Ep. 193 Daniel Im - Discipleship in a Post-Everything World

There are cracks in the foundation. We have assumed that church and discipleship should look a certain way to produce more numbers, but through the last several years, we’ve seen we may have missed the mark. In this episode, Daniel Im discusses discipleship in a post-modern world where truth is seen as subjective rather than objective. He proposes a discipleship framework that focuses on interested Christians and interested non-Christians rather than just reaching one group or the other. He encourages churches to empower all disciples to make disciples rather than relying only on formal church leadership. We talk equipping believers to gather, grow, give, and go together through community rather than just gathering for teaching. So join us as we dive into the opportunity we have for discipleship in a post-everything world.

Daniel Im is a pastor, Bible teacher, writer, and podcast host with a passion for the local church. He is the lead pastor of Beulah Alliance Church and the author of No Silver Bullets, Planning Missional Churches, and You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies about Work, Life, and Love. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta with his wife Christina and their three children. For more information, visit danielim.com and connect with him on social media @danielsangi. Daniel's newest book is The Discipleship Opportunity.

Daniel's Book:
The Discipleship Opportunity

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Transcript

Daniel Im: 0:00

But no one today would say, Joshua, that a shrinking church is a sending church. Right? No one would say that. But it was from that, that that is what started leading to the heavily pragmatic ways of looking at church of measuring strategies of doing things where we just became growth obsessed. And while the stock markets went up into the right, and everyone likes that, we want our churches to go up into the right and there's no, there's, there's no and our population is going up into the right. So so so there's no, you know, we're not martyrs. And we're not saying, oh, okay, well let all of our churches should be shrinking, because that's a mark of faithfulness. That's not what we're saying either. We want growth, we want to reach the last, but you can't say you're sinning. If you're shrinking, right, that's that's a little gone too far. Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson, our show is powered by you, the listener, if you want to support the work that we do get early access to episodes, Episode guides, and more. Go to patreon.com/shifting culture to become a monthly patron so that we can continue in this important work. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network? Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast, where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Alan Hirsch, Jesse Cruikshank and chair Woodward. You go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Daniel M. Daniel M is a pastor, Bible teacher, writer and podcast host with a passion for the local church. He's the lead pastor of Beulah Alliance Church and the author of no silver bullets, planning missional churches, and you are what you do and six other lies about work life and love. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta with his wife, Christina, and their three children. Daniel's newest book is the discipleship opportunity. Did you know that there are cracks in the foundation, we assume that church and discipleship should look a certain way to produce more numbers. But through the last several years, we have seen that we may have missed the mark. In this episode, Daniel M discusses discipleship in a postmodern world where truth is seen as subjective rather than objective. He proposes a discipleship framework that focuses on interested Christians and interested non Christians rather than just reaching one group or the other. He encourages churches to empower all disciples to make disciples. Rather than relying only on formal church leadership. We talk equipping believers to gather grow given go together through community rather than just gathering for teaching. So join us as we dive into the opportunity we have for discipleship in a post everything world. Here is my conversation with Daniel M. Daniel, welcome to shifting culture. Thanks for joining me really excited to have you on. Hey, Joshua, I'm honored and I'm delighted and excited to have the conversation with you. I think it's gonna be a good one. I think it's crucial for the church to figure out what we can do for discipleship that we have kind of assumed that church has been one way for a little while and that we were making disciples, but we really haven't been making disciples and I think the pandemic kinda let us know that our discipleship hasn't been working well. How did you start to see some of the assumptions that the church was believing in wasn't really working that there were some cracks in the foundation of what we assumed church was? Yeah, so I have been in vocational pastoral ministry for about 18 years. And when I was living in Nashville, for five years, there is this period where I was blessed to have a ton of exposure to a variety of churches in different denominations, predominantly helping them with their leadership and with multiplication. So us Canada and Australia in particular is where where I worked with churches. And it was there, like you said, I mean, there was a sense of it's that perennial question, how do we disciple better if Jesus is commissioned his great commission is to go and make disciples of all nations. I think we've all come to terms with, hey, discipleship isn't just about head knowledge. It's not just about information transfer. But there's a sense of, is there a fruit in your life? And as you referred through the pandemic, there was a sense where, while I thought you were a deeply committed follower of Christ, but where's the fruit of the Spirit? Like, what is going on here? I thought we're supposed to be full of love and joy and peace. And all I see is hatred, anxiety, and just this sense of control, we've lost, we lost control. How do we gain control? And, and the deeper essence of Yeah, what sort of fruit is on our tree? Or are we are we trying to, you know, do a fake fruit on our tree, that element was revealed. So I think that that was a sense of what we were seeing what was magnified that then came to some of the questions that I began asking that prompted the book. Okay, so what are some of the questions you began asking? Where then? Yeah, so for me locally, we moved back to Canada six months before the pandemic hit. And as I was walking into a context where the church is now 102 years old, been back for five years, and I was doing lead pastor, senior pastor succession, following someone who had been the lead pastor for 30 years. Right. So there's a sense where we the pandemic hits, we're right, we're walking through succession, we're trying to figure all this out. And there's just this sense of okay, how do we make sure that we are discipling people to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, and that they are that King Jesus is first and foremost. And so there is a sense right in, in the work in the midst of of local church leadership, there are these questions of okay, so then, as we are emerging out, what's the same? What's different things sort of feel the same? Are we just gonna go back to what we used to do? Because it wasn't really working? Are we just gonna go back to some of the assumptions, some of the questions that we're basing our ministries off of? Because, like, 911, the world is different. And as much as some people want it to downplay it. No, there are things that are not changing. And in 30 years time, we're still going to be figuring out and discerning the effects. If you just take education, for example, right and accelerated, etc, etc. So when it came to the church, there is a sense of, okay, I'm not going to come down and sit and write down write a pandemic book, because no one wants to read that no one wants to think about that. So I wasn't, I knew I knew the world had changed. I knew in our post truth, post, Christian, post pandemic, post everything world, this world was different. But I didn't want to just look at the last five years, I wanted to actually go back as far as I could, to discern what was actually a major philosophical pillar that the Western the church in the West had built off of. And that's when I discovered it was 70 years ago, the Church Growth Movement that is still in the air that we're breathing that still so seeped and mixed up with our western individualistic consumeristic growth obsessed culture. And while no one would attribute the way that we lead and measure and look at our dashboard to that movements, that's 70 years old now. We still aren't, we're still looking back to that. So that those were, that's where all the questions started coming from. Yeah. So what what happened then back in 1950, toma Gavin Brown bringing out the Church Growth Movement, talking about the church, as say, basically a consumeristic place where we can grow things to a massive scale. What was that shift? And what were were there some good things that came out of the shift? Yep. Then what are some things that maybe we need to course correct back and have some alignment back into focus on Jesus? Yeah, great question. So I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not saying it's easy. In hindsight. They, this is what they should have done or this is this is that's not that's not what I'm doing because the original intent around McGavin and Wagner and all the people who were influential in shaping In this movement, the heart was to seek and save. The last was the Great Commission, the heart was, hey, we are moving away from our mission. We're becoming country clubs as churches, and a lot of moves. Just like in the Catholic Church. With every order that was established, it was in response to something else. It was the swings. So the same way the Church Growth Movement for the Protestant church, it has affected the Catholic Church too. But predominantly coming out of the Protestant church, there was this emphasis and desire to reach and to save the last. So that was the origins of it. Hey, I'm in grad fuller Theological Seminary, which was the hub of the Church Growth Movement. I've served in church in Korea, that was 50,000 people. The church that we're at right now, we're very large and Edmonton. So there is a sense where I'm not. I'm not like, I hate mega churches, or I hate large churches. I'm only small church. I'm only micro church. I'm, that's not, that's not who I am. It's more, let's stop basing our ministries on assumptions that no longer exist anymore. Let's study let's uncover let's be learners of our culture. Right? Let's be learners of our shifting culture of our of who we are. And then what can we respond so, so I'm not throwing it all out. But here is here is a quote, and I'm not going to say who said it. But here's a quote at that was really a driving factor of this movement. A shrinking church is a sinning church. Right? Today, you would never say that. Actually, I with the bulk. And with the podcast interviews I'm doing I'm like, oh, you know, I wonder if anyone's written on that recently. You look that quote up, you can't find who it's from, like I was doing a thorough literature review books written in the 50s, the 60s and 70s, to try to discern what are the things we're still following today, but we don't attribute it to that. But no one today would say, Joshua, that a shrinking church is a sending church. Right? No one would say that. But it was a from that, that that is what started leading to the heavily pragmatic ways of looking at church of measuring strategies of doing things where we just became growth obsessed. And while the stock markets went up into the right, and everyone likes that, we want our churches to go up into the right and there's no, there's, there's no and our population is going up into the right. So so so there's no, you know, we're not martyrs. And we're not saying, oh, okay, well let all of our churches should be shrinking, because that's a mark of faithfulness. That's not what we're saying. Either. We want growth, we want to reach the last, but you can't say you're sinning. If you're shrinking, right, that's, that's a little gone too far. So then what are we starting to, to measure ourselves against? I think growth is easy to measure, right? So we know we could see numbers, we're not actually measuring maturity, or health, we're not measuring like Ephesians, four, when it says that all of this can grow up into maturity, which is Christ, that which is the head, and that if things start to shift and shake, we're gonna be firm. We're not measuring maturity, we're measuring growth, it's easy. You know, what do we start to measure? What are the things that we're supposed to walk into you to say, this is what it means to be faithful disciples to Jesus, and a community of believers? Yeah. Yeah. So the easiest way to think about that, right is an exercise. And we'll get to some of the ways that we can measure and determine that but but the easiest way to figure out how are we measuring the right things? What are we doing is it is what we're doing effective is essentially so if if and I recognize with podcasts, sometimes we're mowing our lawns or up in Canada, shoveling the snow or driving or doing something, right. So you may or may not have a piece of paper, and or something to write down right now, because it may be unsafe to do so. So you could do it later. But maybe in your mind, I want you to think about the first three people that come to mind when I asked this question, right? And it's a very telltale sign of fear at how we're doing with our discipleship in our churches and individually. So, first three people who are the most mature people in your church. So hopefully, maybe one person has come to mind, right? There's a sense where without even thinking, right, we're thinking, oh, this person is mature, or that person has been through so so once you have that one or two or three people in your mind, the next question that you need to ask yourself, is how like Why do I think they're mature? Right? Why is it that they their name came up? If it's because they went to seminary? Or if it's because you said yourself? Well, maybe you need to get off your high horse a little bit. I mean, we want to be mature, right? But let's not name ourselves as the first ones are the only mature ones. So think about like, what what why did you say that person was mature? Right? Maybe they're the ones that are selflessly serving. Maybe you maybe you mentioned the person who gave the most or gives the most like, I don't know, right? But whatever that metric is, that's your first sign to be like, Okay, wait a second. Why did I say that person? Why did I think that person and then afterwards, you then need to ask yourself, how did that person get to that point? Because if they got to that point of maturity through the ministry of your church, then there's something you're doing right. Or there's something that your predecessors have done that are right, that something someone's doing that is right, but But if all the mature people in your church were transplants. Wow, okay, let's stop. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. But let's stop and let's start discerning. Okay, so then how am I discipling because the number of people that I have come across who basically discipleship to them is read a couple books or do a study. I mean, that is that is so Western in nature, and the way that we learn that it is a way it is like we do need the head transformation. But in my previous book on discipleship, no silver bullets, there is this paradigm 7020 10, where 70% of the way that we learn is by doing this is research, not by me, it's by others. 20% is through interaction coaching, conversation, and 10% is through that formal education one way sort of learning. But sometimes we flipped it right. And we flipped it on its head. So now it's mostly classroom education based. So if we have a really bad discipleship model for us, what is the discipleship model? You talked about those, those three areas, but what is discipleship? And how can we start to walk in discipleship that helps the people in our community? Be faithful to Jesus? Yeah. Yeah. So you ask any number of let's say, discipleship pastors. Okay. So spiritual formation paths. I'm not just talking about any pastors that people who like this is their main thing. You get 10 in the room, you're in 10 different definitions for lead a disciple is okay. So let's not theorize and even if you put up the greats like Bonhoeffer like Dallas Willard, like a Richard foster like a, you know, you just kind of name all the names of all the experts in the area of discipleship, you're still going to get as many answers as there are people. Okay? So, when you think about it from a very, very basic perspective, discipleship to Jesus, I love how John Mark comer is talking about it right now. Right being with Jesus becoming like Jesus and doing what he did. So, so if you just think about it from something like that, how I view discipleship, I'm a lot more pragmatic, how I view discipleship and how we talk about discipleship is not necessarily from a philosophical. This is what it means to be we have a definition at Beulah for that. But what we talk about more is what is the disciple do? And part of that is because of how we're wired in the West. So we're like, we're just so heavily pragmatic, right? So when it comes to that, we talk about discipleship as gathering together, growing together, giving together and going together, that a disciple of Jesus gathers, grows gifts and goes together. And, and we've tried to come to a very simple, memorable way of doing of talking about discipleship for the everyday believer, because we found in our local context, our discipleship pastor, you know, was asking as many people in our context in various leadership positions and volunteer positions and all that, you know, there's no definite there was no common sense of what it was. So let's get let's let's bring people onto the same page. Let's talk about Yeah, what so that personally, not just from a strategic perspective of how we disciple our people, but personally every single person at Beulah can say Yeah, well the disciple gathers, grows, gives and goes together. And that's based on research from no silver bullets as well where it was this research around, what are the what are the practices that make and that that bring about the greatest measure of of transformation and maturity that that help us over all grow in every aspect and these were the core part actresses that lead to that. So that's where we shaped some language around that and created this way of thinking. Yeah, I think that's, that's helpful to have that. And of course, you have to have alliteration, so that all the G's are helpful too. Right? Exactly. It's just memorable, right? I mean, I know it's memorable. I know. It's I know, it's a cliche, but a it works. And the discipleship opportunity, you talk through discipleship framework, and a framework for us to start to see people where they're at, and maybe some steps to take the four different types of people? What is this discipleship framework that you are talking about? And how does that help us? Okay, can I can I just share one more thing based on last question, and then go to that, okay, so, so for everyone listening, whether you are I mean, we're all disciples of Jesus, if you're a follower of Christ, right, and loveless foot level is plain and flat at the foot of the cross. So when we think about it from a discipleship perspective, and the gather, grow, given go, how I like to think about it. And it's going back to the whole sense of are we mature, how are we measuring maturity, all of that? Think about it from the perspective of working out kids. So let's say you want to start working out. Oftentimes, the place that most people start would be the upper body. Because it's what it's easiest to do. It's where most people like to focus on. It's way easier than squat again, it's like, it's all the space, right? So like, biceps, shoulders, chest, like that's where most people if they're starting to work out, will start. When it comes to discipleship to Jesus, that's gathering and growing together. That's like, oh, church potlucks? Yeah, of course. I love eating, right? Gathering to get growing together. Bible studies. Yeah, let's do that. Let's learn I want to eat meat. Right? There's a sense of gathering and growing is often what we think about when we think about discipleship. Where you new believer, where do you start? Knowledge? catechism, right? There's this sense where it's gathering and growing is where we often start. But imagine if that's all you work out. And you never touched your core, which is your giving stability, you're going to have back injuries, you're going to have an imbalance. Your core is the most important muscle in your body. But who likes doing situps? Right? Who likes working on their core, it's painful. I'll spend 30 minutes on my upper body and five minutes on my core. And I'm done, right? Like I was just like, I could do an hour on my upper body. But I don't want to do 10 minutes on my core, like it's painful. But if we don't work out our core if we don't develop our disciples, with the muscle of giving, of giving of our finances, of giving of our time of giving of our talents of serving in our heavily consumeristic culture, where some people might say, oh, yeah, no, I give money so that you could do the work. Right? I tip I do. Right? Then there's these other words, it's like, no, I give so much of my time, I I'm giving my time instead of giving of my finances, right. And there's this muscle where we all need to grow and giving of our time, talents and treasures. If we don't do that our discipleship isn't if you're not actually following Jesus in the way that he wants us all to. And then our legs, right, the squats, the deadly squats, and the lunges, which are as painful and not finding either, that's going alright. And that in our western culture is one of those things where it's like, no, I don't want to go or someone else's go. I'm not gifted to go I'm not called arm. No, we're actually called to go in everywhere we live, work, study and play. So it's another framework to think about, from that sense of Yeah. Am I am I working out my abs on my legs as much as my upper body? Am I giving and going as much as that as I'm gathering and growing? So so that's the the idea of the framework, the idea of the maturity side of things, so I wanted to just slip that in first. No, that's really helpful. Thank you for doing that. Yep. Right. Yes. So what is the discipleship framework? Okay, so going back to your initial question around what's changed and going back 70 years, one of the paradigms that is still that still heavily influences us today, is this very simple. If you can imagine, people in our churches in our communities are either non Christian or Christian. So if you just think about a line and a.in, the middle, and the framework is called the angle scale someone's far from God, they might be minus 10. And they as they get closer, all the way to God and to making a decision to follow Jesus would be conversion rate, that'd be zero. And then after that there's discipleship and spiritual formation, maturity toward Christ on the other side. So I share that because by and large, for the last seven years, churches have either been on one side or the other when it comes to emphasis. And part of it is going to be gifting and calling and all of that. So by and large, we got some churches who are heavily focused on reaching non Christians evangelism, but probably at the expense of formation and discipleship. And then there are some who are heavily focused reaching Christians, formation discipleship, emphasis, probably at the expense of evangelism, right strengths and weaknesses on both sides. Well, one thing we saw before the pandemic, but especially during and through and after, was this idea was that in our churches, and in our communities, we didn't just have simply non Christians or Christians. Right, what we had was varying levels of interest in the things of God, varying levels of interest in in spirituality, varying levels of interest. So so if you can think about a quadrant, right, we have, what what we saw was we had uninterested and interested non Christians. And then we also had uninterested and interested Christians, which brings about this framework that I talk about in the book. So then, as actually people's pathways may be a little bit different, depending on which quadrant they come from. So even if the pathway is a little different, I think probably the, the arrow where we're trying to get to is probably the same, which is maturity in Christ. Yes. Other together. So can you talk about some of those pathways, what that looks like? And how we can can help each of those quadrants? Yeah, definitely. So so just to fill it out a little bit more. If you think about a matrix or quadrant four boxes, you have uninterested, non Christians who are sleepers, right, they're asleep. They're not interested. Whereas before, you might have gotten them on your arm, by bringing them to a musical that your church did, or a kids play, or some cool band was playing, or whatever it is that you used to use, that we used to use, that that would have brought non Christians into the, into our church that was effective in many ways. Today, doesn't work anymore, right? People are like, What? No, I don't want to hear that talk. I'll just listen to it on YouTube, or I'll listen to a TED talk instead, or, or I don't want to listen to your band. I'm going to go to Taylor Swift concert or right. So there's these people are just on interested non Christians. But in the same place, we have interested non Christians as well, where I have found today more than ever, more people are interested in spiritual things than I've ever seen before. And there's a sense where yeah, they may not be Christian, but they are not anti Christian. But they're looking to New Age, they're looking to Buddhism, they're looking to other forms of religion, and they're also looking to Christianity and they're, they're just trying to figure it out. They're, they're interested non Christians. Right. But in the same way, on the Christian side of things, yeah, we have uninterested Christians who use this verb that should never be used when it comes to following Christ. Okay, and it's this verb watch. And you can you can pick out the uninterested Christians, you can pick them out from a crowd, they're what I call consumers, because they're gonna use this verb watch. And you just have to be a student, you just have to open up your ears and see how they talk about church. See how they talk about you see how they talk about discipleship, see that and they're gonna use I mean, Jesus never said, Come and watch me. Right? Yet when it comes to church, and all of that it's all a consumeristic transaction, where it's about watching so so there's a sense where are they really interested in coming and dying? Are they really interested in in what Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about the cost of discipleship No, right? They're uninterested, but they would call themselves Christian. And then we have interested Christians, right disciples, and there's it's an ever growing journey toward Christ. So so that's where in the book I really do, and we can tease it out more based on what you want to talk about in this podcast. But in every quadrant, there is a way that we need to disciple evangelize and preach in a differently to to each of the people in the quadrants. Yeah. Well, one of the things I've seen a lot of people like during the pandemic MC churches live streamed their events. So it was basically, I had to sit and watch like, Yes, I just, I had to be watcher, I had to be a consumer. I mean, we we tried to do it differently at our church. And we I mean, we even had some zoom screen, but we gathered in smaller home churches. And we have a larger community that we gather once a month. And we tried to do some outdoor gatherings and in different house, but we were trying to gather together. But I have seen a lot of people that that were on the screen that they were watching and going, why am I doing this? Like, what is the what is the point? And then they have left the institutional church? Yes, they still love Jesus. They want to know how to follow Jesus. But they just like, I don't want to just watch. Yes. So for the people that have actually now found themselves in the wilderness, it's not a part of a gathered community of believers anymore. What is the role of the church and discipleship of finding them? And what are we supposed to do with people like that? Yeah, yeah. So if you just go back to that, that simple framework around gathering, growing, giving, and going, part of what we've done in our churches up into and through the pandemic, is we've made it so heavily about gathering and growing, about making a better show, of having a better experience, to compete for the shuffle of the saints, right? There has been this sense of or if we make it attractive enough, if we make it compelling enough, then we can create interest in people's hearts toward Jesus. And by and large a did work for many people. And And hey, this is gonna be such a great experience that you're gonna, you're gonna get a taste for a deeper discipleship to Jesus. Yes. But unintentionally, that's what we did. Joshua, right? We made it way more about gathering and growing than giving and going. So when it comes to people who are like, Yeah, this is this is like, what am I doing? We'll just study the Gospels. And the disciples were formed way more as they went, as they went, as you go making disciples, and they did ever when they were just gathered in a circle, listening to Jesus, that part is important. So if you're a church leader listening in there is that question of, are you setting the bar too low? When it comes to discipleship to Jesus, when it comes to the expectation that you're setting for your church family? Are you setting the bar too low, where you're not actually calling people to come and die, where you're not actually calling people to give and go? But if you're an individual listening in, and you're trying to figure out well, what about do I throw the institutional church out? Am I deconstructing any of this? Like, what is the use? I think part of it is perhaps you're gifted as a prophet Ephesians, four, you know, God's given us the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers, and I'm an oral from different theological bends. So so I'm not talking about personally, I'm not talking about the capital P prophets. I'm talking about more of a vocation more of a role more of a calling a gifting, lowercase p and, and if God has gifted you prophetically, where you see this, and you're like, wow, something has to change, then then perhaps, instead of critiquing the church, you can go and you can help. And maybe you want to start a church. Or maybe you want to go to the one that you are part of and have a conversation and be a part of the change. Because what Jesus said was, he didn't say that the church was going to go by the wayside. Right? He said, he said, I will build my church. And sometimes our churches have become more about our little kingdom, this little lowercase kingdoms in the capital, K kingdom, the kingdom of God. And as Lesley newbiggin says, churches are called to be sign, a sign instrument and a foretaste of the kingdom of God. Right? How can we make churches more assign in Sherman and a foretaste to the kingdom of God? which perhaps is your voice that's going to be a part of shaping that? Yeah. I think it said, Well, to be honest, I think it's really hard for people, especially apostolic ly gifted or prophetically gifted people within church communities, when they believe that they have a voice, but they're not given permission to speak, either to leadership or to others. In this discipleship framework, how can we help people, like take ownership and have a voice? And it's not just, you know, a discipleship around a central thing? A year, like the senior pastor or somebody like that, yeah, the the word that we need to begin forming and doing a word cloud and a brainstorm around is this word equip. Right? How do we equip our disciples? And that if you would only take one thing away from this entire interview, it'd be the word equip. Right? That that in Ephesians, four, you know, God is calling us to equip the saints for the work of ministry not do the work of ministry, for everyone else, which is a Western individualistic transactional consumers to sort of bend it's equipping. So So when it comes to that there is a in every organization, there's power, and some people like to call it out. Others don't. Some people like to say, No, there isn't. But there is, right. There's institutional power, there's power in race, there's power in gender, there's power in position, there's, there's so many different elements of power. So of us and every single one of us have power. Right? And that's the piece where I think sometimes we look at the institutional church, and we're like, No, the only the senior pastor has power. Only the board has power. No, every single individual, whether you're in a pew, or in a, or you have a you have a name badge, right, we all have power. So when it comes to that site, if you what does it look like for you to give power away? What does it look like for you to empower other people with the power that you have? So that we can better equip, right, equip and empower are those words that most of us, if you say, empower, you'll think equip or you say equip you think about, right? It's just, it's cliche, in our mind, but But it's, it's we have to empower others, and give leadership away and give that away. Which, Joshua for you and I, I mean, we're not Gen Z, right? We're not Gen Alpha. Right? We're not 13 We're not 14? And if you remember, when you were 13, or 14, is uh, yeah, I should be the or when not when you were 19 or 20. Like, what? I should be the one on the stage. Right? I should be the run running. Yeah, I should read. Yeah. Or it's like, it's like, why did they make that decision? That was stupid, I would have done something different. Right. And there is the sense where I'm not picking on Gen Z, or Gen off. I'm not because they're a beautiful generation. Research is showing that they're spiritually open. They're called the Open generation. And it's incredible how we need to equip and empower them. But if you just think about how you are when you're 1819, or 2025, there's a sense of Yeah, how do we, like it says in the scriptures, realize that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, right? And how do we if you are listening in and you are that age, be like, yeah, God has gifted me in these ways. But how do I make sure that my inside is consistent with my outside, that my inner life is consistent with my outer life, and that that, that God calls me to be faithful in the little, and that it's not my responsibility to critique, actually, it's my responsibility to be faithful, right to be faithful with what God has given me. And then for those who are in positions of more institutional power, what your responsibility is to help equip and empower and raise and give people opportunities to serve. But perhaps it's a dual side of things where we need to work together to see that happen. Yeah, I think a lot of times, churches go, Oh, I'm equipping people because I have volunteers to set up chairs on Sunday morning. Or, you know, I've volunteered and all of these things are important, right? We have to have things set up for gatherings. And that's important. But what is it? What is the equipping? And discipleship look like? More than just saying, hey, there's a role for you to serve to bring cookies or you know, whatever that is, which is important. But what's the role of equipping and discipleship so that their formation to Jesus is healthy and strong? Yeah. Yeah, everything you can do, right? Everything, everything you can do, you know, I'm not gonna say I can do better. Right. But when you think about it, everything that you are doing as a disciple of Jesus, how do you how do you call and equip someone else to do the same thing? Right. So when it comes to discipleship when it comes to studying the Bible, when it comes to being in a group, being in a community, how do you call people to not just be now in a small home? A Pew? You sit her? Right, but how do you call some? How do you call other? And how do you call people not just to, hey, well, I just need you to hit play on a button. And here's someone now, now someone else teach you. And now let's talk about it. No, how do we teach one another? How do we disciple one another? How do we learn from one another? And I think the only reason that we can do that is because we all have the same Holy Spirit. There's only one Holy Spirit. Right? There's no many holy spirit, that that you just you just made a decision to follow Christ. You are now in filled with the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I don't have more of the Holy Spirit than you do. You have the same Holy Spirit. So but but what I have as a more mature disciple of Jesus is I know how to discern. Right, I know how to hear the voice of the shepherd, better than a brand new Christian does. Because I've abided in Jesus longer. Right, I've spent more time with Jesus in that way. So how do we equip and actually see that not as just the paid professionals responsibilities, but as if you are a follower of Jesus, if you have made the decision to to follow Jesus with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, then you are called that you are a disciple? Followers are not different than disciples, you are a disciple. And Jesus has said to you go and make disciples. Right? He hasn't just said that to a subset of, of just the cold, right? We're all cold. And if we can own that responsibility, that's, that's 90% of the way. I think, you know, if we're looking and we're going into another quadrant and looking at interested non Christians, they're, they're spiritually open, they're spiritually curious, a lot of times what has worked in the past, like you said, like, Hey, we're going to put on a musical and people are going to come into the church, and now they're going to stay inside the building of the church isn't really going to work anymore. So how do we speak to interested non Christians, in a way that's not weird and Christianese and things when people can't understand who Jesus is and what He has done and the life and the flourishing that can happen when we do follow Jesus? How could we change our language and help speak to people that actually don't have this? Christianese? Yeah, completely. And so there was a sense where, in in through the Church Growth Movement, pragmatically, it was there's only one way to do it. Right? It was don't use Christianese. And here's the playbook of how you of how you do this, right? What's interesting is if someone is an interested non Christian, right, they're a seeker. And they're seeking for truth. They realize that there is more to life than this. But they don't know what it is. They know that that pursuing wealth, pursuing their job, pursuing accomplishment, pursuing whatever it is, that way they were trying to pursue, they know that it doesn't work. And they're looking towards spirituality. Alright, so that's the assumption, because if they aren't, then they're sleepers. And we our responsibility as disciples is to love them are our responsibility as disciples is not to ignore the sleepers in our lives. It's to love them, to pray for them, to neighbor with them, to show them the love of Christ, and trust that the Holy Spirit will wake them up. But if someone is, there's this hunger, there's the seeking inside of them in some way. What you need to do as a church leader is to recognize that there is not only one way to call them all to Jesus. And here's what I'm what, here's what I'm talking about. If you're an Anglican, right, and or you're a Catholic, and you love high church, you love stained glass, you love or you love a particular type of liturgy. And you are spirit filled, Jesus loving more than tradition more than you know, you are just following Christ wholeheartedly. And you are a leader in a church of that tradition and that denomination and bent then you need to understand that there are people there are seekers, who will come to your church because personally speaking, historically speaking, who they are, they want that like they are drawn to that tradition, to your tradition. And then if you are on the other side, a on the AP test, you are a strong teacher, and that is your bent, then you need to be who God is called allows you to be and you need to not be up, not be apologetic. But for the non Christians who are coming, they are interested they want to know. So teach them the Bible, teach them the truth, teach, don't don't downplay the authority of the scriptures, no lifted up, this is our truth. Truth isn't subjective, its objective, and it's in the Holy Scriptures. So teach it unapologetically because they are seeking, they want to know what you have to say. And you can fill it all if you are heavily musically bent. Alright, and you your tradition. And there's this sense where that is how you deeply connect with God, then, then be strong about that, and your tradition as a church, and have free flowing worship have have multiple expressions of worship in the way that you because there are going to be seekers who are longing for that and they connect, they're going to connect with God, and the Holy Spirit is going to move, whether their Holy Spirit moves through stained glass and hymns, or whether the Holy Spirit moves through 10 minute worship songs, or whether the Holy Spirit moves through an hour long sermons, we can't box the Holy Spirit in a method, which we had done over the last 70 years to an extent, what we need to realize is the Holy Spirit is calling all people to himself, and he's going to use multiple expressions of church to do so. And we got to trust the Holy Spirit to to, to stir because there's a lot of there's a lot of secondary areas of theology that the church has made primary. Right. So and and I think on this side of eternity, we're not going to truly know. Because there is biblical backing for for example, complementarian and IE egalitarian views of women in ministry, there are biblical views on both sides. Right there is this worrying free will? You know, you Calvin, you got Wesley, you got predestination? There are biblical views on Bolson? And how about we stop fighting within the church on things that may be secondary that we've made primary, and lift up the name of Jesus, and make Jesus king, not our traditions, King make Jesus king, not our denominations, King, make Jesus king, not our human theology, that that we've that our human brains are not, no matter how smart you are, right? Your brain can't even come close to who God is. And to try to comprehend in written form, who he is and how he works. So what if we meet Jesus king and trust that there gonna be some things that we just won't be able to figure out on this side of eternity? I agree. I mean, you look at all the denominations we agree, agree at least 98% of everything. Yeah. And then the disagreement part, the 2%. Yeah, it just tears us to pieces, because we agree on secondary issues. So like, one of the things that we do, as I've been training missionaries to go out to, to plant churches to help raise up new church leaders. We talk through the levels of authority of, hey, this is primary, this is secondary, this is human tradition. And how do we sift through those things? How do we know what is primary then? Yeah, it's a focus on and then if there are secondary issues that we can say, okay, but we're following the primary. So we're good. We're okay right now, and we can work together because of that. Yeah. So meld Anytus centuries ago, had this beautiful quote, unity and the essentials, freedom and the non essentials and charity and all things. beautiful, absolutely beautiful. The problem is, we don't have agreement on what the essential oils are. So, if I were to just hope focusing on one thing, okay. When it comes to truth, we live in a post truth. Reality in my book, the discipleship opportunity that one of the subtitle is, you know, in a post everything world leading a great commission church in a post everything world and, and it refers to post pandemic, post Christian Post truth post, fill in the blank. So, Tim Keller, the late Tim Keller put it best. He talked about this idea that before in modernity, we lived and had the same sort of furniture in our minds, right? This is truth. This isn't truth, and truth was objective. He says in our postmodern post truth post excetera world We don't have the same furniture in our mind anymore. The furniture is actually inside of us. So what's happened in our world today is we have moved truth from being an objective out of us outside of us reality to now it's inside of us. And truth is subjective and your truth is your truth. My Truth is my truth. And the popular saying that's come out of that is Ubu. Right? Because your truth is your truth. My Truth is my truth. Let's we're tired of all the hatred, right? We're tired of all the political left and right, hey, you know, it's just, I know, some people like the fight. But most people the reason people are ghosting people and canceling people, and saying, I'm just not going to be your friend and unfriending people is because a lot of us are just tired of the fight. You know, Can Can we just be friends? Right? You know, all the world needs is love. And and there's this sense, right? It for centuries, our culture has been moving toward this reality that we are now in where truth is subjective. Truth is internal, and it's not external. So I say that, because going to your question, Joshua. What I believe is first and foremost, central more than anything else, and what is essential more than anything else, is where our truth is in and where it's from. And for me, it's the Bible, and the Holy Scriptures, as being the written word of God breathed from the Holy Spirit, multiple authors, multiple books, but really one book and one author that I believe is what is essential and what is truth. And when this truth is the scriptures, and that is our, our measuring line. And this is what we sit under. And we and the authority is the word of God not not to idolize the Word of God, but it is God's word communicated to us. And yes, God communicates to us through His Holy Spirit is Word and Spirit, from Genesis to Revelation, Word and Spirit, Word and Spirit, even the Dry Bones coming to life. In Ezekiel, it was the Word of God and the Spirit of God, right? We saw it from creation all the way through. But when that is our essential, that's that that's where we then begin seeing Okay, so then let's now talk about, okay, there are some things that have biblical backing. There's there's biblical backing on freewill and predestination. Okay? Okay. There's biblical backing on complementarianism and egalitarianism, okay? There. Okay, let's, let's start. Let's and let's look at this through non westernized too, right. There's all these biases that we bring to the Scriptures. But for me, the dividing line is the word of God. That's really good. So if people go out, Daniel, they get your book discipleship opportunity, which I hope they do, because we need discipleship, and a post everything world we need to disciple people well, and equip and empower, like you said, yeah, what is your hope that people would get from this book? What do you hope that they would do? If you're so pragmatic? Who what would they do out of reading your book? Yeah. So if you're a church leader, listening in my prayer and hope is that you wouldn't just do what you have been doing. And and I'm referring to myself, too, because we teach the way that we've been taught we lead the way that we've been led. If you're listening to this podcast, I have a ton of books all around me. And and it's just easy to go back to what I knew pre pandemic, right? So so my hope is that you would with an open mind and heart realize that what I'm proposing in the book is actually a way that we can reach both non Christians and Christians. What I'm proposing in the book is instead of reaching either non Christians or Christians, what would what would it look like to focus on those who are interested in your preaching in your evangelism in your discipleship and all that you do? And all that you focus on? What would it look like for you to focus your ministry efforts and discipleship around interest in non Christians and interested Christians, and you allow the Holy Spirit to be the one that stirs up interest in people's hearts? Right, so that would be my encouragement to them because it is different than what's been written it is different than what how we've been operating thus far. And when we do that, what will happen is we will stop being held hostage by the consumers in our church. We will stop being held hostage by the angry emails we get sent. We will stop being held hostage by the Google Google reviews are trying to get better reviews, like we'll be stopped being held hostage to all the consumers to ways that we are unintentionally and unconsciously being held hostage, because we're focusing on the interested. Okay. So that would be my encouragement to the pastors and church leaders. Whether you're paid or non paid, it doesn't matter. But if you're in a leadership position in your church, that would be my encouragement to you. If you would say that, you know, I am a follower of Christ, but I'm not in a leadership or formal leadership position in my church. And my encouragement to you in this book, is that as you read through it, that you would discern which of the four quadrants Am I N? And how can I, as a part of because we all have power, like we talked about, how can I be a part of, of helping my local church, change our focus, to stop just doing what we've always done? Because we've always done it and it sort of worked? Right? Or low, we're growing, but are you growing? Because your cities growing? Right? Or are you shrinking? Because your city is shrinking? I mean, growth isn't the only metric. So so what would it look like for you to assess yourself, to discern how you might be a part of perpetuating one of these quadrants over the other? And actually be a part of the change? In a sense. Excellent. Excellent. I really hope that that happens. That'd be great. Daniel, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give? Oh, man, slow it down, boy. You want to be a world changer. But you don't have to at all do it in the next year. Just slow it down. Be patient be faithful in what God has given you. Amen. Good for all of us. We need that. Anything you've been reading or watching lately recommend? Oh, man, anything I'm reading or watching there is my wife and I hosted marriage and parenting podcast. In between my last name is two letters I am so in between. And there's a lot got God is just really the it's we've been doing it for more than six years now. And, and God has just really recently, deeply convicted in my heart, the need, and the state, the state of marriages inside and outside the church, and how deeply important transformational and what an evangelistic opportunity it is, just to have a healthy marriage. Right, like just to have that as a testimony of who Christ is. And how we can be a part of changing that. So there's a lot I'm digging into around marriage, there's a lot that I'm digging into. I've been doing therapy for the last two actually know, three years, consistently, month over month. There's a lot of trauma work that I've been doing, not on others, like my counselor, I'm not counseling others, my counselors in helping me with. So there's a lot of reading I'm doing in and around that too. So that's good. I think, if we can get those things, right. A lot of things. Good things can happen pan like this is it and marriage, right Amelie? Daniel, how can people go out get your book? Where would you like to point people to? And how can they connect with you? Yeah, totally. So. So if you Google the discipleship opportunity, or you look it up, wherever you buy your books, Amazon or whatnot, you'll find the book. And if you go to my website, Daniel m.com/the, discipleship opportunity, or you just go Daniel m.com, you'll find a link to the book page. And there, I actually have some bonus materials, bonus teaching different different supplemental materials that will help you in that, and a giveaway in all that too. So So that's their links to Instagram. All the social media platforms are at Daniel m.com. Perfect. Now that sounds good. Well, Daniel, thank you for this conversation. Thank you to help us think through a discipleship framework and at post everything world of what it actually looks like to disciple people well, and help us focus on the interested Christians interested in non Christians. And we can help equip and empower no matter who we are. If we're a disciple, disciple maker, we are a disciple of Jesus, we can equip and empower. We have some power to do that. So thank you for this. It was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thanks, Joshua. Yeah,