00;00;00;00 - 00;00;35;10
Unknown
What? We need a clock. Yeah, like a real clock thing. All right, all right. Are we recording now? Are? Excuse me. Are they both recording? Yeah. Okay. Only one. I have one red light. Which? The way they take Lisbon. Whichever one's luck. that's the live camera. There we go. I love it. Sweet. I've done. Yeah. Got to be recording.

00;00;35;12 - 00;01;04;09
Unknown
All right, let's do this. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Ordinary Discipleship with Jessie Cruickshank. I'm Chris. With me today is Julia as well. And we are going to break it down. We are going to get down to the nooks and crannies. I have a question for you, Jessie. What is ordinary discipleship? That's a great question. Thank you. I wrote it myself.

00;01;04;11 - 00;01;19;29
Unknown
Didn't you write a book about. They did. I wrote a book because I care about this topic. Okay. So? So just go read the book. Okay. Podcast over. Wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't that be great? You know, you can get the audiobook if you really need to. Just listen. You voiced it. I did. Wow. So wait a second.

00;01;20;04 - 00;01;35;27
Unknown
Before we get into it, was that hard to voice your own book? It was exhausting because the chair wasn't very comfortable. So where did you go to do it? Chicago. there was a great producer. But I. If I ever do it again, I'm gonna get, like, one of those purple pillows. Yeah, for my buttocks. How long do you think it took you?

00;01;36;00 - 00;01;56;04
Unknown
it took 5 hours. Two days. So took 10 hours. Wow. But the limitation was my ability to sit in the chair. That was it. Did you bring up, like, hey, maybe we need to get a chair in here. But, no, they liked it because it caused everybody to sit up straight. I'm totally bringing a pillow. The next time they didn't videotape it, I didn't know.

00;01;56;06 - 00;02;21;02
Unknown
But you sit up, you breathe better when you sit up. Right. And so your voice. Stop slouching, Julia. No, stop slouching. I sound like my grandma. That's loud. Yes, ma'am. So bad. Shoulders back. Yeah, exactly. Posture. Posture. Yeah. Well, that's really cool. I wish I had. I cried a bit in, like, some of the stories that I was telling, and so.

00;02;21;05 - 00;02;39;09
Unknown
Was that fake or was it? No, no, no, no. Like, we had to stop it, and I would be like that. And, like, now I want to get it now. I have some audible credits. Good people get it on audible. Yes, you can get it anywhere. All right, cool, everyone. What's the name? Ordinary discipleship. All right, Fantastic. Now explain what it means.

00;02;39;11 - 00;03;01;17
Unknown
Well, the reason why I called the book Ordinary Discipleship was because I really wanted to call it mediocre discipleship. But the publisher wasn't that keen on that idea. But because my mind truly, truly believe that if we do discipleship the way God made us, like in accordance with how God made us, that even a mediocre person can make a disciple.

00;03;01;17 - 00;03;18;14
Unknown
You know what's crazy is that Joel Osteen's first name for his book was Your Mediocre Life. But they said no. They said, No, you're joking with me, right? I totally disagree because I don't I don't I don't buy that one. Your most mediocre life ever. But they they said don't do that. Do that. I won't sell it will not sell.

00;03;18;14 - 00;03;40;18
Unknown
Sell. But if we do things the way God made us and I study the Bible, I study neuroscience. So biology and the Bible like these are the things that I that I care about, that I use as guardrails for my life. And and I just I saw out there there weren't a lot of materials written to ordinary people who weren't also then in leadership positions.

00;03;40;20 - 00;04;00;16
Unknown
So like the everyday person, you know, who is equipping them to be a disciple maker just as they are right now. Well, does an ordinary person think they can actually make disciples because of the way that they were raised in a church? Right. And that's part of the problem. Right. Exactly. So I kind of wanted to tell a different story than that.

00;04;00;16 - 00;04;23;22
Unknown
I wanted to tell a story about how God called all of us who called Jesus our savior, that God invites every single one of us into this adventure of being a disciple maker. And even if it takes our entire life to help one person be changed by Jesus, I think that's worthy. I think that's a worthy endeavor. I think that's a life well lived.

00;04;23;24 - 00;04;52;04
Unknown
And when you say it like that, it does make sense to call it mediocre discipleship. Yes. You mean we got one? We got one right. Thank God. Actually created our brains to be transformed and change through this process of story, through the process of sharing with one another our testimonies, our revelations. And if your revelation is how Jesus really loves me, then that's worth sharing.

00;04;52;07 - 00;05;22;23
Unknown
Because who needs to hear that? Everybody. Right? Everybody. So ordinary discipleship, equipping the every day follower of Jesus to be a disciple maker because the problem is that we've created this this very weird. It's weird to me leadership disciple making loop where if we're a disciple and we get really good at being a disciple, then suddenly we graduate into being the leader and we get moved along the pathway slash pipeline slash grid or whatever you want to call it.

00;05;22;26 - 00;05;46;29
Unknown
And now we're qualified to be a leader and then only the leaders then are qualified to make disciples. And that is super strange to me because when I think about leadership, I think about a specific role, I think about specific responsibilities. I think about, you know, an organization that I partnered with that I'm a good fit for. And and there are all these, like, appropriate constraints on that.

00;05;47;01 - 00;06;12;17
Unknown
But if I'm running an organization, I can't have all the people that are in that organization be in leadership roles. Right? I can't manage that. I can't afford that. Like, there's there's so many limitations. So I think it's okay that leadership is kind of gated with these appropriate vetting mechanisms. But but if I'm that's the only way to be a disciple maker, then I've just disqualified everybody.

00;06;12;17 - 00;06;43;16
Unknown
But the five I know how to lead are the two. I know how to, like, manage in an organization. Right? So if I'm going to really believe in and practice the priesthood of all believers, then everyone needs to be equipped to be a disciple maker. And we have to break apart this weird connection that I think is actually really cause a lot of our problems of why people don't feel qualified to be a disciple maker because they're not qualified to be a leader in the organization for that role and responsibilities.

00;06;43;16 - 00;07;08;05
Unknown
And what if they actually have a job? Like, what if they have an assignment from the Lord that isn't to be a leader in that organization? Does that mean then they're not supposed to make a disciple? Well, I don't know very many pastors or people who actually think that. So when we disconnect and decouple leadership from disciple making, I think we can see each of them better and we can equip people for them better.

00;07;08;05 - 00;07;27;11
Unknown
And now all the people who have jobs, which is everybody, we can equip them to be a disciple maker. Yeah. So we have to we have to break these apart because we missed so much. We missed the point of discipleship. We miss how discipleship happens when we keep trying to funnel it through this, you know, narrow door of leadership.

00;07;27;12 - 00;07;57;24
Unknown
It's interesting because working with youth for the last 20 years has been I've noticed something that you just you sparked something in me. And this is not on the notes, but it's interesting, like when a parent wants their kid to be really good at soccer, they hire their kid a soccer coach, right? When a parent wants their kid to know more about Jesus, a lot of times they'll it's said, sign them up for confirmation or, you know, like or whatever your classes are correct.

00;07;57;24 - 00;08;14;22
Unknown
Right. Or whatever. Yeah, why not was great. I got my want a girl I wasn't a want a guy. I did the Awana and I remember one time I won, a teacher called me out. She's like, You like playing the games more than you like the Bible study. I'm like, Yes, I do. See, I was really good at memorizing and I like to win.

00;08;14;23 - 00;08;34;18
Unknown
I love you got the trophies. you got the trophies? I got. that's a big time. I want to program what the trophies did. We had candy, so Butch drove me. Wow. They got bigger as you got older. Well, my point is, it's like. It's almost like that with the church. we're going to make disciples. Let's let the pastor do it.

00;08;34;19 - 00;08;58;22
Unknown
Right. Right. And it's been really taken away. I don't think people feel empowered to be able to do that or the people that are doing that aren't calling it discipleship. They're just saying, Hey, come alongside me and watch. But when you say separating leadership from discipleship, like, is that even practical in today's culture? Like, can we possibly could you see churches doing this?

00;08;58;25 - 00;09;17;06
Unknown
I don't see them right now doing it. I see the Holy Spirit doing it. Okay, cool. Good. I mean, I think so. I mean, it seems like that's what's happening in the church, especially, I'll say, in a post-COVID culture. Yeah. You know, like, I just I think the weight of for a pastor, you know, I've been on staff at churches for most of my adult life.

00;09;17;07 - 00;09;38;17
Unknown
And the way for pastors to feel like they have to disciple everybody in the church or they're responsible for discipleship. Yeah, that's a heavy burden to carry. And it's it's not what a pastor is supposed to carry. Of course, they're supposed to shepherd the congregation, but the mandate to go and make disciples of all nations is for the body of Christ, right for the church.

00;09;38;17 - 00;09;56;14
Unknown
And I think what one of the things that struck me is that I've I've been in church my entire life and how many people I know who have been in church their entire life. And yet they would they would not say that they are a disciple maker because that's not what they they do, quote unquote. Right. That that is the pastor's job.

00;09;56;14 - 00;10;32;18
Unknown
And when Jesse and I met, you know, it was how what would what would it look like to ignite discipleship in the church to make everybody feel like they could be a disciple maker in the church. I've got three teenagers to make them. But God bless you. Yes, God bless you. Right. But every that they that that that we've created things or that we are we are creating the conversation, creating the narrative that they are disciple makers at 17, 18, 19 years old, at 12 years old, that God has a purpose for their life and God is going to use that purpose for their life to help somebody else's life and point them to Jesus.

00;10;32;18 - 00;11;05;18
Unknown
And so that's the power of all, you know, you know, detangling discipleship and leadership is that yes, that is creating leaders, but that doesn't that we are always disciples because we're always being changed by Jesus, but we're also always responsible to be pouring our lives and other people. Yeah. So how do you I mean, how do you inspire not only the teenagers but also then the CEO of an organization that they're also a disciple maker or the plumber or the person who's neurodivergent?

00;11;05;19 - 00;11;23;24
Unknown
You know, I would love to I would love to go up to someone who's on the spectrum and hear from them how they're making a disciple. Right. How are they helping somebody else be changed by Jesus? Because I don't think God regrets the way he made us or the callings he's given us. So how do we equip everyone?

00;11;23;24 - 00;11;49;20
Unknown
So this is part of this. I'll take this. No. So interesting. And I have this story about this This guy, his name is Dave, and he's a roofer. And Dave is a roofer that in the next episode, Jacob will be here and his dad was his pastor. But Dave never went to a Bible study. He always showed up at church.

00;11;49;22 - 00;12;10;17
Unknown
He got more people to come to church than any other person that I know, and it's because he lived his life and he was a blue collar guy that was just a good dude. And he had people come alongside him and he would tell him the reason why he had faith. And they heard that and they saw him as a blue collar dude.

00;12;10;17 - 00;12;29;14
Unknown
And it was shocking to me because we went on a mission trip and in other part of the story we were trying to my wife and I were trying to buy a house, and he heard that we were trying to buy a house, but we had too much debt. We couldn't. And I was making like $12,000 a year being a pastor, you know, something crazy.

00;12;29;16 - 00;12;46;04
Unknown
And he said, Hey, I want you to take one of my rental houses for a year and don't pay me anything. And save that money that you would have for a down payment on a house. That's the only reason I was able to get into the house. And that's the kind of thing that I'm saying is like so many times there's discipleship.

00;12;46;04 - 00;13;17;06
Unknown
Yep. Happening. Yeah, but they're not calling it discipleship, they're calling it just living their life. And so to you, Jesse, what does ordinary discipleship, what's that look like? I think it looks like what you said. You know, I think about there's this amazing guy in our in my church that he's homeless. He chooses to be homeless. The more I hang out with him, the more I have the question of why he chooses to be that.

00;13;17;06 - 00;13;51;11
Unknown
Because I've known him for four years. I don't. I at least those four years that I've known him, I haven't seen any addiction. I haven't seen any mental health kind of, you know, issues. And he sees himself as a missionary to the homeless population in our community. And so he lives that way. Now, there is a past of drug addiction and there is there there's circumstances I don't know that have resulted in his situation, but he preaches every Tuesday and he has like five churches sponsoring him, like with the food and and and his preaching.

00;13;51;13 - 00;14;19;23
Unknown
It was amazing. Like, it had great structure and like, appropriate, like historical context. And wow, he's this guy guy's like seminary trains. I think he just listens on this is a preacher that just got up and did something right. So he's out there, but, you know, doing this amazing work. And but he would come into a church, he smells like a person who is houseless his hair, looks like a person who is houseless.

00;14;20;00 - 00;14;44;21
Unknown
He carries his life on a backpack. He would walk into a church. How many people are going to go, wow, you know what? That's our next great leader. This is John the Baptist type stuff. Is he eating? The locust is in and I don't know what it's like. Right. But like like I think about these beautiful humans that having also been in church leadership my entire adult life, that we would look at and go, okay, well, not that like we wouldn't even see them.

00;14;44;26 - 00;15;09;22
Unknown
It's not that we would disqualify them in our mind, like we wouldn't even notice them. So for me, ordinary discipleship is each one of these beautiful people that we walk by, sit by, work by, live by on a daily basis, that they would believe in their heart, that they have something to share. Yeah, that's amazing. That God had showed them something that was worthy of telling someone else.

00;15;09;25 - 00;15;34;03
Unknown
That's people that could happen. I might be satisfied. That's bar. Well, did you ever hear the story of the pastor who got the call to the new church and he showed up to the church dressed as a homeless person and they were all waiting for the new pastor to show up and like nothing was happening. And after like 10 minutes of silence, he goes to the altar and he goes, not one person greeted me, not one.

00;15;34;03 - 00;15;57;16
Unknown
He goes, We're going to change this. This is garbage. I had a pastor who actually did that experiment in our church. Yeah. And the 630 kicked him out. Bounced him out. He got bounced. Yeah. He couldn't even come in the foyer or. yeah. So the security guys working at a different place. no, no, no. He was.

00;15;57;19 - 00;16;19;14
Unknown
They worked it out. It was a small town. You don't have other option. Yeah, I gotcha. man. Well, I love what you just said there. That's a beautiful comment. And the fact is that, like, as human beings called in and that made into God's image, like, we all have a role in this and we can't just send the person to the soccer coach like we've got to take an active.

00;16;19;16 - 00;16;42;22
Unknown
And the thing that I hear most from parents are they don't feel that they're equipped to teach their kid about God. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. Like, how do we help people feel equipped to be an ordinary disciple? Well, if we think about what Jesus actually commissioned the disciples to do and what they thought about discipleship, because it's always shocking to me that Jesus says, Go make disciples.

00;16;42;22 - 00;17;00;16
Unknown
And there's like no explanation. Right? Right. Everybody seemed to be on the same page and know what was happening to people. Go make disciples, do miracles. Right, Right. Pass out the demons, heal the sick. And I'm, Dude, I got you till the end of the age. Yeah. And you'll do greater things than I did right then. Everybody seemed to actually know what that meant, right?

00;17;00;17 - 00;17;28;23
Unknown
Because there weren't follow up questions. And I have, like, a million followers. So that's why you weren't born back then? You know what we're going to say? Yeah, that's the reason we're going to say this lady till 2023, the world can handle her. So discipleship as they understood it, was a community endeavor. It was done through apprenticeship for the purpose of not right belief or right behavior, but an increased union with God connection to God.

00;17;28;25 - 00;17;42;28
Unknown
Because, by the way, they didn't actually have the like the New Testament then. So how are you going to even know what right belief or right behavior was? Because we didn't have the church and we didn't have Christianity. And so, like, those things aren't even answered. So couldn't have been the goal. Union with God was the goal. That's what Paul talks about.

00;17;43;00 - 00;18;05;02
Unknown
So we can, when we have disciple making only be done by a leader who's qualified and whatever that looks like, we've eroded the community dynamic out of it. And so when it's supposed to be done by a community, then no one actually has to be everything. No one has to know everything. No one has to have all the answers.

00;18;05;02 - 00;18;29;19
Unknown
No one has to have all the patients. No one has to have all the time. Like we actually are just a net of people. What Paul talks about any visions for a cult autismo is actually a net, and that's what it means. Equip is catatumbo It's a net, it's netting and the community is supposed to be this net that holistically and altogether equips and supports the development out of a disciple.

00;18;29;19 - 00;18;47;20
Unknown
So it's a community disciple in a person, and that's why we don't have to be afraid about what we have or what we don't have is we actually just need other people. And then you can use what you're naturally gifted at. And it's like the different parts of the body, right? Like not everybody is called to be the nose, the eyes, whatever.

00;18;47;23 - 00;19;10;01
Unknown
But I think that's kind of what's been happening recently, is that we're not recently but forever, like 1500 years. Yeah, recently In the 1500 years or so. Yeah. Like long time, right? And so this has been really eye opening to me. I think this is a great conversation that we're going to continue to have on this podcast. But thank you for breaking down what an ordinary disciple is.

00;19;10;08 - 00;19;41;17
Unknown
And I hope that people take away from this that they are part of this like we're all called to, to share this. Yeah, I love what Julia has to say about how all these pieces fit together. So when what we have developed at with ordinary discipleship is a, is an ecosystem. And so it's not just as Jesse talked about, you know, the point of discipleship is not leadership, but yet leaders come out of discipleship.

00;19;41;17 - 00;20;14;02
Unknown
And so there's there's a correlation between discipleship and leadership. And what we we have a diagram that will be in the show notes but it as a did you draw it we develop said are you guys to argue stick Yeah because here's the challenge right because when we think of things in our in our structure and this has been one of the biggest challenges for us is that we think of things as a ladder, like I am going to get better at what I do, I'm going to climb the corporate ladder, I'm going to become spirit more spiritually mature.

00;20;14;05 - 00;20;34;15
Unknown
I'm going to go on this journey and it's going to go from point A to point B and it's going to be this straight line. But the reality is, is that's not what following Jesus. It's like losing weight. It doesn't go in the straight line in any out. Right. And so but that's what a journey is. A journey is a very it is a a life.

00;20;34;17 - 00;20;53;22
Unknown
And it is not going to be all forward. There's going to be to sometimes ten steps back. And so but that's what being a disciple is. A disciple is following Jesus in all the good and all the bad in everything and being changed by him and continually and to be changed by him. And then as a leader, continuing to be changed by him.

00;20;53;28 - 00;21;22;11
Unknown
But that all has to happen, as Jesse said, in the context of community. And so that is what we want to see happen at Ordinary Discipleship, is really those help to help churches, to create those healthy community structures, because we are living in a very individualistic society. What's in it for me is what I'm doing right now. Like most, you know, the average trip, people are going to church once every, you know, every three weeks or something like that might be up to six by may be it post-COVID.

00;21;22;11 - 00;21;42;24
Unknown
I don't even want to know what the numbers are. Right? Right. So people are having a hard time connecting in community. In fact, our church just did a survey. We went through an entire discernment process. And the number one issue we feel like our community is facing is loneliness. Yeah. And if you say, okay, it's loneliness. What what does the church have to offer Community?

00;21;43;00 - 00;22;03;22
Unknown
Definitely. And you look at what the church was, the early church, it was community. But it's interesting though, because now people find community everywhere else, everywhere. You know, it's like not all community is the same, right? I agreed, but you know what I mean? Like, it's an emptier community. But a lot of people are finding on the golf course, a lot of people are finding it at the top of the bar.

00;22;03;29 - 00;22;30;07
Unknown
But yeah, which is why the church needs to be a place where people are known. Yeah, exactly. Norm, You know, like embarrassed, you know, exactly that They're known and then just and that they feel like we have that we create a space where people are able to grow and mature spiritually, emotionally, you know, psychologically, that is our mind, our will and emotions, like all of it, comes where I think the church should be, the place that people are like that.

00;22;30;07 - 00;22;51;29
Unknown
The group of people has so much joy. I want what they have. Yeah, they have more peace than anybody else in the world. They love better than anybody. I don't know what it is, but that's the group of people I want to hang around. my pastor used to say, I want to do so much good in this community that if we get thrown out of business that Muslims are sad, you know, like because we spread so much love and joy.

00;22;52;02 - 00;23;11;09
Unknown
And I thought that was a beautiful statement. And we don't do that as leaders. We do that as a community to say, really, we can't do it as leaders. So just one person. Exactly. It takes the entire group of people. It takes village and it takes leader. And so the point is not just to become a leader, the point is actually to become mature believers, mature disciples, mature leaders.

00;23;11;12 - 00;23;30;20
Unknown
And maturity always happens in the context of community. Yeah, because I have to learn how to play well with others. I say I'm learning as an adult how to make friends again and how to, you know, to play play nice, Right? Right. You know, because that is actually how we learn and grow. I learn in relationship, as Jesse will say, you learn in relationship, reflection and revelation.

00;23;30;20 - 00;23;57;02
Unknown
That's actually how God wired us to change. Awesome. And that's what we need. Hey, I think this has been a fantastic episode. Thank you guys for explaining to me what ordinary discipleship is. Jesse If people want more information about how to get involved, what can they do? And so you can go to ordinary discipleship dot com and learn more about other podcast podcast episodes or the book our, our our, our online class.

00;23;57;05 - 00;24;18;26
Unknown
You can also go to who ology DOT CEO so that's W.H.O. Polo G Waco and that'll help you get connected to the other materials that we have on ordinary leadership, ordinary community, ordinary maturity as we just really try to bring, you know, the formation of disciple making back to this. Still think you should have gone with mediocre discipleship.

00;24;18;26 - 00;24;37;22
Unknown
I really like that title. I think maybe by the time you hear this, you are that you are, I'll be taken. They'll try to sell to me for $5,000. Make sure to check out my next book, Paleo Discipleship. All right. From all of us here at Ordinary Discipleship, thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time on this podcast.

00;24;37;25 - 00;24;42;01
Unknown
Bye bye. All right. At 245, I'll.