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Welcome to Ordinary Discipleship podcast with Jesse. My name is Chris. With us today is Jacob. Now, guys, let's say we've talked about a lot of different things, but let's say you're a person, you're going to church and you really feel that you have the calling to make disciples. Right? But you haven't been given permission to do so in that structure.

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So you're kind of flustered. What do you do? Do you go like, I haven't seen people that have gone and said, you know what, I'm just going to start a house, church. I've seen people that said, you know what? I don't need the permission. I'll just have a Bible study at my house. And then nobody shows up. So that's the question today.

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What do you do when you feel like you're called to make disciples, but you're sending church or whatever? You don't have the permission to do so. I mean, the resistance question is always a very real one, right? We we think we send something. We think that it's God. We go to move and we hit these invisible walls. Or maybe not so invisible.

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Right. It's a it's a very blatant wall. So let's say you're in your church and you believe that you are called to make a disciple, which. Amen. Yes, love that. And that takes such a step to get to that point. Right. So let's certainly celebrate that. Yeah. That you have that awareness. But you go and you look around in your church and someone like you, maybe you haven't gone to the right trainings.

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Maybe you don't have a seminary degree. Maybe they're in there are there are other factors that you're not qualified in that their eyes or you don't. You have and you don't have the permission to do it. So the resistance question is, is very real because it sets up some of the most major tension that we feel in churches right, between the people who are trying to respond to the call of God on their life, that they think that that they're picking up and, you know, leadership structures in authority figures and people like that.

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So it's a super real tension. And I think it's one that we have to talk about because I think if you were going to talk to anybody who actually thinks maybe we're supposed to make a disciple, they would have reasons and barriers and resistances that they would express that they're up against. So we need to help them. And it's a little bit of a nuanced conversation.

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So I'm really I'm really glad that we're having this the well, well, Jacob, let's let's let's reset. Before we did this podcast, you were telling us a story. Did you know this man? He traveled to what is it? How many continents are there? There's there's seven. You went to all seven? Not. Not quite. right. Yeah, we are four continents.

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Yeah, but early on, right out of college, I was involved in a missions program. We took young adults to 11 countries in 11 months, and so right out of college, I went on that trip myself. After I did that trip, I ended up working for that organization for a couple of years. But I was we were talking about what it feels like to feel like there's a calling for you but not feel like you have the opportunity.

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And what do we do with that? And so I was on this trip, this this 11 month mission trip, and there were 50 of us in a group split up into teams of seven. So the group of 50 we called a squad and we had we had teams of seven. So there was a squad leader and then there were there were there were team leaders as well.

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And we knew that about four months into the trip, a new squad leaders would be identified who would lead this group of 50. And a lot of places in my life I found myself just in leadership positions. And in fact, at that point in my life, there had never been this season in my life where I wasn't in a leadership position.

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And so I but I was not a team leader. I was not a squad leader. I was just a participant on this trip. So we get a couple of months in and I start to sense again this feeling that I've had before my life where I feel like God is calling me to lead something. So wanting to be submitted in the system, I went to my team leader and I just said, Hey, I'm starting to have this feeling like maybe I should be leading this squad, Maybe I need to lead the squad and I just want to give that information to you and you can do what you want with it.

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And it was like a day or two later my team leader came back to me. She's like, Let's revisit that conversation. She's like, I've been in some meetings where we're talking about this whole squad leader thing, and just so you know, like it's probably not going to be you're probably going to do that job. She's like, it's going to be some of these team leaders who get elevated.

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And I was like, okay, now I had to reevaluate like, what is God actually saying to me? And I knew like I've heard the truism that a lot of us have heard is like servant leadership is biblical, leadership is servant leadership. And so I said, Well, here's what I'm going to do. I told myself, I said to God and myself, I said, Whenever I have a chance to serve on this squad, that's I'm going to do something, gives me a chance to serve.

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I'm taking it. So it was that day actually, there was another person on the squad who was in charge of logistics. We were all together for a debrief. Those 50 of us together were cooking a big meal. It's around Christmas time. She's got like £20 of potatoes. We need to peel these potatoes. And she says, I need some people to help me peel potatoes.

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I was like, Well, I just told God that I'm going to take every opportunity to service that I'm going to do. So we spent the next 3 hours peeling potatoes. Why are you peeling the potatoes with a knife? Probably. You're like a stick out in the sand. Okay, So but what I saw happen there was like, I never on that whole trip got a leadership position, but by the end of the trip, it was like if we were worshiping together and we wanted to have communion, people were looking for me to facilitate that.

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When it came time, when we were at a time when the whole squad was together and somebody needed to speak into what God is saying in the moment. I was one of the people that they ended up looking to, and I discovered for myself a different kind of authority in that role. That didn't come from my leadership position, and it changed the way I lead for the rest of my life, because up until that point I'd always led from position.

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But then I but I actually learned what it looked like to lead from influence. And that began by kind of reevaluating what I what God was saying to me and submitting it a service. So I'm so good. It's so good to learn that like a younger age, I think to write because then you're you're going to burn less bridges.

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And, you know, usurping isn't a spiritual gift, right? So it makes me think about there was a season that I was co vocational, so I was working with a church, I was the discipleship pastor with the church, but I was also leading the Wilderness ministry and it was fascinating for me for the season is that the pastor who asked me to do the discipleship didn't really have an understanding of ministry that wasn't traditional church related, so didn't believe or have a paradigm of a parish church, you know, a discipleship program that we were doing in the wilderness that didn't count for anything to this pastor.

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So this pastor asked me to do discipleship doesn't actually care that I've been training people to be disciple makers for over a decade, but just wants me to revamp their curriculum under some very strict guidelines, like they're essentially like the four base curriculum and another one that he wanted me to blend and couldn't actually see the gifting or the skillset that I had and the experience.

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Like I've actually had more experience discipling people than he had. And so he asked me to do this, this thing and didn't. So it wasn't even that I didn't have a position. I couldn't even bring my expertise into the conversation. So I sat with the Lord about it because I knew the Lord had said yes to take the discipleship pastor role.

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And but now I'm being completely constrained and asked to do something that is not my gift. Because because, you know, just regurgitating somebody else's stuff is not my gift. And I had to sit with the Lord about that and say, God, what do you want me to do? And his answer was to do it was to actually that pastor couldn't grow into a new place until I had served in the way that he needed me to serve.

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Like I hadn't actually earned the trust or the reputation I had to take that low posture and serve, even if it meant I was only doing 10% of what I was capable of. And I have this mentor in my life. Her name is Chris, and she her the way she says it is to she always gives 100% of the 10% somebody is looking for from her.

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So my permission was was I didn't actually think that I had permission. He the pastor thought he was giving me permission to do something that I should be super excited about it. But for me, I was like, it was like telling me I was going to go teach kindergarten and. But you know what? That was actually what the Lord was asking me to do because there's a very interesting character development process is that even us as disciple makers need to go through, right?

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So we need to learn how to be humble, we need to yield. And yielding is not was not in my nature normally as it is. So like it was a it was an important lesson because if God can't trust me to serve when it's non sexy, when it's actually like super damn easy, how is he going to actually trust me to be faithful when he hands me something more?

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And so does yielding even though I'm capable of more Was was a conversation that I had with God and that he was drawn me into. So that's a really interesting point because we're talking about when we feel like we're called to help make disciples, but specifically as just a regular person and the context, I guess like in a church, but we don't have the permission to do so.

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So Julia, who is not here right now, she I don't know where she went, but she brought up this story about, you know, when she was a pastor that this lady came in and is like just definitively saying, I should be able to sing a solo at church and like girl could not saying, you know, and and we've had instances like that too like, you know, I've had guys that are, you know, brand new Christians that have come to me and they're really fired up and pumped up and they're like, okay, man, I want to do a men's minutes.

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Here's a perfect example. I had a dude who was he was a recovering alcoholic. He got his like 30 day chip and he wanted to come in. He was fired up, his life was changed and he was ready to like, I want to do a men's Bible study, talk about the struggles that men go through, like homeboy had just, you know, started going to church.

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Here's another example. I had this girl in high school, sweet kid, and I asked her what she wanted to do. She goes, I want to go around and speak at all these big conferences like Catalyst, Exponential, like, okay, that's cool. No, I want to be on the main stage. How do I do that? I'm like, that might take some time.

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So there's instances where people come to us and I think what you hit on was really good. There has to be some submission in this process too. So talk. Can we talk a little bit about that? Like you go to perhaps you're the person you feel like you're called, you're certain this is what God's calling you to do.

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And then they're like, maybe the leader, The authority in this is like, I don't know, man. Like, why don't we why don't we slow down for a second? Well, I think, like, I want to say something right off the bat, like each of those kinds of people you named, whether they're real people or just. they're real. Yes.

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But we would say, like they're all qualified to make disciples. Yeah, sure. Right. As disciples of Jesus, they're qualified to make disciples just. And we all have specific callings at specific times in our life. And so that's where I think, like sometimes what we have to remember as people who are called by God is that is that we may be getting a picture of who God has called us to be as a lifelong calling.

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And we want to get it all right now. And maybe there's actually a step in between that's going to shape us into who we need to be in order to fulfill the calling that God has given us. And so your friend who just got his 30 day chip man, it seems like he's the kind of guy who's 100% well positioned to disciple some men in his life, and maybe he's not being fully released to do all of that right now.

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Maybe he needs to walk alongside of somebody for a season to be so he can prepare for the calling that is on his life. Yeah, because it's scarier when we have like this all or nothing mentality, right? Where where we're we're thinking that they need to be fully fledged formed, perfect, you know, completely healed some sort of the superstar like the three of us.

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But That's right. That's right. That's right. Totally get it now before that there But they're released. Yeah, but then I think about David, right. David was anointed to be king when he was still young and it wasn't his season yet. And for everybody to be patient in that interim time, obviously not everybody was, but you know, who was patient was David.

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And that's phenomenal to me, too, to think about, to know, hey, I'm I'm actually watching somebody else run this country. And God has told me I'm supposed delete it. And yet he waits. He waits until God says, Now is your moment, now is your time. And he didn't take what wasn't his to take until it was God's timing for it.

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And I think for us, part of our our journey, when we feel called, we feel we have a passion for something. Let's let's at least use that language because we're all insecure about whether or not we're actually hearing from God. And I can say I'm called to do this and you're going to be like, well, are not really resonating with that.

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Right. So let me let's double check that. What we are is impatient. We're not we think that we have to do it right away. We forget that God is a God of 40 years. God is a God of generations. God is a God who seems pretty content for everything to slow roll, which can make me crazy because I'm not a slow roll kind of person.

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Right? And so to yield to a slower timeline as a as a person who, like, has lots of ideas and passions is extremely difficult. But that's actually part of my character shaping, which is why discipleship is this community project so that we can hold that space for one another and say, Yes, I believe you're supposed to be a missionary to somewhere, but I don't think that's tomorrow, right?

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So let's see what does let's hold that. And like not we're not going to invalidate that. But but what is the next step that God wants you to take right now? Because that might be almost a low posture, low position step. That might be a weight step. And if you're in, I would just think about for the person who maybe is in a church where the thing that you feel is like on your heart, they will never say yes to because it's not in their paradigm.

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They maybe they don't even believe in it. I just want to encourage that person to stop and pray. Say, God, do you have me in this community for my next season? Even if they're not going to support my long term calling? Right. Is this a community you're asking me to be in and then what are you asking me to do here?

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Because there are tons of places that shape us and for us and teach us things that we need. That's a tool we need for the long call, even if they're not the ones to support us in the long call. Right? So that that character building process is something that we really need to lean into and not skip through very fast.

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And do you know how good Jacob is at scraping potatoes right now because of the experience in Africa? I actually on when he was making dinner for us before we came in last night and he totally he peeled those potatoes like that. Yeah, he can do it in two or three peels. It's remarkable. Stellar potato peeler. So the great Paul Hoya, Jacob Hoyer's dad once said, Great Pastor Hoyer said one time to me because I was super frustrated trying to disciple kids and like they'd be on fire like one week and then the next week they're like smoking pot and like, you know, I'm like, Come on, dingbats, you know, getting busted for alcohol after

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they just, you know, went to the mission trip and we're on fire. And I walked in. I was super frustrated, his dad's office, and he said something that it sounds like exactly what you're talking about. He goes, Chris, you got to remember, discipleship is a slow cooker. It's not a microwave. And in our culture today, we want microwave solutions to everything.

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And I just always has stuck with me. So when a kid screws up, I'm reminded, right, we're still cookin, we're still cooking. It's going to take some time. And so I like what you I think one of you guys said that sometime. Okay, so we don't have permission for a specific thing that we want to do. So maybe we're taking an interim step before the final step.

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Maybe that vision that God has given you is something 20 years down the road. So like the guy I know what to throw. Maybe he's starting a recovery house or something at some point. So we work with them and we disciple them and we love them like the broken human beings we all are because we know we're all being transformed into his image.

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Right. I just wrapped it up. I love it. I just did the final part of never done that before. It feels good. I feel like I can spike the football at this point. Anything else that we want to talk about on this journey? I think it's just it's just important to ask God who you're what you're supposed to be yielded to.

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Yeah, I think we get that. We don't ask the question and so we can misunderstand. And maybe we're yielded to things that the season is over and we don't need to. Like we can change faith communities because it's a new season. Yeah, but I never think we should do that out of offense. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you. That's so important to say, like people will just bounce away and you have no idea what happened. And so when somebody comes into my church, Jacob told me this. I thought it was a great idea. why did you leave your previous church? Did you talk to your pastor about leaving your previous church? Okay, that's a season two.

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But that but yes, I agree. I think that's so great to say. Yeah, that again, that's what we're saying. It's like a big part of what we talk about in ordinary discipleship and in all of our who all G resources is that everybody can make a disciple. And what I think we're saying here is that doesn't always mean that you have to find a position somewhere doing it from director of and in fact, sometimes it even means yielding to what seems like a roadblock in order to shape you into the disciple maker that God would have you be.

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Yeah, everything is a teachable moment. What lesson are you in? dang. There's so many good juicy nuggets. And this one. All right, everybody, thank you for joining us for the Ordinary Discipleship podcast cast. It's been great. I don't know what episode we're on right now, but boy, boy, you should go to iTunes right now or Spotify wherever you listen and review us.

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It's so important. If you like this podcast, they'll give us five stars on iTunes. Thank you so much for listening, subscribing and sharing. God bless and have a great night.