Hey everybody. Welcome back to the practitioners podcast. So we're applying Jesus style disciple-making to everyday life this episode and all of our episodes are powered by navigators church ministries which focuses on helping churches make disciples who can make disciples for more information or to get connect.

Check out their website navigators church ministries.org. Hey Tony we're back episode two season two. I'm asking you a random question today. Are you ready for it? I'm ready. Okay. Chocolate or vanilla? Oh man. I feel like if I pick one I'm going to be judged for the other. I need more context Justin. are we talking ice cream?

We talk in fudge. We talk in milkshakes. What do we talk? let's say ice cream but I'd like to point out that I think most of us can answer this without further context but go ahead. I appreciate the fact that I'm an individual and I select for ice cream. I'll take chocolate. What about you? Vanilla.

We'll take vanilla. You know I've learned that chocolate gets more publicity but actually Americans I've learned this stuff. twice a nber of Americans prefer vanilla to chocolate. Don't you think though? That's because the amount of toppings you can put on vanilla are better than chocolate. not for me but maybe maybe we got we got let's get into it.

Well it's a perfect segue right? Because what we're talking about today is his posture right? And the way that you answered that question is a perfect representation of your pocket. Okay let's hear more about this. What what what is past year and how was my posture in that posture is how you view yourself right?

It's it's the way that you face towards something in this particular case. In in our ridiculous example we're talking about your posture for vanilla ice cream and toppings but for most of our lives posture is really all about. how you face how you stand how you address an area of your life. And today we're going to talk about posture in disciple-making and actually tell us a little bit about the you know the starter you know of of what we're getting into postures of an effective disciple maker.

Yeah. So we're going to cover over the next three episodes including this one is the the three postures of an effective disciple maker. And we're taking it out of second Timothy two. So September the two two is a familiar verse to many of us and disciple-making and it says and the things you've heard me say in the presence of many witnesses.

And trust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. And so we use that verse frequently right? As disciple makers. And you might have shared it with somebody that you're discipling. And then we'll normally ask how many generations are in this first. And you know there's four right?

Paul's talking to Timothy Timothy to reliable men reliable men to others. And the witnesses I mess that up but you can look at it and there's four. Right. But right after that Paul unpacks you know what? It looks like to be a disciple maker and how we can posture ourselves around these three certain really vocations in a lot of ways.

And so the first one's a soldier now I'm excited because Tony you have been a soldier. I'd never been a soldier but posture is about like you said it's not not just about. What we know it's how we view ourselves how we engage the world. So it's more really about who we are. And so what can you tell us about being a soldier?

What does it mean to be a soldier? Tony? Yeah. You know I I you know soldiers an interesting idea. because when I left for basic training I thought I knew what it meant to be a soldier. and there's a really funny thing that happens in basic training. And if you've been in around the military you kinda know soldiering begins with knowing that your group identity is more important than your individual identity.

And so there's this really interesting thing that happens in basic training where when you start basic training you get in trouble for whatever anyone else does. Right. So so soldiers should not be over here. Private Snuffy shows up five minutes late. Everybody does pushups right? private joke decides.

Yeah it's horrible. It's horrible. Right? Private Joe decides he's not terrible. Make his bed the right way. And everybody's got to remake their beds. But what they're doing is they're posturing us. Right. They're putting us in a proper posture that says no one here is bigger than the team. Right. And the team is what's most important.

And so there there's an idea in soldiering that happens that that you begin you you never lose your individual identity but your individual identity comes secondary to your identity in the mission right. Or or we would say in the church and your identity in Christ is is the nber one part of your identity and then everything else after that does that make sense?

Yeah really. Wow. That's really interesting to me never having been in that context or culture just hearing how that how that works. And yeah boy I would have been pretty annoyed by that on either side. Right? If I was the guy that didn't make his bed right. Or for the other guy was like oh man if I had negative feelings about both sides but I see what you're saying that that what they're doing is creating that culture where all of you are engaging with the whole as well.

I have that right? Yeah. And and what ends up happening is because there's so much commitment to the whole. Everyone wants to see everyone else be successful. So after the punitive season of basic training you kind of move into the building season of basic training when you're making soldiers. And one of the things they do is they create people like battle buddies.

Right. That's what we call them. Hey who's your battle buddy? Right? Who's the soldier that's going to help you make sure that you're not late that your bed is made. And sometimes the drill Sergeant would even come in to the big common area. And we all had to dress the exact same way it's being in uniform.

Right. And and one of the things if somebody was dressed the wrong way instead of early on in the session of basic training when they would do punitive responses what they would start to do then is they would say something like. One of the soldiers is not like the a there you know and they would sing this song over and over again.

It's super annoying. Right. And then they would say you now have 30 seconds and I'm not going to say it exactly how they say it but basically to fix yourself right. I'll leave the expletives out of it. But you have 30 seconds to fix that. And then what happens is all these soldiers begin to kind of move around like a beehive so that we try to figure out which one of us didn't put on the right socks or the right undershirt or the right you know have the right uniform.

And so now what's happened is we've gone from punitive posturing to now we're building collaboration and achievement posturing and then eventually we all succeed. Together right. We were going to succeed together no matter what the you know no matter what the task is. Yeah. So what I hear you guys what you're saying then is that what this context did is you guys knew what the mission was.

If I can use that word in that exercise that you described like the mission was that you would all. Be the same in terms of your dress or how you looked and then because of the way it was framed out you guys work together to help each other get to that place where you were all successful together.

Yes. I like that. That's really cool. It was our own world. Yeah. All right Tony what I want to do is I want to read the rest of this passage. So I already read sanct the two two I want to read verses three and four and then I'll share just a little bit of how I take it. And then I'd love to hear kind of you flesh it out as somebody that has had that experience as a soldier.

Right? So for those listening we're starting in second Timothy two three already said second Timothy 2 2 2 3 continues. And again Paul is writing to Timothy his. Paul says endure hardship like a good soldier of Christ. Jesus no one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. He wants to please his commanding officer.

So there's a couple of things here. Tell me that. Stand out to me. The first is this idea of enduring hardship like a good soldier. So I picture that as like somebody who's not complaining. Right. They're just doing what they're supposed to be doing. It's probably terrible but they're just still doing it.

and then the other thing that really stands out to me is this idea of not getting involved in civilian affairs. I've I've I'm a civilian right? In terms of that framework I'm not a soldier I'm a civilian. And so I don't even get that distinction fully because I don't know what what civilians are involved in that soldiers.

I'd just love to hear your thoughts on on that passage. Well I I think part of the building of a soldier process is to to kind of go to this idea about enduring hardship right? So I would say that hardship is baked in to the soldier making process. We even have this thing called the warrior ethos.

And and I used to joke at my very first church job that the warrior ethos is the closest thing I ever found. You you know working at a church is the closest thing I ever found to being in the army and the warrior ethos go like this. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit and I will leave a never leave a fallen common.

And then a lot of ways it feels like what we do in the church. Right. I'll always place the mission first. I'll never quit. I'll never leave a fallen comrade right? Like it's kind of that same idea. So hardship is baked in baked in I'm reminded of the scripture that Paul says that rejoice to the extent for we can suffer with Christ right?

There's a a part of this that's baked in. You're putting down your own agenda. You're picking up the mission of. And around civilian affairs. I think when we think about civilian affairs what we're really talking about is the culture right? And when we think about soldiers when we think about the military we think about unity.

We think about looking the same acting the same living a certain lifestyle we call it an SOP standard operating procedure. Right. And everybody in the military has an SOP that they're required to follow in order to exist well together. But when we step out into the world civilian affairs you don't have an SOP.

Your family may have one but in the culture with a bunch of random right people you're not going to have an SOP. So I what I look at when I see this verse is they're saying Hey no one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. Knowing serving as a soldier gets involved in the culture of the world outside of what the mission takes us to.

I like that. So civilian affairs so almost like those are distractions right? And if we if we can tie this in to disciple-making then what I'm thinking is that you know Paul is really trying to show us as followers of Christ as mature disciple makers that. What we are called to is a mission right.

That we are linking arms together to fulfill but we're also doing it in our individual responsibility. and that we are so committed to the mission that we are not going to be distracted by civilian affairs. And then here's the part in verse four that I really like. And then. You know I don't know if it fits totally what I'm saying but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on is he wants to please his commanding officer.

So the motivation as I'm taking that as kind of an outsider of the soldier culture is that well my ultimate job as a soldier is to plan to please my commanding officer. And my commanding officer's job is to fulfill the mission right? Like that's what he is wanting us to do and to be a part of. And so you know for us as disciple makers our first priority is to please God.

And we do that. We please God by not being distracted from what Jesus has is here to do. Tell me your thoughts and all that. I like it. I think in the military culture there's two types of commanding officers ones that you want to please and ones that you don't want to please ones that you don't care about right?

Like guides that you're not willing to take the hill for so to speak. And so what I love about the way that Paul writes this to Timothy is that he wants to please his commanding officer. And there's kind of an implication there about mutual. respect right? That there's a there's a desire to please the commanding officer because you love and respect the commanding officer.

You know oftentimes in the military we would call the Colonel or the person who's the boss. We call them the old man like Hey let's let's get this one for the old man. Right. And so. There's a love and admiration there you know you'd see it really clearly. If you're a big movie buff like I am in that that movie we were soldiers.

That's our that's a really well done movie. And Mel Gibson plays the the old man of that movie. And he's the he's the first one on the ground and he's the last one to leave. And that's why these men want to please him because he serves them. And I think when we think about it in disciple-making the ultimate disciple maker is of course Jesus.

And so what he did for us on the cross is why we want to serve him so well. Right. We want to live out that calling. So if we want to do that well we must stay focused and live our life. The way that the old man did right. The way that Jesus did without distraction without civilian affairs. The things that can come in and and you and I both love the local church.

And but oftentimes I think the local church can get distracted by things that aren't really on the same mission or vision of what the commanding officer really wants. And and it's something that we all have to just be wary of. Yeah I love that. Cause as we're thinking about disciple-making and posturing ourselves like what posture would we have and why this discussion that we're having right now is so important is because we are in a culture that is designed to distract us right from tors zone to the next you know shiny thing or product or convincing us that we don't have what we need.

We got to go over there and get it or just like you said even as as Christ followers we can be distracted by. Things that you know seem important and significant but they're really drawing our attention away from the mission that God has given us. And you know I've I've written about the drifts of disciple disciple makers.

And one of the drifts is this drift of mission. You know instead of being focused on reaching the lost and making disciples we become focused on you know all a whole list of other things that while they might be good things they're not the thing. Right. And so you know posture of a of a soldier is one of total commitment right.

Total commitment and commitment to not drifting from the mission. Right. And how how else would you talk about you know the posture. the soldier right? So kind of tie in some of the things that we've been talking about back to the beginning of posturing what does this look like for us as disciple makers to really posture ourselves like a soldier in the midst of our living out what it means to be a disciple and disciple maker?

Let me say it like this. when I Really first showing that the army and I got out of basic training and I got really into like a real army unit. One of the things that my old first Sergeant used to say is every morning we get to put on this Superman. Right. And he was talking about the the army uniform.

And there's this really interesting idea that he kind of planted in me that when we wake up and we throw on our fatigues and we put on our boots we become part of something much bigger. Right. We become part of a mission that is. You know history historic historical and I'm proud and you know full of incredible Hans.

And I think I think as we begin to like look at posture And what this means in disciple-making the same thing is true is that when we decide to to pick up our scripture in the morning and we decide to sit down with someone to make disciples we get to posture ourselves in a way that pleases our commanding officer and works works to to be a part of something much bigger.

And while we we hold onto our own identities what we strive for. To have one solid identity in Christ as the church you know and it's a beautiful incredible way to kind of wake up and approach the. Oh wow. Yeah. I really love that. I love how you said that and this idea of you know just putting the those things on right.

That each day we get to be that how exciting is that that that's who we are and that's who God has called all of us to be not just some people not just pastors you know all of us that follow Jesus are called to be disciple makers and to posture ourselves as a soldier. let me give you guys our takeaway and action step for this week.

the takeaway the mission requires your full attention. the mission requires your full attention because I promise you this culture is trying to distract you from the mission that God has given you and our action step. Maybe take some time take some time and list out the distractions that that kind of keep you from living out the mission of disciple-making.

And maybe it's it's diverted you completely from that mission. Maybe they're small distractions that on a daily level they keep you from engaging that mission the way that you that you know you're called to and the way that you want to. And so you know action steps maybe list those out and then take action on those.

well guys listen we're out of time for today. Thank you so much for tuning in again we're excited to be back with you next week or we'll continue in this series on the three postures of a disciple maker. If you haven't already please like and subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss any episodes and we'll be back with you again real soon.