The Holy Spirit and Discipleship: Why Growth Isn’t Just Human Effort (Roger Ross)

00:00:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the way God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm joined today by Roger Ross. He's the author of a new book called Kind of Christian. From Curious to Serious About Jesus. He also does a lot with consulting with pastors and churches, and he's here today to talk about what it looks like to go from curious to serious about Jesus. So, Roger, welcome to the program. It's good to have you.

00:00:51
Speaker 2: Thank you, James. It's my pleasure.

00:00:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, So tell us just a little bit. This book obviously comes from somewhere. I'm always interested in where why authors write what they write. What prompted this in your life and your ministry that you saw this book as being necessary for the church.

00:01:09
Speaker 2: Well, for most of my life I was a real pastor, serving churches in a variety of places. But more recently I'm serving now as a coaching consultant, and I spent a lot of time talking with pastors and adjunct class in a seminary. So I talked with people that are on their way to becoming pastors, and we would often get into these conversations about discipleship. They say, you know, church membership is just cutting it. What does it mean to be a disciple? And I would tell them about what we had experienced in the last church I served, which is in Stringfield, Illinois. I realized we kept having people showing up and asking questions about our mission. We talk about our mission in our worship services and small groups and like, you know, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the trend. And people would say over and over again, newcomers, I really like that whole time transformation of the world thing, But what's the disciple? And we're like, well, everybody knows who the disciple is. You know a little of this, So it's a little of that, you know, on what we see one and you know this happened so many times it got embarrassing because we realized we didn't even have a good answer. So final that I got the other passions together and said, look, we can't keep getting this. This is ridiculous. We have to call it. So this is very good question. So I said, how hard could this be? Let's just you know, spend three weeks and knock it out. Eight months later, we finally had an answer that we could bring to our leaders and have them wrestle with it as well, because we had to spend some time just going into our bets and searching the scriptures and coming up with a decent answer that really helped people to get the arms around what is a disciple? And by the time we've finally got that leadership and the like we that became our discipleship process. I mean, we didn't have not only a definition of disciple, where did we have a discipleship process one to become one. So it was it was kind of a painful experience really to go through that to realize we weren't administering to people in a way that would help newcomers, newcomers not just to the church, newcomers to the faith, people that were spiritually curious on the outside looking in find a way to actually make a deep connection.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: So when you think about discipleship, we've talked about discipleship number of times on the show, just interested to see what you guys came up with.

00:03:44
Speaker 3: What is discipleship?

00:03:45
Speaker 1: How did you how did you define it, how did you think about it, and what did some of that process entail. You don't have to give away all the secret sauce necessarily, but you know, give us a sense of where you guys landed.

00:03:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, we we kind of looked at globally what does disciple look like? And we thought, you know, really Jesus talks about loving God, so perhaps that would be you know, to launch community, to find ways to connect with others, and then also to unleash compassions. So those were the three broad areas that we talked about. And the more that we looked at that, the more we realized, you know, there's some deeper marks of a disciple that really kind of described in a more specific and way what a disciples should look like. And they kind of coalesced around a bunch of G words, and eventually we came up with six g's sorry, So they became our G six networks and here are the g's glory, Grace, group, growth, giftedness, and generosity. And we felt that that those g if if they had both an inward experience to get an outward expression, would be a great example of what a fully orbed disciple, what we called a deeply devoted disciple, would look like. Now we also want to come up with a sentence like just the one sentence definition. You know, I love the definition of discipleship that Dallas Willard came up with sometime ago. He says, you know, discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.

00:05:33
Speaker 3: I think that's great, But yeah.

00:05:36
Speaker 2: That's about discipleship. We wanted to talk about, well, what is a disciple? And this may not be the best definition of the world, it was one that worked for us. A disciple is someone who loves Jesus above all else and loves the world as Jesus does. And if you could get something in a one sentence in capsule, it can help people have a true north. They keep heading in.

00:06:03
Speaker 1: That on the sixth marks you mentioned, the first one was glory. Dive a little bit deeper into that one. What is glory when you when you think about what does that one mean?

00:06:15
Speaker 2: Right, glory, that's a great question. Glory is really all about how you encounter God when we when we enter into God's presence, we encounter the fullness of who God is. And you know, glory is. I didn't really realize this until I got more into writing this book, how important glory is in the scriptures. I mean, it's just mentioned hundreds and hundreds of times throughout the Strictures. When you start paying more attention to the word glory, you start seeing it talking all over the place. And so it's the way in which we actually experience God in a visceral way, you know, it's it's it's when we come into the press. Whenever we sense the presents of God, we're uncounting the God and that's what really changes us from the inside out. You know. It's good to think the right way about things, and I love this podcast the whole concept thinking Christian. But in addition to thinking Christian, we need to experience what it's like to be in God's presence, which transforms our very being from the inside out. That's what glory is designed to be. So I use a few different ways daily solitude, Like for instance, today I spent half an hour or so just in quiet, meditative prayer along with God, so that the presence of God could seep into my otherwise very distracted life. Yeah, and then ongoing conversation, like just an ongoing conversation with God through the day. You know, Brother Lawrence talked about this and is a book the practice of the Presence of God and just developing that inner chapel of the heart where at any time of the day or even night you could go into your own chapel and carry on that conversation with God. And then lastly there just be a daily review. This is something that comes from Ignacious of Iola who put together that examine where you spend a few minutes every day just examining where is it that God has been present and active in my life? Where can I identify the love, faith and hope that's coming into my life and bringing me versus those times when I feel like God is nowhere and there's a sense of desolation and I've drawn away from the presence. Spending a little bit of time every day just reviewing your day of watching the game tape, so to seek so that you can sense where God was drawing closer and you felt like God was further away from you. I can tell you a lot about how you're experiencing or having a lack of experience of the glory of God.

00:09:15
Speaker 1: As you see people do this, and maybe as you do it yourself. But also I would think, you know, as you watch people kind of go through this process and they're trying to cultivate this understanding of an encounter with God in their daily life, how do they you know, how are we oftentimes I'll call it, I'll use the phrase God as a sociological actor. In other words, he's involved in our lives on a social level. Every day we're encountering him. We need to be recognizing him as the most infinitely relevant actor and factor that will ever encounter. And so how do you see just everyday folks who are practicing these disciplines start to understand and sense God's presence, be able to identify God's presence. It's more acutely as they go forward, not just looking back, which I think is a great exercise, but also just in that do they start to develop almost like a I don't know, an exercise. We call it a kinesthesis, right, like, you know, you you get a certain rhythm and a sense of where the other players are on the court when you're you know, when you're on a team playing basketball or on a team playing football, and it's almost just sort of supernatural. Do you see people developing that sort of relationship with God where they now sense him where He actually is in their lives on a day to day basis going forward.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's precisely the kind of have over time, the practice these disciplines in a regular way over time for that to take place, and you don't you don't have that kind of relational connection with your teammates in a basketball teamball team after the practice idea, you have to go through much of a season, maybe more than one season, before you actually have that kind of deep connection with others and are aware of people without even paying attention to And that happens. I find that happens in the same people's lives. Are happening more in my life as I just practice the disciplines. You know, when you practice them validating you see why Christians for centuries have done these kinds of things, because they do bring you more into the business of God and they increase your conscious awareness of God. I mean, so much of spirituality is simply you know, turn off the switch annoyingly, so much of our lives and you know, so we'll we'll do our devotions. I usually have those experiences about all time I do my devotions. In the morning, I might spend part Christs and then I would to be so immersed in all the stuff they needed to happen with regard to ministry over the course of the day. At the end of the day, I wondered if I was still Christian like I like Loft Track that in the midst of all that I got so attached to the things of ministry, whatever they were, that I had stop paying attention being aware of the presence of God. So I actually changed the way that out things much later in my life and ministry by asking a different question at the end of the day. I know that my s gott that you have was all about it. I loved that podcast by the ways before we did on. But yeah, that I used to ask myself inadvertently when I got on the brain is what do I have to do? And I knew I was asking myself the question because uh it as I was standing from the bathroom mirror getting ready to like, I just started having these things pop up on my life. I got to call that person, I got to take care of preparing for this meeting, and all that stuff was coming up, and I kept realizing, you know, I don't even remember ask any question, but all these things got and that was the unspoken question in my head. Well guess what when I realized that all those things basically just had to do with work and that was my job, it really didn't. I was spiritualizing it and said, well, let's has to do with church. Well, actually that's just my work, you know. Is there's something else that maybe I should be doing as I'm going to do with my relationship with God? Yeah, So I changed the question. Instead of saying what do I have to do today? My question is now what do I have to do to live in the presence of God today? That that question gets a lot different answers than just fam I need to send.

00:14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's a that's a really good reframing.

00:14:17
Speaker 3: I appreciate that question.

00:14:19
Speaker 1: I think the as I've talked to people over the years, the pushback I always get when I say something similar to that right, you know, how do we make decisions so that only God gets the glory?

00:14:28
Speaker 3: Right?

00:14:29
Speaker 1: How do we how do we go about our daily lives so that God is We recognize God's active presence and are prompted to move as He moves. What you what I think people are afraid is going to happen is that you essentially get nothing done. Right, You've become some sort of contemplative monk uh and and you're you're not actually anymore able to lead an organization. I think even in my work with organizations and pastors over the years, and you start talking like this, they start saying, yeah, but the work still has to get done, and so how do you how do you help people.

00:15:07
Speaker 3: Think through that aspect of this?

00:15:09
Speaker 1: How do you how do you help them understand that the work is still going to get done, that you're not abandoning the work. What you're really doing is reframing maybe what the work does or how they should approach the work that they're doing.

00:15:23
Speaker 2: So that's a wonderful way to talk about it, reframing the way in which the work it's done. But I want to talk about it another way of thinking about it as well. If you ever run across Thomas Telly's classic book, Testament of Devotion. It's a short little book, but you know that I've read this many many years ago. It's just because he talked about essentially living life on two levels things. One level is where we're doing all the stuff that we have to do, the tasks and the area made ones in, the phone calls and that kind of stuff. It's just the look. But the other level is a level of worship and devotion, which is of your part. I'm going to go that you can continue to be in a place of worship and federation while you're doing all these kinds of activities that are more on the service simultaneously. You don't have to do one for the other. That was freeing concept to me. I've never heard anyone talk about that previously, and so that's what I've been If I can't say I'm a master of this, I've been experimenting with for thirty years so that my life would be more an example of someone who's living in the presence of God who also happens to be doing a lot of stuff.

00:16:54
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, Well let me circle back around to the six marks, because I'm kind of interested in how you guys think about pulling all these together.

00:17:05
Speaker 3: It gets tempting.

00:17:06
Speaker 1: After I hear you describe glory and you list it first, I think that's probably intentional. Right, Glory is a really sort of an all encompassing concept in a lot of ways.

00:17:16
Speaker 3: How do you think of the six marks together?

00:17:20
Speaker 1: So we often hear a lot of times you know there's this importance of community and relational experiences that we get in discipleship, and I agree, I think that's really crucial. But I oftentimes what I sort of see happening in different Christian communities is we're going to focus on the community aspect and the group aspect and relational aspect, but we're going to make that less theological than really it could be. Right, We're not going to draw God into these experiences in the way that we could. We're going to get together and watch football, maybe talk about Jesus occasionally, but really we're just getting together in form and relationships. And so when I think about those different g's that you listed, the you had the group I think which would probably connect into the community aspect. How do you how do you coach people? How do you think about keeping all of these together intention not necessarily as a hierarchy. First start with Glory, then go to Grace, then go you know, but sort of as a whole big ball of g's that you're you're sort of practicing all together.

00:18:24
Speaker 2: That's a wonderful question, and that's one of the things that was difficult in writing them. When you fight anything, you have to do it in a linear faction.

00:18:33
Speaker 3: That's right.

00:18:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is not a linear deal. I mean, someone they gave me the metaphor, and I just really originated with thistticulum. It's more like the ingredients of a cap those six with them in at different times and in different measures to some extent, But you need all the ingredients to be able to come up with a cake that actually really tastes it, gotcha. So Glory did come first for some of the reasons that you mentioned and some of the things that I spoke about as well. But uh, you need all six of them. Yeah, there's an option gee. And the ways in which you're going to insert those yees into your life or incorporate them into your life will be different for different people, and they'll they'll come at different times in different fashions. But they still need to come something. Yeah, so it's hard. I think you can come. There is some connection between them. Uh glory when you have an encounter the presence of m hmm. Generally speaking, that's going to be your first taste of grace. Yeah, you're can have some what it means to be loved by God and condition. That's a powerful thing. And then course great is just like Laurie, I mean, you want to the experience, but you want to live outwardly express it. Yeah. So for both of us that we want to early experience the grace that he offers us to forgiveness of our sense, the freedom from sin and new life that he offers, we want to exchange that for that other people. That's the way it's designed to it. Yeah, same same is true with the group. I mean, we want to find ourselves in the community, we want to belong, but we also want to offer that, I mean to other people.

00:20:37
Speaker 1: So yeah, I could almost see group. I would say, maybe the way I've thought about it up to this point in my life, group and giftedness and even group giftedness and generosity seem very naturally together. Right if you had group, but you didn't have a sense of giftedness and you didn't have any generosity. You start to lose now, hospitality, you start to lose sort of coordination that happens within the Body of Christ amongst the members, right, and you just have sort of a blob of people together.

00:21:10
Speaker 3: You know.

00:21:11
Speaker 1: It's not like we're not going to a concert or a Body of Christ. And so the group is it almost requires that level of coordination and giftedness.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, actually, what do we grow? I mean most of the time we grow in relationship with other people. We're learning from other people, you know, we're doing the iron sharpens iron thing. I mean, growth happens in the context of root. That's why I actually but with regard to an order, that's why I put group before growth. Yeah, because growth kind of all out by yourself, you know, with a book and alone with God. It's not that there isn't a dimension to that. But we all the things that we know are things that we know because other people have taught us. Yeah, it's a group community experience.

00:22:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:22:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when you think about all those where does the Holy Spirit kind of come in? Obviously I'd see how the Holy Spirit could come in a number of different ways, you know, giftedness, grace, glory, and particularly growth. But how do you infuse that process of discipleship.

00:22:26
Speaker 3: With the Holy Spirit.

00:22:27
Speaker 1: You know, as you see people going through these transformative changes, what sense do they have that of the Holy Spirit's presence within them? And even the Holy spirits work within them and among them.

00:22:38
Speaker 2: The Holy Spirit is the prime mover in the entire work of discipleship. So whatever g you're working on doesn't really matter. The Holy is the one that's helping it all to take place on a deeper level. If it's just a matter of human effort, then we've missed the entire boats. That's not the way that God works in our lives. So with each of the g's, let me give an example with say growth. With growth, the Holy Spirit is minds and open our hearts to the things that God wants to teach us. Now those things may come from a book, it may come from a worship that may come teaching, or it may come from relationships that we have and experiences that we're going through that could be difficult or painful experiences. God can use all of those things and lots more to work with the Holy Spirit reveal things to us that we hadn't seen previously and therefore kind of teach us through the sometimes the hard knocks of life and sometimes to life. It doesn't matter what's happening to us. The Holy Spirit can use whatever this particular incident is to be a teaching point for us. This happens to me more frankly where i'll i'll be so much and all that was for me, Like I'm sure other people are picking up here, but that part that was for me. I need to pay attention. The Holy Spirit is teaching me about something that I need to pay in my life. Yeah, that's an example the way the Holy Spirit works in each of the g's and all the different parts of all life.

00:24:32
Speaker 1: So all this sort of, I guess, gets down into sort of.

00:24:36
Speaker 3: The brass tacks, how does it work? Sort of feel right?

00:24:43
Speaker 1: And so when we talk about the Holy Spirit and we talk about sort of yielding the Holy Spirit, we talk about the Holy Spirit as sort of pushing us into discipleship in some way, shape or form, guiding us into discipleship in some way, shape or form. How do you help someone sort of start to unwind.

00:25:02
Speaker 3: What we might call.

00:25:02
Speaker 1: Cultural scripts to say, if I want to grow. I have to help myself if I want to make things happen in my life. These are things now I have to engage in and I have to make happen, versus what we often see in scripture, which is no, God's really just asking you to come along for the ride, to be faithful to him in a moment, and you're never really sure what opportunities discipleship is really going to open up for you to help you build the Kingdom of God. In other words, the way I've often thought of this is, if I have my agenda, discipleship could certainly get in the way of my agenda. But if I don't have my agenda, or if my agenda is really aligned with hey, let's build the Kingdom of God today, now, discipleship is always aligned with my agenda. And so how do you help people sort of prepare themselves to I'll use this phrase, how do you help people prepare to lose something that they may really want as they're engaging in discipleship and make the trade of Look, what you really wanted, wasn't that great? What you're being given is amazing, And so how do you help people make that leap? What does that transformation sort of look like for people as they go through this process.

00:26:25
Speaker 2: So I really do think that is an issue that many of us struggle with. We want to make it happen rather than let it come. I mean, I'm gonna make it happen. I have to fight against that tendency in myself all the time because there's only a number of where that actually is helpful and cases it works against you, right, and certainly that's the case in the spiritual life. I can't make it happen with them, right, there are things that I can do to put myself in the right position to be able to receive what God wants to give to me. Make God do anything. God is free the bedrock fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith that God is free and able to act freely at any time in an moment. And that's the case only but in the world, in groups of people and cultures, you name it. So how is it that we make ourselves available to God's choice to love us? Well, that's the gift disciplines, right, the spiritual practices. Spiritual practices, when we engage in them, are not designed to get God to do something for us, but rather to put us in a place where we are open and ready to receive what wants to do. It's a very different approach. I mean, it's truly the flip side of make it come. It is. Okay, Lord, here I in a position I invite you to let come as I practice this discipline, as I engage in this spiritual practice. I'm going to put myself in a position where I perceptive, ready, willing, surrendered for you to do the kinds of things that you have desired to do for your purposes, for your glory, not for mine. Now you want to do what's best for me. I believe I trust you for that. But what I think is best for me and what you think is best for me aren't always the same. And putting myself in a place of surrender allows me to be able to receive your good gifts, even if I don't recognize them immediately as good.

00:28:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:29:01
Speaker 1: Do you find that people who are walking in though, who are curious right about Jesus And you're saying, okay, let's get serious about Jesus. There's a book I read. It's by La Paul and she talks about these transformative experiences and basically what she argues, is that there are certain things that you can only know once you've experienced them. She actually uses the example of a vampire. Let's say add friends who are vampires and they explain what it's like to be a vampire, and they're telling you all about it. Her argument is, but you don't really know until you actually let them turn you into a vampire.

00:29:42
Speaker 3: You have no idea what it's like to be a vampire. You can only have a sense of it.

00:29:47
Speaker 1: And my gut is that people who are curious about Jesus only have a sense of what it looks like actually follow him until they start to do it. Like this is not a you dip your toe in the water and sort of yeah, I kind of get a feel for it, and I'll decide whether I want to do it or not. You're either all in or you're all out. Is that a how do you get people who are curious about Jesus to get to that point where they're serious about Jesus and really make some of those transformative choices where there's really no going back. You've trusted him on this one, you're recognizing what he did for you, and now you're kind of all in.

00:30:28
Speaker 2: Another great question I want to say to be in with I've always loved stagely curious to people. Yeah, and a church planter. I've served a pastor in a lot of different capacities and serve pastors and church leaders and non proper leaders and a likes of I'm always asking them to be asking others about how are they engaging with curious non Christian people. Look came from by kind of folks. If we're not engaging in culture that way, then we have completely lost the law. Jesus was phenomenal of this. He was the best ever at this and so we as followers of Jesus also need to get up on that ball and be good at this time. And I think part of it is following the pattern of Jesus. I mean, Jesus thought of questions right aashed over three hundred questions in the Gospels. He asked a lot of questions. He did so because he was engaging and helping their curiosity to get peaked so that they would want more. He also did an interesting combination that we don't do much in our culture these days, but at least in Western culture, and that is his direct One. Two. Jesus would proclaim the gospel, and then he would the gospel. And you would always see these two put together. It wasn't one or the other. Now, sometimes it wasn't in the order. Sometimes demonstration would come first of it. It was to proclamation some kind of explanation of the gospel, or a declaration of the gospel followed by a demonstration. You know, he would peel, would raise people from the dead, he would drive out demons, he would bring about life change in a person such that that would confirm and corroborate the story that he was telling about who God really is and how you can be in a relationship with him. So, if be involved in that proclamation and demonstration of ministry, whether on one basis or whether it's in a larger group, it could be one to one, one to few, one to many. But I think it works in all those contexts. And in part, you know, I'm not saying that we necessarily need to be involved in being a miracle worker, and I'd always have those kinds of gifts, right. However, we can be involved in bringing healing to people's lives, conserving others. We can be involved in bringing good over evil in other people's lives. I don't care what kind of have You can be involved in doing that on a broad scale, and you can do that again, whether it's one on one, in a small group or in a larger group.

00:33:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's helpful.

00:33:39
Speaker 1: I think that gives a sense of you know, you're giving people a picture. You're showing them, not just telling them the gospel. You're showing them what's going on. You're creating sort of a centripetal force that can draw them into something and give them ways that they can almost picture themselves being involved with it.

00:33:59
Speaker 3: The sort of.

00:34:01
Speaker 1: Experience they're going to have as they become more committed members of the Body of Christ. It's an interesting dynamic. I mean, I know this isn't the greatest analogy, but some sort of As you were talking, one of the things that came to mind was, you know, the way the old Temple structure and Tabernacle structure were put put in place, you had sort of the Holy of Holies where they're having this the priests or having this amazing experience with God one time a year, and then you go out in successive place and you don't ultimately have the Court of the Gentiles, and part of what we see happening in Christ is really the Jews and the Gentiles. You know, that separation is gone, and so you have this whole coming together. But I also think that you know, the gentiles who are sort of, you know, sort of mulling around the temple had to have been curious about what's going on. They have to understand what's going on here. And so there is a proximity even in the Old Testament as we look at some of these structures that were set up where folks who are curious about what's going on can actually be near it and try to understand it and look in on it. And it just strikes me that that is very similar to what you're describing here, is that the people who are curious need to be able to see sort of the way the sausage is made right, and that this needs to be a compelling operation that as we live it out, it needs to look and feel really good, not perfect, but it needs to be marked by these six things that you're talking about and give people a real picture of what it's going to look like to be a disciple of Jesus.

00:35:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me give you one example of that. There is a guy that is in a coaching group that I'm a part of, and he was sharing. We were talking about excited, you know, where have you seen the glory of God in your life recently? And we had a number of people share a variety of things having to do with you know, family and connections they made with their own son or daughter in their faith and like and this and this guy who was really kind of a assuming type of person recently retired, talked about how he had been serving in the local food pantries are part of their church's chynistery. And this couple came in were quite obviously and in conversation with them, he found out that they were homeless. He had recently been released from prison. Them were together, but they have been staying out in the woods the night before and then the woman had been bitten by a dog that morning, had gone to the emergency room and they just showed up. They had no clothes other than the clothes on their back. You know, she was seriously wounded. They had no food, they had no place to stay. Yeah, and he was like, well, let me see what I can do to help you. Obviously, he was able to provide some food for them. And he had some vow to give through the food pantry to them. And then they also had some clothes, just maybe one or two changes of clothes that they had available, as well as a black they could put their stuff in. They didn't even have that. And at the end of this conversation with them, he felt led them and they had wonderful title of prayer, and then he felt led to never done before. He said, now, if you have any further issues, here's my phone number, give me a call. And the next day the man of the couple gave him a call and said, you know, we appreciate everything you've done for us, but we have no place to say, and we have no money. And he said, well where are you right now? And they exchanged where the locations were, and he said, okay, well and you can come to my house. And he put this couple up. Now, he was a single guy living in a home by himself, but he didn't really know them. He took a real chance here uh to into his home and then he talked with them and helped them, help help the man to be able to find a job, help them to be able to get some kind of transport transportation. So he could get back and forth and take care of other needs that they have helped them in their relationship. Work, got some things in the relationship, and he acted really much like a father to adult children, the kind of father that neither of them had ever had. Yeah, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you like, we've got a real Christian in our hands here. I mean, he shared the story and you could have a pin drop on carpet in that room. I mean, our eyes got wider, our jaws was slacked, Like, oh my gosh, are you kiddyy? You really did this? He says, Well, I had to do it. God was calling me to do it, Like who else was going to help them? It was me. I was the one.

00:39:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, And.

00:39:20
Speaker 2: By the sheer and utter grace of God, he followed that call. That's an example of someone who is demonstrating the lower in unmistakable fashion, Like how can you not be attracted to that? I mean, just listening to him till I've ever met the couple, I was attracted to that.

00:39:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:39:40
Speaker 2: So when we demonstrate the gospel, when we say the gospel before we put it this way, when we show the gospel before we say it, it gives our words so much more power.

00:39:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, people tend to put that together exactly.

00:39:55
Speaker 1: It's you have this concept in the book book, and well we're getting close to time, so I want to kind of end on this question. But you have this concept in the book called the river churches, and so I want you to talk a little bit about the river churches and how you how what you mean by that, and then how might a church go about cultivating that?

00:40:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a great question. The This is something that I learned from Larry Walchmere. I don't know if you've run across him or not. He's a pastor out in the California area, and he talked about the difference between the lake churches and river churches. Lake churches are like bodies of water that don't move. You know, we've all been to the lake.

00:40:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I.

00:40:41
Speaker 2: Have to go to lake. I mean, who doesn't want to go to lake. There are people that build houses so they can have lake homes and be around the lake all the time, right, And Lake church much like that. They they want to draw people to the lake, so they create more and more attractions for that and program the activities and services and festivals and sports, leagues and all kinds of things, and everything has to happen at the church building because that's where the lake is, and the whole goal is to grow the lake bigger. Yeah, And to be honest with you, I was absolutely enamored with that whole concept. I never knew that there was any other kind of church growing up, and as a young pastor, I was enamored with the Great Lakes. You know, these churches that were ten twenty thousand in a tennis Like, how on earth does that happen? Isn't that the And then I got introduced to this idea of a river church, which is quite different. So a river church is the kind of church that people to find God and become a deeply devoted disciple. And as they are living out that, jumping into the current, the stream of the Holy Spirit working in and through that church, they are led downstream to carry Jesus to all the other folks that they see downstream. That happens in a place and stays in that place, it's constantly flowing somewhere else. So ironically, river churches don't really care that much about the building, just don't even have a building. They just meet in small groups and communities around a particular area, or they might and meet in a whole bunch of different spots in a particular region. Or they might have a cadre of people that they send out and try to start some kind of new work and unreached area. That's a population center. They're constantly on the move, trying to make disciples wherever people are. They're not trying to get people to come to them, they're trying to go to where the people are. That's a river tribe, river churches. I kind of used that as an acronym for what it means to disciple others, because this is how you know you've got a disciple in your hands. They're making another disciple. The person's not making another disciple. They haven't actually become a disciple yet. They're they're on their way, they're in training, but they haven't actually made it yet. Because that's the sure that you've got a disciple. How do you do that well? I talked about, you know, kind of a five step approach. You relay, you invite, you visualize, you encourage, and then you release. So you relay with the Holy Spirit has done in your life through amation and demonstrations we talked about earlier. Do you invite them into a closer relationship, you know, like you can't disciple people from a distance, they have to be up close. And Jesus brought people up close. All right, we've taught thousands, but he had to disciples. And then he had three people that were a part of his little executive team, Peter, James and John, and so he invited them into a closer relationship so that they could get and get a feel for what it means to really live as a disciple. And then he visualized this is the third step, to visualize what it's like, what it is that God is doing in it that you can see them. I can't see ye visualize what they are doing, what God is doing another person. Then you call it course. Like I say, James, you know, I really see that that God has gifted you with a bright mind and the desire to share your faith in in coagent and compelling ways. And one of the ways you can do that, James, on a broad scale is through podcasting. And somebody somewhere along the line had that conversation with you, and that's why we're doing this podcast. They saw it in you before, you saw it in yourself, and they called it forth. It did the work of a profit essentially. And then, of course once that happens, then that person's gonna need some encouragement because it's going to feel a little shaky to begin with. They have really action done that kind of thing before, and you need some confidence. You need someone to come alongside as a good encourage do to say you can do this. I see this in you. You're making the right steps. This is something that you to do. Let's do it as much as possible together to begin with, and then you release right because the whole point of making a disciple is so that person can then go make other disciples and you release them to do the same kind of thing with other people's.

00:45:50
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. I love the acronym. I love the steps. I mean, I think that makes really good sense. It resonates so much the visualization aspect of just reading a book on blessing the Old Testament and talking about how these blessings are not just well wishes, right just you know, hey, hope that happens.

00:46:08
Speaker 3: Great.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: You know, they're calling forth something, They're a participation with God and doing something and so true blessing is going to be aligned with what God is going to do, what we know God is going to do for you. And it just strikes me that that visualization step is right aligned with that sort of blessing that we see often in the Old Testament, especially in the Book of Genesis.

00:46:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the best things that have happened in my life have happened because someone saw something to me that I didn't see in myself and they called it.

00:46:39
Speaker 1: For Yeah, really love that. Very good Roger. This is a fantastic book. I think it's really important. Discipleships are one of those areas that I think about an awful lot, and so I very much appreciate the structure that you've put through it to it and the way that you've explained it. I think it's such a It doesn't feel like, hey, here's step one, here's step two, here's step three. It feels more like an organic process and a mix of activities that you need to be involved in, and then the growth will sort of come as you do these things. And so I really appreciate those more organic approaches. I think that's really how God works. And even though people may not they may look at it and be like, well, I really like the three steps, thank you. The reality is that it may be okay to start with the three steps, but at some point you have to stop looking at the ingredients on the back of the box and the instructions and you have to just start making the cake on your own, you know what I'm saying. Like there you have to develop a real sense for how this stuff actually works because you're not in a controlled environment all the time, you don't always have all the ingredients you'd like to have, and you've still got to make the cake. So, yeah, this has been great. Where can people find the book? Where can people find you?

00:47:59
Speaker 2: The book is everywhere the books are sold these days, so just up on Amazon or Barnes and Noble wherever you want to go. And if you want to find a little bit more about me, you can go to the Humilitygroup dot org. That's the coaching organization that I'm a part of that I have the privilege of being able to found and so we're excited about the things that are going on there. And actually I put out a weekly blog that's free that you can pick up if you want.

00:48:26
Speaker 3: Very good.

00:48:27
Speaker 1: Well, we'll have those links I'll link out to the book in the show notes, folks, so if you're interested in the book, i'd encourage you to go and get that, and then we'll also link to the Humility Group Humilitygroup dot org and you can link out and find more from Roger there. Really appreciate you being on today. Roger just thanks so much for writing the book. Thanks for all the work you're doing, and really appreciate you.

00:48:51
Speaker 2: Thanks James Joy to be on this particular podcast. I'm going to be listening to this podcast. You've got something really great going.

00:48:58
Speaker 3: On hereppreciate that.

00:49:00
Speaker 1: Appreciate that, all right, everybody, Well, thanks for being with us, Thanks for listening, and we will catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian Take Care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.