S2. Ep 11. Practitioner's Podcast: How to Achieve Cultural Clarity Through Definitions

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Check out our website navigators church ministries.org. All right Tony. Good afternoon morning evening wherever people are. Those are listening to this Thanksgiving week. And we're starting out with our question like we normally do. And I have a Thanksgiving theme question for you Tony. All right. So here it is.

What is your favorite Thanksgiving day food? So this is a no brainer for me. I only really eat it around Thanksgiving and but it's one of those things. That's like a comfort food for me when I do eat it. And you might not be surprised to find out it's sugary it's pumpkin pie with cool whip on. Oh wow.

Okay. Awesome. That's actually mine too. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. We never get the same answer. Oh my gosh. We could be twins exactly. Right. Tony. Well today we're going to talk about definitions and how to get cultural clarity through definitions. Tony what are some definitions you've heard around discipleship?

Oh I you know I think. This is this is a really important topic. And because for so many people that I know we don't define discipleship and in doing so everything kind of becomes discipleship. And so one of the things that I hear a lot when it comes to discipleship is the programming that churches do.

So like for example Sunday school is discipled. That's that that's a common lack of definition that leads to a lack of clarity that leads to a whole bunch of ambiguity around what is expected in the disciple-making process. Justin what about you? Yeah. I think both of us right. Are in the same space where we are interacting with and talking to different pastors and churches.

And we all were almost always asking this question early on in the relationship. Well what does what does discipleship here? What does that mean? What does that look like? And I'm no longer surprised at the variety of answers that I get. and it's anything from. Well you know we have a really strong hospitality ministry here on Sundays.

And so you know we we provide coffee for people and donuts and stuff like that. And I've heard people say well that's that's one way that we're discipling our people. and what it comes down to I think is most people have an unclear definition that is something like anything that might in some way directly or indirectly help somebody grow closer to Jesus.

That's discipleship. And I kind of call that a junk drawer definition. It's whatever we want to throw into it. that's what we'll use. And and I think it's endemic of what churches are doing across the country. and like you mentioned it is a problem right? And it's a problem because if we don't have clear definitions then we can't get people to move.

They're not moving towards anything they're just doing and sitting and. Appropriating or taking whatever they're already doing and putting that in that discipleship junk drawer and saying well yeah I see. I'm discipling to. Well and one of the problems that happens here is that people get afraid to define things clearly because they're afraid that what they're saying is that something else isn't good.

And I see this a lot with like evangelism. So people are afraid to say well evangelism is disciple. Well no it's not that there's a big difference in evangelism and discipleship because the intent is different. And so what happens is if you if you're like well if evangelism is not discipleship and we're all called to make disciples you know are you saying that evangelism isn't good?

No I'm not saying that at all. Like and this really fires me up when I talk to church leaders. Well are you saying that Bible study is not good? No I'm not saying that I you can do a Wednesday night Bible study all you want. I love studying the Bible. I want you to study the Bible but let's be clear.

It's not the same as intentional reproducible and relationship-driven disciple. Yes. Yup. And I think part of why that is is definitions in some way are like a line aren't they? And it it draws a line in the sand or it draws a line that's clear for people of no this is what discipleship is. This is what disciple.

These other things over here they're good. They're profitable. Some of them some of them aren't and that's okay too. but if we're going to talk about discipleship disciple-making let's all get on the same page because if we're not on the same page then it's hard to move anywhere together. And if we're not moving anywhere together it's hard to develop any sort of power and momentum within a culture that can then spill out from the church culture into the broader call.

Yeah I have a great example of this. There's a gentlemen who I've known for you know several years. Almost a decade really. And he and I loved the type of talk about discipleship. And when we initially started this conversation one of the things that he would say is that I've been doing discipleship for 20 years.

And I was like oh my gosh I love this. I love this for your church. I love this for your community. I love the fact that you've been doing discipleship for so many years. And then I was like tell me about it. And he was like well you know I I meet with people one-on-one and Now I'm salivating. I'm like oh super.

I love it. I love the intentionality here. And and he goes and then I just listen. And I was like huh. And I was like you just listen. And he was like well yeah I just let them share their hearts. And then you know I asked him some questions about what they're going to do differently. And I was like oh you've been doing you've been doing pastoral counseling for 20 years.

Yeah. Which is super great and it it doesn't impact his witness but let's not you know let's not mince words here. It's not the same as disciple-making. And if everyone's called to make disciples I think we have to understand that this is a both and it's not an either or we have to if you're called to do pastoral counseling.

Great. I do a lot of that Mount myself but that's not going to replace the call to live out the great commission. And so you know it's we've talked about this before. Disciple-making is not a spiritual gift. Right. We're all called to do it. And I think we're all called to do it alongside our spiritual gifts.

We can get clear about that when you get clear about the definition because like you said it creates a movement. Yes yes absolutely. Tony it occurs to me as we're having this conversation together that some of our listeners might be wondering well what's Tony and Justin's definition. And if you're interested in that we did a whole episode on that back in season one I believe it's the third episode of season one.

And so if you want that conversation or that side of the. just drop back there and tune into that episode. today though our focus is really about how definitions create clarity in a culture and the clarity in the culture that definitions provide is really important because we're trying to get movement.

Right. And so as you alluded to just with with your friend and that story there is that definitions lead to expectations. Right. And sometimes when we have clear definitions there can be conflict that comes as a result. And I know from my work in churches and with church leaders that one of the common obstacles that we have to overcome and it happens especially with some older church leaders is.

You know a sort of guilt right? Because they know well they've seen the great commission for however many decades and they've been doing things and they've been faithful. And then they hear a clear definition of generational disciple-making and they think well are you are you saying I haven't I haven't made any disciples.

And that's a question that sometimes they verbalize out loud and other times they don't verbalize it out loud but but it comes out in the way that they engage. Tony have you encountered that with some older believers and how have you handled that in the past? Yeah I I think one of the things that happens is that for most of the nineties and the early two thousands the church that the larger church did a really good job with teaching people how to attend worship.

But not a great job at teaching people how to make disciples or even follow Jesus individually. And so when you begin to lean in on these things there's this sense of like oh well did I miss it? And you know if if we were if we were not grace-filled humans that the quick answer would be yeah you may have.

You know for the last 20 years it doesn't mean you haven't done good things but you may have missed it. So I think when we when we have these dialogues with long-time believers it's important to do two things. The first one is is to give a lot of grace and that this may be a new concept for them. And so and to just call it out like Hey we're defining this is probably the first time in your life.

You're 50 plus years of following Jesus that anyone's ever defined. Disciple-making yeah. That's not your fault. Right. So I just try to take my foot off the gas pedal immediately. Right. And so I want to give a lot of grace. I want to be very graceful. I don't want to add any guilt to this dialogue at all because there's nothing to be guilty about.

So that's the first part. The second part is I want to cast a little vision about hope because. The truth is is that you're never too old to start disciple-making. And now because they have the wisdom of a living a life of of knowing Christ they can give that wisdom into disciple-making wherever they are.

So I love to talk to grandparents about discipling their grandkids because that's a that's a very easy place to start. That's not Christian parenting that's can be very intensive. Very relational very reproducible. It can be rooted in scripture. And most of the time if you discipled someone from let's say 17 to 24 that 24 year old can be set on fire.

And that legacy for that grandparent has now drastically been changed. And it wasn't like it wasn't like they you know they didn't they had to you know th the opportunity was there easy for me to say Tony. That's so good. And that's really similar to how I help those older saints as well because you know as you said like they they're only accountable to what God has shown them before.

Right. And so I just try to defang the guilt right there and say listen I I imagine you've been faithfully following Jesus for decades and God's shown you something new. And so if God's showing you something new I would expect that you'll respond in the same way that you've been responding. And that is by engaging what he's showing you and trying to apply it right to life.

And because if we don't address that guilt then it really gets in people's way. But I like that idea of you know really showing vision to them as well. You know we're both in in Dayton Ohio and I know across our region there are older believers who are discipling for the first time and doing it effectively.

And I have a friend down in Florida. His mom started this might have been a couple years ago now but she was 92 years old when she first started discipling somebody. And to see that okay we're not too old to start. And if we were faithful before that's all we can control is our faithfulness to what God is showing us.

As he's showing us something new then we continue in faithfulness. Tony can you help us try to unpack or to to just sketch out for us? What does it what does it look like to establish some cultural clarity to establish a clear definition within like a church setting. Yeah well I think that's a great question and we talk about movement and I think it's really important to see this as a movement.

So if we want to get clarity around the definition if we want to get movements it's really going to have to start at the. Right. And so the leader is going to have to really be clear about what his or her definition of the word is. And then and then I think we kind of followed Jesus's example a little bit.

So then we pull around a team and you and I do work with churches all the time where we talk about leading you know leading learner teams a little teas and those are our cross-section of leaders. throughout the organization throughout the movement throughout the church where we can begin to filter in and kind of let the definition permeate.

And then something that I always recommend that one of my mentors told me is that if you're a pastor and you're listening to this you've got to teach your way through it. So what he means by that is is that the best and most consistent form of communication where you're going to get the most out of it is a.

Is the pulpit. So use the pulpit as a way to share the definition and be consistent. Right. And that kind of idea is is super important. And one of the things that we say a lot is that that common language creates common movement. That changes the individual for the corporate. Good. Whoa say that again?

I'll say it again. A little slower common language creates common movement that changes the individual for the corporate. Good. So let let me let me break that down a little bit. Is that when you get clear about a definition if a leader gets clear about a definition Creates common language right? That common language gets everybody kind of rowing in the same direction.

Right. And then as the individual understands his or her individual responsibility to row in the same direction to move that the culture gets better the corporate good gets better in the process. Oh yeah. I really liked that. And I think Tony didn't you at at our church when you were pastoring there you were.

Talking about this definition of disciple-making you you ironed it and imported it into sermons for a long time. I don't remember how long but it was at least months right? It was for six months. It was almost in every sermon. And actually I used it again in my last sermon. And you know if if if the one thing that I did for people am I seven years at restoration was give them a definition around disciple-making.

I feel like that's. Right. Because once you begin to get that clear idea then you can. You can attain it. You can put handles on it. You can grab it. And God really begins to change some things. Yeah. Yeah. And you did way more than that right? So it was not only definition but you were building disciple makers from that definition right.

It kind of set out okay this is who we are. This is who we're going to be. Both corporately and individually this is who we're becoming. And as people start to move towards that again that's that cultural clarity that that definition helped provide that okay this is this is what we're talking about.

When we use the word disciple-making this is exactly what we mean and this is exactly what we're asking people to do. So the power of that common definition in a culture is something that you know we shouldn't miss. Right. Because for many churches they don't have a common definition. And so they're not moving people people aren't aren't looking at something and saying okay that's who we're trying to become.

This is what we're trying to do. And if we don't have it then again we're back to the junk drawer where everything every favorite program or a favorite way to engage the church. That's their full definition of discipleship. And then it doesn't call people forth to become something that that is more than what they already are.

Right. And as we've talked about before disciple-making moves us through our weakness and it's not easy. It's not easy. And it if done well it really does change everything. It and I actually think that if you're a church leader and you're listening to. You can define disciple-making but you can also define a lot of things that will help build the culture that you want.

Right. Love is a word that we get thrown a lot around a lot that we don't define very well in the local church context. grace is another one all those kinds of things. So you know I I think it's important to get that clear definition for clear movement. Justin why don't you give us the takeaway and actually.

Yeah. So our takeaway today is is that great phrase or sentence that you gave us? Tony common language creates common movement that changes the individual for the corporate. So there are so much in that sentence that if you just take some time and reflect on that that's really going to help you. Common language creates common movement that changes the individual for the corporate.

Good. And then our action step today is defined disciple-making language with your community and with the people that you are discipling. Guys thank you so much for being a part of our community. We love doing this podcast. We love doing it with you. Do us a favor hit that subscribe button wherever you listen to.

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