S.1 Ep. 25 What Does a Disciple Making Meeting Look Like?

Is every meeting should include time for relationship building intentional conversation and applicant. Relationship building intentional conversation in the application.

Mm. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the practitioners 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 this. For more information or to get connected check out navigators church ministries.org.

Justin how you doing this afternoon? My friend doing great jazzed about those Cincinnati reds Tony what a tear they've been on. We could turn this into a reds podcast real fast five and one right now. Hopefully they're still. Killing it once once this airs may man by the time people listen to this the reds could be 10 and one 11 and one 20.

And one since we don't really know when we're going to release this off the top of my head dare we dream. Dare we dream.

so funny story. I was going into a disciple-making relationship with a dear friend of mine the other day. And I realized when I pulled into the parking lot. That I had forgotten to write anything down about what we were going to talk about on a scale from one to 10 how much anxiety would that have given you?

let's how long have I been discipling the guy? Well that's a big factor. Okay so probably an eight. Yeah a lot of anxiety right? Yes. The interesting things about this for me is that I didn't have much anxiety about the meeting but I was disappointed that I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be. Like if if I think about my personal failures as a disciple maker not having a plan for a disciple-making meeting is probably the nber one.

Of my personal guilt. so so I thought today we could talk about disciple-making meetings and what do they look like now? I'm much more relational in my meetings. How would you describe your relationships? I know we've talked about this a little bit. Yeah. So I am more naturally intentional. as you said in the past year more naturally related.

And I think most disciple makers are more naturally one of the other so I got to work hard at being relational in meetings. Yeah. And I have to work hard at being intentional in meeting. Sure. Yep. And so I bet that there's somebody listening right now who identifies with one of us or maybe they've got split personalities and they identify with both of us.

Right. let's talk a little bit about what is in a meeting you know what what goes into a disciple-making meeting? What does it look like? And And maybe even start with you know the dangers of being too far one or the other. Right. Okay. so one illustration that that I've thought of is a shower illustration.

Okay. So if you're in the shower and it's super cold the first thing you're going to do is hop out. Right. And you'd be like ah I don't like this. and I think that's what being in a disciple-making relationship is like If you are too intentional and you don't have relationship very much. Right.

and not only do people not like it they're not going to stay in it very long but if somebody is too relational Not intentional enough. It's almost like being in the shower where you gradually turning up the heat and turning up the heat and then you get out and realize you got marks on your back or whatever from it being too hot.

Then if you're too relational and not intentional enough that they might not run away but you are actually doing damage to them because you're calling something disciple-making that is actually just friendship. And so you're giving them an image or picture of what disciple-making is or should be.

That actually isn't going to impact people the way that we desire and God's designed disciple-making to impact them. So you don't want to be too hot. Don't want to be too cold not too relational not too intentional. You kind of want the the middle ground there. and just to clarify what we're talking about in this episode we're talking about the scheduled times that we have with our disciples.

So Jesus said and in mark three 14 when he called the 12 to him he appointed 12 designating them apostles that they might be with him. That was the first thing he called them to is to be with. And so as we're discipling part of what we're striving to do is have some with him or with her time for the ladies where you're just grabbing time with them.

Hey my son's got a game. Do you want to come along? Or Hey I'm going over here. Do you do you want to go or I'm watching this game. Can you come over? Right. And so those sorts of experiences and times with the person you're discipling is a little bit different. We're talking about though the scheduled intentional times that you might have on with some regular frequency.

Yeah. They're they are very intentional right? Like they're very very much. planned hopefully I and and you go in there with an idea about what you're going to talk about. And so I think you know I I think it's it's best to start with a little bit of an overview on what should be included or you know should as a hard word.

But what what typically typically that's a better word are kind of some of the things that we've found success with because one of the positions that Justin and I have always taken is that if there's a better way to do. Then do it right? Like we're not married to this method but this is the method that we found is been most complete most involved.

Most help people stay the most connected. Yes. Yep. And so we're not married to methods but we're anchored in principles. And like we often say in this podcast that Jesus style disciple-making. And so the things that we'll share as far as our methods come out of those principles right. Tony what are some of those things?

broadly speaking should be included. I mentioned a little bit of these about like how to invite someone into a disciple-making relationship. I think it was around episode 11. If you recall if you've if you're a subscriber you know you've already heard this one. If you're not a subscriber now's a great time to hit that subscribe button.

Thank you so much for for doing so but in episode 11 how to invite someone we talked about three major areas right in the first one you've already touched on a little bit is relationships. Relationship building is the with him time with him time outside of the meeting and then in the meeting like Hey how's your life?

How's your wife and kids. Like how are the things that occupy your brain space? Right. In our meetings we will. One of the areas that we are passionate about is the red. So some of our relationship building time ends up being about the reds. Yep. And luckily you know you and I have been doing this long enough together where the relationship building time comes quick.

And so it's not. It doesn't feel like a lot of work. Right. And I'd say for most people it feels the most natural. Yeah. Right. That especially once you've been meeting together for awhile now maybe those initial meetings it feels a little bit awkward to some of us who are more intentional but once there's a friendship there the relational part is normally pretty easy.

And for some people who are very relational and this is the part that could creep into. And dominate everything you know in the meeting. And so that's what one of the things that we have to be yeah certainly guilty of that many many times where I will go into a meeting we ended up talking about someone's life the whole time and we never actually get to the next two parts which are equally important.

The next one I would say is life and ministry. Right. And and this is the scripture reading. This is how to read scripture. This is scripture memorization. These are kind of the tools of the trade. You know we've talked about the tools before. This is making sure that the person you're meeting with has got something that they can take with them for when they to go go and make disciples.

Now this is critically. Not to miss this phase because this is how we get out of personality based. Disciple-making right. You know and I'm sure you've seen it time and time again when we don't give someone life and ministry skills we ended up spending a lot of time getting to know someone which is great.

Right. There's a space and a place for that but then there's no reproduction on the other side of it. Right. Well not only would there be no reproduction but a lot of times too you're just playing defense every meeting. And what I mean by that? Yeah. All that you're doing is responding to the active fires that are going on in the person's life.

When really if there is some intentionality or some authentic intentional communication and help towards some issues that are going on in their life you might be able to help them stop having those persistent problems that they keep coming. Yeah that's right right. We we're talking about rebuilding some foundations here.

Now if you're a pastor or you have a pastoral role in your community I will tell you that one of the dangers is that there has to be a difference between pastoral counseling and intentional disciple-making and th and life and ministry skills is ultimately where it comes in. So the third area is character development.

Now the character development. This can sometimes be the most tentious part of a meeting or growth part. And and obviously you know this is not going to go in some sort of order right. You're going to if there's a huge character development thing you're probably just going to jp into it right out of the gate because you don't want to spend the last 10 minutes of the time that you have together going oh by the way let's talk about this character defect or this thing I see.

in some cases it's you know a question or a sin or something that you're going to push somebody's character on. And you know we do this for two reasons. One is to help them be more like Christ and one is it creates vulnerability so they can do the same. Right. This is certainly not unilateral but it's it's bilateral in the sense that both of us are going to be doing character development.

And and and I think it's an important part of building the relationship. And it's also important part of a it's a great way to implement some of those life and ministry skills. Right? Yeah. And that last piece of character development is is one that some people feel really uncomfortable. because it's not a normal part of relationships whether they're family relationships or friendships there that just doesn't happen much in our culture.

But I can say for me for those who have invested in my life when they've been when they've loved me enough to share things like that it's provided the most rapid growth for me because they were things that were below my awareness. And so I wasn't able to address those things. So they couldn't even see them.

They were blind spots for me. And so when they cared for me enough to talk about them it was hard to hear it was hurtful but it was a kind of hard hurtful thing that later on you look back on and you're like I know they did it because they cared about me and it was really hard. Yeah. And eventually what happens is I think at least for me and I think for you too I'm not speaking out of turn is that eventually when you get somebody who's willing to share that character development you go and seek it out.

I mean you and I have both shared you know circstances or thoughts and then ask the question. Was I being a jerk here? W we can be jerks possible possible just ask our wives. but you know that's kind of the idea right? So again to kind of recap briefly relationship building life and ministry skills character development all of those go into the idea of what needs to be included in a in a good disciple-making meeting.

From our perspective anything I missed there. No that sounds great. I think yeah it's those three things but let's talk a little bit about in a in a meeting let's say you had a hour and a half that you're sitting down with somebody. what might that look like for you? And then I can share what you know kind of from my perspective what it normally looks like.

Yeah for me normally it'll look like if I had 90 minutes it'll look like 80 minutes of relational building five minutes. No I'm just kidding. No I you know 30 30 30 is about right. You know 30 minutes of relationship building 30 minutes of life and ministry skills. 30 minutes of you know what character development or even application there.

And some of that jazz you know like I think that the more that you do this at least in my experience the grayer it becomes when you transition from one to the other. So keeping time is hard. but I always plan to make sure that w you know when I'm doing it well that I've got a little space for this you know relational building space.

You know intentional disciple-making life and ministry skills character development space for application and ideally weaving it all together to form a really nice cohesive time. That is is fruitful. I mean I think the best meetings go by really fast. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're yeah. Wow. We did that.

We did that thing. We're at a you know I try to try to be respectful and I'm as scheduled as you are. So like Another meeting coming. So yeah. I don't know. What about you? Yeah Daimler you know generally about a third of the time relational a third intentional around something that I've thought about before and prayed over and felt like this was something important for us to talk about.

And then a third of it you know it could be re character development sometimes but a lot of times that is intermittent. Right. So I don't see something between every meeting then we need to talk about it's it's infrequent that I'm bringing something like that up. but what happens normally in the last third is bringing our discussion down to where the rubber meets the road and developing like you mentioned some application.

Right? All right. So what are we going to do? What is God calling us to do which then helps us. Into the next meeting. Cause we'll touch back on that. Right of okay. Well you said you're going to do this. I said I was going to do this. How'd it go? Right. Smart smart goals. Typically we would we would kind of go through their specific measurable attainable realistic time sensitive.

We want to make sure we hit all this now Justin you and I have taught this to nerous people. We've shared it before we've done these things. one of the pushbacks that I get from people is like man I don't want to go into a meeting with a friend and feel like I have to get to a desired outcome.

Right? Like in other words how it how is this different than manipulation? How's is different for me being programmatic or how's this different from those. Pushbacks that we often hear especially in the church where this kind of relationship is somewhat uncommon right? Yeah. And I've I've gotten that question too.

in my observation it comes from people who are typically more relational in just their being. I know. and at first it was hard for me to even get my mind around. I'm like what did what do you mean? And they're like well yeah because you wouldn't really know go into friendship. Yeah. You know prepare something or plan something.

And as someone who's really intentional you know and has anxiety around social interaction a lot of times I'll go to a social interaction thinking about a question or two that I can even ask them. And so to me that's just a way that I love people right? Because I want to have a positive interaction in disciple-making though.

And I want to hear your thoughts as a relational connection. You've had to work through this question at a personal level. But for me one one other important part with disciple-making is this isn't just a friendship right? This is friendship plus right? And so if it's friendship plus and that means there's more to it.

And since there's more to it part of the more is that I want them to make disciples too. And I can't expect them to reproduce what happens below the level of their work. And so I need to bring awareness to them of not only what we're doing and the whole of of disciple-making but also sometimes of Hey you know I thought about this before you know over the past week and I'd like to talk to you about it.

Like so they know like oh Justin's coming in with a plan here. Right. So yeah. What do you think for me it's really helped to think about it. in terms of sports now I'm a sports guy right? But like a whether it be football baseball basketball everyone knows what the end of the game looks like. And so when I think about the disciple-making I often think that the difference between what we do in a disciple-making meeting and what we do over a cup of coffee Is we have a common end game.

And so in the very early on of the meetings and we've talked about this before we set a vision of what we're trying to they do here right? I don't I mean this the risk of sounding somewhat arrogant. I don't need any more friends but I have a mission that I feel burdened by God to carry out in the world a burden in a good way.

You know I I. To make disciples who can make disciples. And if we don't set the goal on this early and often I think we end up just passing the ball back and forth so to speak and it never actually goes in the net you know and I want the ball. I want I want a score right? Like I always I always want a score right?

Like I'm a super competitive guy. So when I think about it from a team perspective getting everybody on the same team begins with a common goal a common end game that vision of disciple-making. And I know and I think you know too Disciple-making is by far one of the most transformational things that I've ever been a part of.

And I want that for every guy that I meet. Right. Every guy that I meet with I want that for everybody. Yeah. Truly. I love that because that is it's saying essentially that we gotta be on the same page of what we're doing here. Right. So if we're trying to disciple somebody and they just think they're in a friendship that's going to be problematic on a lot of level.

Right. But if we're explicit about the invitation into a disciple-making relationship and were explicit about the expectation that we have that someday they will go and do this with somebody else then it kind of takes that tension off the table a little bit as far as manipulation because when I'm not manipulating you we're just doing what we agreed to do.

Right. That's right. That's right. And you know I think it's really important to be clear. I have friends who I'm not disappointed. Yep. Right. I have I have people that I see for pastoral counseling. I have marital counseling you know I have all the meetings that I have. Right. And they are all different.

And so I don't go into my friendships with the same level of preparedness that I do marriage counseling. And I don't go into marriage counseling with the same level of preparedness that I go into. Disciple-making right. I treat it as an intentional act to serve and honor a guy. Who tells us to go therefore and make disciples.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Let's touch on just for a second Tony the things that we didn't talk about right. So we're talking about how what do you do in a meeting with the person that you're discipling? We didn't talk about curricul right? We didn't talk about books. We didn't talk about Bible studies. now does that mean we should never do anything.

We didn't even talk about the book. Does that mean that we don't use any of that ever? What what what's the place of that absolutely use them. And you I'm sure you remember and if you're a subscriber you certainly heard the episode where we've talked about tools. Right? All of these things have a place as a tool but the basic of the meeting is Jesus me and another person.

Right. And from there and a little bit of planning we can make anything happen. And I think that. That's really important. Obviously the word of God is the most foundational tool that we use and it's present in everything else. And I wouldn't even recommend a book. That's not grounded in the word of God but right.

But at the end of the day like the meeting is centered around following Jesus. And that's what that means. Yeah. Amen. Yeah because we want to be having the disciples that we're working with in the word and becoming the word a part of them that they're abiding with Jesus in the word through the word.

we can do that with some books. We can do that with some curriculs and Bible studies but there's also a lot of those things that cause somehow become a substitute for the word. And we gotta be careful about that. but our what we're talking about is at a broad 30000 foot level macro. Exactly.

What are these meetings look like? There is a lot of flexibility and style preference that comes out in okay. The details. How do we unfold this within a particular relationship? And that is impacted by not only who you are as a disciple maker but also by the person that you're discipling because you have to understand who they are and their preferences and needs as well.

Tony we're we're running short on time here. So can you tell us our takeaway and action step for today? Yeah. The takeaway for this week's episode is every meeting should include time for relationship building intentional conversation and applicant. Relationship building intentional conversation and the application and the action step.

Hey assess your current disciple-making meetings and plan to improve them. Whether maybe you need a little bit more intentionality maybe a little bit more relationality. I don't think that's a word. I love it. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? And I'm thankful for you. And I'm thankful though to be on this journey with all of you do me a favor hit that subscribe button leave a rating or review maybe share this episode with a friend a pastor or somebody you're discipling.

Get on the same page. Let's see what God's going to do. Thank you guys so much. We'll connect next week.