Could someone lead? Probably I could probably train someone to lead but th they might hate it.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the practitioners podcast where we're applying Jesus' style disciple-making to every day. Life. This episode is powered by navigators church ministries. If you haven't checked them out yet go visit their website navigators church ministries.org. If you're in the local church or if you're a lay leader it's a great place to pick up resources and find some help on how to create a culture of disciple-making.
Good morning my friend. Hey Tony. Miltenberger how are you doing? I'm good man. How are you? I'm doing great. question for you today. Couple of oh let's just start hot. do you think that everyone is called to make disciples? Hi. I feel like this might be a trick question. So let me think about it here for one second.
I mean I always want to base the decision like this on scripture. And so I'm going to say Matthew 28. Jesus talking to the disciples. He says go there for and make disciples of all nations teaching them to obey him. I command baptizing them in the name of the father son and the holy spirit. And surely I'll be with you always to the very end of the age.
So I'm going to say yes. Nailed it. Nailed it. All right. Yes I agree. Right. Everybody's called to make a disciple. If you identify yourself as a follower of Jesus. That's what he did but we're going to follow him. We need to be doing that too. next question might be a little bit harder. Do you think everyone is called to be a leader?
Well I'm just going to go off of personal experience here and I'm going to say no I'm going to think about. You know that the roles of the church that I've read about in scripture. Right. And it doesn't say that everybody should be leaders. I know a lot of people who would hate to be called the leader.
So I'm going to say no not everyone's called to be a leader. I don't think I think that that's more of a gifting than I think it's a commission. Okay. Okay. Great. So so what you're saying is that there is a difference between being a disciple. And being a leader. Yes. That's what I yes that's what I'm saying.
Although I feel like I'm getting painted into a corner right now. I don't know if I like it also saying then that making disciples is different than making leaders. And so I have a new agree with you. but there's a lot of folks out there in in the church world that probably don't agree with you and I on this.
And I yep. I was gonna say what why do you think that is? Right? Well I mean like where does the confusion come in about disciple versus leader and leader versus. Yes. Yep. Good question. So we got to unpack all that but here's why I think it matters so much. Tony is because if we're confused on these two things then it's going to impact the way that we make disciples.
It's going to impact the things that we communicate to those that we are discipling or helping them to become disciples and disciple makers. So we can't have confusion on what it is we're actually trying to make. I've been in a couple of churches here in the past couple of weeks. And their main language around disciple-making they don't use the word disciple.
They don't use the word disciple-making they use leaders. We're developing leaders. Leaders that will help people follow Jesus et cetera et cetera. And when we start to confuse and conflate these two terms it becomes kind of problematic for what we're trying to do and what we actually believe. let me let me share one quick story.
I had the opportunity to ask one of these pastors. I said well let me let me push back on that for just a little bit. I said biblically are we all called to be leaders? And he thought for a second and he said well it depends how you define a leader. Ooh. And I said you're exactly right. so let's talk about right.
So you've already said all right. Yeah. You think that all of us are called to make disciples? Not all of us are called to be leaders. I want to talk through four ways that making disciples is different from making leaders. And so how would you start us out? Let's each share a couple of reasons why we think it's different.
Yeah. Well I you know for me I think it all starts with the idea of intent right? Like when I'm pulling somebody into a leadership role the intent for them is to lead large groups of people. It's the intent is to do something that is both like casting vision in the sense of. Moving people. Right.
When we think about movement I think about leadership and you know I'm an old army guy. And I think about some of the leaders that I had there you can be a leader and your moral compass not be aligned with Jesus Knight. And I actually found that to be the case a lot in the army and that's okay. It doesn't make them not great leaders.
Right. So I would say that the intent of disciple-making when I meet with someone for the sake of discipling I'm doing so for the purposes of a spiritual reproduction right. I'm doing it for the sake as a to create a learner a follower a person who's devoted to becoming like the master teacher in this case.
Jesus. Right. I'm not discipling people like me now. Sometimes when I'm leading I'm leading people. To to kind of be like me or to where we're going. I think a baseball for example and I'm I'm leading a baseball team I'm doing it. I'm teaching them how to swing the same way and throw the same way and all those things.
But but disciple-making is really much more intentional than just playing. Leadership. Right. And so I think it probably starts with you know the the big difference probably starts with the difference of intent. Mm. Yeah. That's so good. All right. So even when we think about Jesus right. Going back to him like you're saying like he was trying to build people that would disciple and serve right.
He wasn't he didn't lead with Hey Follow me. And then I will put you in charge of a lot of people or you'll have a lot of influence with a lot of others. You know he actually said come follow me and take up your cross right? Like the invitation to come and die and to serve it wasn't an invitation to lead and have kind of a a bigger influence or perspective from from that.
Yeah. So that's that intent. I agree completely. So the second reason I think it's different is there's a difference of calling and Tony. You alluded to this earlier in our conversation. scripture identifies leadership as a gift and in Romans 12 eight it says that some of us have certain gifts others don't.
So some of us have the gift of leadership others don't. Whether or not we have it doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't do it. Right. So some people are called to or gifted in hospitality. we're all to be hospitable. Some people are gifted in teaching but we're all to teach in different ways.
But the other other scripture that comes to my mind is in first Timothy three where it talks about the qualifications to lead within the church. Right. And traditionally we talk about elders and deacons. and so there's a list of qualifications there. And so it shows us that some people are qualified biblically to lead in those ways.
And other people just aren't. And so the difference there is that as you said in Matthew 28 18 to 20 all of us are called to make disciples. There's no gifting for being a disciple maker. The qualification that is there is just that you are a follower of Jesus. And so if you're a follower then you are called to grow to maturity and to go ahead and make disciples.
So the way that he has called us to do do you think that sometimes. The the word disciple because we haven't defined it very well in the church. We've put an like this effort or this you know like kind of feeling of calling on it. Like do you think that that's part of where the confusion is because we haven't defined it as just a role of Christianity that in return what we've done is we've we've kind of relegated it to a calling like leadership or teaching or everything else is as part of our we got a language issue here.
Is that what you. Yeah I definitely agree with that. I think that. The way that we use terminology around disciple disciple discipleship disciple making it has a real impact in the way that people respond. Right. I haven't heard anyone in the church say you know I'm not sure I'm called to be a Christian.
Right. That's a good point. And the word Christian is only used in scripture three times but disciples they're about 269 times in the new Testament. And so you know we have this terminology where in our minds those of us who are surrendered to Jesus at some level for many people disciples some other category that they don't happen to be in yet.
And yeah I think that's insightful that there is that how about the next one Tony? Third reason why it might be different. I you know I think the third reason why is probably one of my favorite as a pastor and because it's the difference of process right? And when I think of process I had this old leader who used to say it's your systems that make you successful?
Well unfortunately in the church you know what we have done. You know historically as we've identified leaders instead of building them right. And if we're going to build leaders we got to do that through a systematic you know focused process. Now some some churches have really nailed nailed it. Right.
But others even when you get to this leadership process what we what we begin to understand is that we develop beliefs and knowledge but it's not really relational. Right. Whereas disciple-making is a completely life-on-life relational. Intentional and relational process and it elevates this whole idea of knowing someone and.
You know growing them in the faith Jesus model the process of disciple-making. And so you know I think that in the church when we think about a process for growing leaders what we think about is like Hey I need you to read you know John Maxwell's book. The laws of leadership. I need you to read this.
I need you to 10 10 different classes with the pastor and I need you to start a ministry. That's based off of the areas where your pain meets God's calling in your life you know or X Y and Z whatever it is. Right. Like but but the process of disciple-making I mean as we've talked about it on this podcast extensively it's just not programmatic right?
Is leadership a part of the process probably. Right. At least you know we talked about a couple of weeks ago right? Like at least character is. Right. We talked about soul mind strength heart all of those things are in the scope of disciple-making but in leadership you're not going to sit down with someone and necessarily ask them you know maybe we should but where they are in their walk with God you know how's your scripture time.
How's your quiet time. How's your scripture memory? I mean I I I've been in a lot of churches and I've I've even led a lot of groups where we forget to even open up in prayer because we're so busy leading to a particular. You know destination right? The process is for the destination the process isn't for the development of the disciple.
If that makes sense. So the difference in the process is the big difference in leadership and disciple-making yeah. Yeah that's really good. So you know back to what that pastor said of well it depends how we define leadership right? So you know we can see that even so far on what we've been talking about with intent.
Like why are we making these people right. We making them to fill a position in an organization or when making them to be like Jesus and to reach the world for him calling wise. Well you know again what is it that we're. We're making here are we we're not all called to be leaders biblically. And so what does that look like?
but then the process like you're saying of you know what how are we making them right. And what I think the pushback would be. And it actually has been as I've been in this conversation with other pastors Yeah but all of us are leaders somewhere. We all have all have somebody that we're influencing or somebody that's looking up to us.
How would you respond to that Tony? That well no you know a disciple every disciple is a leader somewhere. They have they have influence they have people looking to them. And so yeah. Well I would say that we just don't have enough scriptural evidence to support it. Yeah. First of all right. When we think about like there's a difference between a leader and a role you know like like some people.
Had roles and you know Judas has a I had a role in in the tribe in the community that Jesus was building. Right. Jesus was obviously discipling all the disciples. We see that in scripture clearly but he calls Peter to a specific role as the leader. Right. Hey you're going to be the rock in which I formed the church.
Right. And so like I think that if you want to get into semantics Right. You you might make an argent that you're leading one person right. Or you might make you know that you have to do self-leadership even in the role that you're in. and you can't see me as you listen to this I'm doing air quotes self-leadership but the you know the this idea is that you know it's it's bigger than.
Everybody is when we think about leadership in the biblical sense. What we're talking about is leading a movement specific gifting all those things. I mean I know a ton of people who are great disciples but who who are horrible leaders and they would they would tell you that they don't want to be a leader.
They don't want to even. You know speak in front of people or cast vision for people and that's not the way God has gifted them. And so you know I I think we we talk about leaning into the gifts a little bit here. It's important to let people lean into their gifts. And while all of us can step out of our gifts on occasion it's not always going to be life-giving for the person.
Could someone lead? Probably I could probably train someone to lead. Yeah. But th they might hate it right? Yep. Yeah. So I liked that distinct the. Distinction that you made there right? there's the role of a leader right. And that's biblically when we're when we're seeing this gifting of leadership and who's qualified to lead that soundbite a role right.
That's being filled now. Yeah. I don't think you are. I would say well yeah there's some disciples that have no influence anywhere and that's okay. Like that's not the case. but when we. Introduce this sort of language within a culture whether it's a church culture or small group or whatever. One of the biggest challenges in making disciples is mainly developing and maintaining clarity with what we're talking about.
And if we're going to talk about developing leaders and use it synonymously with making disciples we are making it much. Much more unclear. Right? It's getting a lot muddier for people rather than getting more clear because they're going to get into scriptures at some point and see well wait there's a gift of leadership here and wait some people are qualified and some aren't and well maybe I well yeah maybe I'm not qualified then to be a disciple maker.
Cause if we're using those synonymously then it just adds to lots of confusion as opposed to developing that clarity. That's so hard to. And and what's so funny is we only do this. We being Christians and the church we only do this around leadership and discipleship right? Like there's not a person in the world who would be like yes every person is called to preach.
You know what I mean? Like every person's called the breach. Like it's you know w when when you could actually make a stronger scriptural argent for that then you could leadership. Right. But what we've done is is the lack of clarity around disciple-making has really forced us to put leadership over there almost.
And I think it's because it's easier. To make leaders than it is to make disciples. It's easier to create a process to say Hey after you do these 10 steps you're like And that makes you a disciple which is just not true. It's just not true. So let's talk about the fourth. The fourth is different three right?
Difference of intent. Difference of calling difference of process. The fourth one difference of opportunity. So in every church and every organization there the leadership positions are limited. They're not unlimited. And so you know most churches have a volunteer and leadership deficit. and so they maybe feel that man we really need a lot more leaders here but at some point if things are going well you're going to have more.
People who are able to fill those roles and you have to fill in like you have more people than places to put them. Right. But in disciple-making the world is the opportunity. Right? And so we have never seen or experienced a time in the world where there are too many disciple makers and not enough people to be made into disciples.
Right. And I don't think we're ever going to get there. I think maybe when we if we get to approach that before Jesus comes back we might be able to approach it but then he's going to come back. I don't I don't think in scripture it teaches us that you're going to get to a place where there are no more people that you could make into a disciple.
Right. That's just not the scriptural case. And so that the scripture say is after the kingdom has been preached to every tongue tribe and nation after it's preached then. She's going to come back and you know there's a whole that's a whole nother that's a whole nother podcast. That's season two man.
That's season two. Right? So but the difference of opportunity is when we make disciples everybody can be a disciple. Everybody's called to be a disciple and everybody's called to be a disciple maker. And so there's no need to angle or to fight for any sort of position or ranking because we are all in the fields together.
Trying to make disciples where we are in the place that God has put it. Yeah I love that because I think it it creates an opportunity for us to be a little bit more intentional about our leaders right. So when we're just using things to get to leadership instead of disciple makers then you know we really miss out on the opportunity to cast vision for the church.
You know one of the things that you and I are super passionate about it right. We we want to create disciple-making cultures in the local church. We hope wherever you're listening wherever you're going to church you're working to strive to make a disciple-making culture. Well well guys this is your opportunity right?
Disciple-making cultures need to be led by leaders who are discipled. Hmm I'm gonna say it again for the people in the back disciple-making cultures need to be led by leaders who are disciples right? So when you're discipling someone you get to know their heart you get to know their soul you get to know the vision that they have for Jesus.
And you really have a unique opportunity to tell who's equipped to lead with that gifting because you've already poured into them relations. Amen. Awesome. So those four reasons right. And there's probably more but there's at least those four the difference between making disciples and making leaders difference of intent difference of calling difference of process.
Difference of opportunity. Okay. So we're ready for our takeaway our takeaway for this episode. Is we are called to be and make disciples not leaders. Now it's not that we can't make leaders but each and every disciple is called to make disciples. And so we have to maintain that that you know real clarity around what it is we're called to do.
Tony. How about our action step? If you are a leader are you a disciple? Right? Ask yourself that question. If you're a leader are you disciple? If you're filling leadership positions. Are you bringing in leaders who aren't disciples or who are disciples right? Or are you bringing in disciples who aren't leaders right.
Spend some time and evaluate who's leading the organization that you're a part of. Do they have the gift of leadership? Are they compelled with the vision of disciple-making you're going to need both. If you want to create a disciple-making culture guys thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about this important stuff.
Do me a favor hit that subscribe button leave a rating or review on iTunes and maybe even share this episode with a friend a pastor somebody you're discipling and let's together. Let's reach the world in the name of Jesus. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you real soon.