BE Rooted: Intentional Discipleship
Ever wonder what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus? Each week, we explore discipleship—personally, relationally, and organizationally—through both ancient wisdom and today’s realities. Whether you’re growing your own faith or shaping a community, you’ll find practical ways to get rooted in truth and live it out authentically. We may wrestle, we may laugh, but if you come curious, the Lord will meet you here. So grab your coffee—or your headphones—and join us as we discover what it means to BE Rooted in faith today.
BE Rooted: Intentional Discipleship
Sam Tawney Pt2 - Faith in Relationships
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Get ready for Part 2 of the interview of Sam Tawney as He and Nick explore the Relationships of faith that make up the discipleship journey. Stay Curios my Friends!
So I hope you enjoyed part one of my interview with uh Sam Tawney. I'm excited again to can bring you the continuation, not the completion, there will be a part three, but the continuation of this conversation with Sam. Um he's a he's a wonderful guy, got a great heart, and I hope you will be encouraged by this middle section of our conversation as well as um the one that will be coming after this. So buckle up, and I hope you enjoy part two with Sam Tony.
SPEAKER_02Hey friends, welcome to the Be Rooted Podcast with your host, Nick Kugler, author, discipler, and your guide on this journey. Around here, we mix ancient and modern wisdom with real life principles so that you can grow deep roots and live out your faith intentionally. So let's stay curious and dive.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm not them anymore. You're starting to develop even more or solidify rather your identity. And and I think one of the things that I've I've tried to tell the kids, like that I've I call them my boys most of the ch most of the time because they're just guys that I've been mentoring. And like, you have to choose what your future you looks like. You you have to determine what kind of and it's not just what you do or or what your profession is, but what who do you want to be? Yeah, you know, what kind of person, what kind of character do you want to have? And how do you start living today for that like character? Because the future of you starts today, right? And that was one of what you were doing. You're like, who am I, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00Who do I want to see?
SPEAKER_03Even the guy that's in your um just in your boot camp, right? You're asking them the same question. You you're you're saying these things and you know these things, and you can answer from a Bible trivia standpoint, but who are you? And and who are you becoming? Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, and what are you gonna do with that information that you have? And part of, you know, as I've been on this 10-year journey of really trying to focus on a discipleship, and I think that that kind of does come back to this large church setting that we were in, um, where you're like, okay, we got to get people in the small groups, so you get about 50% of the people in the small groups. And then I look at stuff like Paul saying, follow me as I follow Christ, you know, Timothy, commit the truth of faith of men, commit the truth of faith of men. Um, Titus, older women teach younger women, you know, these type of things that are very core to the discipleship thing. And you go, there's more than information passage here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so just for just for audience sake here, you're kind of bringing us back to the last couple of years of your time with big church data. Like so now, now there you're it's a it's kind of a more mega church setting, and you're starting to wrestle through at least a deeper level of what what does are we doing discipleship, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, I'm an engineer by training, which means I'm a systems guy. And as I look at as I look at scripture, I see the systemic growth of you know, first John, spiritual children, spiritual young men, spiritual fathers. And and and I look at a lot of things around me. I'm a professional engineer. Yep, I have this little thing called PE on the back of my name. Yep. I had to take physical education? No, it's not. I had to take um a test that was an engineer in training test, and if you pass that, then you had to work five years underneath multiple professional engineers, and then you took another test. So apprenticed. You apprenticed under other professional engineers, then you took a test, and then if you pass the test and these guys that you worked under were like, oh yeah, then you could become a PE. Yep. So I look at that system. My son-in-law right now is a journeyman electrician on his way to master. Okay, so he started five years ago as an apprentice.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00And okay, do this, pull that, bend this, connect that, you know, all that kind of stuff. So five years of going to school, he took classes once a night or once a week, and then worked under a journeyman electrician, and then he had to take a test, and then he passed the test, and now he's a journeyman.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so now the journeyman, after so many years, you take another test, and you're working under a master, right? And you take another test, and then you can become a master electrician. And so I see the same with plumbers, I see all these systems. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03All these systems. So I'm gonna stop you here because I love this. Um if for if if you haven't been following just what discipleship has been doing over the last years, apprentice is a buzzword in our in our discipleship culture right now. So I would love to enter into that conversation a little bit. Sure. Because it feels like what you're saying here is that apprentice is very programmatic and very like linear. So I'm I'm just interested in seeing because we haven't really talked about this yet. No, no, we haven't. So I'm gonna enter into some pretty interesting stuff. I don't know where it's gonna go, but uh this one of the cool parts about this, right? So I would be interested to see what are some of your differences that you see between that apprenticeship model and a more biblical relational discipleship model.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll just use my own experience as a your professional engineer. Yep. Um, my boss and my boss's boss were professional engineers. Yep. Um, when I made mistakes, they came alongside and went, okay, let's let's do this a little differently. You know, they were good, great guys. Yeah, Eric Strang, Ralph Bernard, love those guys. Um, but there wasn't real, like, oh hey, let's sit down and I'm gonna show you this or let's talk through this first. It was like, here you go, here's a project, dive in, you know, which was fine. I'm I love that. I love a challenge. Yep. And so it was kind of like they were just hovering over me, right? And in a good way, and making sure I didn't get too far off the off the ranch. Okay, yeah. I think what discipleship from a biblical perspective has to be more relational than that. And and so I don't look at the guys that I'm discipling as my apprentices. Yeah, I my challenge to them when I recruited them to come into boot camp was I want you to be an elder. Yeah, I want you to be a spiritual father. I mean, I don't care if you're recognized as a church as an elder or whatever. I we need people in this world who have our local, who have a people around them that are looking to them for spiritual answers, and they give them truth. Yeah, they don't give them pablum or babble or worse yet, falsehoods. Yeah, yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_03And and so we have enough wolves in sheep clothing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right, right, right. And so I said, that's my goal for you. And and you know, as we as we march through this week after week, I I get this I why why haven't we ever talked about this in church? Yeah, why isn't and and some of that is just that's not set up the way the weekend service is set up, it's not set up relationally, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and and so I'm so fixated on the programs and getting you to a point and releasing you at a point, and you know, that idea of a master becoming or an apprentice becoming a master, and our a whole our systems are designed to get you to a point where we can kind of call you a master and then send you, right? You know, but when we look at discipleship, like we are all disciples, we are all apprentices. Jesus is our is our ultimate master, you know, and we're never not in this discipleship journey. We never graduate from this from being a disciple of Christ, and you know, so I think that's one of the things that I think is interesting about. I mean, there's a lot of really beneficial things we can get from that apprenticeship model. Oh, yeah, that can really go, hey, and there's investment and there's the guardrails. I think those are really important to be able to have somebody go, hey, yeah, you're starting to color outside the lines here. Let me let let me usher you or or shepherd you back into the hold a little bit. And and I think those are some of the the key distinctions. Like, how do you take the good things that you get from apprentice and not turn it into something that is not?
SPEAKER_00The most beautiful thing that has happened is as I've started this, um, I not the first week, but a couple weeks in, I go, you gotta begin to pray. And this is from a book that I read many years ago, Discipleship Essentials by um Greg Ogden.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Now that was really focused on information and and but it was a it was a decent laid out. Let's look at this, let's look at this. And and but one of his things was um start praying about who God would bring into your life. Yeah, and and I don't mean I don't like that from a programming person programmatic perspective, strategic perspective, yeah. But I like it from a begin thinking, yeah, begin opening your eyes to God has a plan for you in the area of discipleship, He wants you to disciple someone, so begin thinking.
SPEAKER_03And I want to I want to join, I had a moment very similar to that in my discipleship journey. That there was a or my disciple error journey, like when I'm trying to disciple other other guys, there was a particular guy in my life that I felt like the Lord sent me to, and you know, and I wanted to disciple him. And it honestly was one of my quote unquote failures, right? It was like we tried and we were, but we'd never truly connected. And I and I said, Okay, what Lord? Like you, you, you, I know you want me to do this, and and there's kind of this spiritual Holy Spirit moment where he's like, Well, yeah, I want to bring you those that I've already prepared. I don't want you to go find the one that you think needs this. You know, so the Holy Spirit basically convicted me. You need to start praying that you are aware of those that have already prepared. So now it's that's this way of saying, okay, Lord, just show me. So true. Show me, show me who you've already brought here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's the what I want them to start praying about early. And so what happened, what's happened both times is, and this is fascinating for me as as the discipler, and I'll just use that as a rat rotten term. I don't like that term, but um, what happened is is the Spirit of God began to bring people into their lives.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and so our times together, we started out more uh, you know, we read some books, we studied scripture, we've looked at doctrines, you know, had them form their own. Everything for me is like you go do and you tell me. I'm not telling you anything. Yeah, you go, you study this and give me the elevator speech and give me the doctrine behind it. Yep. Because I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sit down and spoon feed you. You gotta dig this out yourself. You got you got to start cooking some meat. You gotta cook with meat. So we read some books like you know, The Greatness of the Kingdom, those things which are like, whoa, that's a heavy book, you know, right? FF Bruce, the the the the canon of scripture, which is a kind of a canon light thing, but that just blows their minds. Yeah, it's like, okay, you gotta think about wow, we're gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_03One of the first ones was mere Christianity. Yeah, you know, type of thing, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. And so we talk through those things. So it's very um, we're talking about topics and I bring case studies and all that stuff, but then about halfway into the first one, these guys started to get people who were around them who started to ask them questions. Yep. And so our time morphed from, in fact, the first boot camp I have right now, we don't do any of that stuff anymore. We get together, and basically he tells me, okay, this is what I'm going through right now with this person, or okay, I want to do a marriage retreat, and you know, and and so I'm just watching, watching the Spirit of God move in his circle now and bring people in. And so the conversations are more like, I'm thinking about the it's more affirmation. Yeah, like, dude, you're thinking good. You're thinking, yeah, you know, here's how I handle this one time, so you know, oh man, yeah. And sometimes, oh yeah, that's good. Sometimes it's like, okay, thanks. You know, I'm that we're just there to interact. And I I just get so much energy from that because it's so amazing to watch what what's happening in his world and and seeing his discipleship come to life. And and the same thing in the second group we started, the second week we had it. This guy comes in and he goes, Okay, my brother-in-law, da da da da. And he goes, What do I do? And I go, let's talk. Let's let's dig in. Okay, so why don't you dig into scripture? Think through how you would what truth you would bring. Yep. Um, and let's talk about maybe some of the mechanisms, because this was a family member, it was a brother-in-law, that weird dynamic, right?
SPEAKER_03There's a whole nother layer.
SPEAKER_00And and I said, dude, if not you, then who?
SPEAKER_03And if not now, then when?
SPEAKER_00Exactly, type of thing, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, and I want to I want to point back and just to just this conversation over the last few minutes and how it really does kind of expose this customized like reality around discipleship. Like, there is there's no cookie cutter like paradigm. And that's one of the struggles that I've had with so many of the resources that we've run into lately that are that are discipleship centered. It's like, well, if you do X, Y, and Z and you do it in this order, then you're doing discipleship. I'm like, but I also don't want to throw the baby out with the bathroom. Like, there's so many resources are really, really good.
SPEAKER_00But but see, I think what the the tact I take is follow me as I follow Christ. And there's been certain things that I've read in my life. There's certain books and stories in the Old Testament, in the New Testament. Um a book by uh Bob Gillam, Lifetime Guarantee. That was the beginning of my journey in understanding how the Spirit of God works. And I'm like, okay, this is transformative for me. It might not be for you. So the other thing that's so cool is I get these guys coming back and go, hey, did you read this book? And I go, No, I haven't read that. And they go, Man, this is transformative for me. And I'm like, praise the Lord. That's exactly what you need. The Spirit of God brought this to this book to you at that moment in time so that you could disciple someone later. And yeah, I'm just I'm just doing tracks.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Here's the track I was on, and here's the track I followed. So follow me as I follow Christ, and your track is going to be different than my track.
SPEAKER_03Oh, and that's so that's um and the really cool thing that I see about that is like one of the most common, I'm not saying most common, but a very common question that's asked me when I'm doing discipleship conversations around people is what book should I read? Or what I'm like, I can't answer that. There's no real good answer. Where are you? Like the Bible. The Bible, the Bible's the first one. Like everything has to be, you know, filtered through the truth of scripture, but there's a lot of really good resources. And if if you want to sit down and have a cup of coffee and you tell me about your life and tell me what you're at, and tell me about your situation, then maybe there is a resource that is very good for you, and I can point you down that road. So we're in studio. If you hadn't heard that, that I have Andrew here, who's who's our studio studio production guy, he's doing all the back behind the scenes, and I've given him permission to speak into this. So um, but he brings up a good point about Saul's armor and how like David wasn't designed to wear Saul's armor, but it actually, in a very practical sense, reminds me of a story back when I was in um a previous men ministry to men, and I had a mentor say to me in some of our training stuff, he goes, My he said, my job is to make you successful like I was successful. I'm supposed to make you into me. And I and I literally just looked at him, no, you're not. You're you're my leader, and you're you're called to help develop me so that I can be successful in the way God has designed me. And I think that's a really important um thing to think about. And it also leads me back to Corinthians uh 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, about our uh 100 like part within the body. Yep. Like if I'm trying to work out my legs, you know, and I'm doing only leg day, but God has made me to be an eyeball or a or maybe a bicep, and then I'm not strengthening who I'm called to be for the body. I'm just trying to be what works for somebody else.
SPEAKER_00And that is the hardest part because it's easier for me to disciple someone who's like me.
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. Right?
SPEAKER_00And so the very first boot camp, the guys were a lot like me. Yeah, they looked at life the same. Um, my business partner, who I've been in business with for 30 years now, and I think a lot of like now we're we're probably like this, yeah. So there's some differences. But we align philosophically, obviously we align spiritually, you know, so that it's easier that way. But in terms of giftedness, back to the Corinthians 12, Romans 12, the my first boot camp, the guy was like a lot like me. Yeah, and so it's it's easier. It's so much easier. It's so much easier, and so the journey that I'm on now is because I realized that uh I have certain gifts, and he has gifts that kind of align with them, maybe a little bit different, but you know, close, right? And so it's you know, he's inquisitive, he's a studier, he's a note taker, he thinks like in big, big picture down to small, you know, type of thing. And so the current journey I'm on, and I've not figured this out yet, okay, um, but I believe I have to, is and there's a guy that was an incredibly faithful servant at Ada. His name was Walt. And Walt drove, he had a CDL and he drove truck. Walt was the servant's servant, showed up at every youth that had a coffee stand for them. You know, I mean, just pleasant guy, smile on his face all the time. And I'm like, okay, Walt does not have the gift of teaching in the sense of someone who's gonna stand up and teach.
SPEAKER_03Yep. So not gonna be in front of a class breaking down stuff, doing diagrams and all that. No, ain't doing it.
SPEAKER_00Nope. Um, I don't know if Walt's a big reader or not. Another guy that I've discipled for 30 years doesn't read. He'll read a verse a day and just and feel like that's that's a lot sometimes.
SPEAKER_03You know, uh cracked it. That's more than a lot of people are doing, just to crack the book.
SPEAKER_00This guy is a brilliant machinist. Yeah, brilliant machinist. Um, I think he has the gift of evangelism. Okay. Okay. Because when he first came to faith, I intersected him about three, four years into faith. He was telling everybody, and this guy had a rough childhood, taught me a lot about grace because I'm like, dude, I don't even have an envelope to put that in, you know, type of thing. What do you mean? No, I grew up in the church. You grew up beating people up, you know, type of thing.
SPEAKER_03I didn't grow up on the church, but I've had some really interesting conversations about, yeah, I don't think I have a category for that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But and so this guy, this guy, the the W for me with him was 25 years ago, we talked about finances. Just something simple and very tangible, like finances. Started with them talking about their credit card, making the minimum payment. And I'm educating them about how long do you think it's gonna take you to pay that table and shares off you just bought? Oh, maybe four years.
SPEAKER_03How many times are you gonna pay for it?
SPEAKER_0038 years. And they're like, wait, what? And so that started them on a journey. And we've walked with them and and you know, some family situations. We've we've walked with them for many, many years. And he, this is about five years ago now. He texts me a picture of a car, and underneath it, the the next text was paid cash.
SPEAKER_03And I'm like a 30-year journey, man. That but that's touchdown.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and you know, so I've watched his faith grow, but I watch his passion for others coming to Christ. Yeah, again, not a reader, doesn't read, struggled. I mean, whenever we would be in small group and we go around and read, he just passed. Yeah, he just got not reading. And everybody knew it because he just didn't read. And I mean, he was one of the he was the kid that the teacher went, you're up the next grade, because I don't want you again. You know, he he did that all the way through high school, literally. He said, I I just I was I was passed through high school. Yeah, I didn't learn much, I was passed through again. Incredible, incredible machinist now. Incredible, can create stuff that you're like, what in the world? So gifted by God, but I look at his name is Dean, and I look at the waltz and I go, they are commanded a disciple.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00What does that look like in their life? And that's a journey I'm on now in terms of how do I reach into a waltz life and go, yeah, this is my track, but they're not gonna read FF Bruce, the Canada Scripture. Yeah, they're not gonna such.
SPEAKER_03And I've been part of ministries, so many men's ministries over the years. Like I got, I kind of cut my teeth on discipleship in men's ministry, being brought into one, you know, early on in faith. And and just kind of serving in that environment. And that's one of the things you see all over the place, is like, especially with guys. Guys are like, give me some place to serve. Don't ask me to read something. Yep. You know, I'm not going to do that. But how do you how do you then help them to obey the mandate that Jesus? I think the the Matthew 28 commission is a commission for all people. Like we're like we're like we're all called to be disciplers. And I know you said you don't like that that's a display. Yeah, I mean it is, but it is. It is. But the but the Greek there is the verb disciple. You know, it's it's not be a discipline, it's disciple. So, you know, it's but I think you get a little clue of of how you do that a little later in the Matthew 28 when it says, Teach them to obey all that I have commanded. Yep. You like like I have commanded you, I have given you precepts to live your life by, and and you can share those. And you can share those as a machinist, and you can share those as a doctor of philosophy. It doesn't matter where you're at, right? Right, you have you have a relationship with Jesus, and you can share something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think that's the challenge here from a big C church. Yeah. Because my wife and I um 20 years ago had a gentleman live with us. He was a college student. He was from Nigeria. He lived with us and for a whole summer and great conversations. His mom and dad came and visited us after the end of that summer. And we struck up this relationship with them. And they would come back into Grand Rapids every two, three years because they had someone in Grand Rapids that they had you know married or you know, did the wedding for. And so and marriage mentoring and all that stuff. So about three years ago, we were sitting down, and I go, Well, what do you do? I didn't even know what he did.
SPEAKER_03And he's like, Well Which is so not like our culture. That's usually one of the first things a guy asks another guy is what do you what do you do for a living?
SPEAKER_00Mawa and Janet. Mawa and Janet. Um Mawa said, Um, the churches in Nigeria aren't creating disciples and disciplers. So I started a school where I bring people in and we talk about discipleship and we learn how to disciple. And it just struck me that okay, maybe there's something systemically wrong with the big C church in terms of we're not really looking at the goals for the waltz, the goals for the Deans, the goals for the Johns, the goals for the Joshes, are for them to become elders. It's not to attend a church, it's not to give offering, it's not even to invite anybody to church. It's I want you to become an elder because wherever you go, you're gonna be discipling someone.
SPEAKER_03And I'm gonna bring you back to just the because you mentioned it earlier, the the word elder. And I'm like, I'm not telling, I'm not trying to help you to become the leader of a channel. Yeah, no, no, right, right, right. Yeah, no. So for you, I would I when I hear you say that, but what I actually hear you say is I want you to develop the kind of character that people that draws people to you, that ultimately draws people to Jesus. 100%. It's not that I'm I'm becoming a leader of an organization.
SPEAKER_00It's a spiritual father, is this first John term? I don't know what you mean when you say that, but I'm just like spiritual father.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. You know, so a word like an elder, and you think of the Timothy 2-2, or not the Timothy 2-2, but the um the Timothy and the Titus, like descriptions of what is an episcopas and what is a duos, you know, like what are who like what is an overseer and what is a servant. And I think it's so interesting that we're all called to be servants, right? Jesus says, I I I'm a son of man, I came to not to be served, but to serve as an example for you. So we're all called the thing about those two lists is they're identical. Like something I have to teach, right? Yeah, except for the ability, like they're they're pretty much and they're character based. Like if you're gonna be a a leader or an overseer, like you need to have these character traits, but they're they're pretty much identical for the for the service.
SPEAKER_00And I think you know, come coming back to what we talked about a long time ago, was that there's a character that you develop and it allows you, it gives you the opportunity to speak into someone's life, and then go, okay, that's an integral man. I I will listen to that guy because he's integral. And and I think that you know you look at those lists and you go, oh, there's a reason that they're that's a prerequisite. And again, I want I want guys to be spiritual fathers, I want them to experience the joy of having someone come alongside them and them be able to mentor them and watch them multiply. And I believe that's what Jesus said to the disciples because it's a multiplication-based ministry that's not centered in a spot. It's diffused within communities.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna I'll push back just a little bit here because we use the multiplication language a lot. And I think to some extent we overuse it just simply because I look at the Timothy, one of the most quoted for multiplication is the Timothy 2, to you know, take what I that the Lord has given me, and I've given it to you and give it to faithful men and are able to give it to others. And I and I think it's a it's a generational principle that we're talking about when we're talking about multiplication. It's because we are not called to build the church. Like Christ says, I'm gonna do that. But I want you to invest in one person and one person and one person. So it really is it's multiplication, but it's through addition. You know, and when you look at it that way, I think about it, and you mentioned it a little bit earlier, like every relationship that I have, whether it's a surface level relationship or intimate or deep relationship, I have the opportunity to bring somebody to Jesus and or or bring Jesus to them. And when I look about it that way, then I can say, oh, the pressure's not on me.
SPEAKER_00Right, but I but I but you know, I I do think, though, that the multiplication principle is God put me in a specific spot at a specific time, in a specific group of people, businesses, relationships, he called me there for a purpose. And the purpose is to be a light, right? And whether that's a light is someone who has no light, or a big light, or someone who's like hungry, right? Um people own that they'd understand that you're a disciple all the time.
SPEAKER_03All the time. And that's where the multiplication just flows out of the way.
SPEAKER_00The contrary of that is I think where a lot of uh I will say organizations are falling into, okay, is to bring someone in, bring someone in, bring someone in, add to this group, add to this group, and and you know, add to it. Keep inviting in the keep inviting, keep inviting, keep inviting, and it's in its edition. And and you get people that come in, and frankly, here's some great stuff, great teaching. But you know, if we go back to the children, young man father principle, you get stuck in it. And that's what I saw with a bunch of these guys who are like, they just felt stuck. Like there's more. I don't know what more is, but discernment.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I and there's still this tension, and there's still this point.
SPEAKER_00And and I think that's an inflection point of them moving from because when you're a child, the structure of the current church is setting beautifully from that. You don't even know what a book of the Bible is, right? So, okay, we're gonna show you what a book of the Bible is. You have no idea of any theological principles. So we're gonna teach you in a math setting, and I think that's good. But once you get up into spiritual manhood, and it's like, and see, this is where when I got out of the house, I had to own stuff. Yep, right, I had to own who I was, I had to own who I was spiritually, I had to own who I was financially, and so I had to become me. And that was that young man period in my life where I'm no longer getting my folks are no longer doing anything.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So what is the intentional step from this section of our conversation with Sam? I I personally think that through this middle section of our conversation, we've really touched on some very important aspects of community. That that just whether we're starting a Bible study, we're joining a Bible study, we're having coffee with another guy, we've we've taken ownership of our faith, we're we've we're making intentional steps and asking people to come alongside and get to know us and to shape us. So, what could be an intentional step for you in regards to relationships? Now I've mentioned it before and uh I will continue to mention it because I think it's super important. There are three primary relationships that need to be a part of your life at any given time. You don't have to have all three of them at any one time. If you if you can, that's great, but I understand that we don't have um an unlimited source of energy and time. Um so the question is which of these relationships uh would benefit you most to add to your life or maybe to invest at a deeper level? Maybe you already have one and you're just not very um regular and you need to make it a priority and be more regular. Um, and those relationships are the before, the beside, and the behind. So who is the person that has already gone down this road a little bit farther than you and would be willing to help you on your journey on that same path? Today we're talking about faith. Obviously, that there are somebody that is a little bit farther along than you, um, and they might be willing to help you in your journey. But then the beside relationship, there's somebody in your life that's going through some of the same things that you're going through, that's going through some of the same struggles, that's going through going down some of the same paths that you're going down. Maybe it's um you both have young kids or you're in a similar place in your career or you're pursuing the same kinds of things, or you're both young entrepreneurs. It doesn't matter what it is, but if you can find another person who cares as much about their discipleship journey as they do that other thing, then you can walk that journey with them and ask them to walk that journey with you. I have several of these guys in my life. It's one of the harder guys to develop because we're all kind of in that same space, we're all kind of busy. Um, but when you're intentional about it, it's probably one of the more fruitful that I have found. Not to say that before and behind are not fruitful as well, because they are, but it just goes to show you how much relationship is fruitful anyway. So that brings me to the last one, and that is the behind. There is somebody following you. There's somebody that sees your life and and is part of your life, and and they are drifting towards you, or they're just straight up following you. And you have the opportunity to speak into their lives and to help them to miss out on some of the landmines that maybe you have hit. Um, this is one of the spaces where I would encourage you to be careful because I know in my journey, I have made those guys in my life a big priority. Um and and I've often given more energy than I should to some of them. Um because you only have so much energy to give. Now, I so my rule of thumb is this it's I will put in as much energy as you're willing to put in. I will match you. And there probably will be times where, especially when they're going through struggles, well, I will actually go above and beyond, and I will be the one that initiates that relationship with you. And usually that's in a time of struggle when you already know they don't have the level of energy, or there maybe that is some shame attached to it, and they they draw themselves away, and and you have to pursue them a little bit more. But that that can't be the the the norm, that can't be the pattern. Um, you have to let them determine this the speed and the space in which they're going to be shaped by God, and they're going to allow God to shape him. And that's a beautiful thing. I have seen some guys that that have moved very quickly, and I have walked along some guys for several years who have moved slow, but I'm not here to dictate speed. I'm just there to be there at whatever pace there that God is shaping them in. So that will bring me to the personal and practical for today. If you're one of those guys that has never led a group or you've never ministered to an individual, um the thing that he that I want you to understand is God has equipped you, and where you feel ill-equipped is probably your greatest place of strength. When when Paul says that I will boast only in my weakness, I think he says that because he realized that his weakness is his the place where he's often able to enter into the relationships where God can be seen the most prominently, where Jesus can be seen the clearest. It's in your weakness. One of the phrases another friend of mine uh will use is your mess can become your message. So so don't avoid that because you feel ill-equipped. As a matter of fact, that's probably one of the reasons or one of the things that God will use in your life for another person. So I want you to know that you have what it takes. And don't overcomplicate it. Start small, start simple, start with a cup of coffee. My one of the things that I learned um the hard way is that often I would stand on my soapbox and I would try to fix things. But when I was able to get off my box and and just listen and to care, and to love, and to just hear where somebody was in their life, that was when real relationship and growth and impact began. See, we all want to fix something. We all see problems in other people's lives and go, I know if if you were to just change that, a lot of things would get better in your life. Well, that might be true. And if they give you permission or they ask for you to give them advice in that area, then maybe give the advice. Um but one of the hardest things that we can that would that I've had to learn how to do, and I know others have as well, is learn how to shut your mouth and let other people learn rather than just tell them what they need to fix or why they need to do something. So my personal, my practical today is just trust. Trust that God has got your back. Trust that He trusts you to do what He's already empowered and equipped you to do. You just gotta go out there and do it. Maybe you gotta rub off a little of the rough edges, but start with a cup of coffee. Start with a single scripture. Don't don't feel like you have to be an answer guy. Just learn how to love a person where they are. That's the same in a group, and it's the same with an individual. That you're not there to teach an entire group the Bible. You're there to facilitate a relationship and a deepening with the Holy Spirit and with God. So thank you. I hope that you will join us next time for the continuation and the finalization of our first conversation/slash interview. Um, and remember, my friends, always to stay curious.
SPEAKER_02AI was only used to enhance the sound and visual experience. All content is authentic and does not contain AI generated thoughts or concepts.