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Walk To Walk with Doug and Gina Baker · Storm The Gates

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Foreign.
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Welcome to Storm the Gates friends. We're your official podcast for the Mid Texas Conference
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of the Global Methodist Church. Your host here today, Shay Ryanga.
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And I'm so grateful for you guys all, all of our folks that,
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that watch this, that listen to this. Thank you again. Please don't be shy,
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don't be bashful about in the comments, asking a question,
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making a comment. If there's ever a topic or subject
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you want us to cover, please let us know and we'll reach out and try
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to do that. And today is just a super practical,
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really important, consequential conversation with Doug
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and Gina Baker. Dr. Doug Baker, pastor Doug Baker,
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Gina Baker are married, husband and wife. They've been married for some decades now
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and they, they lead Marvin Methodist Church in Tyler,
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Texas and they've created this resource called Walk to Walk for those watching.
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I'm just showing it's a little workbook real simple and it's a wonderful clear
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tool for disciple making, for multiplying disciples,
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facilitating that in a way that is,
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is accessible to anyone. And so friends, this is really important
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because many of you, if you've grown up in the church,
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have you been discipled? Who are you discipling?
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Are you taking that discipleship people piece seriously?
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So we you know, believe especially in the Methodist Wesleyan tradition as an
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emphasis, you know, at justification, salvation by
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grace through faith. When, when we come to receive in
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this faith, this saving faith, this trust in Jesus for what he did for
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us on the cross to forgive us from our sins, to die to save us
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from our sins when, when we receive that and trust in God, we're given this,
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this justification, this assurance of our faith that
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we're made in right relationship with Him. And that is
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just really the beginning of a journey. The journey continues on to be more
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and more like, like Jesus. And so God does not
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leave us alone. We have many of us in the Global Methodist Church are part
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of class meeting or a band meeting. We want to take spiritual accountability
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seriously, watch over one another in love and,
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and here is a one to one, one on one resource to help
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you do that very well with you know, talking about
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sharing our faith story, how we can engage
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in scripture and read through scripture, taking spiritual gifts inventory.
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There are all sorts of pieces to this friends, so walktowalk us.
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There's going to be some links in the show notes and show description as always.
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So please consider this resource for
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you personally in your relationships as a, as a prayer prompt.
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God, how do you want me to disciple someone? Who do you Want me to
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disciple? Who do you want me to disciple? And the how is right here.
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Consider this being the how as. As a. As an instructional
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guide. So 12 sessions, 13 sessions. If you do the intro as
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its own session. Very simple explanatory tool
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right here to help you. And so Doug and Gina Baker
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started the first draft of this in 2013, and they've made some
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adjustments over the years and they've been doing this as a discipleship
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ministry at Marvin Methodist Church. And they have revised
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it recently and are rolling it out in a. In a little simpler,
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smaller format that anybody can use.
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So you can buy it on their website, walktowalk Us. And if
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you're part of the Global Methodist Church, a conference outside of the Trinity Conference,
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they're part of the Trinity Conference. I'm in the Mid Texas Conference.
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If you're part of those conferences or not,
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this is a tool that you can use that would bless you and
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bless someone else. There's eternal implications to this as
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this is a wonderful tool to multiply disciples of Jesus friends.
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So hear about Walk to Walk with Doug and Gina Baker.
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How long have y' all been in Tyler or Texas now? Almost 20
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years. Almost 20 years. We came in 2007. Yeah. And so
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how big was top. How big was Tyler, Texas? What the green sign
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say outside of town? And what's it say now?
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I. I think that it says it was 110 when we
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first. You know. Yeah, maybe one. You know, I'm not sure it's grown
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as much residentially, though. I think it has because they're building a lot of homes.
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But the interesting thing to me has been just that because there's over 250,000 people
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in town every day because of three major universities and all the
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medical facilities. That makes the town feel a lot bigger than it
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really truly is. And we feel the traffic because especially
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in the holiday seasons. And then now at 5 o', clock, it's starting
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to get like we have a little bitty rush hour. Nothing like the DFW
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area. I grew up in LA and Houston, so it's though, not that bad.
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Yeah. Okay. Do you. It's not that bad. Have you ever met anybody
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at Pratt Holmes? You've probably seen the billboards.
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I've seen the billboard. Daughter was a newscaster.
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Yeah, she did a newscaster. Kelly, Kelly. Kelly.
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Okay. She actually reached out. I did something for her during disaffiliation
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about the Global Methodist Church. She was. She asked me. So long
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story short, my dad is really good friends with Lynn Pratt.
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Of Pratt Homes. And then Lynn's since retired and handed
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off the business. And my dad still goes out to visit often
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to Tyler and so fishes and has a lot of friends out
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there, but especially Lynn and his daughter,
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who was the news. I forget where she moved, but she. I don't know where
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she moved either. I don't know, but I've kind of always enjoyed her special
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stories, special segments, and then she just disappeared one day.
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Yeah. What's. What's y' all story? A little bit, to the extent that you don't
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mind sharing how y' all met and how long you've been married and. What.
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Where's the family today? We met at
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Memorial Drive Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, and we were
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both in the high school program. I became a Christian
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at age 15. Gina had been in the church longer than that. And I
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think our junior senior year, we kind of met a mutual friend, knew we
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were both going to Baylor and that we needed to meet. Okay. And so,
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you know, interesting, that. And then kind of our story, in the strange way that
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God works, we, you know, we started. We had our first date
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as friends at Baylor homecoming our freshman
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year. We were kind of both dating other people, and those.
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Those persons were out of town, and so we said, well, let's just go
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as friends. And then I think the next. That next
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summer, we actually taught a course together about taking God
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to college. So we actually had a. We had our first date,
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you know, didn't know, kiss, nothing there.
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And then, you know, then we get to Memorial Drive, invited us to come back
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because they knew we had both gotten involved at a church in Waco, First Methodist.
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Okay. And wanted us to come back and speak to the graduating seniors
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about taking God to college. And so we got together and
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put a lesson together and taught it. And so the fact
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that that was really our first act of ministry together, having no clue what was
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in our future. Wow. Y' all always been in the Methodist Church, or is it,
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you know, we. I know y' all have met a lot of folks like this,
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like Catholic, Mary's, Baptist. They end up in the Methodist Church. I was.
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I mean, my first five years of life, which you have
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hardly any memory of, I was in the Reformed church, but then my family moved
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from California to the Houston area. And then,
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interestingly enough, my family became kind of unchurched.
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We kind of tried to go from a small town and a small startup
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church. Parents very involved into big city life,
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went to Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, tried to kind
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of break into a church of probably 8 or 10,000 members.
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Just after several attempts to
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try to plug in, get on a, you know, on ramp into that church,
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I didn't want to be there. I didn't know anybody in school. I. You know,
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mom and dad just kind of gave up, and we kind of got washed out
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to three boys. And scouting. Not scouting, but sports programs.
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And so for 10 years, Shay, from age 5 to
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15, I was unchurched. I was a CE Christian.
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Okay. And during that time, Gina was probably very. Well,
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at age 12, I guess, when y' all moved to Houston, wasn't it? Yeah,
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I was Presbyterian. My family was Presbyterian until I was 10. And then
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we joined the Methodist Church and been there ever since. But we were one hour
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a week, people. One. One hour on Sunday, that. And then in
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junior high, I wanted to get involved in the youth group, and that's
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when I started and played tennis competitively for several years,
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and things were probably slowed down a little bit, but by my junior and senior
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year in high school, I was real involved again, so. And the same
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person who introduced us, knowing we were both going to Baylor was the same person
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who, at age 15, harped on him for six months till he came to church.
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Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things with the Walk to Walk program is you
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share your faith stories. And so. And I always talk about significant
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people that kind of God places along the path. And David
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Reed was one of those individuals who, as Gina said, invited me
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to come to church for six months. And I finally was just so tired of
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him asking me to go. I just finally went. And that got me back connected
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to the church. And the beautiful part of that story is that my mom and
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dad started attending church after that because I started singing in
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the youth choir. And then I had the opportunity at a later time to
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lead my brother, my middle brother, to Christ. And so that was just a joy
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because then he became involved as a youth leader in the
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youth group at Memorial Drive. So that Memorial Drive holds a special
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place in our hearts. We were married there. That's where we really met each other.
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Our kids were both baptized. We both received Jesus. Yeah. We both made our
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professions of faith in Christ there, went through confirmation,
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and then I heard the gospel at age 15 at a youth rally there.
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So anyway, so that's the. That's kind of the
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story of how our. And your first appointment. Yeah, back.
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And after graduating from seminary at Fuller Theological Seminary, we.
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We got married. Right. A week after I graduated from Baylor University.
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I graduated in August. We got married the
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next Saturday, went On a honeymoon, drove to Southern California,
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started Fuller Theological Seminary. And then she. She got a retail job. I was a
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youth pastor. And then, you know, first appointment in 1990
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was back at her home church at Memorial Drive, and I served there for five
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years. Were there any faith heroes or people that really
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pushed you, inspired you at Fuller? Was. Was Dallas Willard there during
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that time? Dallas was not there. Trying to remember.
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No, George Barna wasn't there. Who? Church growth guy?
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Was it McGowan? McGowan. He followed.
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Oh, gosh. Who is that guy? I'm embarrassed. No, it's not trying
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to remember. He was the church growth guy. Came after McGowan.
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It'll come to me. But anyway, that was a big influence on me. And one
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of the things about Fuller Seminary that was so practical was just the fact
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that I took a class in church management. I took a class in
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evangelizing nominal Christians. Wow. Fuller was a very pragmatic
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school. And, and it's, you know, it's well known for having a school of psychology,
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a school of missions, and a school of theology. You know,
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Methodists were the third largest group on campus, and there may have only been about
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50 of us there out of 1500 students across all three schools.
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But, you know, I was glad to be there. Yeah, Presbyterians were the
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most most influential there, but I had a great experience there.
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And what. What would be the Louis
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Meads? Louis Meads was there. I took church ethics with Louis Meads.
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That was a. That was a blessing. And anyway,
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and then David Hubbard was, I think, the professor
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of Old Testament. He became the president of Fuller after I graduated.
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Okay. Awesome. What?
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So. So walk to walk is. I've got it
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here too. And I'm just so grateful y' all have done this. And I know
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we'll talk more at the end of all this about maybe getting some
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training set up. You guys mentioned that you're doing some trainings in Trinity Conference
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and would love for that to be the case too, in mid
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Texas. So we'll work on all that off, offline.
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But help me with a little bit of the story of what
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inspired you. The burden, the conviction.
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When did that start of wanting to do something like this?
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Mapping out this, this curriculum, this guidebook
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for one on one discipleship? You go ahead. Yeah, I think
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it was about 2013 when the original draft was done.
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Doug and I were away on vacation and ended
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up doing a lot of writing. And originally it was designed to
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help a new believer learn what it meant to follow Jesus.
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The more we've used it. The more we've gotten into it, we've seen how powerful
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a tool it's been to help people that have been in the church for sometimes
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decades become awakened in what it means to live a life
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like Christ lives. So Anyway,
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back to 2013, we, we wrote the entire, the entire
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first draft. We started using it within the church a little bit.
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Trained several people but. And you can relate
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to this. We've been in ministry he full time, me as a helper for
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four decades. And we have found that it's so easy to
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get caught up in church work and neglect the work of the church. Right.
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Amen. And so it was a couple of years ago where we felt like
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God gave us this gift back and we
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just really haven't. Didn't feel like we'd used it to the extent of what it
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was intended to do. And so. And it's helped us personally
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keep the main thing, the main thing in constantly discipling people
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but also trying to establish that culture within our,
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our church. And we're fortunate that the Marvin congregation has been incredibly receptive.
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They're doing a great job. But so the last couple of years has been making
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edits. You know, we've, we've learned a lot in the last several years.
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So what do we incorporate? What, you know, just letting God dictate that
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and now starting to not only train our own people but to reach out and
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train other churches. And I would just, I would just add to that that really
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one of the key seeds that was planted in my heart was when
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I did my doctoral work at Perkins, my, my project was about spiritual
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formation and it was about using retreats and spiritual
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exercises to really grow disciples. And, and part of
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my theory in that was about experiential learning. And I had to do a lot
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of exploration and experiential learning. And it's not just about head
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knowledge, it's about truly giving people the experience. So you tell
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them what they're going to be learning and then you teach it to them,
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then you give an opportunity it and then you debrief with them.
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So that, that became very important to me. And so that was a seed that
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was planted back when I wrote my doctoral project and that would have been back
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in 2006. Okay. And so I would plant that
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seed there. But even before there I had an opportunity to hear Billy Hanks
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speak. And he was talking about Operation Multiplication at that time has
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been rebranded but Operation Multiplication for him. And if you're not familiar with
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Billy Hanks, Billy Hanks would Go in before for a Billy Graham crusade and
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he would train churches on how to follow up with those who'd made decisions
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for Christ. And he. We were having a big revival, a citywide
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revival, and somebody got Hanks to come in and actually train the churches on making
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disciples. And I think that was the first time I really got this idea that,
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you know what, we do not always do a good job of discipleship.
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We just, we get people converted to Christ and then
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we, we just, we don't teach them the spiritual practices, we don't
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encourage them in their spiritual gifts. And, and, and, and due
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respect to Billy Hanks, he was Baptist. And a lot of his material was great.
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A lot of theory and a lot of, a lot of words
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in his, in his books. And, and he's had a great international
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ministry. So I have all due respect to him. But we knew that
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in the Methodist Church the same thing was happening. We have people that are believers,
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but they're not followers of Jesus. And I think we've,
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we've learned. And John Mark, John Mark Comers really hit this
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hard in his Practicing the Way book about, he quotes that 2023
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thing about biblical worldview. And 64% of
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the people are, are Christians identifying as Christians, but only about
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4% are actually following Jesus. They actually have a biblical
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worldview that is formed by Christ. And so that was just, again, all these things
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have kind of helped to formulate in me that we've
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got to make disciples. And now I'm just so thrilled to be in the Global
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Methodist Church because, you know, not the United Methodist Church didn't have the same,
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you know, mission that we were to make disciples. But I think we're
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now seeing that, you know, making disciples has got to be the
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most important thing. Ryan Barnett spoke recently at our church about, you know,
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the, the experiment with, you know, a pluralism
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that failed in the umc. How many people can we get in the tent?
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How many people can we feel included in the tent instead of really,
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really driving home that we need to move people along a discipleship
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pathway to getting them to be followers of Jesus, teaching them the way,
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teaching them spiritual practices, getting them in mutual, accountable relationships,
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whether doing bands or class meetings or a walk to walk relationship.
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And so all of those factors really to me are bringing
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this, as Gina said, to a head, yes, we wrote the first draft
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in 2012. Then I became senior pastor in 13 here
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at Marvin Church. And when I became lead pastor here, it just my
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whole job description shifted away from what I was doing in Discipleship
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to really managing this great church. And so proud to
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have been a part of that. But then after Covid, we really said
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it's time to get back to this passion that God just has not allowed
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to let us get away from, which is being making disciples.
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Because I think what we realized, we're asking people to do something that
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they've never, a lot of them have never experienced. Yeah. When we get a group
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room full of people together and you ask how many people have been intentionally discipled,
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you might get one or two. Right. And so how can we expect
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our brothers and sisters in Christ to be making disciples
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when they don't know what to do? So this
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was written not so much not as a how to book, but let's experience
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this journey together. Right. And in so doing, grow closer
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to each other, but more importantly, grow closer to God. So.
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So you mentioned the first draft back in somewhere.
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2013, 2014. What would you say has been the biggest shift
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adjustment, Edits, as you guys have been living with it,
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practicing it? What have you seen what was part of the
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early draft? Maybe that if anything has changed,
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is a little different now that you've really worked through it, kind of got a
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lot more experience. And now taking it beyond Marvin, but to other conferences.
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I would, if I'll speak that. First of all, I would just say that in
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2012, when we first wrote it, we, we got about
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40 people in a room here at Marvin. We trained them all on doing the
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disciple making, answered the question why we do this?
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And then, and then, you know, gave them a tool and then said,
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go find someone to disciple. And of course nobody did it.
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Okay. So the one thing that's really helped is
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the way we pivoted in our training when we go into a church now,
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or even our own church. Cause we're currently doing a training right now, this fall
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here at Marvin. We, we get people started in the training.
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If it's a Saturday or if it's for us at Marvin, it's four consecutive
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Wednesday nights. So if we go into a church, we now do we get people
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paired up immediately. So if you come to a training, you already assigned
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somebody else that signed up with the thing. And we've seen the Holy Spirit put
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people together in a beautiful way. And so they already have a
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man on man or a woman with a woman. And so those individuals start
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the class. We spend the first hour answering the big question,
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why the biblical foundations for making disciples, what Jesus has called us to
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do. And then we, we get them sharing their faith stories. So if
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people come to a training, they're, they will have already been prompted to write their
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faith story. And so that day they're going to share their faith story with
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another person in the room and then we're going to tell God's story. Because part
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of this other part of the experiential learning is how many people know how to
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share the gospel. And I know there's lots of models out there, lots of ways
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to do that. We, I came up with one way to share the gospel.
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It's very scriptural, but they'll have the opportunity to be presented with
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that and then debrief with their partner on that experience. Then we borrowed
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Gary Thomas's sacred pathways and they will have done an assessment.
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They'll come to the training knowing what their spiritual pathway is or their sacred
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pathway, and they'll have an opportunity to go through an exercise with the
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person in their room there on that, on that day as well, and to have
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more conversation, spiritual conversation. And then, and then lastly
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we talk about spiritual gifts. They'll do another spiritual gifts test. They'll know
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their spiritual gifts. They'll hear the, the meaning of spiritual gifts, why they're
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given, how God uses that. So really the pivot for us, the main
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one for me has been the, the training model,
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the approach to get people sharing a Christ centered relationship, get them
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engaged in spiritual conversation early. And then,
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then they've got, they've got momentum. They walk out of the seminar, they walk
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out of our four weeks of doing it at Marvin and they're already, already into
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each other's lives and they're already. And that's the beautiful thing we've seen.
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It's been Shay, it's been amazing, the Christian friendships
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that have gone so deep and it's, and then we're seeing this hands,
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this hands off beautifully to a band or a class meeting.
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The other thing I would just add, and I'm gonna let Gina respond to the
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question as well, is I took a sabbatical in 2022 and
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when I did that, I beefed up my reading and I really got introduced to
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Mark Batterson, John Mark Comer, a whole lot of very new,
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the next generation of people. John Ortberg was
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already kind of in the mix, but I just started reading prolifically around
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spiritual formation. And so when we made our last edits, which was
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about a year ago, we went away, okay, for a few days at the lake.
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We, we integrated new content,
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we kind of rewrote chapter seven and we,
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I think we made it Better. We introduced a rule of life into Walk to
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Walk. And so all of those things, I think, made it better. And then
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when we got a graphic artist to redesign it into this smaller book that
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we have instead of the bigger notebook we have, I think it became a better
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product, a better, better content. And still
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at the heart of that is it's easy to use,
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it's engaging, it's with spiritual gifts.
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And not only spiritual gifts, but you get people sharing their faith
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story. And that's been there from the beginning because as Gina said,
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we were just in shock when you raised it. How many
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of you ever shared your faith story? There may be four people in the room
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of 40. Well, that's a big problem when we're trying to
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be a bold and witness as global Methodists. So.
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But the. The chapters in and of itself are essentially
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the same as they were when we first wrote it. Okay. Kept the contents
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the same. We just honed in on how we
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wanted to present that content. Okay. And we say at the front, it's not an
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exhaustive representation of what it means to follow Jesus, but it hits on
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a lot of the main things. And, and we've had people that, you know,
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never either. Either didn't know how to pray or didn't know that there were different
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types of way to pray, didn't know that there were different ways to study the
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Scripture. Learning their sacred pathways was powerful
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because when their friend could sit in a room quietly and read their scripture,
24:58
read the Word for hours on end, and they couldn't picture themselves
25:02
even coming close to that and felt like they were somehow out
25:06
of step with God. Well, when they learn that they have a different spiritual temperament,
25:09
different spiritual pathway, it opens up a whole new world to them. Yeah.
25:13
Like Doug said on the session that we do on presenting the gospel
25:17
and being able to articulate God's story, just watching in the
25:21
room, people's just the light bulb
25:25
go on where there's a part of that story that just hits them
25:30
and in some cases for the very first time. And it's powerful to witness
25:34
that. And then, you know, we all know that your best witnesses are for
25:38
the faith are typically you're new and alive Christians.
25:42
Right. And so the people that have had that experience, they're some of
25:46
our greatest champions now because they. They get it.
25:50
They know what it means. Yeah. We just simp. Walk.
25:53
To walk is simply a. A tool, but it's an easy to use tool.
25:58
We've seen it be incredibly effective, not because of what we've
26:02
written, but because of what God does in the midst of all of that.
26:05
And when two people come together and are committed to, to growing in
26:10
Christ, it's, it creates some really beautiful things. To me I think it's
26:14
so unique and special in so many ways because I mean John Wesley,
26:18
some of us are a little more familiar with the class meetings, band meetings
26:22
in any listeners are watching this, you know, know,
26:25
maybe if they've grown up in a different church tradition. The idea
26:29
of small group ministry. I like to say John Wesley I think invented small group
26:32
ministry. There you go. It seems like he did. And so we kind of know
26:36
that. But what I love about this is even, even class meetings
26:40
and I'm part of one, you know, it, it doesn't get
26:44
as personal as this gets. The one to one thinking about I,
26:48
I mean my biblical imagination first goes to like a Paul with Timothy,
26:52
someone like that, or Jesus and John
26:56
and James and Peter, something like that. You get this personal.
27:00
What I love about this resource is, is it's so simple
27:04
to use, to use your words. It's very clear and it's not
27:09
intimidating. And I mean that in the best way. Like you quote
27:14
amazing people, you write accessibly. These are,
27:17
these are tasks that I don't think everyone might have some apprehension
27:22
if they've never done this before. Like to your point, who's shared their faith story?
27:25
Okay, we think about that. When you present it and ask it in a big
27:28
room, it's like oh boy. But when you look at the resource, you guys
27:32
walk. It's. You guys hold our hand in
27:36
this curriculum which is so needed for the one on one nature of it.
27:40
Now I want to ask a question around how it can be adapted because I'm
27:43
sure you've seen it adapted in different ways. Maybe it's been used beyond just a
27:47
1, 1 to 1. It's 12 sessions. I guess
27:51
it could be 13 sessions if you use the intro session
27:55
as its own session. Help, help me help us understand the
27:59
vast majority of folks that engage with this, that go
28:03
through it in yalls experience and taking your vision
28:08
into account. Like is it best to do this on a weekly
28:11
basis? Is it best to do this just once a month? Ideally,
28:15
kind of. What's the start and end date? What's yalls
28:19
rhythm at Marvin in terms of how you introduce this and
28:23
how often throughout the year? We do the training at Marvin
28:27
twice a year. One in the fall, one in the spring. That has
28:31
seemed to work really well because like you said, it gets people into the material
28:35
right off the Bat and they've stuck with it and pretty much stayed
28:39
to doing it 12 weeks in a row. Now we tell people from the very
28:43
beginning, you know, we know life happens, you know, scripts happen, illness,
28:47
whatever. And we say, you know, it's okay if you have to miss a week
28:51
or two weeks even, but don't skip a week without rescheduling
28:55
your next one. Got it. Because it's too easy to just. And just let it
28:59
go. You feel too far behind. But so doing it in the
29:03
context of regular trainings has helped people stay on task. Now that's
29:08
what, that's what we plan. But we have also seen God plan something
29:11
totally different. We, we just found out when we started this last training
29:15
class that we've got some other people that have been trained that have been asking
29:19
for Doug's admin for books because they've just gone and found their
29:23
own person and they're just doing it one on one, which is amazing.
29:27
And the ministry has taken on a life of its own. It's very organic.
29:31
I mean, we, we plan and try to be as faithful as we can with
29:35
it, but we know that God's using it in other areas. I like
29:39
that you mentioned classes and bands because one of the things that we'd like to
29:43
explore, we too have a great discipleship ministry with classes and
29:48
bands and we would like to see Walk to Walk somehow integrated
29:53
with that ministry. The reason I say that is you've got people that are already
29:57
comfortable to some degree and having spiritual conversation.
30:01
They have a group of built in accountability. We would love for
30:05
classes and bands to be trained so they can
30:10
commit to one another, that they're going to go out and find somebody
30:13
and disciple someone and their class or their band is going to hold them
30:17
accountable to that. That's great. So we've, we'd like to see that be the next
30:21
step of reaching out and helping people feel like they have
30:25
permission to go, to go do this and they can do it.
30:28
Yeah, yeah. I was going to add the, you know, the vision of the Global
30:32
Methodist Church talks about multiplying disciples. And that's where
30:36
I feel like this is what we're trying to get at. We're trying to get
30:40
at a church that not only has a discipleship pathway,
30:43
a church that not only knows what a disciple is and we can talk
30:47
about what is a disciple, because I think that's an important question to answer.
30:50
But then also, how are you going about multiplying disciples
30:55
and what Jesus described? It's taken us about three to four years to get there.
30:59
But when people begin to have this idea that, yes, I'm supposed
31:03
to be multiplying disciples, then we begin to see people like,
31:07
I've got a young man in the church who's being apprenticed,
31:11
if you will, by a contractor who's recently retired, and he's a contractor.
31:15
And so they already have a professional business relationship. They're both Christians.
31:19
And he approached this man and says, will you do walk to walk
31:23
with me? Will you disciple me? And that's one of those instances that
31:27
we had nothing to do with it. That was totally Holy Spirit driven.
31:30
And other individuals who like, like Gina just mentioned about,
31:34
we find out later on that they're. They're doing this together. It has
31:39
that flexibility that this young man, I was just talking to him, he said,
31:43
I can't come to the training on Wednesday night. But, you know, Mike and I
31:46
are meeting. We just met, you know, today for breakfast. Well, that's the beauty of
31:50
it, you know, it's not like you have to have childcare lined up
31:54
at the church on Wednesday nights in order to everybody meet. It can
31:58
be at Panera, it can be at wherever you want it to be. Shout out
32:02
to Panera, by the way. Yeah, you know, or you can, you know, and on
32:07
your schedule and if you miss a week, you know, you can. You can get
32:10
back on the track. And just the rhythm we've seen as we introduce
32:15
it in the fall and in the spring in the church is we. We start
32:18
with the four weeks. If you're doing it on a weekly basis to get people
32:22
in the weekly habits, and then you release them to do
32:26
the several sessions together whenever they want to do
32:29
it whenever they want. We make the church available if they need to just have
32:32
childcare and a meal and be here with. Wednesday nights are willing to do that.
32:36
We check back in about week nine with spiritual
32:40
gifts just to. Just to kind of bring them back together
32:43
again. We have another class session and then at the end,
32:47
when they should be finished, we have a celebration. And that's
32:51
when we hear the testimonies. And that is when it's so
32:55
exciting because you hear incredible stories and they range.
32:59
There's such a range. I mean, one. One simple story was
33:03
from Linnan, who shared that she never would have engaged
33:07
in having a spiritual conversation at the office. But then a coworker
33:11
lost a grandson to death, and it was very tragic and everybody
33:15
was not sure how to handle it. But Linnaeann had confidence to
33:20
reach out to this person and begin to Talk with her about spiritual
33:24
matters and even pray with her. And then in her testimony, and it's on
33:28
our website, she said, you know, she says, I would have never done that before
33:32
without having walked a walk. So people are building confidence
33:36
and having spiritual conversations, and that begins to spill over
33:40
into regular life. And that's a total Holy Spirit thing.
33:44
That's. That's showing transformation. And that kind of comes back to.
33:48
I was saying, what is a disciple? A disciple is somebody who's
33:52
following Jesus. They're being transformed and changed to become more
33:56
like Jesus, and they're embracing Jesus's mission.
34:00
And Jesus's mission is to make disciples and to multiply disciples
34:05
and to grow the kingdom, not just show up at church and listen to
34:09
a sermon and maybe go to your Sunday school class and listen to a lesson
34:12
and then go home and do whatever you want to do for the rest of
34:15
the week. It's following Jesus, ordering your life around him.
34:18
And this, this is an intentional discipleship
34:22
plan that gets you on a pathway to where you're
34:26
learning different spiritual practices. Maybe you never knew before. You're learning about sacred
34:30
pathways. You're learning you have spiritual gifts. If you never knew that before, you know,
34:34
you're able to then maybe have more confidence. And, oh, I have a faith story.
34:38
I've written it out. I can share it with another person now I'm more comfortable
34:41
sharing, sharing it with others. So it's got a lot of practical things.
34:45
Very pragmatic. If John Wesley probably like that word.
34:48
Yeah, for sure. What about the. So you mentioned the
34:52
multiplication piece. Yes. And amen. And have you guys. Any testimony around
34:56
those folks that you've seen not only do this once,
35:00
but. But stay committed? Is. Are there any folks that have been,
35:04
gosh, you guys have been doing this a long time. You got any folks that
35:07
have been, you know, you know, continually just disciple, making every
35:11
maybe semester or once a year going through one
35:15
of the sessions. Oh, oh, you want to go ahead and answer or else.
35:19
Yeah, we've had people that have attended the training several times that have been in
35:23
it before, but are coming to make themselves available in case somebody shows up
35:27
that needs a partner. Awesome. Or if we know of somebody that, that wants to.
35:31
To be discipled. So that's. That's been a big part of. Plus, I think
35:35
the other thing that we're seeing too, is the people that God's
35:40
bringing to our church because we have people
35:44
that are ready. And we have had people just in
35:48
the last six months that have just shown up with Some kind of just
35:52
in a, in odd circumstances that have said something and
35:56
somebody has been there at the same time that's been through walk to Walk and
36:00
has said, would you like to be a disciple? I'll be happy to, you know,
36:03
show you what this is all about. And they've said yes. And so, and I
36:07
don't know that that would have happened if our church wasn't ready to receive them.
36:11
Does that make sense? Yes, you know, yeah. And so that's just something
36:15
that, and again, that's it. That's the organic Holy Spirit
36:19
movement through the whole thing that, that we can testify to is
36:24
that people just show up and are willing and ready. And I'll just
36:28
give a little bit more backstory to kind of help me connect the dots.
36:31
But had a, had a young woman right out of University of Texas, graduated from
36:36
college, came up, we preached on the Holy Spirit in a sermon.
36:40
And she comes up to me afterwards and she says, pastor, I, I don't,
36:43
I don't really understand the Holy Spirit. I'm not really sure I, I,
36:47
I heard what you said. I like what you said, but I don't think I
36:50
understand it. And then I said, I'll tell you what. And then Gina came up
36:53
afterwards and saw me talk to this young lady and I said, Gina, would you
36:57
take, take her to, to lunch and then find out if
37:01
she's interested in a walk to walk relationship. And then
37:04
we already had Paula already trained, already been through a training class.
37:09
Then Gina just handed her off to Paula and they doubled
37:13
up on lessons. Cause she took a job in New York and she had to
37:17
leave like in six, what was it like six weeks she had. So she,
37:21
they doubled up on lessons so that before she moved to New York City,
37:25
she was discipled by Paula. And Paula came
37:28
out of that experience saying that this is one, this has been.
37:32
She said, this is what I'm called to do. I've now found my purpose.
37:35
This is my ministry. So Paula is now coming back just like Gina
37:39
said. She'll come to the next training and she'll pick up who's in the room
37:43
and do discipleship with there. And all of these individuals, I hope
37:47
when we call them like Paula and just says, would you take on a
37:51
person? Here's another story, Shay. This one probably. Can I add one thing?
37:54
Speaking of multiplication location, before this woman left and moved
37:58
to New York, we gave her an extra book, prayed over
38:02
her that once she got to a new city where she knew nobody that
38:07
God would bring and be preparing a New sister in Christ for her.
38:11
So when you talk about multiplying, there's these.
38:14
These family trees with the little branches that go
38:18
off. And so we don't know what's come of that, but we figure
38:22
it's our job to at least create
38:26
that, help create that opportunity for God to work. Amen. And, and, and put
38:30
that in front of people so that we. Trying to keep the multiplying.
38:35
Yet now you've been. This has been done for you. Now who are you going
38:38
to find? Right? So I. One more story, if I
38:42
like stories. And I think this will really, really. This blew me away.
38:46
Young lady came up to me after church and she
38:50
said to me, pastor, I need to confess some sins. They're sexual sins.
38:54
And I'm like, number one, it's not appropriate for you and I to go
38:58
have a confessional time without another woman being present. So immediately found a
39:03
person on our staff. But Gina had just done walk to walk with that individual.
39:07
And so that woman and I and this young lady went
39:12
into a private room and we, you know, I said, you're not
39:16
going to tell. Don't tell me what you've done. I said, I put a holding
39:20
cross in her hand and I said to her, now you. You know what
39:24
confession means. You know how to talk to God. Do you know what prayer is?
39:27
And she said, yes. She had enough religious background for that. I said, you just
39:31
talk to God. You hold this cross, you talk to God, you confess the sin
39:35
you need to confess. And this, this other woman I had in the room is
39:38
going to be here with you. We both placed our hands on her shoulders while
39:41
she did it. Tears are all over the table. She can imagine. And then
39:45
when she was finished, I said, now would you be interested in having
39:50
someone walk alongside you and do discipleship with you? And she
39:53
said, yes. And this individual on our staff Gina had
39:58
just trained was. They immediately began the next week.
40:01
Now, that's the Lord doing that to me. I mean,
40:06
in all my years of ministry, which is now over 35 years of
40:10
ministry, never has a woman come to me and said, I want to confess sexual
40:14
sins to you, Pastor. Or any sin. Or any sin, really. I mean,
40:18
and very rarely, but I mean,
40:21
it was just so beautiful that that day we had her.
40:25
We had her already connected to somebody. And that. That is what's
40:29
possible. But it just. That's. That takes probably years.
40:33
May. I don't know, maybe I gave any limitations. Well, those windows
40:36
of availability are often very small. And if someone's not
40:40
ready and Willing to step in and come alongside some, you often lose them.
40:45
Right. And so that's why I think it, it be neat to see
40:49
churches all over just ready and waiting and watching
40:54
for the people in their midst. And then like you just mentioned that the Lord's
40:58
going to bring people to a church if he knows
41:02
that there'll be people that are ready to do the work, to disciple, to walk
41:05
alongside an individual. Amen. And share,
41:08
Share Jesus. And teach them how to pray and
41:12
teach them how to read scripture. Yeah. And, and teach
41:16
them how. And one of our chapters is on, you know, what you do when
41:19
you failed. You know, it's on, it's on confession of sin. And it gives the,
41:23
you know, where you, the person is empowered to, as a priesthood
41:26
of believers to declare, you know, you're forgiven over them.
41:30
And we have, you know, that's being the priesthood. That's what God's
41:34
called us to do. That's multiplying disciples. That's why we're so passionate
41:38
about it. Yeah, we, it's not something you just, I think a
41:42
lot of pastors say, oh, I want to, I believe in multiplying
41:46
disciples, but we just don't know how to do it.
41:49
And I've been a pastor a long time and didn't know how to do it.
41:52
And, and, and we had a tool that we wrote a long time ago,
41:56
but it's taken time to get it. You know, like you always like to
42:00
say, you know, get back to them or as Bishop Jones would say, let's make
42:04
the main thing the main thing. Yeah, really start making disciples rather
42:09
than just making church members and believers. And the thing that
42:12
we've, we have found true in our own life. And, and we,
42:16
we bring this up at the trainings, but there are so many things on this
42:20
earth that you can invest your time, your money, your resources in,
42:24
very few of which are eternal. And,
42:27
and this is eternal. Yeah. And I think the more people get
42:31
into it, they realize how life giving it is. I've told
42:35
this story in our training several times. You know, he, he's a very busy man.
42:39
He has a lot of responsibility. I can tell when he comes home
42:43
one day if he's just been in meetings all day or if he has had
42:47
a spiritual conversation with somebody because it's life giving.
42:51
His demeanor is totally opposite on those kinds of days.
42:55
Right. And so, you know, to, to allow people to experience it
42:59
and the joy that we have in being in the trainings is to witness that.
43:03
Absolutely. And to see that take place. Yeah. And they see it
43:07
in each other, which is good. Yeah. That's why we like doing some
43:11
of the. Having them come back for some sessions rather than just
43:15
turning them loose for the whole thing. Because there's something about experiencing it
43:19
one on one, but also enjoying what your.
43:23
Your fellow pilgrims are experiencing too.
43:27
And Shea, you had asked a question earlier about, you know, have we seen people
43:31
being committed to this? I've. I've now discipled
43:35
12 individuals, but I have 20 people in my family tree,
43:40
so you never know the impact. So I start looking at the people that I've
43:44
discipled that now I've discipled someone else. And that's where you start seeing the
43:48
multiplication. Yeah, that's. That's how you can change a church
43:53
is to think beyond like, okay, I'm just investing in this one
43:58
person right now. Yeah. But if that one person goes and disciples another and then
44:01
that person disciples another, you know, we've seen how that multiplies out so quickly.
44:05
And, and that's a vision that, that God, it didn't
44:09
give just to me. I think Billy Hanks has that vision. Other people have had
44:13
that vision. Certainly Amway has that vision. But.
44:17
But anyway, it's really about the joy of
44:20
seeing somebody come alive in faith. And let's just be honest. We.
44:24
We. There are a lot of people who believe in God. They're saved,
44:28
but they. They're not living the life that God has for them to live.
44:32
And there's a lot of pastors out there that are running churches, and I've
44:36
been running churches for a long time and, and it's.
44:40
It's an honorable calling and vocation. But Jesus's heart,
44:44
where Jesus shows up, where the Holy Spirit, I think does his best work is
44:48
when we get do disciple making. Amen. That's so
44:52
good. I. I've loved and been inspired by everything that
44:56
y' all have said. And I remember Gina, when you said
45:00
something about wanting to see the integration with bands.
45:04
I also think about this resource and
45:08
my. My initial gut and part of this was from just spending some time reading
45:12
through it, looking at yalls website, reading through some of the testimonies and seeing some
45:17
of the dynamics in stages of life different folks we're at.
45:21
So. So my conviction is. And again, I got to get
45:25
trained up myself too. So I'm open to all that is.
45:29
I'm not so sure that our confirmans can't
45:33
handle this. To me, I was kind of inspired to think
45:37
about doing confirmation a little differently reading through this. And at
45:42
the same Time letting that be sort of a charge,
45:45
a call out to our church. Here is,
45:49
here's what we're going to be committed to do and modify
45:52
maybe if we need to, to a certain degree to make
45:56
it work for confirmation, but then challenge our church to, to do
46:00
the same. So anyway, I know you, you mentioned the
46:04
integration with, with some of the band meetings and class
46:08
meetings perhaps, but also I could see it very easily with,
46:12
without too much being tailored to, you know, a more youth
46:16
orientation as well. Sure. Yeah. It's certainly capable to make
46:21
that pivot and we have no problem with how God wants to use it in
46:24
the church. We've also encouraged people when they're trained to also
46:29
do it with your, with your spouse, do it with your kids. You know,
46:33
do your kids know your faith story? I'm still learning our kids faith story,
46:37
you know, because most of us take our faith seriously when we
46:42
start getting into adulthood. And by that time for most of us, our kids are
46:45
living somewhere else. So to keep that within the family
46:49
as well is important. And just to put again a
46:53
story with that. When my son Brian was about is
46:57
between his junior and senior year at Baylor, he was doing an internship with 3M
47:01
in St. Paul, Minneapolis. And you know, he's up there the
47:06
summer St. Paul lives living in an apartment. I don't know what
47:10
his social life was. I doubt he had much social life. But I
47:13
mean, I'd like to believe he didn't have much. Yeah. But I
47:18
did. I did at that time it was called Life to Life. I did it
47:21
with him by FaceTime. I. It was. I actually we
47:24
did it all that that summer while he was in, in Minneapolis.
47:29
We did, we did Life to Life, which now is Walk to Walk. But to
47:33
me that's just what Gina said. I think parents can do this with their children.
47:37
There's all kinds of ways that it can be used.
47:40
Maybe, maybe if we do other versions of this in the future we'll
47:45
be more sensitive to. Maybe this could be done as a family or this can
47:48
be done maybe with compromise. But right now it's just a tool that in
47:52
the toolbox for doing what Jesus has called us to do. Walktow Walk
47:56
us. Is that the website? Walktowalk Us
47:59
is the. Yeah, the website that we have. And Also info@walktow
48:04
walk@walktowalk.org Infowalktowalk.org
48:08
will get you also to if you have questions or if you want to respond
48:13
and. And that's all in there too. And the books have it as well,
48:16
so like, if you want to reach out to us, ask questions or
48:19
invite us to come or I'm here at Marvin Church, just make, you know,
48:22
call me or call Gina if you want to call Gina and ask her to
48:26
come. Yeah, I want to make sure in the show description I don't miss some
48:29
important details to connect people to this resource so they can consider buying
48:33
for themselves. Churches consider buying. You get a discount the more you buy in
48:38
bulk. So pay attention to that, friends. The discount starts at two books.
48:43
Okay. Because ideally we want you to get one and then get one to
48:46
share with somebody else. Perfect. So I've got some contact
48:51
information there and then I'd love. I know you. You guys are in the
48:55
Trinity Conference of the Global Methodist Church. And hey,
48:58
I'm. If it's okay, I'd love to reach out to you maybe
49:02
late this year, beginning of next year. I know we need to plan farther out
49:06
because y' all are traveling and doing trainings, but would love to get you
49:10
in mid Texas to do some trainings for leaders of our churches so we
49:14
can use this resource as well across our conference.
49:19
Ryan Barnett, dear friend, we just had dinner with he and Kim the other
49:23
night while they were here for our revival. And so
49:27
I'm, I'm a fan of the Midtext Conference. Awesome.
49:31
Because of Ryan, I love Bishop Gregory as well. And also
49:35
just the fact that, you know, that's where Baylor
49:39
University is. So we're fans of the Wesley House and Truant Theological Seminary.
49:43
Marvin's been a big part of helping raise money to make sure our next
49:47
generation of leaders have scholarships to go and be a part
49:52
of that great school. We're so thankful for, you know, Rusty Freeman and,
49:56
and Dean still, and certainly Ryan. And so we
50:00
have a lot of friends in Midtechs. We would love to help Mid Techs any
50:03
way that we can. And ideally we would. We're trying to
50:07
work on the most effective way that we could train church leaders and
50:11
have them go back and train their churches. Sure. Like the most
50:15
efficient way to get things out there and
50:19
get this going because we've seen it. It does have eternal effects.
50:24
So that's one thing that God may be doing because Brad McKenzie,
50:28
who's an equipping elder here for our Trinity Conference, is actually going to be at
50:32
our training in Conroe on October 3rd. Invite anybody who wants to come.
50:35
I don't know if this will be on the air by then or not,
50:37
but on October 3rd, we're going to be in Conroe we're going to do a
50:41
training there, and Brad's coming with the idea like Gina just
50:44
described. Maybe we get a bunch of people trained in the conference that then can
50:48
go into churches and begin to, you know, see if we can
50:53
recapture the joy of what's very near to the heart of God.
50:56
Make disciples. That's awesome. Well,
51:00
I'm gonna be sensitive to our time and give y' all the last word
51:04
if there's anything else that we need to cover. But I just am so grateful
51:07
for yalls time. Doug and Gina would love to close us in
51:11
a prayer, but if there's anything else, I want to make sure I include those
51:15
details in the show notes that'll be there for folks and look forward to
51:19
reaching out to you some more so we can set something up for mid Texas.
51:23
Well, I'd love to make a closing statement, then I'll turn it over to you.
51:26
Is that okay? Okay. So three words that are very important in our training
51:31
are intentional relational discipleship.
51:35
And intentionality is very important because
51:39
you have to make an intentional decision.
51:42
There's so, you know, everything's being researched and
51:46
stuff. Saying now about just our attention spans. We're so distracted. But you have
51:50
to make an intentional decision that you want to be a disciple maker. You want
51:55
to fulfill the Great Commission. And here's an example.
51:58
And I told Gina I was going to share this. We just celebrated our 40th
52:02
wedding anniversary. And I decided, as part of my gift
52:06
to her was that I wanted to give her a love note every
52:10
day for 40 days. And so I made that decision that I
52:14
was going to do that. And in order to do that, I had to go
52:17
purchase 40 note cards. And then. With golden retrievers.
52:20
With golden retrievers, because we love golden retrievers. Yes. Thank you, Amazon.
52:24
Again. But what was important in that moment
52:27
was that, okay, not only had I made the commitment, okay, now I have
52:31
these 40 cards, but I had to make time every morning I got
52:35
up early, and I had to make time before I left the house because I
52:39
wanted to make sure when she got up, when she was making her coffee,
52:42
that she would find the love note for me. And there was these notes.
52:46
And I put a lot of thought into reminiscing about things in the past,
52:49
things we'd done, how we'd met, our time in seminary, churches we'd serve,
52:53
vacations we'd had. But anyway, all that's to say is that it took a
52:57
lot of intention on my part that didn't just happen. And I think
53:01
that we all love and believe that disciple making should just happen and we
53:04
all should be about it. But it takes hard work. It takes planning. You have
53:08
to get the resource in front of you. You have to make time to do
53:12
it. And I just want to encourage everybody. Don't get caught up in the work
53:17
of the church. Just really do. You know, just do what God has
53:20
really called you to do, which is make time to make
53:24
disciples and to. I have a busy schedule. I have a very full schedule.
53:28
But like she said, I will. I'm discipling somebody right now.
53:32
I make time every week to meet with that individual. And I'm.
53:36
And I want to expand this ministry to help others. That's the intentional part of
53:39
it. Relational. Jesus's model was
53:43
relational. You know, he's a rabbi because he chose
53:47
that model of ministry. Could have probably chosen any. Any way to do disciple
53:51
making, but he chose. I'll be. I'll be identified as a rabbi,
53:54
but instead of people coming in, making application to follow me,
53:58
and me just choosing out of that, I'll go find people. Now. There's something very
54:02
important too, about God's got people out there he's trying to reach. But are we
54:06
looking to find those individuals? And how did he do it? He got
54:10
them. He got them in a band of, you know, those 12 disciples. Then he
54:14
had, like you mentioned earlier, shay, the inner three, and then he also had
54:17
the 72. Yeah, but he spent 90% of his time
54:21
with those 12, and he spent 10% of his time with the larger group.
54:25
And I think sometimes in the church, we're all about the numbers and we forget
54:29
about what can happen and where the real transformation happens. Those guys
54:34
live with Jesus, they walked with Jesus. They were in the dust of the rabbi
54:38
borrowing that expression. And that's where they're.
54:41
That's where they were really truly disciples. So much so that when it came
54:45
time for them, when he said, go and make disciples, they knew what he was
54:48
talking about because they had lived and experienced it. A lot of people
54:52
don't make disciples because they've never been discipled. And I think
54:56
that if, you know, if you experience this, then hopefully you begin
55:01
to want to disciple others, and then you're living into, you know, the mission.
55:04
And really that gets to intentional relationship, relational discipleship.
55:09
Making a disciple who is not only trying to pattern
55:13
their life after Jesus, they really, more than anything, want to be sanctified to become
55:17
more like Jesus. Let's borrowing some of our global Methodist theology
55:21
that we're really rallying around and spreading scriptural holiness and really,
55:25
you know, going for the sanctified life, sold out
55:29
for Jesus, that's going to lead you into the mission of multiplication.
55:32
Then that's where you'll start seeing people differently. That's where people
55:37
in our church are starting to look around and say, there's somebody
55:41
that I think I could invest in or there's somebody I want investing in
55:45
me. Yeah, we're changing culture here and it takes
55:49
a lot of time. It takes a lot of intentionality. It takes a lot of
55:53
relational bandwidth. But that's what Jesus called us
55:57
to do. I think that's my closing statement. I don't want to use up too
56:00
much time. I'll let you say something, sweetheart. You said it. Well, I would
56:04
just say that in a world where people are becoming less engaged with people and
56:09
more engaged with technology, the harvest is plentiful.
56:12
Because I think they're realizing that the world comes up empty and that
56:17
we have something better to offer. Not we ourselves, but Christ.
56:20
And we're privileged to be a part of this ministry and anything
56:24
that we can do to help the church, we consider it a privilege.
56:27
So thank you for visiting with us today. Yeah, and Christians aren't
56:31
mass produced, they're handcrafted. And I just
56:35
think that that's a. That's the joy of salvation
56:40
is having a front row seat to what God is doing in another person's
56:44
life that you're investing in. That's a joy,
56:47
man. Just had to say that right there at the end.
56:51
I'll sit with that. Yeah.
56:54
Okay. Well, shall we pray? Absolutely.
56:58
Holy, mighty and merciful God. We just are so humbled and grateful for
57:02
you, Lord, the joy being loved by you.
57:06
To be given the grace, Lord, to love
57:10
you and to love our neighbors, Lord, to make disciples of Jesus.
57:14
Just pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would continue to
57:18
move in mighty, mighty, mighty, mighty ways across walk to walk.
57:22
I thank you for Doug and Gina's ministry. Lord Jesus,
57:26
bless them. May your favor be upon them as they
57:30
continue to train up new generations, new people
57:34
to be disciple makers as they do the work themselves. And take
57:37
that seriously, Lord, that we are not.
57:41
That's Doug's word. So true. We are not mass produced to follow you.
57:45
We are handcrafted. It takes intentionality.
57:48
It takes real relationship, Lord, and always
57:52
following you, coming and seeing what you
57:57
would show us, what you would teach us, Lord, who would you would have us
58:00
serve? And so God, continue to show your favor upon
58:04
them. And Lord, multiply their witness across the Trinity Conference, across the Mid
58:09
Texas Conference, across the Global Methodist Church and even
58:12
beyond our Wesleyan Methodist traditions. Lord, for this
58:17
is a kingdom of God mandate Lord, this is
58:20
a kingdom of God call and priority. There is nothing worthy
58:26
more of our time than disciple making,
58:29
Lord for we long to see you face to face and
58:34
we trust that your word is true when you say you will come again
58:38
as you ascended, you will descend and bring about a
58:42
new heaven and a new earth, Lord, and we long to be that family with
58:46
you in glory. We ask all this in Jesus name.
58:49
Amen. Amen thank
58:55
you for listening to Storm the Gates. We hope you are blessed by this conversation.
58:58
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59:02
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59:19
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59:24
and we hope this is a podcast that celebrates the glory of God, his goodness,
59:28
all the work that he's doing in the Mid Texas Conference of the Global Methodist
59:32
Church and beyond in the Kingdom of God. Remember friends, the gates
59:36
of hell will not prevail against the church. Storm the Gates.