Welcome to the practitioners podcast where we're applying Jesus' style disciple-making to everyday life. This episode is powered by navigators church ministry, where they're focused on helping churches, make disciples who make disciples for more information, check out their website, navigators, church ministries.org.
So Justin and I are here too today, and we want to dive into a topic that's really near and dear to our heart. As a matter of fact, it's so near and dear to our heart that we put it as our tagline for the name of the podcast. And it's all about applying Jesus' style. Disciple-making in everyday life.
Jesus style. Disciple-making what an interesting phrase, Justin, and that's really where I want to jump off at what makes Jesus style disciple-making different than Toni style disciple-making or Justin style or, or even just, you know, a church's style. Disciple-making right. So Jesus' style disciple-making.
I mean, it is what it sounds like it is doing it the way that Jesus did as close as we can. Right. I don't know of anyone who. Has sold everything they had. And it's just traveling around with 12 males or 12 females investing in them 24 7. Right. So we're all contextualizing to some degree, but there are some principles underneath, um, the method that Jesus employed in disciple-making that, that we're trying to emulate.
And honestly, what we believe is that Jesus's way is the best way. Which sounds like, all right, well that, that's kind of obvious, right? Get on board with that. Every church should say that, right? Like it's not something that we want to turn away from, but rather lean into. Yes, exactly. But the thing is, when we look at the way that disciple-making is unfolded and most churches are para-church organizations, even it is now.
That sort of style of disciple-making. So what normally happens is, uh, there's a separation that occurs between Jesus's teachings and his methods. And so when we separate his teachings from his methods, we're not going to get the results that he got, because it's not the way that he did. And that's not original to me that thought, but that's, that's with a friend of mine.
Jim Putman said that first. Um, but it's so true, right. That when we're separating those things out, then we don't get the results that Jesus got. And then we, we scratch our heads and say, well, what's wrong. You know, one of the interesting things about the Putman quote, he says that if you separated the teachings from, uh, from the methods of Jesus, you separated the teachings of Jesus from the methods.
Yeah. Then we're surprised when we don't get the results of Jesus. I don't think many of us and I certainly haven't in my life have ever thought about the teaching versus the methods. How would you describe the difference? I have some of my own thoughts, but I'd be really interested to hear if someone really has read the gospels, but doesn't know the difference between the teachings and the methods.
How do you paint that picture? Right. So one of the things that I think about first, and that question is Jesus's method was his men and it was relational and it wasn't only relational, right? He was delivering content and helping them understand things and helping them grow. But the primary way that he influenced was through relationship.
And often times today we want to lead with primarily content or curriculum. Because it's easier because we're in an industrialized culture that, that values consumerism. And so we want to scale quickly and I hear that, um, in the, in the church world and the disciple-making world, a lot of, well, how do we scale this?
How do we scale this? Well, that's a question that comes out of our consumeristic mindset. I don't see Jesus asking that question. You know, Jesus took three years. And invested in those 12 men and that was his primary focus in ministry. And so what, what do you think, what are your thoughts on that? What's interesting is, is that when I've started reading the gospels for the sake of looking at Jesus's methods versus justice teaching and his teaching is super important.
So here it's, we're not, we're not discounting any Jesus's teaching get rid of that. No, you can't. But in six years of preaching, uh, roughly 300 and some odd messages. I don't think I've ever pulled the guys I've been discipling into a room afterwards and describe my teachings and how it impacts the kingdom of God like Jesus did.
And so when, when you just think about the amount of time that we see Jesus intentionally pouring in to the men in his life, That that has to be noticed. Yeah. But no, it's, it's, uh, I'm going to use air quotes and say unstated, right? It didn't say it doesn't say anywhere in the gospel of Luke and Jesus spent 12 hours with his disciples.
No, it says that he walked with them. He did life with them and it's kind of an, an undercurrent of reality. When I, when I read that it was super eyeopening to me as a, as a church leader and as a disciple maker, because, well, if I'm just honest, it's. Something I do all the time that I'm probably discipling for guys right now.
And it, most I'm giving them an hour and a half every other week. Sometimes the occasional text message or phone, I mean, rest share. How do you overcome, how do we keep that in the right perspective? Yeah, I think what we miss a lot when we, when we go through the gospel. There is so much, and Luke's health tells us this, right?
There's if we who's going to write down everything that Jesus taught and did, it would fill all the books and all the world. Um, so we can't do that, but we need to take some time to appreciate how much time he spent with these men. Right? I think about the times when, you know, at night they probably gathered around a campfire and, you know, cook their meal and then talked about the events of the day.
And I, you know, I, I love thinking about some of the experiences that, that the gospel show us. You know, if one that I thinking about is when, when Jesus asked that guide in the, in the synagogue to hold up his hand, right? Because his hand. Was shriveled and deformed in some way. And so Jesus asked him to hold it up and then healed it in front of these Pharisees.
And it was this conflict filled environment. And we don't get to see the look on the Pharisee's faces, but we can imagine it, right. I mean, this was, this was an intense experience. It was happening and Jesus was challenging them. And I can just picture them sitting around the fire that night. And you know, somebody like John saying.
Man. Jesus, that was so cool. Right. And heaters, like, did you see the looks on those guys' faces? That was awesome. And we miss that, that, that the end intimacy that those guys would have had with Jesus set up everything that he did with them. And when we're just focused on teaching content and curriculum, we're missing the most powerful elements of his message.
And so I think as much as anything that's when we talk about Jesus' style disciple-making I think what we're saying is that we are trying to hold together as much as we possibly can keeping relationship primary without neglecting teaching and input. And so I was meeting with a group recently and we were talking about Jesus style disciple-making and one of the places that we started with was defining the word distance.
Yeah, because every church does it differently and every church has got, you know, there are three words that they're trying to put together to help cast vision, and I do it. So there's no kind of like we say, engage Christ, restore, hope, love. All right. And that's a big part of our vision here at restoration, but at the same time, it's not defining the word disciple.
And so when I gathered this group together, of course, we all did what we do these days and we Googled it. And one of the things. First things that came up was, was the word learner. That was the easiest one. But the truth is, is that the word disciple is used 269 times in the gospels and acts. So as you define disciple, kind of what bent are we are?
Are we looking at this from, uh, a, you know, in the course of this podcast, and as we look at Jesus style, disciple-making. And it's there a lot, right? 269 times. And most Christians haven't taken the time to really think through my, well, what does that mean? What does that word trying to communicate? Um, something I've learned just as.
Um, trying to figure it out for myself. Is that historically the word we S we have it written down for the first time in a Greek historians writing named Heraclitus. It was about 500 years before Christ. Um, historians believed that it was, it was used commonly in the oral tradition before that. So this is an old concept, an old word.
Um, and most Christians who have studied it, like you said, they, they know learner. Right. And they might know the Greek word that it comes through in these myths, they taste. Um, but to me that doesn't tell us enough because there's different types of learners in the world and different types of contexts.
Right? So there's, there's teacher, student where the learning is mostly aimed at the head. All right. What do we need to know? How do we know? What can we spit it back out? Um, you know, another type of learning is master apprentice and we don't have that as much in today's world, but it's still around. That was super common in the Jewish culture.
Right. Right. And there's always like the old Jewish saying walk close enough to your rabbi so that the dust from his handle kicks up on your cloak or, you know, uh, one of the things I've heard you say before. Okay. How does the person you're discipling smell? Like not, not in the, not in the literal sense.
Right. But, uh, but more in the like holistic, emotional, spiritual, can you smell the temperature of someone's life essentially? Yeah, exactly. And so with this rabbi disciple relationship, it wasn't just teacher, student. It wasn't just master apprentice, which would be more focused on a trade or a skill.
Right. This was a holistic and I like how you use that word. It was, it was a holistic relationship where the goal was that the disciple would become just like the rabbi. And to me, when we're talking about Jesus style, disciple-making we see one of the passages in Paul's writings. Uh, first Corinthians 11 one, follow me as I follow the example of Christ and Paul.
Hey, I'm, I'm following the master. I'm following the rabbi. If you just follow me, then we're all going the same direction. And we're all trying to become just like Jesus. And so really I think Jesus style disciple-making going back to that phrase is about how do we become like Jesus in a holistic sort of way.
Not just what we know in our head, not just practicing, um, you know, loving others well in life, but it's really, it's both of those, but it's also more than that. I'm curious, Tony, um, have you, have you experienced that in your life or practice that what's, that looked like for you? As you've, um, you know, kind of connected with disciple-making.
Yeah. Well, one of the, one of the guys that disciple me, his name was Charles Causey and we were, um, in Minnesota together for a year and he was really the first guy to ever walk me through scripture intention. Right. And we talked a little bit about in the last episode, intentionally versus relationally, right?
He, he was really good at both. It seemed like, um, I I'm sure he struggled with one or the other and, you know, just cause we all do, but he was walking me through scripture and we got to study the scripture together every day. And one of the things that, um, he ended up doing as we built up relational equity was checking on the things.
Hmm. Right. And so I was stationed in Minnesota at the time and my wife was here in Ohio. And as you can imagine, I was in my early twenties. It was really easy for me, um, to become lustful towards everything else in the world. Okay. And so, uh, I even, and not even ashamed to admit this, but I struggle with pornography.
Right. And as I was struggling with pornography, he could just tell that something was heavy on my heart. And so one day he just called me out on it, like, like point blank. We were in a car at an Applebee's parking lot, getting ready to go to lunch. And he goes, Tony, how you doing pornography? And I was like, uh, uh, I mean, but, but again, we talk about holistic, right?
He's not going to leave that relational equity on the table because he knows it becomes a barrier to my relationship with her. I like the way you put that. So leaving relational equity on the table. Can you tell me more about that? Well, so I think that the difference between a program and a relational holistic approach like Jesus did is the ability to maximize the, the gift that God gives us in each.
Hmm. Right. And so when we talk about leaving money on the table or kind of leaving relational equity on the table, I think about it. Like I think about poker, right? It's you've got to go all in and holistic Jesus out of the cycle, man. Is all in it. It's, it's taking that vulnerable moment, just like Charles did for me in that parking lot, where, by the way, we ended up never going in because I sat there and cried and he prayed over me.
Right. And, and he, he walked me through it. He, he took my computer to a place that, to walk me through it, you know, like it was, and we, we went after it, we went after the sin in my life and I'm, I'm so thankful because now. What could have been much, much worse, doesn't have a grip. And, and that was life-changing for both of us.
Like it wasn't just life-changing for me, because now my, my issue with porn is, is non-existent or is just something that I have to guard my heart against. Right. But it was also life changing for him because it changed our relationship forever. So one of the things that stands out to me about that story is that.
That you guys had, it sounds like you had a relationship that was close enough where he could sense that something wasn't right with you. And not only could he sense it and notice it, but, but he had the courage, the relational equals EEQ, um, emotional quotient to know how to bring it up to you in a way that wouldn't drive you away.
And that, that led you into really a transformational conversation. How did, how did you guys get there? Cause I know you said that you guys are reading scripture, uh, regularly. I mean, what did that piece look like? Well, so for us practically, it was, we started every day together going over the scripture that we were supposed to have read the night before.
And so, um, about two months into the deployment, um, W w he gave me a Bible for Christmas and he invited me to read the Bible in a year with him, which is at that point in time, something I had never done. Okay. And so he invited me in, and one of the terms that we'd like to use here is invite and then challenge, right?
Our, our ability to challenge someone is dependent upon the invitation into our lives, right. In that relational equity. And so he invited me. To read the scripture. He spent time with me daily and then, uh, he was close enough to me to kind of, uh, to use that term earlier. Right. Smell when something wasn't.
Right, right. Yeah. I'm curious. Have you ever had someone try to ask you questions like that about, you know, lust or your purity, any of that where you didn't have the relational equity? Have you ever experienced that? I have. I want to share about that, but I wonder if you have, I have, and I just straight up lie about it, bro.
You don't know me. I mean, give me your experience with it. Yeah. So when we were, um, in Southeast Asia as missionaries, uh, the organizations and sent over a couple of people to kind of check in on us and care for us and we appreciated that, although we didn't really understand. That that was their role. Um, it was kind of presented as like, Hey, we're going to be in the area.
We'd love to spend some time with you. And I'm like, okay. And, um, I still remember my wife was in the kitchen making lunch and this, this couple really appreciate their hearts, you know? Um, I like them personally. But, uh, the man said to me, Hey, can, can I talk to you for a second? I was like, okay. And so we walked out on the front porch and he said, Hey, I just want to ask how's your purity life, how, you know, how's, how's everything going with the internet?
And I literally met him like six hours before I answered, honestly. But at the same time, I told Kristen later about that. And I said, I said, I don't know who would. Yeah, let that out to somebody that they, they just met six, six hours earlier. Um, cause most people, I think if they were struggling, they would just lie in that situation.
And so I think that's another, when we talk about Jesus' style disciple-making and the, the importance of relationship and its authenticity, uh, the ability to communicate honestly with one another, uh, I don't know how we can do it any other way and expect to get the results that Jesus. Yeah, I love, um, I love that image in scripture where Jesus says, come let me show you where I'm sleeping, you know, and that invitation to not just, Hey, I, you don't have to just fall.
I don't just follow me, like do life with me. Yeah. And I think if more of us, myself included can be intentional about doing life and discipling in a Jesus style way. We would get results that would grow the church better than any program, any curriculum, any, uh, flash in the pan, or even, even any better than just a great sermon.
And I love great sermons, but like it's, it's proven to be so much better. Yes. So if somebody is listening to this, um, and they're like, man, I want to do more holistic. Jesus' style disciple-making how do they get started? What's the action step. Yeah. I mean, I think there's nothing better that we could do on that than to really deeply understand Jesus's life and the way that he ministered to, to his men.
Um, and so reading the gospels, um, trying to understand not only. Um, the events, but how they fit into the narrative of Jesus's life and his ministry, because we often miss that because we kind of parachute in and we don't take the time to orient ourselves. To what's around us, um, in the life and ministry, narrative of Jesus.
And so that would be the first one. Um, the other, the other one that I'd recommend. And I think you've read this too, is, um, kind of the classic on disciple-making principles. So the master plan of evangelism by Robert Coleman, it's, it's not a super thick book, but it is highly focused on looking at what Jesus did with his guys and how he did it at a principle.
Yeah. So I love that. So, um, if you're listening today and you're ready to take that next step in Jesus' style, disciple-making, uh, we want to challenge you to jump into the life of Jesus, right? Get into the gospels. Uh, maybe even make some notes, make a timeline, do the work yourself. Don't just look it up.
It's so easy to look it up, but, but again, you miss out on the process of getting into that intimate and personal relations. With the life of Christ. And then for further reading, jump into the master plan of evangelism. Great book. Uh, I've read it twice once with you. Actually, we read that book together and then once at United theological seminary, uh, with Dr.
Bellini and so great book, strongly recommend both of those things. Uh, don't forget, you can connect with us in a multitude of ways. You can find me on Instagram at TWU. Twitter the same way on our website. Don't forget about the reclamation podcast, which is another podcast I do. If you want to dive more into, to conversations on practices and other things like that, uh, Justin working, they find you yeah, probably the best place.
My website, www.justingravitt.com. Uh, also on Twitter and Facebook and all the other sports website spread the best spot. Thank you so much for taking the time to dive into this topic with us today, we look forward to seeing what God continues to do through this platform. If you could do us a favor, leave a rating or review on iTunes, it really does help get the word out and share this episode.
Maybe you're discipling someone share this episode with that person. So you guys can talk about it together. And, uh, we can't wait to see what God does as we continue to make disciples. You can make disciples.