we think about that, Second Corinthians five 17.

Yes. And so that new creation in Christ that, the old is gone, the new is here and this idea that I'm born again, right. I'm saved. And so I believe in Jesus and that's what makes me an infant. It really just for clarity sake, it has nothing to do with age. It has nothing to do with, you know, what you've experienced prior to Christ, but your infancy begins when you say yes to Christ.

Yeah, absolutely. That new birth. Yeah. And so for Greg, that new birth had happened and there, and the holy spirit was active in his life. Like in that particular day, he, he didn't feel good about what he'd done. He knew him wasn't right now, there were some other things going on. There wasn't right. The, that the spirit hadn't put his finger on yet.

And so it wasn't in his range of awareness of, Hey, maybe I shouldn't be doing that yet, but that's okay. Right. That's all part of normal growth process. And so for spiritual infants, yeah. They, they have a saving faith in Jesus and they're beginning to walk it out, but. Right. There's still a lot of habits and a lot of just mess that they make everywhere.

So we just need to be aware of that Tony, in your experience, what are some other characteristics or help us understand a little bit more about infants in this state, age of growth for disciples? Well, so full disclosure, I love, like you said, working. infant disciples, right? Especially people that have come to Christ fresh, right?

Without, without church experience, because they come kind of UN without, without as much baggage. There's a lot of us, a lot of us church people do. And, and you and I have both worked with lots of people who have began the journey of disciple-making and our infant disciplers or disciples. And. And who grew up in the church and they come with a completely different set of baggage, but an infant disciple who is brand new to the faith man, they are discovering the value of faith in everyday life.

Like I, I mean like Jesus is physically changing. Their world. And so one of my favorite questions to ask when, when you're discipling someone like that, and there's a gentleman in my life who I'm walking with right now, who's still in that kind of infant disciple phase. I love to say, oh, what did you learn about God this week?

Right. And he's full of incredible things, right? And he's, he's working on learning and reading the scripture and seeking. To apply those spiritual truths into his life on a regular basis. Right. And that's kind of like, man it's and for me as it, you know, it being in ministry, having somebody like that, watching his growth, it only encourages and makes me want to grow even more.

Like my friend, Zach is who I'm talking about here. And he. He has made me much better at scripture memorization because I'm trying to help him grow in that. And as a, you know, as that infant disciple, it's, it's been fun for both of us. I feel like I'm learning a lot about myself in the process. Yeah. Oh, that's exciting.

Yeah, because infant disciples, I mean, they are, they come to all of this fresh, right. And some of them have some background or some history with being in the church or, you know, some being around other Christians for a period of time. Maybe they know some things, but in terms of a practice they're coming to all this fresh.

Right. And so we wouldn't expect, in fact, they're probably not even infant disciples. If they have a lot of disciplines already established in there, Oh, that's a good point. Right? And so one of the things that we're trying to do as people who are investing in and discipling infant disciples, is we're just trying to help them grow up and establish some basic life practices or faith practices.

just the same way. Again, I keep going back to, we can compare it to helping a physical baby, right. And so with physical babies, we can't just throw a can of food at them and say, You know, here's lunch, right? That, that doesn't work. Right. Got it. We got to open the thing up. We got to prepare the food a little bit.

Then we even have to get it. Into their mouth. And so there's a lot of work that we are doing for physical infants. That really translates really well for our infant disciples, that when they need to be fed, right. But we can't expect them just to hand a Bible to them and say, read this and that they're going to get the nourishment out of the word that they're going to need to get on their own without help from us.

And so, For me and maybe Tony, we could talk about this. What are some of the first things that we do with infant disciples? I'll share one of the first things that I do is, you know, review the gospel with them. And I want to put the gospel in front of them regularly, so that, so that they're not losing sight of this new life that they have.

Because they're really in a dangerous phase, they're in a dangerous period of life, just like physical babies. If they're not cared for well, given the attention that they need, the love they need, that life can be, you know, squashed down. And we don't want to go down that, that, that line of thinking spiritually, but there, there danger in that there are.

Disciples who are infant disciples who have been infant disciples for decades because they never had anyone give them the patience and attention and love that they need. So for me, one of the first things I'm doing is putting the gospel in front of them with regularity and talking to them about what God has done in their life.

Another thing that I do is help them with the word and like, how do I. How do I get the word of God into my life and get nourishment out of the word? So for me, those are two of the things that I'll do, pretty early on with an infant disciple. Tony, how about you? What are, what are a couple of things that you do?

Yeah, so I'm really big on. Prayer like, and I'll take them through some of the tools that we use for prayer. Like the ax acronym, adoration, confession, Thanksgiving, supplication, that sort of idea. I want to teach them. How do you get to that thin space between you and God? How do you commune with God on a regular basis?

And then the other thing that's really big along those same lines. How, how do we help that infant disciple begin to articulate their faith walk? Right? And so, Hey, I'm new, something's changed. Something's different inside of me. And I think that one of the biggest temptations is for the people who may be, that are in their life, that, that haven't made that commitment to Christ yet, or haven't made that next step to pull them back in.

Right. And so articulating that, Hey, I'm different. Here's why I'm different. I think that really helps begin to defend against, slipping back into old practices that that may seem like regression instead of a, a catalyst for, for growth. Oh, that's so good. Yeah. So they need to have some language around what's happened, right.

Not only. And I find not only for, for their friends or other people that maybe haven't made that for themselves. Right, exactly. Also for themselves, because the. Satan is he is trying to get them to go back and to say, no, you don't really the God you think just because you pray this or just because you're talking to Tony now or reading scripture, now that you're any different, you're not different.

Right. And so he's whispering all these lies. And so when they can begin to articulate, and the other thing you mentioned earlier, Tony is his scripture memory and how you're doing that with this, disciple that you're helping that when we have scripture memorize boy, we can answer those things with power and authority, the way that Jesus did in the wilderness.

Yeah. I think one of the big things is, is that we've got to instill that the word of God is so much bigger than just a self-help book, right? That, that it's, this process is so much bigger than, you know, than anything else. You, there's nothing on planet earth that compares to walking with Christ. And it's not because Christ is this, you know, something that's going to just make your life better.

But because Christ. Different than everything else. He is Lord. Right? I mean, like I I'm struggling to say it well, but that's the idea that this is this isn't just like this isn't yoga. This isn't anything else. This is the pathway for salvage. Mm. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, really we're talking about spiritual milk, aren't we?

Right, right. The apostle Paul and Hebrews, or whoever you believe the author of Hebrews, talks about needing spiritual milk, not meat. Right. And we cannot expect an infant disciple to handle meat. Right. We want to be preparing for them and giving them spiritual milk. and really that's what we're talking about here, right?

When you're, when we're talking about prayer, right. And we're, we're at like prayer 1 0 1 like remedial prayer. We're not talking about the mysteries of prayer and all this sort, we're talking about remedial prayer, same with being in the word scripture memory. you know, as you think about spiritual milk and how that helps us grow.

Just to unpack that a little bit for us. Well, so I think that, if we stick with the infant metaphor, right, like it's a metaphor that really works out pretty well here. milk is the basic nutrients. Right. And, and when we think about spiritual infants, we're talking about the basic nutrients, right? The danger is, is that if you give somebody more than what they're ready for, they can choke on it.

And I think that that's very true when we think about spiritual infants. And so like our infant disciples, even, you know, like if we go in and we start talking about. You know, are we Calvinist or are we Armenian? Or, you know, what's our, you know, our heaven and hell theology and, you know, and polity of the church.

I mean, that makes me kind of, you know, choke up a little bit. So like, I, I think that, that the idea is, is, let's get them strong. Let's get them healthy. Let's build a foundation and we've talked about foundations before on here. Let's build a foundation that it, no matter what else happens, this foundation can't be shaken.

Right. And that is the idea of milk or, or even just, you know, spiritual meant. Basic practices that you're never going to give up no matter, I mean, they may look different in different seasons, right. But I'm never going to get up reading the word. I'm never going to give a prayer. I'm never going to give up, you know, intentional fellowship or, you know, how I, how I commune with God.

Right? Those are the things that we want to teach so that we can build the rest of this process on top of these foundations. Yes. Oh, I love that. And with spiritual milk too, the other thing that came to me as you were talking is that the milk is given by the mother. Yeah, right. So the, the mother has, has literally in her body made this milk and is now giving it to her infant, who she is paying lots of attention to knowing what their needs are.

And, you know, Tony, we both have the number of kids. You have three, I have four, I have watched my wife look at our infants and say, well, you know, it's time for them to eat. And I'd be like, well, how do you know? Like they're not crying. They're not, you know, whatever they need to eat. Okay. And she will get them and feed them and they'll eat and they continue to grow as a result.

And sometimes that's a part of paying attention to our infant disciples is, oh, I see you need this. And so I'm here to, to help you get this, and to begin applying it to your life and you know, this, this idea of an infant and as a discipler, we are kind of that spiritual parent in this process. Paying attention, preparing the food, giving them the love and attention they need, and really being patient with the messes they make and cleaning up after them sometimes.

Well, one of the things I love about this, for our listeners, right, is that if you're listening to this, you're probably, already moving past the infant disciple process. Right? You, you, you thinking about this kind of in theory, and let me just say that. That nothing will grow. You like raising someone else up.

Right. And so you don't know what it's like to be a dad or mom until your dad or mom. And this is true with disciple-making right? Is that the best way to do this is to just jump in, develop a plan, jump in and get messy with your infant. You know what I mean? And, and at the risk of beating this metaphor to death, right?

Like you, you become a better parent. As you parent more. And so I don't, I don't know about you, but I feel like there've been seasons where I've had to go back and apologize to some of the first guys that I've discipled, because I've learned so much more since then. I'm like, man, that was a mess. I'm sorry.

Right. But Hey, you're, you're the oldest. So I, you know, I appreciate you and I'm glad you're here, you know? Yeah. So it's, it's a messy situation, but it's, there's so much growth for. And for the child in this season of, of the disciple-making. Oh, that's a great insight. I love that. Tony. How about our takeaway and action step for today?

Yeah, I, you know, the takeaway is that that infants need patients' attention and love infants in the disciple-making process need patient's attention and love and the action step. Well, Justin and I really want to challenge you on is to identify if there are any infant disciples in your life. Identify that like, just do a quick survey right now and think about the people in your life that you're connected to.

Are there any of them right now who might need a little bit more attention? Because life is just a little bit messier. And so I think it's important for all of us to kind of lean in and identify those infant decisions. Right. And also don't forget hit the subscribe button right now because you're not gonna wanna miss phase two.

As we begin to talk about the child disciple, that'll be the next episode we're going kind of in order here. And so we don't often say this, you should listen to our podcasts in order, but if you want to get the full impact of the growth cycle of a disciple maker, listening in order is, is really ideal here in subscribing.

Wherever you listen to podcasts is the best way to. As always guys, we appreciate you. We appreciate the time. and we look forward to talking with you guys next week. As we dive into child disciple. Hey, do me one more favor. Share this episode with a friend, maybe somebody who is walking alongside you in their journey of faith.

Share it with a church leader. Let's continue to spread the word about what God is doing on this platform. Thank you guys so much. We'll talk to you soon.