26. Practitioner's Podcast: Playing Defense in Disciple Making

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Good morning Justin. Good morning. Good morning. Here we go. You can always tell when it's getting close to the end of the season. Right. Because it goes from I'm excited to be here to here we go. Good. Now we love it. Now that wasn't good. Here we go. Oh oh oh oh okay. All right. Sorry. I misread that. Here we go.

Go. You know in sports there I was like let's go. Yeah. Random question of the day. One thing on your bucket list. One thing on your bucket list. You want me to let me go first. Let me go. Okay. Okay go ahead. one thing on my bucket list is I would like to walk the great wall of China like walk on it. Oh really pumped on it.

Did you know that? I did not know that not only walked on it but camped out. Well your wife has always been cool but now she's an extra. Cool. All right. One thing on your bucket list. see that tired. I don't really have a bucket list. that makes perfect sense. I share my heart and soul and you have nothing.

I don't know if the great wall called buys is your heart and soul but have you ever heard me talk about it before? all right. So I just shared an intimate part of my life and you just chucked it to the road. one thing I'd like to do though I mean I always like to go back to Thailand so hopefully that will be in my future but I've already been there.

So I don't know if that counts for bucket list but that's what I got when a world series. Oh yeah that that seems real far off. Never gonna happen. okay. Let's talk about today's episode. we're talking about speaking of sports defense and offense in disciple-making and I think as we jump into this we're going to talk specifically today about defensive disciple making.

And how important it is but yeah but would you kind of paint us a picture first of all about what defense defensive and offensive disciple-making is because we're using these terms very intentionally. And we want you to think about them intentionally as you think about the people that you're pouring in.

Yep. So we think about disciple-making we can think about two things that we need to do or two sides that we need to be playing. So the one is offense the other's defense. If you think about football for instance or basketball there's if you're going to score points you're going to score points when you're on off.

And so we're talking about defense and you might be thinking well what do we need to defend against in disciple-making. And we just got to consider the Bible instructs all of us to be on guard against different things. Right? So love love of money. For instance Satan schemes living an idle life and in disciple-making we have to be on defense as well in terms of Helping people not waste their lives helping people not live unfruitful early in their lives but in disciple-making most of what we're talking about today and the way that we play defense in a disciple-making relationship is traditionally just by reacting and responding.

And so you walk into that disciple-making meeting you sit down you ask a question like how's it going? What's going on today? what are some of the things that have been coming up or challenging you this week? And then you just handle what comes at you right? And so that's where the defensive metaphor comes in is you're responding and reacting to what the disciple is.

Do. So what's really interesting about this idea is that it's important to note that defensive disciple-making is not lack of preparation. So when we come into a disciple-making meeting when you come into a disciple-making meeting you probably already have a plan on what you want to work on. Ideally you've set a smart goal from your last meeting and now you're coming in and you're going to execute and follow up on the smart goal.

So if I'm using the wheel like we talked about a couple of weeks ago then I'll use the wheel and use that as a plan. That's my initial pathway. But every now and then there are moments in life that Fort every good plan. Right. And and because we're not programmatic disciple makers we're relational disciple makers.

We want to be able to flex when the plan needs to be changed. So so here's an example a friend of mine while he's become a friend a gentleman that I disciple he comes in and he tells me that his marriage is not in a good place. And so I originally had a plan to talk about scripture and scripture memory.

Now in my head this is what I'm thinking. Okay. He's not in a position to hear what I have to say about scripture thinking and it's not as as urgent as the desire to talk about the marriage. So then what we'll do is we'll shift and talk about. His marriage stuff and include now we're still going to execute the same type of plan right.

And this is how I do it. we're still gonna execute the same type of plan in regards to like we're going to come up with a smart goal. We're going to come up with a plan on on Hey here's some action steps afterwards in this particular case with this particular gentleman what we ended up doing was leaving there with a plan for him to practice praying over and with his spouse.

So we set a smart goal in the next week and the next three to five days he's going to pray with his wife at least three times. So that was kind of the goal that we set out to do. And then we talked about what does good prayer in your marriage look like? And then we went from there. That was not the plan that I had going in but that was the plan that needed to happen because.

Well because a life right? Because of life Justin what do you think and how do you handle it when somebody comes in and throws your curveball? I know that I've thrown you a couple of myself but yeah no. Yeah. Very much like what you described And that is I like how you said that it's not necessarily unintentional disciple-making.

the defense is responding and reacting to what comes and that's that's not necessarily a negative thing. and so certainly in that scenario you described that is the right move. Right. It's not to press in to what you think needs to happen when there's obviously something else that God is doing and the way that he's working in that disciples life.

but the other side of it Tony is that as you know sometimes we can use defensive skills as a means to Not be intentional to not play offens. Right. And so we'll walk in without a plan or we'll walk in with the exact same plan. meeting after meeting after meeting. And that same plan is I'm going to ask some questions.

I'm going to listen to what they say I'm going to respond and then I'm going to get them to action steps. and that fits more of what what I would call coaching. that's more of a coaching framework rather than discipling and we'll get to more specifically what authentic is next episode. but defensive skills are important.

And we need to have them as disciple makers. And so we need to develop some of those defensive skills. And Tony you just talked about that scenario and you responded and drew out some of the actions that you are doing but can you walk us through a little bit of what would be some of these key defensive skills that we could develop?

Yeah and I think this is a really important when we talk about skills Th this isn't just for defense. This is good disciple-making skills just in general right? This is your you're going to want to develop these and and be intentional about them. the first one is listening. And I and I know that sounds really cliche.

Oh listen I have to be a good listener and know I mean like really listening and being fully present in the moment. Oftentimes if you're anything like me you come in with such a plan and as we say we're coming in hot right? Like I'm coming in from one meeting to the next meeting. And I'm really excited to jump into this disciple-making so I'm like Hey how you doing?

As I'm opening up my book or my iPad to do what's next. And I've completely missed. My guy is saying emotionally right? What his presence is. So I want to be a good listener but I want to be a good emotional listener. And so everything defensively starts with good emotional listening. And that's like reading the play defensively.

I you know I played a little bit of quarterback in high school my freshman year and you're always trying to read where the wide receivers are. Same thing. Right. I want to listen. And then the second thing is is is good question. Ask. Right. And so you take an emotional kind of assessment of the situation and then you begin to ask good questions right.

And that's curiosity and also open-ended questions. so just allowing the person that you're in this relationship with to share their heart because once they get to sharing their heart you'll be able to. Respond in a way that's appropriate to the situation meaning that that you'll you'll fully know.

So sometimes people say that they have a problem with their marriage for example but it's really not about their marriage. It's really about maybe something at work that's bleeding over to their marriage. Right. And so sometimes if we're not skilled defenders we end up treating symptoms instead of treating wounds.

Hmm. Yeah. If you're not a skilled defender you could end up treating symptoms. And the problem with treating symptoms and not wounds is that there's always another simple. so really trying to get underneath what's happening on the surface to what's causing it is what I hear you saying. Yeah. Intimacy right?

Intimacy and disciple-making is so. Yup. Yup. So those skills are skills that we can develop as disciple makers. Right? So the skill of listening the skill of question asking being curious leaning in a little further encouraging and coaching. So. These are kind of patterns or habits that we can develop in that disciple-making relationship that that really help.

Right. And they help build a relationship of depth with people that isn't just focused on content or focused on the agenda. That the disciple maker has. I often say that in disciple-making relationships we have to co-create a what's happening and how we're moving forward together. And so if we are playing effective defense as well as offense which we'll get to next time but if we're playing effective defense it's a way to develop that relationship.

Tony there's also though we can get into trouble if we play only defense. Right. So if we're only playing defense then the outcome of that there's really a couple. So one is that you will often end up with disciples who are focused on their own growth and not focused on helping others. And so if you've ever discipled somebody.

And you just have trouble getting them to reproduce. You're having trouble getting them to go out and engage others. You might look at am I playing too much defense here? Because clearly this person doesn't seem to be interested in helping others they're too focused on their own growth and what what happens with too much defense?

Another thing that happens is We re we reproduced disciples who have been coached and counseled but they haven't been trained or. And so if you're only coaching counseling responding not training and equipping then again they're not going to go reproduce there. They're going to love meeting with you though because do you're helping them.

You're listening. You're engaging. You're working with them as they move through problems of life that that are felt needs for them but getting them trained and equipped is something very different that we'll be talking about. Yeah. And I actually think this is really important for the pastors that might be listening.

That there's a natural inclination for intentional disciple-making to morph. If you only play defense to morph into pastoral. And so pastoral care is something that a lot of us get trained on. And you know I took some classes on it in seminary and what it is people come in and they share their hearts which is very common in disciple-making.

And then they begin to tell you about all the things that are weighing them down or heavy on them. Now hear me when I say this there's nothing wrong with pastoral counseling. I don't want there to be any kind of negative connotation around it but let's also not call it intentional discipling. Right.

And I think that distinction is where we end up gaining a lot of fruit in disciple-making when we know that it's not pastoral counseling. So again if you think about managing your life as a pastor or a church leader I've got blocks of time for pastoral counseling. I've got blocks of time for friendship and I've got blocks of time for.

Disciple-making right. And when I begin to clarify them in my head it helps me know what I'm what I'm actually doing to make disciples and what I'm doing just in my pastoral role and even Bible studies and stuff. I don't count that as my disciple-making time. That's discipleship time. It's very you know again clarity around this kind of stuff goes a long way to make sure that you're putting intentional effort into reproducible relationship.

Does that make sense? Yeah absolutely. So Tony and your training as a pastor. So you had some of that training in pastoral counseling. and I'm really interested in this. Like I almost asked the question but I'm sitting here thinking this is a better question for next episode. but I want to know next episode I'm going to ask you what intentional training they gave you in orphans.

Right. But I almost got ahead of ourselves so but a lot of good defensive trainer we love a good teaser right? That's right. That's right. Tony what things have you done outside of. your seminary training to develop your defensive skills. One of the things that I have done in the past is I've gone to some listening workshops that are put on in the secular world.

Right. And and this has been this has been. It has helped a lot in the podcast world because so much of what I do when I do podcasts is listen ask questions kind of learn to be flexible those kinds of things. So you know between our podcast season two of the of the practitioners podcast and what I do over on the reclamation side I've probably interviewed or talked to over.

I've had over 200 intentional conversations. And so there's a lot of reps in question asking. And I also love to read and I know you do too. So there's some great books on the art of storytelling or you know some of these kind of intentional listening books. what about you? Yeah. Couple of things I've done.

workshops on question asking Jesus asked so many questions. It seemed to be one of his primary tools in ministry. I'll say used to play the question game a lot which is where you have a conversation with only questions and the first person to say something. That's not a question loses that game.

So it's kind of silly and fun for a bit and then it gets super annoying. and then that. The other thing I've done is I've done a year of coaching training. So I'm a trained and certified coach and that people want to do your coaching from you. They could write they could that's right. Yep. So coaching is unregulated right now.

So what I mean by that and in the strand that I've been trained in is what's known as inquiry-based coaching. And so. It does revolve around asking questions and drawing people out in specific ways. but that's been super helpful in disciple-making on the defensive side. Hmm. Yeah. And I here's the thing friends is as you're listening to this and you're like well I don't I don't know.

all you have to do is find something out there. That's different from what you've known really done as it pertains to question asking curiosity and. even conflict mediation right? Any of those things are going to be good trainings to make you a good disciple maker. So you know I'm confident that if you are looking for a way to get connected And build that skill.

You can find one no problem. I you know who else has some great resources on listening and question asking go to the navigators website navigators.org. There's a ton of resources out there. one of my favorite places to find disciple-making resources is on their website and and I encourage you to check them out.

So today's topic. Skilled disciple makers play defense by using life events to move people towards Christ. Listen to them and say it one more time. Cause it's we're very intentional with our words skilled disciple makers play defense but by using life events to move people towards Christ and today's actions.

As usual simple but not easy. Find one defensive skill you can improve and your disciple-making relationship and go and prove it. Right. Find one defensive skill you can improve in your disciple-making relationship. And go improve it. Friends. We're so thankful to be on this journey with each and every one of you.

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