But yet, what did we choose to do with our time? The vast, vast majority of people out there, who are Bible believing Christians trying to follow Jesus. they didn't invest that time into becoming. A stronger disciple or disciple that is working to disciple others.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the practitioners podcast. We're applying Jesus' style disciple-making to every day life. This episode is powered by navigators church ministries, which focuses on helping churches, make disciples who can make disciples for more information, or to get connected to navigators, church ministries, check out their website, www.navigatorschurchministries.org.
Good morning, my friend. How are you? Doing great. How are you? I'm good. I'm really good. And I I'm excited because I wanted to have today's conversation based off of something that you wrote that I completely disagree with.
Right. So, recently you posted a blog and I love your blogs. You know, how much I I'm a big fan of your work, by the way, if you don't subscribe to Justin's blogs, you should, www.justingravitt.com is the best way to get signed up for those. And, every couple of weeks you put out new articles around what you're learning and what you're seeing.
In disciple-making and you work with dozens of churches all over the Miami valley, and you've been, how long, how many years you've been doing? Disciple-making a, disciple-making about 22 years. So I would say that you're a subject matter expert, for sure. And so I don't want this conversation to be about whether or not we're debating your subject matter expert in this.
Yeah. But I read something about the disciple makings biggest obstacle. Do you remember that blog? Yes, absolutely. And so in the course of the blog, you talk about an old blog that you wrote about how you thought the biggest barrier was busy-ness and then this new blog where you present a new article, a new line of thought around the biggest obstacle to disciple-making.
And so here's what I'd like for you to start off with. I'd like for you to kind of. Tell everybody about the old blog and how you got to this new blog. And then I can tell you why I think you're wrong. I can't wait for that part. Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. So, about four years ago, I wrote a blog on the biggest barrier to disciple-making, was busy-ness and I didn't just make that up, right.
Not only was I observing that in the culture. there was also a book that was published, uh co-published between Barna and the navigators called the state of discipleship, which looked at, you know, from data-based inquiry of pastors, church leaders, Christian educators, all in America, and they all identified the same number one barrier in that book.
And the number one barrier they identified was general busy-ness of life. And so, you know, enough, the first blog, I was just kind of unpacking that. What does it look like? What does it mean? and I basically said, well, it's contrary to how Jesus lived and walked to be completely overwhelmed with our schedules and busy.
And yeah, so that was the first one. And that was, I mean, that was pretty popular. It wasn't, it was pretty well received. Yes. Yep. One of the more popular blogs that I published, yeah, for sure. Yep. Yep. because it just rang true, right. For so many of us at that time that, you know, our schedules are full, we don't have time for this or that.
and so, yeah, so it was very popular. but then COVID happened and, and up ended a lot of things. And one of the things that bothered me, about COVID and not only bothered me about what I was seeing and others, but also what I was seeing in myself is that my schedule had completely stopped. Right.
In terms of any extracurriculars, outside stuff, kids sports, I mean, all of it just stopped. And what I didn't see was, an increase in motivation in my own heart. Well, nor did I see it in those that I was talking with or interacting with, towards spending time with Jesus, digging into the word, doing Bible study, discipling others, or even connecting with others, in the ways that we could, in the, the peak of the pandemic.
And so as I was mulling that over and thinking about it, it bothered me because then I thought, well, wait a second. I'm not sure that that's true anymore. This busy-ness and maybe it was never true. Maybe it was, that busy-ness was a symptom rather than the actual problem. That kept us from engaging God as a disciple and engaging others as disciple makers more fully.
So, I dunno, a couple of months ago, published this new blog, on the biggest obstacle to disciple-making and I believe now that it's, it's not busy-ness it is indifferent. when it comes down to it. Okay. So, let's, let's start the dialogue there. Okay. Here's where you come in and disagree. Well, I, yes, but I first, I want to make sure that I think language is important.
You and I both believe that that language is super important, especially when it comes to, creating movement. Right. Common language leads to common movement. so let's define, why don't you define, Indifference in the way that you mean it in this blog, right? Like a pink paint, your argument here, kind, sir.
And then I'll tell you how you're wrong. so yeah, indifference, I chose that word very carefully. the first word that came was apathy and I, that's not really apathy, that felt. Too strong and too much, like people don't care at all. but indifference, the way I'm using it here, I think is essentially we care, but we don't really care that much.
And we kind of care kind of don't. and so with, with what I've seen in the culture, et cetera, et cetera, I think that indifference is. A word that, that captures it as, as good as any other where, you know, we have extra time and we might think about, maybe I should pray more. Maybe I should get in the word more, or maybe I should call up my friend and begin to somehow intentionally influence or disciple them.
but then we think about all the other things that we could do with our time. Yeah. You know, maybe. You know, start up some Netflix show, maybe I'll hop on Tik TOK for awhile. Maybe I'll do candy crush or some other games, right? Yeah. I've seen lots of shirts that say Netflix and chill. I've never seen one that says pray and disciple.
Right. and so, you know, we had all the time, but yet what did we choose to do with our time? The vast, vast majority of people out there, who are. Bible believing Christians trying to follow Jesus. they didn't invest that time into becoming a stronger disciple or disciple that is working to disciple others.
and so essentially indifference, it says it's a shrug of the shoulders. Like yeah. Yeah, maybe I'll get to that later, but right now I'm not going to do that. And right now, is always now, right. And so the later never comes. And so that is just a pervasive indifference. And there's a verse. I don't remember if I put it in the article or not, but I've been thinking about it a lot.
it's out of Hosea, Hosea 13, six, and it, and God says to, To Jose. I believe he says, when I fed them, they were satisfied when they were satisfied, they became proud, then they forgot me. And so again, when I fed them, they were satisfied when they were satisfied, they became proud. Then they forgot me.
And I think culturally, we have, A pandemic, not only of COVID, but of being distracted and satisfied and things other than Jesus and what he asks us to be about. and so that's where I get to that, that indifference. Okay. So here's where I'm going to push back just a little bit, right? Cause I, I would say that on my list of the biggest obstacles to disciple-making and differences on the list, but it's.
One or two, it might be three is, I've kind of like mapped it out right now. let me start with this. You and I both believe that disciple-making is a form of spiritual parents parenting, right? Yep. So when a child misbehaves. Right. When you think about a child who is in their early twenties and has no, let's just take something easy, no table manners, for example, would you say that that if that child's never been shown a table manner before in his entire life or her entire life, is that a child problem or a parent problem?
They've never seen them. They've never seen them. They've never been exposed to them. Or maybe they've read about them in a book, but they've never been, they've never been taught. Yeah. So that's a parent problem. Yeah, not that. So for me, I would say that the number one. Biggest obstacle in the disciple-making world that we live in today is the culture of the north American church.
And you and I have talked about this before. I'm not sure if we have on the podcast, but we should, if we haven't is the idea that there are so many spiritual orphans running around. Yes. And so I don't think it's indifference as much as it is, is that we live in a culture that is never taught the majority of Christians, how to make disciples, what a disciple looks like, or even disciplines, what we've taught people over the last several years.
And I know we've talked about this on this podcast is we've taught people how to go to church. Right now the pandemic, what the pandemic did is it, it shifted that movement a little bit to the point where now churches is online. And so people started going online, but at the end of the day, I don't think people are indifferent.
I think they're ignorant because of culture. Okay. How do you feel about that? Yeah, I'm thinking about it. Yeah, I think that that's true, right. There are certainly, you know, lack understanding. but I guess, so we might be thinking about two different audiences in a sense, or like, you know, types of people, maybe.
So it sounds like you're thinking about people who are very young in their faith. I'm thinking about people who. You know, in, in churches we would look at and say, no, they're, they're mature. They, they walk with Jesus, et cetera, et cetera, but they are not disciples. Well, I, I, but, so again, though, right? If we, if we go back to the spiritual disciple-making growth process, which if, if you don't subscribe, you should go back and check some of those episodes out.
One of the things that we firmly said throughout the entire process is that it's not about age necessarily, but it's about their walk with the Lord. And so I would say that there are a lot of people who have been in church a really long time. And, and again, this is a culture issue. This is a north American church.
Culture issue, which is what I would say is the biggest obstacle to disciple making is this idea that there are so many churches who have no concept of what making disciples, if we we've kind of relegated it to programming. And so programming is what people know on how to connect with Jesus, because that's what we've taught them.
You know, what. Yes. Sure. and I'm not, I'm not just talking about, you know, the, the mature in terms of they've been in church a long time. And you're making good points. So I wanna, I wanna be clear on that. if you're listening, that means I'm winning. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Keep going.
Tony gets fired up in conversations like these. I love a good debate. So yes, I think that is an obstacle, but I also see people who. Have known, right. They have been exposed. They have some exposure to what disciple-making is. They've been exposed to, what they should do, not even in terms of just disciple-making, but in terms of loving their neighbor, people, you know, being involved with the lost, You know, all these things that oh, they know.
Oh yeah. I know. I should probably pray at some point through the day and be devoted to prayer is collagen's four, two says. but ah, you know, and so it's that attitude that I think keeps us because if they had an attitude that wasn't indifferent. See, I look at what you're saying and thinking, well, even if they hear of disciple-making, there's enough out there.
Like you can just start Googling and getting books. I mean, you can, you can get all of that if you had the hunger to get it right. And so, yeah, there's some obstacles within the systems that we have. but if somebody was not indifferent, if they were hungry for. Well, yeah, I got, I want to know you more. I want to be a part of building your kingdom.
I want to be a part of this disciple-making thing that, you know, I see in Matthew 28, you know, I think there'd be more movement towards that. Okay. I mean, I see your point there. And I think that's a very valid point. I I'm often reminded of the reality that there's all this dieting information out there, and yet I still make bad choices.
Right. And part of that is I believe that no, one's, like that's not really been a great model for me. Like it's not healthy. Eating has never been. I mean no offense to my parents. Like it's never been super modeled. I grew up on, on mashed potatoes and meatloaf and, you know, maybe green beans, if we're lucky, right?
Definitely butter bread. Oh man. That's good. That's good living. But, but the whole idea though, is that, I just think that part of the reason why people don't do it is because they don't know what's on the other side, the transformation that's on the other side, we haven't shown people that vision we have and that's, that's not, that's not.
The individual's burden. That's the church's burden, right? Yes. Yep. Yeah. I agree. I think that one of the things that we're saying here is there there's some big obstacles for sure. Right. And, you know, as a, to put out a blog of the biggest one, I mean, obviously it's an opinion piece, but, the. What we're trying to say is that, you know, if we could address this one thing and I think there might be a few of those that maybe are neck and neck, right?
Yeah. And, and honestly they all, they all kind of run in the same vein, right? Like, cause my number two is fear. Yep. So I would go culture, fear and then indifferent. Okay. Yeah, I was going to rank the top three, those, because I think people are very scared to be vulnerable and intimate, which is what's required of us in, in, and S you know, kind of that surrender thing, that whole part of it.
Right. Yeah. That makes sense. if any, one of those three that you just named was definitively addressed, do you think it would unlock, unlock the, the movement for that person? Definitively addressed what I would, I would say yes. I would say that if, if one of those three, if, because they all, again, back to that idea that they all kind of run close together.
Yeah. They they're linked in some way. Yeah. They're all linked in some way. I B. I get your opinion on something in preparation for our conversation today, I looked over, mark 10, where Jesus and the rich young ruler have this conversation. Right? So that if you're not familiar with the verse that the rich young ruler goes to Jesus and says, you know, what will it take to follow you?
Right? Like I've, I've not teacher. I've kept all these commandments from a youth. I've been a really good follower of the law. Right. Looking at him, it says, verse 21, Jesus showed love to him and said to him, one thing you lack, go and sell all your possessions and give to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven.
Come follow me. But he was deeply dismayed these words, and he went away grieving for he owned so much property. Do you think, what do you think the biggest obstacle in this dialogue is? I'm curious. Cause I can't decide if I think it's the fear of not having possessions, if it's the fear of being vulnerable or the indifference of not wanting to give up, you know, and obviously the shame and honor culture of, of Judaism at the time.
Right. Not wanting to give up that position of honor. Right. Is that indifference, is that fear? Is that culture? What do you think? Yeah, so I would say that his biggest. Obstacle, the reason that he walked away and this is, you know, opinion, right? Not fact that, that he didn't want to trade in his system of morality for Jesus's into, that would be indifference then.
Yeah, because he has a system that's working for him and his life. And yeah, I want this Jesus. I want, I want to follow you. I want to learn from you. But I not, I don't think I'm going to give all that up. I don't want it that much. And so, you know, I'm, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to walk away. Cause isn't that the passage to where, he says to Jesus that all these commands I have kept since I was youth.
Yup. Yup. And so, you know, he's standing in a place of self-righteousness and he's got it figured out without needing to follow more than he already is. That's a great point. That's a great point. I love the idea of this. Self-righteous. Self-righteousness standpoint because I think oftentimes at least in my own life, I find myself in that spot.
Right. Where I'm, I'm like, I'm doing everything right. I, I do this, I do that. I'm reading scripture and praying and yet, Jesus wants more. He wants my heart and that's what I love. That's honestly, that's what I love most about disciple-making is the heart transformation. Amen. Yep. And I think that's. You know, when I, when I engage with a lot of religious people, and even, you know, like you said, there are times in my own heart where I struggle with, well, I don't know.
I think I'm good right now. You know, that this there's this idea of I'm kind of satisfied the way things are. If I'm honest, why, why go through all this? Right. Why go through the fear? Why go through the learning, something new and maybe fail and you know why I. I'm okay. How I am. And so, yeah, that's where I landed.
you know, I like really like the points you're bringing up though about the culture. Western church. And what does it ask of those who are participating in terms of their own discipleship? Because most churches don't ask much other than just come on Sundays, maybe get into a small group or life group.
And then you're good. I mean, it's kind of the, the in, what's the word it's kind of the, the communication behind the scenes, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good point that you're making well, thank you. And I think it's a great blog. If you haven't checked it out yet, Justin gravitt.com subscribe to Justin's writings.
If, if anything else it'll really get you thinking about where you are and what's happening and what that looks like. So, that's important. Yeah. Tony, you have a blog to TW milt.com. Yeah. It's interesting. And you writing about. Your take on this, the biggest obstacle, okay. challenge accepted. You can put me on the spot at the end of the podcast.
I was going to say that. Nope. Good thing. I can edit it out. No, I'm just kidding. Okay. So let's get to our takeaway today that more than anything, what, what we really want you to hear is that the biggest obstacle that we face in disciple-making will always be an internal opposite. Right. At the end of the day, this is a choice.
And you as a follower of Christ, presumably as a follower of Christ, have to make the decision. Am I willing to be in it to make disciples so that the takeaway, the biggest obstacle we'll face and disciple-making will always be internal and the actions. Spend a little time this week, identify your obstacle and develop a plan to address it.
Maybe talk about it with a friend or somebody who's been pouring into you. That's critically important. identify your obstacle, develop a plan to address it as always. We are so thankful to be on this journey with you guys. We're thankful for the way that you support us do as a favor, subscribe. Hit that subscribe button also leave a rating review on iTunes.
It really does help get the word out and maybe share this episode with a friend, somebody who you've had some healthy debate with about disciple-making and what that might look like. Thank you guys so much. And we look forward to connecting real soon.