Conversations: What is Discipleship?

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the YA podcast. Lean in as we dive into the practicals of life with Jesus as spirit filled young adults. Well, welcome back. Welcome to season five of the Young adults Podcast. We're so excited that you're here joining us and listening in again for another season. And this season we are so excited for the topic of the whole season to be discipleship. So this is our introductory episode and you're going to hear episodes from a bunch of our different pastors and key leaders across the life of Newman Church and hear their stories and their discipleship journeys. But today I am joined by two very special people. Why don't you say hello? [00:00:58] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Hi. [00:00:59] Speaker A: If you don't recognize those voices, we have the one and only Thomas McDonald. [00:01:04] Speaker C: Hello. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Who is now a discipleship pastor. So he's the perfect person to be introducing discipleship today. And maybe you didn't recognize the other voice. We have Alicia, who leads in our young adult space. Why don't you introduce yourself? [00:01:20] Speaker B: For those who don't know, my name is Alicia. I have been at NUMA for just over two years now. [00:01:25] Speaker C: It's a bit longer than that, surely. [00:01:26] Speaker B: No, it's like just over two years. And I work in a Christian school based out in the southeast of Melbourne. So anyone who lives out in the farm area, that's where I'm from. And yeah, I'm there four days a week and I handle all the enrollments and future students does a great job of that. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And she drives like an hour to come to church. More than an hour usually. [00:01:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:54] Speaker B: But it's worth it. [00:01:55] Speaker A: That's commitment right there, guys. Learn from the best. Yeah. It's such a pleasure doing ministry with you. It's so fun. Well, let's get straight into it. Let's get straight into it. We're talking about discipleship. So as we like to always do, we want to introduce what. What is this topic? And so we're going to go straight into that question. What is discipleship? It's a word we hear bounce around the church and many different churches have many different expressions of it. But we want to first look at the Biblical Foundation. What does this word mean and why? What does it actually mean to you? Why is it important? So, Thomas. [00:02:32] Speaker C: I love this because it's one of those times and I've had this. I feel like I've had this conversation not specifically about this word, but about a few different words in the Bible recently where we're tempted to just get a definition. Whereas really it's a. It's a Concept that we're needing to understand across a whole, like, host of different scriptures. And disciple or discipleship is one of those things. Technically, there's actually no such thing as discipleship in the Bible or discipling. It's just disciple. It was only someone was a disciple. So that's an interesting little tidbit that we've kind of moved on from that. But it was essentially a student of a rabbi was a disciple. So we get our 12 disciples from that. So then you go like, okay, well, what did that look like to be a student of a rabbi? First and foremost? It was like you were chosen. Like, you couldn't necessarily just like, be a student of a rabbi. You had to be chosen. And that's what like, we see multitude of times in the Gospels of, like, Jesus, like, come and follow me. [00:03:32] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:33] Speaker C: That's like the rabbi is choosing his students, which is awesome because it also means, like, if we are a disciple of Christ, it means like, we're chosen by Christ. Which is a nice, like, thought. [00:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah, great thought. [00:03:45] Speaker C: And the whole concept was like, you follow them around, you leave your whole life and you now follow the rabbi. The rabbi does what they want to do. They go where they want to go, and you are following them. And yes, there'd be teaching moments. I think it's funny when they would teach. You know how normally it's like in classrooms, students sit down and the rabbi stand or like the teacher stands up. In Jewish culture, it was the total opposite. It was the rabbi sat and the students stood. And apparently it was so the students wouldn't fall asleep. [00:04:18] Speaker A: That makes sense. [00:04:20] Speaker C: You have this situation where the rabbi is like, sitting down and teach and the students. Disciples are standing. But they would have these moments where they would often experience something together. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:30] Speaker C: And then the rabbi would utilize that experience to unpack a truth or a scripture from the Old Testament, that sort of thing. And the whole purpose was, stay with me until you are exactly like me. And. And then once that happens, now go and take on your own disciples and do the exact same thing. Keep them until they're exactly like you, and then they. They can go and find their own disciples. [00:04:56] Speaker A: Sounds a lot like parenthood and family. [00:04:59] Speaker B: It is. [00:04:59] Speaker C: And, and that's like the way the biblical model is. It puts it into this family context of live with us. And it's not just about teaching. It's about observation. It's about how. Seeing how they treat other people. I find it interesting like, that even with an example of this, Jesus never really taught the disciples directly on, like, how to cast out a demon or, like, how to heal the sick or anything like that. He gave him a really, really short, like, hey, do this, and then go and do it. But they would have seen it time and time and time again. [00:05:32] Speaker A: And even. Sorry, just to jump in really quickly, like, even when they did go and try and cast our demon, didn't go. And then he gave him a teaching moment. Yeah, they had. By the looks of it, they had done that on their own accord because they'd seen Jesus. [00:05:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:05:44] Speaker A: Because he said, like, okay, here's how to do it, and then go and do it. [00:05:47] Speaker C: And he wasn't mad that they did it. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:05:49] Speaker C: He was like, okay, like, come on, guys, you should have done better. But he was like, he. He assumed that that's what they would have done. [00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:57] Speaker C: Because he's like, well, you've seen me do it, so do it. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:59] Speaker C: And so that's very much the rabbinical sort of process of being a student. The other cool, like, tidbit is like, the whole phrase that we, A lot of people know around, like, having the dust from the rabbi on you. That was actually like, you think one. A rabbi doesn't have, like, just one student, have many students? So having the dust of your rabbi was essentially like. It was a kind of like you were the teacher's pet, but in a really good way. It was something that you wanted to show off. It was, hey, I followed my rabbi so closely today that I have their dust on me. And, like, that's a cool kind of way to picture this of, are we. Are we so close not just to, you know, the teachings of Jesus, but the. The life of Jesus that we can say, see, look, I have the dust of Christ on me. And, like, kind of show that off. Obviously not to gloat, you know, in their context, to have the dust of a rabbi on you was essentially a way of demonstrating that you were the best disciple that day. You followed the closest that day. [00:07:04] Speaker A: Wow. [00:07:06] Speaker C: So, yeah, that's kind of the whole. It was. It was a life thing. You left your family, you left your city, and your whole life at that point was to follow as closely as you could. This rabbi wasn't a. Wasn't a classroom, wasn't anything like that. It was, hey, come and be with me until you are like me. So that's kind of the biblical model of discipleship, do you think? [00:07:30] Speaker A: In the Western world, we've kind of got it a bit twisted because I was just thinking even of, like, the idea of parenthood and most of us, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but most of us have had our parents say to us, do as I say, not as I do. And almost thinking like, oh, okay, it's all about what we teach, and it's actually not about what's caught just by being around someone. And we think that we can just tell someone what to do and that they'll get their life on track and that they'll do it all right. And of sort of neglecting the fact that, you know, if we speak a certain language at home, that's the language the children are going to speak. If we do certain behaviors, that's how, that's what they're going to pick up. It's almost like we've become naive to the catching part. [00:08:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah. And I, I. His teaching was more like, hey, look at this. And it was, it was never like unpacking an unfamiliar thing to them. It was more like, hey, yeah, you saw me do this. This is what it's about. It was an explanation of something they'd already experienced. [00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:34] Speaker C: Whereas I think we try and teach something before people have really got a paradigm for it. I mean, like, you're saying it's do as I say, not as I do. It's like, well, what we say should actually be wholly in alignment with what we're doing anyway. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:48] Speaker C: So, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good thought. I think most people struggle with that understanding until maybe they do parent. [00:08:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:56] Speaker C: So, yeah, but that's that whole frame of reference. How closely can I follow. [00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:02] Speaker C: Jesus through life. [00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:05] Speaker C: That's why, like, I mean, you know, we all grew up in the era where, like, the bands of like, wwjd. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:13] Speaker C: Sometimes I think we should bring them back. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, let's bring it back. [00:09:18] Speaker B: Well, if you look at that concept of learning from experience. Experience as opposed to learning from being taught, you just look at a little child when they're learning how to walk, they're going to stumble, they're going to fall. If you're going to react straight away, then they're going to be like, oh, that's a bad thing. But it's all about progress. And then, then they will learn to walk and have more stability in that process. But if you don't give them the experience to actually fall a little bit and then learn from that mistake or learn from that stumble, then how will they learn? [00:09:50] Speaker C: Well, then even. Here's the other question. When did you actually sit a kid down and have a Classroom lesson on how to walk. [00:09:56] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:09:57] Speaker C: Like they, they're learning that from watching and then trying. And it's the same like, you know, I've got a six month old and everything he's learning is just by watching us. It's like scary to the point where you're like, oh, like you're watching me so much that I need to be careful with what I'm doing. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Literally. [00:10:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:10:13] Speaker A: I think that language that I hear a lot in young adults, and maybe even our young adults specifically is, oh, I don't feel equipp. And people are waiting for someone to teach them something verbally, to be equipped with something that way. And I think even as we will eventually talk about discipling others, I think that even if we haven't been discipled by someone really well, someone hasn't shown us the way that first going to Jesus and being like, well, how has he taught me to live? Taking that, taking what I've learned there and then living that and not waiting around for someone to tell us what to do. I think we can fall into this. [00:10:51] Speaker C: Trap of yeah, I think it's that, that's a really good thing to bring up and to even like highlight because it, it shows that even within the church, we've been discipled more by the world than we have by Christ. [00:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:06] Speaker C: And that way of learning is very. We. You know, you'd call it like Hellenistic. It's, it's the Greek kind of education. [00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:14] Speaker C: Which is where you have your philosopher in front of the classroom declaring the wisdom and then go and like try it out. It's not the way that Jesus did it. It's not the scriptural way because the scriptures come from a completely different culture to the Greek. So. But where our education system, which at least you're in it, it's like, it's very Greek in its, in its foundations. It's not very Hebrew. And so then we come into the church and expect the same thing of, oh, I can't do that until I've been told how. And so that's when we start to fall apart because we're waiting for something that Jesus is like, well, no, I've given you so much like go and do it. [00:11:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's so true. [00:11:55] Speaker B: Go back to the point that you made about going to Jesus first and seeking him and his Word for it. But then also once you've extracted what you can from the Word for what you want, then going, okay, God, who are the people in my life that, that walk in this or walk in the calling that similar to mine or things that I can identify in that person and be like, yeah, I want to partner with that. Or I want to sit under that person and learn as much as I can. And actually going and approaching them. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:27] Speaker B: And asking them to disciple you. It's okay to do that. Like, you don't have to wait for someone to come to you to be like, oh, I want to disciple you, because they. It may not even cross their mind. [00:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And Thomas made a good point about how Jesus called his disciples. So we can all know that we're called by God. We don't necessarily have to wait for someone to disciple, like someone discipling us to call us out. We're sitting in our boat waiting for him to come by. Hey, fisherman, let me make you a fisherman. No, no, that's like, it does happen and that's great. But we. The initiative actually comes back to us to actually go, no. What do I say? Who do I see that has something on their life that I see in Christ that I want to walk into? And I was. I mean, I have my Bible open to Mark 1 where Jes. Jesus does literally call the fishermen and he says in Mark 1:17, follow me and I will make you become fishes of men. So, like, the goal then is transformation. The goal is that if I follow you, I'm going to be transformed into the kind of person you are. [00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:13:31] Speaker A: And obviously Jesus, we want to be transformed into Jesus. And I was thinking, I don't know why this came to me mind, but even Paul, when he had his soul conversion moment where he. He'd been in the church, like he'd been in teaching for a really long time, but then he was confronted with Jesus and realized that the way he was doing it was not the right way to do it. And then he actually went and sat under teaching for a while and was like, okay, who is doing this right in this. [00:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:01] Speaker A: World and sat under that to be discipled and then to then go and make many, many disciples. And I think sometimes we miss that part. We just look at Paul's sort of end result. [00:14:12] Speaker C: Well, even like, like what both you're saying is like, that starting point is the acknowledgment that we are disciples of Jesus first and foremost. And that if we're being discipled by someone or even if we're discipling someone, the goal is actually not to even disciple them or to be discipled by them. It's to allow them to help us to be Discipled by Christ. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:14:33] Speaker C: And anytime I'm discipling someone or I'm being discipled by someone, the act of that is simply. I mean, I love this phrase. It's helping them be attentive to Jesus. Yeah, like that's actually at its core because we're disciples of Christ, not disciples of Thomas or JS or Elysian or a church or anything like that. The people who are discipling, their job is just to help us be discipled by Christ. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:58] Speaker C: So when we complain like, oh, no one's taught me, no one's done this. It's like, okay, but your primary is Christ. So what does your word look like? What does your prayer life look like? [00:15:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:07] Speaker C: What does your, you know, your day to day walk with the Lord look like? And then someone actually has something to help you with. Yeah, it's because someone comes, I want to be discipled. My first question is going to be like, have you read the Word? Have you prayed? Like, what does this look like? Because I'm not the one discipling you. First and foremost, it's the Holy Spirit that brings transformation, not me. I can help you to be more available. I can help you to highlight things, but ultimately I am just a facilitator of what Christ is trying to do in your life. Yeah, that's my role in discipling. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that sums it up perfectly. [00:15:44] Speaker C: Yeah, Yeah. [00:15:45] Speaker A: I mean, First Corinthians 11:1. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. Exactly. We stop at the imitate me, but I'm like, okay, so I just want to a great perspective. Let's find someone who is doing the journey with the Lord and is where I want to be. Great. But don't stop there. Don't let it be. Let me just copy them. But actually I'm going to copy them as they copy Jesus as they become more like him. We should both the disciple and the disciple. E Disciple. Yeah, Both of them should be becoming more like Jesus simultaneously. And then you're just going on the journey. They're just the car in front of you. You know what I mean? [00:16:25] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. That's a good way to look at it. You're just following the car. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Just following the car in front of you. They know the way and I'm just following. [00:16:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:32] Speaker A: And, and I'm learning the way as I'm going along and becoming more familiar with these roads. Yeah, yeah. [00:16:37] Speaker C: I think like even to pick this up is we're often looking for like a coffee catch up. We're looking for a program, we're looking for these sorts of things where it's like discipleship is doing life. [00:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:49] Speaker C: And yes, I like, I love coffee, catch ups with people, I love conversations, all these sorts of things. But you need, if you are going, I want to be discipled more than just what I can do with Christ and myself, because we do need each other. You need to open your life up to someone because they can't disciple you if that's not the case. Because Jesus had access to the disciples entire life. And by definition, if you want to disciple someone, you need to give them access to your life. Because Jesus gave the disciples access to their life, which I think that's the key that a lot of people in the church are missing. We're too scared to one humble ourselves under someone and say, here's my whole life. I open up to you. And because I guarantee, yes, it's been misused in the past, I'll acknowledge that. But that's not a reason to stop it. But then the disciple maker is also too compartmentalized in their world to open up their whole life to the person they're trying to disciple. It's like both end and that's the Jesus way. [00:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:51] Speaker C: I'll open my life up to you and you will open your life up to me. And that's how this will work. [00:17:57] Speaker A: It's going to be by. Yeah, yeah. There's a Pete Scazero quote that we had earlier that said when we disciple or lead others, we essentially give away who we are. [00:18:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:18:08] Speaker A: So if we're not, if we're not letting people into who we are, then we're not really discipling people. [00:18:13] Speaker C: Well, it's one of the first Genesis principles, right? Yeah, you produce after your own kind like we see in Genesis 1. So, yeah, it, it's very, very fundamental to that. [00:18:25] Speaker A: I think about someone that, like probably the first person to ever disciple me. And we had like, you know, the coffee ketchups and whatever. But for some reason, the most distinct time that I remember with them is when we went to the Costco run and we were just like, we were buying stuff for young adults event. But it was like, yeah, we're running an errand together. But it wasn't like, hey, they weren't saying to me, hey, do this task for me. They were like, hey, we got to do this thing. I'll meet you there and we'll do it together. And then as we're choosing what drinks to buy and whatever, then we're Having a conversation and they were forming something in me and encouraging me and it was just like, oh, we're just doing life stuff. [00:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:07] Speaker A: But that was almost more discipling than when we would sit down and talk. [00:19:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. It's like most of, I think my key discipleship journeys have been like, I never learned how to be a husband by someone telling me how to be a husband. It's by someone inviting me into their house, having dinner with them and their wife, and like witnessing how they are in those environments. Same with being a father, being, you know, a minister of the gospel, whatever it is. It's by someone actually chose to be vulnerable and invite me into that space of their life and then likely had a follow up conversation afterwards or whatnot. But. Or I just was like, hey, I noticed that that's really Christ. Like why do you do that? Or how did you do that? But it's after that experience first. [00:19:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like we're, we're getting into personal experiences. So I'd love to hear like even more specifically how you guys have been discipled and like some, what some of those journeys have been. If you want to share a short story or what you think about it, I can share. Probably the main way that I've been discipled is by my own parents. That's great. And yeah, blessed to have parents that have walked in the Lord for most of their life though around my age when they gave their heart to the Lord. And I mean, if you know me, you know that I love evangelism. And the, the reason why I love that is not because it's in my nature, it's my personality. It's actually because my dad got saved on the street because someone tapped him on the shoulder and basically said, if you were to die tonight, do you know if you're going to heaven or hell? Like, and had this confronting moment with someone and the Lord been leading him on a journey and he realized the power of literally approaching strangers and preaching. [00:20:51] Speaker B: The gospel to them. [00:20:52] Speaker A: And he went on his own journey. And my mom had her own one as well. But then from literally probably as early as well when I was a kid, but more often from about when I was about 12 years old, I would go every Friday afternoon to the local shopping center and we would talk to strangers and pray for the sick and see the secure. So much so that my dad got known as the Jesus man in our local area. It's a good label, but like, that's how I learned and that's how it became my Passion. And that's how I got discipled into who I am. Just literally, this is what we do. [00:21:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:26] Speaker A: This is what we do as a family. We get up and we. We put ourselves out of our comfort zone. My parents have been on that many mission trips. Why do I have a heart for the nations? Because my parents have been on that many mission trips, and they've shown me this is what it looks like to live for Jesus. And, I mean, that's the best form of discipleship. They never sat me down and said, this is all you have to do. I actually don't think my dad's ever told me that I should talk to strangers. But I remember at 5 years old in the playground, like, telling other kids about Jesus, because that's just what I saw. [00:21:53] Speaker C: Totally. [00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:54] Speaker A: And that's how I picked it up. And I've got so many other stories, but that's probably the main one. [00:21:58] Speaker C: Even with that, like, I'll just jump in there. It's like, it's interesting, like, you never learned to behavior you as you were just speaking then. You weren't saying, I learned to do this. It was actually, I learned to value this. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. [00:22:12] Speaker C: And I think that's an interesting thing, because if we just learn behaviors, we won't. That's not transformation, that's performance. Because we've learned how to do something without actually being transformed. [00:22:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Whereas the time that it takes to actually instill values in a child, let alone an adult, that's just come to the Lord, like, that's developing character is develop being a set of values. That's transformation. Because now it's not even, oh, I do this because I learned to do it. It's like, no, no, you've got a conviction and you know the value of it. Like, that's just cool. Like, hearing as you're speaking, it's like, that's the way you describe it. [00:22:49] Speaker A: It's cool. Thanks for bringing that out. [00:22:53] Speaker C: Alicia. Do you want to jump in? [00:22:54] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I think one key moment that I can think of, there's so many like you, Jess. But someone took the time we were at a life group meeting, and I observed how this individual was praying, and I just made a by the way, comment of going, oh, I've never seen someone pray like that in a life group scene. Like, I've watched my parents pray, but it's more in like a. A ministry outside of the home setting. I've never seen it happen like that. And that person called me up the next day and said, Are you free for coffee? And they took me out for coffee and they said, so you've never seen someone pray like that? I was like, no, but I desire to know how to pray like that. And they said to me, they're like, well, I'm going to teach you. I'm going to show you how it's done. And like, that person then became a key person in my life that discipled me through different seasons. And out of that I was released to then go and disciple others. But I think that would have been one of the big turning points in my own personal journey. [00:23:59] Speaker C: How did they teach you how to pray? [00:24:02] Speaker B: Just pushed me out of the nest. Like, pray in this situation or pray, like, pray after me or just. Just pray. [00:24:12] Speaker C: So spending time praying together. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Spending time praying together, just in a small group or just one on one. [00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:19] Speaker B: And then like, no. No room to even say no. They were like, just pray in life group. I was like, okay, yeah. And this was on in Covid as well. So it was all online. [00:24:32] Speaker C: I mean, that's the disciples, right? Like, Jesus, like, cool, go two by two. And they're like, wait, what's awesome. Cool. Yeah. I was just. I mean, there's so many stories I can pull out. There's one that just keeps coming to mind in this moment. And there was. Would have been a few years ago now, back before Kelsey and I were married and we were doing long distance and different things like that. And one of Kelsey's, like, key, like, mentors and like, there was a married couple in Perth that, like, we're really close with her. He was in Melbourne for. For actually a conference here at Newmar. And he just said, like, hey, I've booked an Airbnb. It's got a spare room. Like, just come and stay with me. Because it was closer to church and I was a student. So he was like, yeah, just come and stay with me. Don't worry about it. And we really hadn't spent much time together before that. But he valued Kelsey and so he was like, I want to get to know Tom. And, like, just invited me in and it was like, yeah, conference was awesome. But a couple of the key moments that I was discipled during that week wasn't the encounters with the Lord wasn't worship sets. It was the walking from church back to the apartment and the conversations we had. The, like, late nights where we would be unpacking what the Lord is doing. And. And he. There was one key night where he just started asking really, really pointed questions because he cared enough to, like, actually convict me. And I was so mad about it. I was like, how dare this guy? Like, we don't know each other. Like, you don't get to call me out like this. And then I remember after that night, the next morning I woke up and the Lord was like, you need to humble yourself. And it was a classic of, like, you're reading the Word, and like, every scripture is just about, like, humility. You're like, damn it. But it was like, in the. That space of, like, he put value on the time we spent together. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:22] Speaker C: He opened up something, like, for him, for, like, his life to me, and then actually took the time to speak into my life. And then I went back to him that morning. I was like, hey, to be honest, I was really mad about that, but thank you so much. And again, I. Because I was humble enough to open my life back up to him, we, Kelsey and I both got actually discipled in that moment and had freedom in different areas because he first opened his life up and then I opened my life up. That's a key one that I can remember. [00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm noticing, like, a theme and a distinctive of pain and discomfort always being the thing that always. It's literally. It's like pruning. It's like. It's a biblical principle. But it's like, we have to get out of our comfort zone, and we have to be willing and humble enough to experience the pain of growth. [00:27:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:13] Speaker A: Because that's how we're actually going to grow into. You know, we talked about the disciples in Jesus time having to leave behind their lives. There's. There's pain in that. There's a lot of pain in that. And there's a lot of learning and there's a lot of correction. Peter got a lot of correction from Jesus. [00:27:28] Speaker C: Like, you get, like, James. James is just, like, so brutal in what he says. He's just like. To summarize, essentially, like, hey, suffering produces faithfulness. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:36] Speaker C: Like, I don't like that. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's like, well, we have to actually experience the suffering, otherwise we're not going to be formed into who we are. And we need that pain in order to grow. I mean, another example that I have of. Of a discipleship moment, not necessarily someone that discipled me. It wasn't painful, but it was. It was. I had to get out of my comfort zone. One of the most distinctive moments in my life, for whatever reason, was when I was at Youth here, back when it was called Empire. [00:28:07] Speaker C: Anyone listening knows every youth ministry was Called Empire. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Back in the day, I was a little shy kid, and I. You know, some of you might find that hard to believe, but I really wanted to, like, you know, be confident, talk to people. And I was, like, terrified. And I had no friends. And this other girl, who is one year older than me, like, one grade older than me, I was, like, sitting in the corner. She was my only friend. And she came over, and she was like, hey, like, why are you here? Why aren't you talking to anyone? And I was like, oh, like, no one's coming to talk to me. And then she was, like, excited. Excuse me? She was like, the only way that you're gonna get any friends, the only way you're gonna, like, get out of this is you need to initiate. [00:28:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:28:48] Speaker A: And so she picked me up, and she brought me over to a group of people and just, like, talked to them and just, like, introduced me and then, like, walked away straight away. Not even, like. I mean, I tell people not to do that. If you're gonna introduce someone to someone, spend a few seconds, like, get to know them. Don't just drop them off, like, the kids. Like, actually. But she. That's what she did to me. Threw me into my comfort, out of my comfort zone, and that changed my life. Like, genuinely changed my life. Just one moment of intentional discomfort. But I say that to say, like, there has to be a level of initiative that we take. [00:29:18] Speaker B: That's right. [00:29:18] Speaker A: We have to take our own discipleship seriously. And, like, awesome examples of. Of people that have gone, I want to be intentional with you. And that we've all experienced, and thank God for that, and I pray that we would all experience that. But it was also the other side of the spectrum where we need to step up and take initiative and be. Look at something that. I want to grow. I need to, you know, overcome this sin, or I need to grow in my intimacy with the Lord and reading the Word and take the initiative in that. I think that's. [00:29:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think, like, with that, we're pretty much back at that starting point. Hey. Of, like, we're all called by our rabbi. Jesus. [00:29:57] Speaker A: Yes. [00:29:58] Speaker C: To be his disciples. [00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:00] Speaker C: And so let's start there. Take that. Like you're saying, take our own discipleship seriously, because we've been called and chosen by our rabbi, and other people are just facilitators of that calling. [00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:13] Speaker C: And that's, like, a good place to start, to end, to be in, to imitate all those sorts of things. I think we forget that sometimes yeah. [00:30:21] Speaker B: Something else that has stuck with me by a previous leader that I still use till today is he said to me, he goes, you have two hands that are empty. He said, when you are leading people, he goes, you need to identify. It's one thing to lead a group, but you still need to identify the ones that you need to intentionally disciple to then release, to then go and disciple others. He said, you got two hands. You got your left and your right. He said, they can't both be empty. [00:30:52] Speaker C: That's good. [00:30:53] Speaker B: So you need to ask the Lord, who are the ones that you need to invest in that you raised up, and then entrust them to go and disciple others. And after he has said that, he's stuck with me since I'm like, okay, God, I can't have empty hands. You need to show me who are the people in this season of my life, or even in their seasons. Season of their life that I need to be intentional with them to empower them to then go on to their next season. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Yes. [00:31:19] Speaker B: So that's one way. Like, I know we were talking about how we've been discipled, but I think that is on the flip side, how we disciple people. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. [00:31:30] Speaker C: Jesus had Peter, James, and John. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Yes. [00:31:33] Speaker C: Which were the only three that actually got to see his divinity on the mount of transfiguration. Like, the other 12 got to see Jesus and learn from him. But he revealed himself to another level to those three. And that's like, what you're saying, where you have your left and your right, there's like, not just, oh, yeah, cool, I get to disciple him, but actually I have to reveal myself to a different level with these people for them to be truly discipled. [00:31:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that Jesus also would have appreciated having people 100 in his circle and something I say to people all the time. So I'm sorry if I say this a lot in this season as well. Is that, like, the transformation that you receive when you're discipling others? And actually, the way that you grow as a disciple is, like, so profound. [00:32:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Like, because you. It challenges you. Yeah, absolutely. Like, I don't know if you're gonna say something else, but just it that's grown me heaps in being like, okay, I actually have to lead this person that holds me to. It holds me accountable. It holds me to a standard of, where am I at with the Lord? I can't tell them to do something I'm not doing. [00:32:39] Speaker C: Then they start, like, imitating you, and you're like, wait a second. Where'd you learn that from? [00:32:43] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, I knew that I shouldn't do that. Yeah. [00:32:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:50] Speaker A: All right. Any final thoughts before we, before we wrap up? I had so many other things I was going to say but where this went. [00:32:57] Speaker C: No, I think it's going to be exciting to hear what comes through in this series just like the different ways people have been discipled hearing people's stories and those sorts of things. Yeah, that'll be cool. [00:33:08] Speaker B: Same here. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Well, I'm excited to hear, I'm excited to, yeah. Even hear from you guys as listeners how other people's stories, testimonies have become life and truth to you. So yeah, please provide your feedback. Let us know. Stay tuned to hear some more friends on there. You'll hear Alicia again very soon in an upcoming episode. But yeah, stay tuned for more episodes and thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day. [00:33:39] Speaker C: It.