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#60 - Multiplying: The Biblical Answer for Growth · Gospel Talks Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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  I'm George Binoka and with me today is Pastor Brad in Wixom, Michigan and excited to have him on again.
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  Talk more about discipleship.
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  What we're going to be talking about today is really multiplication.
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  I mean, how do get to the point where you go from doing it one by one to actually multiplying and you see exponential growth in discipleship and your discipleship
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  relationships?
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  How do you get to
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  discipling disciple makers.
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  That's what we want to get into today.
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  So Pastor Brad, great to have you on.
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  How's everything looking in Michigan?
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  You guys still having great weather?
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  Very good.
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  Yeah, we're enjoying a great summer.
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  Thank you.
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  Yeah, that's wonderful.
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  We're on fire over here in Phoenix.
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  It's blazing hot, but we're enjoying weather inside.
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  that's Phoenix life for you.
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  So as you use the exchange in your church, what has made it effective?
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  Why is it, was it an effective on-ramp for relational disciple making or, I just hate to think.
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  that somebody has just given a gospel presentation, was the exchange more than that?
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  How did you see God using that to get you to this state of multiplication?
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  Yeah, one of the things that really appealed to us when we first looked at not just the exchange, but specifically the exchange Bible study was that after four weeks or four
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  hours or oftentimes more time talking about the gospel, you're already into a relationship with this person.
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  So if there is a profession of faith, it's just really simple to move then from evangelism into
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  one-on-one discipleship.
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  And we encourage our people, if you have the privilege of leading somebody to the Lord, then the right attitude is to have a lifelong commitment to shepherding them and
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  discipling them and helping them in their walk.
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  If they don't make a profession of faith, then it's also natural to suggest other resources to help them understand the gospel more clearly and perhaps make that decision
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  down the road.
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  It's a natural on-ramp to regular one-on-one meetings to encourage the priorities of Jesus in someone else's life, which is really what discipleship boils down to.
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  So how quickly do you start a new believer on thinking about sharing Christ themselves?
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  Well, one of the beautiful things about the Exchange Bible study is that the author, Jeff Musgrave, does the heavy lifting for you.
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  And so really, it's not as simple as a new believer handing someone a tract, but it is simple enough that a new believer could do this Bible study with an unbeliever.
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  They probably would need a little support.
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  from their leader, maybe the person that led them to the Lord.
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  But the Bible study itself is resource enough to answer most of the questions and get the conversation started.
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  And here's what we found, George, is that a lot of times when a new believer uses the exchange to go through the gospel with an unbeliever, their understanding of the gospel
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  becomes so much richer and so much deeper.
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  Like with anything, we understand things better when we have to teach them.
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  so going through it a second time as the leader is a really powerful tool to lock it into their mind and heart.
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  As you've worked with new believers to start sharing Christ, are they effective?
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  Uneffective?
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  I mean, is there like a, you have to be a Christian for a year to be effective at this thing?
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  I mean, Jesus commands it.
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  I mean, we're commanded to do it right away.
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  So what have you seen in your ministry?
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  Actually, surprisingly, what we found is new believers are very effective at sharing the gospel because there's a real passion there.
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  There's a real appreciation for what Christ has done in forgiving them and dying for their sins.
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  Of course, someone who has shared the gospel multiple times, an experienced, mature believer, is going to be a very effective witness.
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  But I think those are probably the two categories of most effective witness, really experienced believers and new believers.
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  The ones caught in the middle oftentimes are the ones who they've tried, maybe given a mediocre effort, but have never really gotten traction.
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  And that's another reason, and this sounds a little bit like a sales pitch, it is not, but that's another reason that the Exchange Bible study is so helpful because it can take
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  anybody at any place in their walk.
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  and make them an effective witness and strengthen their faith at the same time by going through it with an unbeliever.
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  Yeah, and I didn't find that those people actually have the best connections on believers because they've been they weren't they you know, all their friends were on believers.
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  I mean, they were an unbeliever.
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  They were in that in that community of people.
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  And so they have better inroads than we do.
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  A lot of times.
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  Is that is that been your experience?
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  in fact, George, the first adult woman in a long time that my wife had the privilege of leading to the Lord was the girlfriend of an adult man that I was going through the
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  exchange with.
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  so the fruit, it turns out he was a believer, but the fruit...
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  was this other person in their life.
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  And I've heard similar examples of this.
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  In fact, just this last week, I was speaking to a lady who is employed by our ministry, goes to a sister church down the road and she had the same thing happen.
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  Young man started attending the church.
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  Turns out he was not ready for the gospel presentation of the exchange, but his girlfriend was.
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  And so you're right, new believers or
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  pre-believers you might call those unsaved people who are asking questions.
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  They're loaded with connections to other people who need the gospel of Jesus.
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  So that's a very rich resource and a deep well of opportunity.
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  So just a little bit ago, you mentioned, you know, there are those people in the middle that are frustrated by, I'm not seeing anybody, you know, come to Christ, I don't feel
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  like I'm being effective.
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  What do you tell somebody who says genuinely and sincerely, I'm planting seeds, I'm just not seeing fruit?
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  What's your counsel to that kind of person?
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  Yeah, you know, that kind of testimony varies, but in our experience here, in our culture, it's often that people either they're misrepresenting their seed planting or they're just,
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  they just don't have the right tools.
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  So first of all, misrepresenting their seed planting by being a nice neighbor, being a good coworker, being a kind person.
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  They're just never really getting to Jesus conversations.
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  um And so they're not seeing gospel fruit or they're trying to get to Jesus conversations and they're at times succeeding, but it's being rejected because it seems out of context.
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  It seems maybe too big of a conversation to be having over coffee at the workstation, et cetera.
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  And again, that's really for me personally why the inquirer's Bible study with the exchange
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  was such a game changer personally, not as a pastor, not as a church leader, but as an individual, because I was kind of in that second category.
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  I would work really hard to get to Jesus conversations, but they always seemed out of context.
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  And so what the exchange allows is for me to say, oh, you've got a question about religious things or a question about God or a question about even the world and its
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  problems.
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  Would you like to do a little Bible study?
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  that'll help answer some of those questions, gives me an opportunity to sit down and have an extended conversation where the Jesus component is in context.
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  Hey, He is the solution and here's how you develop a relationship with Him.
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  So I love that, by the way, how do you go from that addition to actual, you know, multiplication using the exchange?
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  mean, what's the training mech is because there's training involved, right?
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  I mean, you can't just say, okay, now go multiply yourself.
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  Well, how, you know, how did you train people?
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  Well, our church is doing several things right now and not all of these are right for every ministry, but just a couple of ideas.
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  We require our high school students, when they come into the high school of our Christian school at ninth grade, we require them to go through the exchange as a 12 week study,
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  where they study it in detail so that by the end of their first quarter of high school,
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  They know the exchange and they know how to share the message of the gospel effectively with their unbelieving friends.
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  So we do that in our school.
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  But then in our church, there's a couple of notable things that we do.
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  I think we might have mentioned last time, we use this as what we call stage zero of discipleship.
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  Anybody who wants to do any Bible study for the first time starts their relationship by going through the exchange.
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  You got to do at least four weeks in the gospel.
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  and then we can go on to other things if you'd like.
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  But also in the church, we do in our church, twice a year, we do the exchange as a four week Sunday school class.
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  And we encourage anybody who's new to the church to be going through that class.
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  It's kind of an expectation.
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  It's not a requirement, but if you're new, you're expected to be in the exchange class and we just let all of our new attenders know that.
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  So twice a year, every six months we do this in like...
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  and March every year.
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  It's part of a bigger package of like new member integration into the church, but we do that.
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  So I would say in our church, maybe 90 % of the adults have gone through it in a Sunday school class setting.
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  um That's another way to keep it in front of people.
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  But honestly, George, one of the, we took it a step further in our church.
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  I and my assistant pastors, when we preach one of our
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  requirements or expectations for every sermon is that the gospel is clearly presented somewhere in the sermon, in a spot that it makes sense.
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  But we always present the gospel or try to always present the gospel using the four characteristics of God from the exchange.
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  And we do that not because it's the only way to share the gospel.
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  Obviously, there's the Roman road and there's so many other ways to go about explaining the gospel.
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  But for us, we want it to be consistent
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  so consistent that if you ask one of our members, what, like, where would you start with the gospel?
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  That immediately they would say, well, God is holy.
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  You got to begin there.
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  And those four characteristics of the exchange, we just want them reiterated over and over and over again.
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  Tonight in my Wednesday night Bible study, we're actually studying an aspect of discipleship.
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  And we're actually talking about this a little bit, how sometimes Christians get deaf to the gospel.
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  especially when they hear it over and over.
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  And one of my challenges tonight is, hey, you should celebrate.
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  When you hear God is holy and God is just and God is loving and God is gracious, you should celebrate it, even if it's every seven days.
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  You heard it every Sunday morning, it's worth celebrating.
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  Right, Amen.
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  I love that.
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  I love that.
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  I think it's important to, you know, we talk about the exchange a lot.
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  There's another resource we've developed called Living the Exchange and it's designed for those who've come to Christ now to get them growing.
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  After, you know, and I think I know this about you ministry, you guys use Living the Exchange, right?
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  Am I correct in assuming that?
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  So in using Living the Exchange, how do you see that?
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  play a role, and I'm not just putting it out there because it's our resource, the concept of when a new believer comes into the world, it's like when a baby comes into the world,
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  that's when the real work starts, you know what I mean?
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  There's a lot of nurture and care that has to happen after a new believer comes to Christ.
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  So how much of that do you see happening?
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  And then how do we grow people in such a way that it leads to multiplication?
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  What role does living the exchange play in that kind of discipleship material?
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  Yeah, a new baby can't survive without nourishment and care.
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  And the same thing is true for someone who has made a profession of faith in Christ.
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  They have to have nourishment and care from the church and specifically from an individual.
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  The best individual is the one that led them to faith in Jesus.
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  um And so, yeah, we encourage people that if somebody makes a profession of faith, that you should invite them to continue this relationship.
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  So like I would say something at the end of the conversation, hey, I've really enjoyed this.
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  Like I feel like I've made a new friend.
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  We've really had a nice time getting to know each other and talking about the gospel and it's such a blessing to have a small part in leading you to faith in Jesus.
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  Would you like to continue this?
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  Would you like to, it doesn't have to be weekly.
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  We could do every other week, whatever works for your schedule.
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  Let's just keep meeting.
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  And I've got some other resources.
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  This one in particular, Living the Exchange.
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  It will solidify your faith.
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  It'll answer a bunch of questions.
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  It'll really help you grow up in Jesus quickly.
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  And I would be honored to be the guy to lead you in that.
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  And so giving somebody that kind of invitation, boy, it's hard to say no.
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  If the four weeks of the exchange have gone well and it's been enjoyable for both parties, one of the things that Jeff says in giving the exchange is if the leader is winsome,
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  The individual who's being led wants to spend more time together.
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  And so if you've done that, if you've been winsome for four weeks and they want to spend more time together, make it about Jesus and make it about growing in their faith.
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  And here's the thing, it grows the leader in their faith.
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  And this is the testimony I've heard more often than anything else with new believer discipleship is a, somebody who's been saved for 20 years goes through new believer
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  discipleship and says, man,
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  I just grew in my faith in remarkable ways over the last 12 weeks.
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  I'm so glad I did that.
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  I want to do it again.
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  Well, you know what happens if you get a front row seat to watch God work and change somebody, incredible transformation happening right in front of you.
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  It is incredible.
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  I mean, it's like, man, this guy's gonna outpace me.
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  It's really cool.
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  It's a total work of grace.
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  Well, it's incredible to get the whole bandwidth of that.
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  And you've covered pretty much everything now from, okay, how do we get into the conversation?
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  How do we change the culture?
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  So it's more.
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  geared of wherever we're at, whatever church we're part of as Christians to become more focused on, okay, let's reach people and then reaching people, how do we grow them, how do
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  we multiply?
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  And you've laid it out biblically.
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  I appreciate you so much, brother.
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  I think we've covered this one.
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  I'm gonna be excited to get you on again.
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  You've written a couple more articles that I'd love to interview you on and some topics that I think you're great at.
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  uh Pastor Brad is a coach at heart and I love that about him.
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  So anyway, thank you guys so much for listening and uh pray with us as we pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers.
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  We love you guys, we'll see you next week.