00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;15
Unknown
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Ordinary Discipleship. And we are here with Jesse Cruickshank, and we're also here with the bearded one, Jacob Hoyer. Hi, I'm Chris, and we are here to help just everybody out there, help make disciples. This is not just the job of the pastor. It's not just the job of one or two people, but everybody can make disciples.

00;00;25;17 - 00;00;50;13
Unknown
And I was thinking about this one, Jesse. You know, when I planted a church about eight, nine months ago and, you know, congratulations. Thank you. And I'm sorry. Yeah, it's a both thing, you know? But as I was forming the core group, I realized that I was getting a lot of people that were exactly like me, like that we had the same identical.

00;00;50;15 - 00;01;11;22
Unknown
We liked the same things. We liked it. And a lot of them were my friends, right? And then we did church with 230 some people and there was a lot of people that were not like us. And it kind of reminded me of like before we planted the church, like going that mountaintop experience, you know, like, Hey, why don't we just set up some tents up here with a 30 and we'll just hang out?

00;01;11;22 - 00;01;37;22
Unknown
And it was so against what the mission of the church was. So you talk a little bit and I know, Jacob, you're going to come in here to you, talk a little bit about how our identity is found in healthy communities. Right? We talk about that, healthy communities. But why don't we talk about why don't we start with what are some common roadblocks in the disciple making programs that we see out there today?

00;01;37;24 - 00;01;57;17
Unknown
I think one of the major ones as you bring up community is that we think that discipleship is about me, myself, having a good relationship with God, that it's just got a nice and, you know, I'm cool with God and God's caused me and maybe at some point we actually like believe that. And that could be a whole journey in and of itself, right?

00;01;57;17 - 00;02;30;16
Unknown
That God actually likes you. He doesn't just love you, but he likes you. It likes to hang out with you. And that's something that we can do on our own. And that's that's good work to do, but it's incomplete and it actually can end up being quite shallow if it's just us. Because maybe I'm lovable. If I'm in a dark room on a couch where I'm introverted and I don't have to talk to anybody and my mood is exposed and my characters and challenged, I might be able to be my best self there.

00;02;30;19 - 00;02;56;11
Unknown
But how how good is that really? Right? So it's not in that individual will private place, that secret place that actually is the measure of our spiritual maturity and not the actual content of our discipleship. We only because we're a herd creature like we are created to be in community with one another. We're created to be transformed and shaped and matured through community.

00;02;56;13 - 00;03;28;01
Unknown
We will never be our best self in our prayer closet and in our private discipleship or Bible reading time. So we need the community to show us who we are and who we could be. We can unpack that a little bit. But, you know, as you're you're thinking about that your church and all these other people that come in, what if the whole point of this life following Jesus is to be your mediocre self with them than your best self private?

00;03;28;03 - 00;03;46;03
Unknown
Yeah. And I think, like what Chris is saying about what Chris is saying about, like, we create the cultures that we most desire to be a part of and sometimes that can make it. Everybody looks like us or like Jesse is saying, like sometimes what keeps us from engaging in community is that we find it easiest to just be by ourselves.

00;03;46;03 - 00;04;01;23
Unknown
Yeah, and I think that's what I'm hearing a lot from folks. Or like in the church that I lead, people started saying, Well, hey, we need to have more fun so we can go deeper together. Or I have another friend who said, We just found a new church and we love our new church, but we can't get connected.

00;04;01;25 - 00;04;27;23
Unknown
And I think that, like, what we find is that it becomes difficult to engage in community, I think because we've sometimes lost the skills and a lot of folks in church think that just because they show up on Sunday, they're going to end up in relationship. And and what we find is it's really not that simple because we end up just going through the motions and kind of avoiding what it takes to build relationship.

00;04;27;26 - 00;04;51;21
Unknown
And and that's one of the things that can keep us from actually engaging in the way that gives us the kind of nourishment we're looking for because we're building these protected lives or creating monocultures. So it's interesting you brought something up like we've almost and a lot of people will say it's COVID, but it was happening way before COVID where we have lost the idea or the ability to gain community.

00;04;51;21 - 00;05;08;03
Unknown
Let me give you an example. So I grew up in a really small town in the Midwest. I knew all my neighbors. I would, you know, when I got home from school, when I was a little kid, Mrs. Whitmire would come out, Hey, Chris, how's it going? You know, Mrs. Smith, across the street, the Catholic priest would say, Hey, how's it going?

00;05;08;07 - 00;05;35;25
Unknown
I knew everybody on both sides of my street. And we would, you know, have meals together and stuff. I will say this Ever since I've moved to Florida, the only time that I have really hung out with my neighbors is during a hurricane. And now everybody's like, hey, you're my neighbor. Like, I think we have got into the culture where it's become a custom because we've created these perfect, like home theaters and and things inside where we put our car in the garage.

00;05;35;25 - 00;05;58;27
Unknown
And we've forgotten that community is even important at times. And so I don't know, man. Like, so you bring up the fact that sometimes we're just bad at making community. I don't know. Jess, what do you think? Well, I mean, I think because we're trying to even figure our own self out and and community seems like too much of a stretch or.

00;05;58;27 - 00;06;17;10
Unknown
Wow, that's not the person I want to be. We don't we don't know. We don't have the skill set. We don't have the language to work through the conflict that shapes us in community. And so we retreat back, right? So you can you can get into like anxious attachment and avoidant attachment and all of our different coping mechanisms.

00;06;17;10 - 00;06;37;17
Unknown
And I'm a disorganized attachment. So default, it means I have both. I can both be anxious and run away at the same time, but I don't know which one to do. So I'm always like second guessing myself. So we don't have that skill set of what does it how do I work through my own inner tension in order to be part of community?

00;06;37;22 - 00;06;59;07
Unknown
Because I think the goal is that I'm always doing a good job when that's not actually the goal of Scripture. That's not the goal that Jesus put out. He's He wants us to be one with one another, which is why I lean into the mediocre person with others, is a higher chance, a higher attainment than my best self by myself.

00;06;59;09 - 00;07;17;27
Unknown
Because Jesus calls us to be in that unity. Okay, so how do we get there? Right? That's okay. We're like, okay, that sounds great. And I go to every church I go to and I'm disappointed because they're different than me in that I don't really feel resonance with them. I don't feel like we have the same values. I don't know if we see the same thing.

00;07;18;03 - 00;07;39;23
Unknown
I don't know if we even like the same worship style. The song that you liked was not the song I liked. The thing that you liked about the sermon was not the thing I liked about the sermon. And and we end up just trying to judge everything on. Does it feel like it resonates with us? And we don't know how to work through the tension of when it doesn't?

00;07;39;26 - 00;08;01;14
Unknown
Yeah, and I think that's what you said there that I that I think is kind of the the key that turns the lock. It's like we're showing up going how is this community or this place going to give me what I need when me getting what I need was never the point, right? But the point is that we would become us, right?

00;08;01;15 - 00;08;22;20
Unknown
Because it's an identity journey. So here's the problem, right? When we don't know who we are before the throne of God and before the cross of Jesus, then we don't know who we are when we walk into a room. And if I am looking for that room to help me know who I am because I'm in that place of formation, and we all go through that and some of us are still there, and then sometimes we go back there.

00;08;22;23 - 00;08;42;06
Unknown
Then I'm looking for the room to resonate with me so that I know who I am. And really it's not. I mean, we blame it on a consumerism culture and that's how we default. But really what we're looking for in the yearning of our heart is this identity formation. I don't know who I am. I don't know who God wants me to be.

00;08;42;13 - 00;09;05;03
Unknown
I don't know what I like and what is the right thing to help me grow. And that's what we're looking for. But we like to, you know, pooh pooh the search instead of naming it better. And then really, it's a journey of identity. And the thing is, and this is the thing that we forget because it's easy to forget, is that identity is formed in community.

00;09;05;05 - 00;09;27;26
Unknown
We actually don't know who we are without being in community with one another. And so we need to both know how to lean into what resonates and the skillset to the skillset to deal with what doesn't resonate as community help us with our identity. Foundationally, we are designed in our brain to mirror what we see. So this is how babies learn how to smile.

00;09;27;26 - 00;09;46;23
Unknown
So if I am holding a baby and I smile at the baby, my brain makes a certain pattern than that brain pattern. And I don't know how this works. Y'all like it's voodoo magic like that just offended somebody. But we'll talk about that in a second. The baby's brain mirrors that, and then that teaches their face to smile.

00;09;46;26 - 00;10;20;29
Unknown
So the pattern in their brain actually then becomes manifested on their face as a smile. So as I look at you, I'm mirroring you. Our brains are starting to sync up and what resonates tells me who I am and what doesn't resonate, tells me who you are. And that's that differentiation. So we are created at a foundational level to be transformed from the inside out without words, without education, and without structure, just by mirroring what we look at as a face.

00;10;21;02 - 00;10;47;12
Unknown
And so community all and this is why diversity and community is so critical is because when it's the same thing, then I don't actually grow and I'm not challenged. But when it's a diversity of faces, a diversity of reactions, of worship, styles, of opinions, of values that actually shapes me more holistically than if it's just a single type of reflection.

00;10;47;15 - 00;11;10;26
Unknown
Actually, what we're going to see well, like Jesse brings that brain science, which is great, and, and like, I was thinking about it through the like our, like our foundational narrative in the scriptures. So like the if the question is, like, how does community help us discover our identity? I'm imagining Adam and God walking in the cool of the day in the like.

00;11;10;26 - 00;11;40;25
Unknown
So in Genesis chapter one and two, right? So. So Adam finds his identity as the creature created by his creator. And when they walk together, Adam reflects in from God, discovers who he is. In the execution of his calling, He discovers that there's a deficiency and God creates a helper in Eve, and the three of them together live in community in that place, all kind of like ricocheting off of each other and discovering more fully who they are now.

00;11;40;27 - 00;12;03;09
Unknown
Probably knows completely who he is. But Adam and Eve in community there are discovering the fullness of their identity. And I think there's something about that. And there's no shame in that dynamic in the garden. Yes. And so for us, it becomes if I want to discover who I am all by myself, I have nobody else to mirror off of, to connect with, to discover what's happening in me.

00;12;03;09 - 00;12;32;09
Unknown
Like I need that reflection in order to discover more of how I'm feeling. So it's interesting working at a school, working with youth for a long time. Kids are constantly putting themselves in toxic cultures where, you know, community is good, but there are certain communities that's not good. And so do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, figuring out if a community's good or when does a community become toxic and you should bolt, right.

00;12;32;11 - 00;12;56;28
Unknown
So how do you define toxic? Community is like a whole big thing for me. There's a couple of markers of toxic community. One is that you're not actually here to help me be the best, the version that God has created me to be. So you're selfish, right? Or you're actually not supporting who God's created me to be. You're you're trying to pull me into a different identity.

00;12;56;28 - 00;13;15;10
Unknown
Gotcha. Right. So are you supporting and pouring into and encouraging and championing and being part of the journey towards who God has created me to be or you, you know, pulling me away from that. So. So if you're not doing that, then I define that as toxic community. But let's say you are or let's say we don't even know, right?

00;13;15;10 - 00;13;40;15
Unknown
Because we're like, we're not even that like, aware, right? Yeah. So then for me, the definition of what would make a community toxic is not its inadequacy, but it's lack of repair. So we're going to have conflict, we're going to disagree. We are different people with different values and different pieces of the image of God. We are not the same piece of the image of God, and we're not all becoming male, Jewish carpenter, Jesus widgets.

00;13;40;20 - 00;14;03;29
Unknown
We're becoming our own selves. So that creates conflict. There's conflict inherent and God designed in that process. So then the community has to have a way of repairing. How do we get through conflict, how do we apologize, how do we do? How do we make sure that you're you and I'm me and we're differentiated and we're not, and that we can also fight cancer like get to the end of the argument, Right?

00;14;04;01 - 00;14;24;14
Unknown
Right. I can, like, submit to the Christ in you and you can submit to the Christ in me. Yeah. And we can repair. If we can't do that, then it doesn't matter. Even we have the best intentions or the, you know, the biggest blind spots. We're going to be a toxic community. But if we do have that, the Holy Spirit can lead us and anything, you know, that's good.

00;14;24;18 - 00;14;39;23
Unknown
And that's what comes back around to your pulling into the garage and not talking to anybody because how do we get there? We get there because by the time I have three conversations with somebody, I've realized something we disagree about. And once I realized how, I just stopped talking to them. And what's nice is I have a nice, comfortable home to be by myself in.

00;14;40;00 - 00;15;04;14
Unknown
And so by the time I've had three conversations with everybody in my church, I just I didn't want to talk to them anymore. I just stop relating and we end up all cut off because we don't know how to repair and we don't know how to sit with people who have a different value. What's interesting about, you know, as we look for people we want to hang out with where we have been coached, to look for people who have the same value as us.

00;15;04;16 - 00;15;22;29
Unknown
So then we can operate on the same set of assumptions. We're going to have less conflict. But what Scripture and Jesus actually encourages us to do is to be with people who have different values, who have different social status, and who have different life experiences. It's totally tough and that is the purpose. But we don't know how to do that.

00;15;23;01 - 00;15;45;04
Unknown
And so if I realize I have a different value than you, I'm either leaving or we're just not going to talk about it. And so if we want community, but we don't know how to deal with that, then we're just going to go shallow and we're going to have fun, but we're not going to actually expose our heart because we've also been coached in this very misappropriated scripture that we're supposed to guard our heart.

00;15;45;05 - 00;16;00;26
Unknown
It's like a group of guys that get together and they always have fun and watch the game together, but there's never any deep conversation. So you don't really know the person across from you, but you get together and you have fun, but when the stuff hits the fan, you don't. Who do you go to? Right? And we're like, well, don't let them impact your heart.

00;16;00;26 - 00;16;26;28
Unknown
Because if they hurt your heart, you didn't guard it. Or if they have a value that's different than you and you expose yourself to that, you're not guarding yourself. And that's not actually what that scripture says. We're we are actually supposed to be impacted by one another. We're supposed to bear each other's burdens. We're supposed to be in the sense of unity where we are ourselves, but we are not we don't have clean edges.

00;16;27;01 - 00;16;51;06
Unknown
So you said something. We've got a couple of minutes left in this episode. You said something earlier that disciple making issues are really community formation issues. Can you unpack that for me? Yeah. I'll take a stab and then have Jacob because he's going to think about it a little differently than I do. But since discipleship is a community project, disciple making is only a community assignment.

00;16;51;06 - 00;17;18;29
Unknown
It's not an individual assignment, it's a group project. And we know that group projects can suck because some people are going to work harder than others. We have over performers, We have Jake and I have done group projects where he's done 90% of the work. I believe that. I believe that. So Disciple making being a group project, if that's not going well or where we feel frustration about that, is usually actually the group community dynamics.

00;17;19;02 - 00;17;35;04
Unknown
If we haven't gotten on the same page to form our community, if we haven't set a social contract and said, what are we actually each responsible and accountable for? What are we going at? What's my triggers that you're going to promise to try your best not to do? And I'm going to promise to try to repair with you if you do.

00;17;35;06 - 00;17;56;03
Unknown
And we each get the lay those on the table because we're humans, we're past and with, you know, souls that have been hurt. If we can't get on the same page with that social contract, we're just going to step on each other or go super shallow or piece out, right. So we'll never lean in enough to be disciple by one another and to share that group project.

00;17;56;05 - 00;18;21;05
Unknown
So I mean, that's how I answer it. What would you add to that? I think that's right on. And I think like we tend to think that disciple making or my discipleship is about me. But when we realize that I informed in community, what we realize is that discipleship is really about we and so like because because I can't be myself without without Mike.

00;18;21;07 - 00;18;38;14
Unknown
And so we get we can get frustrated when we say, like, my community is keeping me from being myself or I can't find my fit here. But really it's like it's that it's in finding my fit, that I actually discover who I am. And so, yeah, community and disciple making kind of go, go, go hand in hand. Yeah.

00;18;38;14 - 00;19;04;11
Unknown
I mean, when Jesus gave us a great commission, it was to a group of people to do a group project. Yeah. So there was no isolation, right. There is no one cell of the body or one piece of the body of Christ. I remember in college one time, one of my friends, one of our roommates, was the son of a Baptist preacher and he was Southern Baptist boy, you know, and he would always try to get all of us to go to church.

00;19;04;14 - 00;19;28;18
Unknown
And one of my friends across the hall said, I don't think I have to go to church to be a Christian, you know? And so the Southern Baptist voice said, you know what? I didn't think I had the you know, bad accent. I didn't think I had to go to the gym to stay healthy. But it helps me, you know, and I think about that in terms of community, like, do you have to be you have to go to church to be a Christian?

00;19;28;20 - 00;19;53;19
Unknown
I, I don't know what the answer is to that, but I think it's a lot easier in a community. And to find your identity in community. And so I appreciate this conversation about identity being found in healthy community. And the part two will be you can call you can call Jesse if you feel like you're in unhealthy community and she'll tell you how to get out immediately or what you're wearing.

00;19;53;20 - 00;20;13;20
Unknown
We're not putting that. What's your sense? No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, don't pay for the search for me. All right, Jesse, if people liked what they heard in today's podcast, where can they get more information? Yeah, So you can go to who ology W.H.O. ology y dot com, which is our website where we have lots of different offerings.

00;20;13;20 - 00;20;45;16
Unknown
We actually have a training for cohorts on community formation, how to start this endeavor of being a disciple. What making community will train your team and we would love to, we'd love to do that because we believe in that being the foundation of the body of Christ in the church. And so you can go there or you can go to ordinary discipleship dot com where you can get the book, you can do the online class of how to be an ordinary disciple maker so we can help everybody do this thing we call being a follower of Jesus.

00;20;45;18 - 00;21;08;02
Unknown
This girl is passionate about discipleship and Jacob is as well. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. Make sure that you go like this podcast on iTunes wherever you're listening to it. And if you want to help us out, comment because that totally helps. Thank you guys so much. God bless. We'll see you next time. Boom.