Hey everybody. Welcome back to the practitioners podcast where we're applying Jesus style disciple making to everyday life. This episode and all of our episodes. Are powered by Navigator's Church Ministries. For more information or to get connected go to navigatorschurchministries. org. You like that little intentional pause there didn't you Justin?
That was very pause y. I feel like I'm in a groove somehow. I liked it. Well I'm excited about today's episode and I was reading what we're going to talk about again today as I was doing the intro. And so I got excited. So I I kind of paused and it was because I think. That we're going to continue the dialogue about developing a pathway of disciple making and it's so important to churches this development these steps today we're going to get nitty gritty with it.
If you haven't listened to last week's episode go back before you go forward because this is going to make a lot more sense. partnered with last episode. Yeah that's exactly right. So we're talking about developing a pathway of disciple making for your church for your ministry. And we're building on what we talked about last week.
I want to start us with a metaphor that culture is like a river. And it's not mine originally. It's this idea that it's always moving and we have this image not only in Christianity but also in Buddhist texts and Buddhist culture. But I want to take us back to a Puritan named Thomas Manton who said in the mid 1600s he said that culture is like a river.
If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power. And so this idea of building a disciple making pathway we can even think about it as building the banks of a riverbed so that the water will move in the direction that you want it to go.
And in some ways it's as simple as that. That if there is no banks to the river then you no longer have a river. You have a flood of some proportion and so as you're listening to this our presption is that you desire to build a disciple making culture And you want to learn how to do it so we don't need to convince you to do it You've already decided that you want to do it and we're going to give you seven steps in this episode about how to develop this disciple making pathway for your church or your ministry.
Now a couple of things to know about these steps right is that we hope that you use them as a tool. There's lots of different ways to do this. but we believe that if you are doing the work of developing a good pathway you're going to hit some of these if not all of these steps. And so just keep in mind we want you to use whichever one of the steps are most important and then if it's not applicable to you then just go ahead and throw it out at the end of the day.
To to kind of piggyback on the metaphor establishing the banks of the river are what's gonna be most beneficial. To your organization. So take the time to be intentional here and really lean in. So there are seven steps. Justin why don't you kick us off with nber one? Yep. Step one is to determine your values determine your values.
Now. This is for some a counterintuitive step one to a disciple making pathway but it's really important because cultures that are perfectly aligned with their values are what I call a match culture. And so when it's a match culture your culture aligns to your values and not only are the things you're doing aligned but the things you're talking about are going to be aligned and the way that you're talking about them is going to be aligned.
matching the values to where you want the culture to be makes a huge difference right? And before you can even do that you have to determine together what are these values and how do we communicate about them in this pathway or in this culture right? So if we determine that one value that we have is that Disciple makers will have the same language at by the time they're through the pathway or as they're going in through the pathway they're going to have the same language around disciple making.
Well that's going to change the way that you do every step of the pathway. And so again determining your values is step one take the time to do it. This is an easy one to skip over but if you skip over it. you run the risk of having a culture or practices within the culture that don't line up with what you want people to do or to be.
Okay so that's step one. Tony step two. Step two is that after you've kind of matched the culture you figured out the values. Step two is all about describing the destination. Right. You can think of this as your picture of the disciple. But at the end of the day if someone goes through the pathway of being a disciple maker what does that look like?
How do you hope that people in your culture will become right? How will they be different as a result of being shaped by your culture? And what I really think about as important as this is. Is getting very specific about the characteristics that will mark them. What kind of practices do people in your culture do on a regular basis that identifies them as a disciple that's been through your kind of culture your disciple making pathway.
For example one of the things that we talk about a lot at center vote grace is that our community will be marked by people who are Intentionally loving on their neighbor right? Reaching out to the unchurched. That's one of the identities the picture of a disciple in our pathway. And every every organization should have their own pathway and what that looks like so that they know how to direct everybody to the end goal.
Right. Describe the destination is step two. Justin tell us about step three. Yep. Step three is discuss the reality of your current culture. Discuss the reality of your current culture. So as you look at what's happening now in your culture what are the values that are expressed? In terms of what you're doing in terms of the why you're doing it what is the implied destination to what's expressed?
What are the normal practices that are present? Are these practices helpful in light of your values and the destination? Or are they something like a big rock that sits in the middle of that cultural river of your church? And if you just have that image think about a huge rock there and and the water is going around it and it's slowing down the moment of that water.
It's diverting energy and really creating some sideways or even backwards moment within the culture. And so when they're when you come upon those rocks you need to take note of what these rocks are because these rocks have to be dealt with. If you want a pathway that's going to be as effective as it can be and helping the culture move towards that.
Destination that you described in the in the last step. I just want to speak here from experience for just a second about step three. It's really hard to see the reality of your own culture. And Justin and I first met when he came into the church where I was the lead pastor and he helped me really see the idea of what the current culture is.
And so if if you're a lead pastor or if you're on church staff and you don't have an outside voice. Looking at your culture. I I just wanna put a a a personal plugin for contacting the navigators church ministries. This is what navigators all over the country do really really well. And so if you need somebody who loves the Lord who's disciple making centered and can help you evaluate your own culture don't be afraid to ask for help.
Amen to that because. It is true right? It's hardest to see the culture that we're immersed in right? And if you can't see it then it's really hard to address the things that are blocking or are hindering the progress that you want to make within that culture. Okay so again step three discuss the reality of your current culture.
You're going to need to keep what's discussed in mind as you move through the next few steps. Steps four through six. You have to do this step first because it it really impacts what happens in steps four five and six. Okay step four is decide what practices everyone will do. Decide what practices everyone will do.
Now this is this is where this pathway stuff really starts to get challenging because rarely will everyone in the process of developing this pathway have the same ideas on what practices everyone should do or everyone will do. And so that's where again we go back to step one in the values that we have that helps guide that discussion.
the destination helps guide that discussion but you need to think on every level of church engagement. And so i'm going to give you a couple different filters to filter what is happening through. Okay so at the end of the day after your pathway is finished Your church is probably going to have different opportunities.
There's going to be Large group or corporate opportunities. There's going to be medi sized group opportunities. And there'll be small group and individual opportunities. So that's one filter that you can think of. Another filter that can help us in deciding what practice is is to think about a culture and what are the first steps.
If someone is coming into your church what are the first steps that you're asking that person to do or to take? And then you're going to think well what are the next steps after that? And then you're going to also have some ongoing steps steps that don't end. It's not a term sort of thing like those first steps and next steps.
It's going to be continuing steps. Okay. As you're deciding what practices everyone will do you're going to be thinking about the different growth phases and needs of disciples. You know we've done last season actually we did a whole series on. different phases that disciples are in and what they need in those phases.
And so as you think about that you're thinking about okay well for infant disciples what do we have for them? How can we help them grow for adolescent or young adult disciples? What do we have for them et cetera et cetera. But this is where the the difficult work normally starts where people sometimes can get overwhelmed to be honest because it just feels like there's so much to wrestle through.
And there is. And there is. And so I don't want to communicate that this is an easy thing to do or that it's something that's going to be accomplished in one or two meetings. If you want a pathway that's durable if you want a pathway that's effective you're going to have to fight for it. And you're going to have to move through a lot of conversations and focus conversations clarifying conversations so that.
you can get to a pathway that again is durable in effect and effective. Over time your culture will unfold and with the clarity that it brings it will effectively be communicating to the people at your church or ministry Hey people like us do things like this. And the things like this are these practices right?
That I'm talking about in step four. Okay. So again step four decide what practices everyone will do. All right Tony I'm popping it over to you for the next couple. Step five. Okay. So after you've talked about it in step four now you actually have to do the really hard work of implementing it. This is kind of where the rubber meets the road.
So you want to design a step by step process that outlines what will happen when. Right? Take the practices that you already talked about. You already had the hard conversations about and sequence them to help disciples grow. Now the sequencing is really kind of the rubber meets the road part. And this is important.
It's really tempting to be organic or what we call kind of menu based. When it comes to this sort of thing so that people can pick what they want to do when they want to do it. But here's the problem because most Christians have never been taught anything about disciple making that leaves them overwhelmed and confused.
So one of the benefits of a pathway and a sequenced step by step what will happen when is that everyone knows exactly what to do next. So in step five take some time to talk about all the things that you did in step four and sequence them so that any disciple maker can follow them. All right. Step six every culture has rocks.
We talked about the rocks that obstruct progress. Right. The what the culture is what's currently there when it comes to step six you've got to dig up and discard barriers right? And this idea about going into each kind of thing that's in the life of your church and asking the question are they valuable?
Are they moving people directly towards the destination? These oftentimes can be really. I want to try to be very careful how I say this tradition based practices. So go ahead Justin what were you going to say? Sacred cows cows right? Like that's right. It's like these are the things that when they come up it's like well we can't get rid of that.
Like we've done that forever and done that forever. Right. Mary is so passionate about that. She would be crushed if we if we got rid of that. And and. And listen sometimes when you dig them up and discard them what you're saying is is not that they're not important but they maybe they're just not a part of the discipleship pathway.
Maybe they just need to be moved to a whole different stream. Right? So there were some things that we did at. at at my church that were super fun and people enjoyed them but they're not a part of the discipleship pathway. And so as we paint a picture of a disciple we don't include those steps right?
It's not critical that somebody attends the garage sale that we used to have in May right? Are you putting down garage sales? Like well no I'm not putting them. I'm just saying it's not part of the pathway right? And so when we talk about the picture of disciple that's not a step. Along the journey and and being clear about that is doesn't mean you have to stop doing them.
It just means we have to stop prioritizing them. And I think that's probably the biggest difference. And and listen leader if you're a church leader if you're a lay leader this will hurt people's feelings. And and that's why if you don't do the work early on about why you're doing this in step one in step two in step three if you don't do that early work you'll want to kind of recant in step six because this is the painstaking work.
Yeah this is the pruning step right? And and pruning is often painful. And many times people don't want any part of it. But the reality is if we don't prune if we don't remove and dig up and discard these rocks in the middle of the river then you're gonna have a river that's not as effective as what it could be.
It's not as focused as what it could be. And instead of energy all moving in the same direction with the same force and speed. We're going to have different parts of the church that's going to divert energy away from disciple making. That's the nice way to say it. a harsher or more pointed way to say it is we're going to have cesspools that are going to emerge in in the river because there's these rocks and it's it's pulling energy away and and there's moment that gets created circular moment where people get stuck.
Because they're they're involved in something and giving a lot of passion energy towards something that doesn't move them towards becoming a disciple or a disciple maker. And so this is a really hard part. It's a really hard part. But like Tony said if we're not willing to move through these hard parts then there's a price a continual price that will be paid.
by the culture. Now you're right. You're probably thinking well there's a price to be paid if I do this too. And there is. And so you have to choose as a leader where are you going to pay the price? And how are you going to determine which direction you want to go on that? Okay. Tony anything else? Step six.
Again this is hard work. And so if if you're doing it if you're doing the hard work just find somebody to walk alongside you whether that's this podcast or a member of the NAVs team out in the community even just another disciple making pastor this is the kind of stuff that. It hurts people's feelings and it's hard to be a leader and it's just tough.
So I don't want you to do it alone. It's just not it's not that fun. You really plug in the nabs a lot today Tony. I like this. Well it's it's only because this is some of the hard stuff that it's just in addition to all the other work that has to be done in the church it's it's hard to stay focused on this by yourself.
Yeah I think that's right. And I think too one of the things that I'll share with pastors sometimes is let me come in and be the bad guy right to have the hard meeting and to say the hard thing that the pastor could very well say just as easily but the difference is if I come in or someone else comes in and says it then at the end of the meeting the pastor can put his arm around the elder or whoever's upset and say man that was really tough wasn't it?
That's really hard to hear. And so there's a way to empathize without being the guy that's communicating it that allows the discussion just to happen a little more easily. I still blame Justin for stuff all the time. Step seven step seven discern how to continually improve your pathway. discern how to continually improve your pathway.
Hey let's not get backed and bogged down by this idea that it's got to be perfect before we roll it out. It doesn't have to be and it's not going to be. Your first attempt at your discipleship pathway is not going to be your best attempt. But the thing is if you get it rolling well now you can iterate you can change it you can make it more effective and As people see what's trying to to be done and what it's trying to accomplish then they will bring some feedback back as well.
And then again you can make adjustments. So just keep that in mind. Don't don't get bogged down with Oh we got to get this exactly right before we roll it out. Just make your great honest effort at it. Spend the time working with it and then just let it go and then figure out where do we need to adjust.
What are the iterations that we can make? And as long as you're doing that you're going to continually improve that pathway. So there you have it. Seven steps. I'm going to read them real fast. And then Tony you can take us out with our takeaway and action step. Step one determine your values. Step two describe the destination.
Step three discuss the reality of your current culture. Step four decide what practices everyone will do. Step five design a step by step process that outlines what will happen and when. Step six dig up and discard barriers. Step seven discern how to continually improve your pathway. We will put those in the show notes.
Tony take us out. Our takeaway friends every pathway begins with the first step. Be bold enough to take it. Every pathway begins with the first step. Be bold enough to take it. Your action step evaluate where you are right now and develop a disciple making pathway and then take your next step evaluate where you are in developing a disciple making pathway and take your next step.
Friends as always we're forever thankful for you and the journey that we're on together. As always if there's anything we can do to help don't hesitate to let us know. And Hey the highest compliment you can give us. Share this episode with a friend maybe somebody who you know is passionate about disciple making.
Until next time we'll see you real soon.