Episode 63: "Multiply: The Mission That Moves Us"

Welcome, everyone, to the Growing and Grace podcast, a podcast of Grace Hills Church,

where we take a deeper dive into the previous Sunday morning's message.

My name is Matt.

I'm sent down here once again with Pastor Brandon.

Today on Growing and Grace, we're continuing our family porch series by talking about what

it means to be a multiplication-focused church.

From the family and Deuteronomy 6 to the Great Commission in Matthew 28, God's heart has

always been the same that his people would multiply disciples, leaders, and churches.

So today, we're going to talk about how the discipleship starts in the home, how the

church raises up leaders and sends missionaries, and why every follower of Christ has a role

to play in advancing the gospel.

Our hope is that this conversation moves us from simply attending church to actively participating

in God's mission.

So Pastor Brandon, quick, I spray your question for you this morning.

What is one skill or hobby that you've taught someone else and what was that experience

like for you?

Oh, goodness gracious.

Probably the closest thing I have right now has been coaching baseball with my boys because

they've played reckoning, and I say this all the time, like, I'm a reckoning coach.

I'm not a high-end travel coach, or once they've got, once they get into high school

stuff, they're a little bit beyond the very athletic, but I don't always recognize some

of the things that need to be done, but helping them, you know, throw, swing, run, understand

the game, a baseball, and then I was a head coach for one year, and then acidic coach

for numerous years on a couple of different teams, and even a couple of travel teams with

my boys that were more of a, they were a step above wreck, but they weren't like those

ultra-competitive.

You know, nobody had a 500-dollar baseball bat, and we weren't traveling to Florida to

go play a tournament for 12-year-olds.

But yeah, that's really, that's the only sport that I feel remotely comfortable trying

to, trying to coach, and so with wreck it was fun because it wasn't just my boys, but

there was a lot of young men in there that had never played before, and you got to do

to show them some basics and some fundamentals, and yeah, it went well.

Great, let's jump into today's interview questions.

Looking at this idea of multiplication defined, when you say gracehills should be a multiplication

focused church, what does that practically mean for the average church member and not

just leadership?

Yeah, that's a great question.

For the average church member, we're always looking to, to multiply disciples, which means

that we're being intentional about the basics of like just sharing our faith.

Now, I said a couple of weeks ago, there was no road Christians, and I'd also say that

there are no churches that weren't multiplying.

There's no disciples who weren't in some way, shape or form, looking to, looking to share

the gospel, pour into somebody else, so that what it looks like is different for different

people.

For some who maybe have more of a gift of evangelism, it may be the ones who just easily can

share the gospel with somebody in a crowd that they don't really know, knocking on doors.

You know, these are the people who can just start a conversation with a random person

while you're waiting in line at the grocery store type of thing, and inviting them in.

And so we're multiplying in a few ways, and we're going to talk more about this in a

couple of weeks with the last part of this series, kind of looking at the model of Jesus.

But it's being intentional in sharing your faith, being intentional, maybe inviting

them into church and somehow, whether it's, and when we talk about church, we're talking

about community, so maybe it's our Sunday morning gathering.

Maybe it is one of our life groups that meets in the homes, but there's other ones who

mature in their faith, and they grow spiritually, and they're showing some leadership qualities

and they're going to be called and have a desire to pour into other people, and so we

have our discipleship groups where we have several leaders who have kind of been trained

up, people who have already matured in their faith, have been disciple at some point,

and they're taking on three or four other people with a lot of intentionality, meeting

weekly, meeting biweekly for 12 to 18 months, specifically going through different things,

walking through the word, learning how to study your Bible, learning how to share your

faith, and they're pouring into other people in multiplication in that sense.

And my hope as a church as we grow, as we develop leaders that we're going to see more

men and women who give their entire lives to vocational ministry, whether it's on the

mission field, whether it's church planting, whether it's becoming a vocational pastor,

or even a lay elder.

We're still looking to develop that, and so, but the multiplication always kind of has

to be at the forefront.

We see this from Genesis with the command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply,

and we see this with Jesus in the command of the Great Commission, the go and make disciples,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to

obey everything that I command and you, and then at the end of that, hey, I'm with you

always.

I'm always going to be with you in that.

So there's a lot of opportunity there, and it looks different for different people depending

where they're at and what they're gifting is and just really what their desires are.

You emphasize Deuteronomy 6 and the family's role in discipleship.

So why is the home the primary front line for multiplication before anything else?

Mom and Dad still have the greatest influence on their children, good or bad, whether they

feel like it or not.

I know there's many days where I don't feel like I have any influence on my kids.

I feel like YouTube has more influence with their friends or other things that they take

it into.

We try our best to limit them on anything with social media and technology, but it's

impossible to keep them 100% away from everything.

But the family has been tasked with and charged with, we saw that in Deuteronomy 6, God has brought

the people out of Israel, they've gone through the wilderness, they're about ready to

enter into the Promised Land that he had promised Abraham from the beginning, like over 400

years prior, and he says, here's these commands, here's my statutes, as if you go into the

Promised Land and he starts out with kind of the greatest commandment that we see this

in the New Testament when Jesus is asked, what is the greatest commandment?

It says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your

strength, with all your mind, depending on if you're looking at Matthew or Luke.

This is, Jesus is repeating what he told the people in Deuteronomy 6, and then right after

that, he says, they teach them to your children, and he says, when you teach them to your children,

you're doing it when he says, when you get up and when you lie down, so when you're awake,

you're teaching your children about what God has done for you, and he says, buy them on your hands

and the bottom on your head, and basically memorize them in your heart, and he gives all these

kind of these daily activities of what he's basically saying is that everything is an opportunity

to disciple our children and to tell them about Jesus, and it typically goes, it comes from, he

tells them to remember, remember everything that I've done for you, because he knows that

there's still going to be some hardship and some difficulties, and so, even for us and for our

children, when life's not going the way they think it should, and the way that they wanted to,

we want them to look back and say, look, God is faithful through this, and you're not getting

what you want, doesn't mean that God isn't faithful, it might mean that it means that God is trying

to keep you from something, or he's got something better for you, but you have to be patient in that

in that circumstance. You said if parents don't discipline their children, the world will.

So, what are some subtle ways the world is, discipling kids right now, even in Christian homes?

Yeah, man, your kids are being discipled by somebody or something at some point,

almost every day at every point of the day, and so, what you allow into your home?

When it comes to televisions, movies, how much you expose them to, when it comes to social media,

when it comes to the news, and now we have this whole generation of our kids being raised by

influencers who just have this incredible influence on our kids, just because they make these

social media videos, I mean, I don't, you know, 20 years ago, he would have thought that somebody

like Mr. Beast was going to be a multi-millionaire doing these videos that are, you know, some stuff

he does, he helps people in that sense, but in other things that he has done, they're just spending

millions of dollars to play a game for somebody to win money at the end of it, and it's amazing how

our kids really love to, they engage with that and watch it, but the thing with social media,

and I've said this before, social media has given everyone a voice whether they're qualified or not,

and so now our children are being exposed to different views on sexuality,

different views on gender, different views on how we treat people that differ from us,

different views on who God is and if God exists, and so these are all competing values with God's

Word, and so if God's Word is not at the forefront or is not the foundation of your home for our

parents, they're just going to, they're going to begin to question that and they're going to be

kind of led away, led astray, if they don't understand how to biblically interact with a lot of the

things that they're being hit with, and so, and that can be hard, and that's, I think that's where

the church kind of comes in as well to help equip parents and to give them the resources to really

to really be able to answer these really hard questions, like we can't, we can't just sit back and

just, when they're asking questions about sexuality, whether it's homosexuality or whether it's even,

you know, why can't it not have sex before marriage, you know, depending on how you grew up,

the answer you got is a little because the Bible says no, okay, you know, like that's not an answer

that they're looking for, like we have to sit and talk to our kids about God's design for sexuality,

why it is a good thing, what happens when we go outside of that design and the issues that it

causes, and because, again, our culture is overly sexualized, and that's one of the many, many

things, probably the main thing that influences our kids in the future, and so parents have to be

prepared, and they have to be intentional, and they have to fight for the spiritual formation of

their children, and it is a fight because you're fighting against the principalities of this world,

you're fighting against the doctrines of the world, and they're powerful.

Yeah, this past Sunday, in the afternoon, we typically try to watch like a movie or something

like that together in my self-care and melody, and we let melody pick, and it was Home Alone 2,

love that one, a great one there, and it was interesting for the first time I heard a phrase

that was said in Home Alone 2, and I had to stop and I literally paused it, and then I had to

explain the melody, it was like, that's not biblically accurate. That phrase was used

of like, a good deed cancels out of bad deed, and I was like, and it literally stopped, I was like,

no, it was such a, it was such a works based mentality that I was like,

they have a girl, do not listen to that, it is not a tip for tat, you know, scoreboard type thing

here, there's no scales, like with that, she just kind of looked at me, she's sick, you know,

and it was like, okay, but it was the whole pigeon lady scene, and then getting to the turtle dove

like stuff, and the pigeon lady always scared me, you know, even, it's still a little creepy,

but yeah, that phrase was used, and it was the first time I ever actually heard that,

I mean, I don't remember that, I was talking about, and I was like, no, that, no, that's,

no, is that right, you know, that's like, it's like, hey, you know, if you murder somebody and

then turn around and like give somebody a sandwich, he was hungry, like, those don't cancel each other

out, you know, obviously feeding somebody who is, who is hungry is a good thing, but

there are consequences to murder, and that's not going to, or even murder in CPR, like, I mean,

yeah, absolutely, yeah, there was, there was something the other day just on YouTube where

my daughter, my four-year-old likes to watch, they got all the funny animal videos or whatever,

and they're like, oh, okay, there's just animals, and they're different things that happen,

they get scared, or doing silly stuff, and then all of a sudden, one of them is,

guy just gives the middle finger to the cat in the video, and I'm like, I'm sorry, wait a second,

what? What is going on here? And so it's like, hey, let's find a different one, and you know,

you don't want to make a big deal out of it because, you know, oh, why was that just a big deal,

you know, those type of things that have to, wasn't a point to explain it to him at that point,

but I just thought it was very interesting that, and I mean, this was on, I think this was on

YouTube kids, this wasn't on regular YouTube, or was it, that was regular YouTube, so that's a

little better, but I was just surprised at it, and I looked at lens, you know, I was like,

she's like, yeah, if I haven't seen it yet, I don't let her watch it, and so I, you know,

I haven't seen any of them, because I'm the time to sit there and watch through all of them,

or whatever, but it's interesting, just those little things, the little videos that they

get exposed to. Yeah, I'm on YouTube, let's go. All right, okay, moving on here, I did just find out

the history, though, of like where, since you brought up, where the middle finger originated,

it was like wartime thing, I don't know if you heard of it. I was like, there was like a French

war, and like the French had said, and please fact check this, I could be totally wrong,

but this is what what I saw was that I was a French war thing, and like the French had said,

hey, we're going to defeat you so much, that we're going to cut the middle finger off of all

of your troops, and I guess like it didn't go that way. And so like these gentlemen,

like sit up in a front line, and as they were like retreating, they just like showed all of them,

like the middle finger. So that's what I've been told is how originated. I was like, there might be,

there might be something to do that, but anyway, that's interesting. Yeah, right? I'm just

looking at up there. Yeah, right. Yeah, there we go. Everybody's, everybody's stopped listening.

They put pause on the podcast, and they just, they just, they just ask Siri or Google that stuff.

Okay, cool. Now my phone's going up here. All right. So next question, we're bringing it back.

Look at this idea of, you know, the testimony at home, you had asked a powerful question,

do your children know your testimony? So why is sharing our own story of salvation, one of the

most overlooked tools in discipleship? If you don't recognize your need for Jesus, and

the transformation that has taken place in your life, then your children never will.

We're sitting here telling our children that a relationship with Jesus is the most important

thing in the world, yet many times parents never actually share the way in which salvation has

changed their life. And you can be a, there's a lot of very good moral people that are going to be in

hell. There's going to be, like, if you're, if your parents, if your kids don't ever see a need for

Jesus in your life, not just for salvation, but also for, for sanctification, if you're not,

talking about God's faithfulness to you and your family, not just in salvation, but in every day

and in different situations and in different seasons of life, whether it's good or bad. If you're not

giving, uh, if you're not praising God or giving credit to God in the midst of those situations,

returning to God in the midst of those hard situations, don't expect your children to do it.

Like, if they're like, hey, man, he seems like everything's pretty good here to family. You know,

we, we seem to be doing all right. Why do I, why do I need this additional thing here when my

bills are being paid and I'm getting home vacation and, um, get my education and things are, things

are good. So there's a lot of, a lot of people and again, we got to, we have to be appropriate in

that depending on your testimony and, you know, even for mine, like, want to, want to, want to

preservation that I talk about. Like, you know, if I hadn't been in a, in a family where my

mom and dad loved Jesus, I would have gotten myself in a lot more trouble. Um, I got myself in a

nut trouble being in a Christian family and that, you know, as my boys are becoming teenagers

and getting into high school, I'm looking back at like, I'm remembering what I was like and some

of the things that I did and I'm just, oh man. And I think about what, what my boys has a deal with

these days and many different aspects of our culture and I think, man, are they, are they doing

what I did at that age? Like, it's a little scary, um, to think through and so, you know, I try,

we try and be intentional in all situations and just directing them to be like, to honor God

in their schoolwork and they're, when they're on the, on the baseball field, when they're, with

their friends and just be thinking through that. Like, you're claiming to be a follower of Christ

and claiming to want to follow Christ, then you do that when, when no one's looking. And so,

apparently to be, they need to appropriately share that they're not perfect people, that they have

issues, that they need Jesus and, uh, and here's some, here's some ways in which God has broken me

of some maybe patterns of cinema life. Here's some way that, that God has comforted me in the midst

of hardship. Here's some things that, here's the way in which Jesus really, um, had a better plan

for me than what I thought in this moment. Like, share those things with your children so that they

can see that God is faithful. Um, it, it's why God told the Israelites, you know, tell them about

what I did for you. Parents, tell your children about what God is doing for you in your life and

has done. Um, and that's a big part of discipleship. In the New Testament examples that you walk

through, uh, people who encounter Jesus immediately went and told others, why do modern believers

often hesitate to do the same? It relates to culture issue with us. Um, religion, talk can be very,

um, just something that is not like, it's not PC in our culture. People don't really like to talk

about religion because typically it leads to arguments as like politics. And, uh, often there,

there's this, where we're such an individual, individualistic culture where everyone is being told

to kind of do your thing, believe what you want to believe, it all leads you to the same path.

What to do is best for you. And so anytime that you maybe, um, want to go share, uh, like the gospel

and say, hey, Ben, like we all need Jesus, you know, people take that as, oh, I'm not, I'm not good

enough. Like I need something outside of myself or like, yeah, I mean, that's, that's what we believe,

but we believe that about everybody. And that's, and so the way that we present that can be,

can be difficult. It isn't me just going like, hey, you need Jesus and I don't. It's like, no,

we both need Jesus. I've experienced this and I want to tell you about it. And so in our culture,

especially again, it kind of goes back to even social media, man, like people will record stuff,

film you, edit it and can really change the picture of what's actually happening and going on.

But people have a fear of being rejected. They have a fear of possibly losing their job. They have a,

a fear of maybe saying the wrong thing, uh, are not presenting it well. And, and for many, I think

it's just, they've never really experienced transformation that they've, that they've,

that they're cool with the salvation aspect, but they've never fully, um, allowed the, the gospel to

take root in their heart. And they don't see the other aspects of their life. Like, how do I

honor? Got my work? How do I honor? Got my relationships? You know, how do I become a better father?

How do I become a better spouse? Those things aren't always in the mindset of, of the people. It's,

hey, I, yeah, I go to church on Sunday, um, I give a little bit here and that's kind of the extent

of their, their walk with Christ. And so, um, when, when an individual doesn't truly experience

transformation, they're not really going to look at somebody and think, man, I want them to experience

what I've experienced. But there's just a, there's a lot of underlying fear to think a lot of it's

just, is, is the way that our culture is set up right now. And, you know, we're a victim culture,

we're offended by everything. Disagreement is seen as hatred and all those factors into people

not really sharing, sharing Christ. You highlighted that multiplication happens through evangelism,

discipleship, leadership development, church planting and strengthening churches. Where do you

think grace hills is strongest? And where do we need to grow? So I think we do a pretty good

job with discipleship. There's, there's, we have a clear, I think, path there, um, but discipleship

takes a long time. So, you know, we have our, our life group model, which is, you know, groups that

meet in home, many of them are multi-generational. Um, and they're, they're centered around the

word of God and having more open, authentic, transparent discussion about different topics and

things in the word. And then we've launched our discipleship groups, which is going to take some time

for, but, but in those groups, we're going to have men and women going even deeper where we're

asking harder questions of accountability. And, uh, and I think that will hopefully, um, take people

from, you know, from milk to solid food that they're, they're maturing in their faith as they're

growing and understanding in their knowledge and they're applying that into their everyday life.

So the things that I think we, we, we struggle with really our evangelism and, and leadership

development, um, a lot of that probably comes from me, especially on the evangelism side of things.

I mean, Matt knows this, but like, my heart has always been discipleship. I think saved it a

young age, growing up in the church, feeling like I didn't really get to cycled and go to seminary,

and be like, man, I missed out on so much. I didn't want to see other people miss out on that. So like,

I'm, I've always had a heart for people that are inside the church that maybe never had a, uh,

a church family that, um, that really was about equipping them. And then the leadership development,

uh, I love doing that. Um, with the church being kind of as small as it is and, and just taking

on a lot of different roles and you take on a lot of different roles, uh, having a formal process

to do that because it even leadership development, while that some of that's end discipleship groups,

it's a little bit different than that. And, you know, wanting to do like a residency or wanting to

have a pathway to, to eldership, but I do believe that as we, as we do more, um, leadership development,

and that's going to help us with the other two, which is the church planting and church strengthening.

I hope it's, so we want to make disciples. And then the leadership development is, I think,

as it goes above the discipleship in the sense that we're now recognizing certain gifts and people

that are showing some, um, calling in leadership and desire to be, uh, at least maybe a high-level

elder lay leader, but, um, we're going to, um, my hope to identify some is like, I feel like maybe

God's calling me to something more and wants me to pastor or wants me to go overseas on, on the

mission field. And as we're developing them, then we're sending them out to help maybe strengthen

another church or to help plant a church in a different area. So it's, it's something that the

elders and I are, that we're all talking about. Uh, we, we've been talking about a, uh,

a better evangelism initiative and what that looks like. And I think in our community that's going

to be a lot more grassroots, um, we do things well on, on Sundays. We, I think we do things,

we do things well with life groups and our kids and our students to a point where I don't think

any of it's hindering from like anyone not coming back, um, always room for improvement in those

things. But, uh, we, we really got to be more intentional of getting into the community,

you know, off of our campus, into the neighborhoods. And what that looks like in our current culture

and in our current community, something that we're discussing. You pointed to, uh, Paul and to

Timothy as a model of leadership multiplication. What does it look like today for someone

to move from being discipled to discipling others? Yeah. So it's, it's not as formal as we want it as

we make it out to be. There's definitely a formal process, books that you read, uh, intentional

time that you spend together in accountability, talking about the word, uh, maybe in our

disciples and groups, we also spend time identifying people that in our lives that got us

placed in our lives to share the gospel with. And, um, and those are all, those are all part of

those. But for, for Timothy and Paul, like Paul took Timothy with him on his trips and

discipled him in a long way. The same thing with Jesus did with the apostles who the disciples

and then apostles. Uh, he spent two years with him. They followed him. You know, it was, you know,

Jesus, Jesus did, they watched and then Jesus did and they helped and then they did and Jesus

helped and then he released them to go. And, uh, so that's, discipleship is more about, uh,

every day, staying in contact, going with someone, um, doing life with them. It doesn't just happen

in a, in a hour, hour and a half session, uh, at a coffee shop, although those are, that's part of

it. And so we got to give opportunities for, for guys and girls to, to be able to,

to, the intentionality of it is like as a church, we can give you all the materials and things,

but like we can't just, we can't set up the specific time for you and say, this is what you're

going to do it. Like that's something that you have to do as a group and, and come to that.

How often and when, but true discipleship is really, uh, coming alongside or bringing somebody

with you in the midst of that. If that's, you know, even for me, um, hospital visits or, uh,

even a couple of guys that maybe show interest in, in wanting to, to preach, you'd be like, okay,

start with evaluating my sermons and start with reading this book and then let's, you know,

what do you want to preach on? Let's start, let's, let's start a manuscript and, and walking through

that passage and what, what are all the steps? And so, but it's, it's more the, the one on one,

doing life together, practical things than, uh, just, you know, reading a book and answering questions.

You talked about becoming a sending a church raising up pastors, missionaries and church planters.

Why should every church member care about that even if they're never called to go?

Because that's what Jesus told us to do. Uh, that's what fulfills the great commission and every

follower of Christ plays a role in the great commission. It might be, you might be the one who

shows the gifting and the calling to be the lead guy or to be the leader or to be part of a team

that plans or that goes overseas or a family that, um, you know, works on a mission field and

a closed-off country, whatever that may be, but you may be the one in the background that is called

to financially support it. Uh, you may be the one in the, in the background that is called to stay

and to pray specifically for that family and to support them in many, many other ways.

You know, we, if you're a follower of Christ and you don't care about the gospel spreading

or you don't care about more people coming to Christ or, you know, as, as disciples were made

throughout the book of Acts, uh, they, they raised up in appointed leadership and they organized

everybody into, into local churches, oftentimes meeting in homes. Why would you not want to see that?

When we see that model in, in Acts and so, um, we all have a role to play in that. It's different

for everybody. Not everybody's going to be called to go overseas. Not everybody's going to be called

to, to be vocationally paid minister, pastor, leader, whatever it will be. But everyone has a role

in, in praying and supporting and, um, it might even be the role might be I'm going to go for, uh,

three months as an intern. I'm going to go on a short-term mission trip and support them in one

of their projects. So we all have a role to play in that. And my hope and prayer is that as our

church, um, grows, and even now that God would raise somebody up, even out of our young adult

ministry, my hope is that God will get a hold of the heart of somebody who, who feels like,

I feel like the Lord's discerning something in me to, to go and live on mission somewhere and

that we can, we can be a part of, of developing them and sending them.

The story of Dawson Trotman was powerful, discipling one man, who discipled another. What does

that teach us about long-term impact versus short-term visibility?

Yeah, you know, our instant gratification culture, we want to see everything right away.

But, um, like discipleship, discipleship is something that, that multiplies and spreads. It's

almost, it's actually more than multiplication. It's more exponential. Uh, you know, we,

we remember all that stuff in math with a big number, the little number up in the, in the corner

and you're going, yeah, pemdas, right? Yeah, parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division,

addition, subtraction, that's a, yeah, bam. Still got it. I do not, I know there's an acronym out there

to tell you what it was. So, yeah, and so, um, it's completely lost either. That was see, but

exponential multiplication. But what's interesting, what Trotman did is, is he wasn't, it wasn't just

about discipling a person, but it was disciplining that person in a way that they could go then

reproduce themselves. And that's what happened. And, uh, you know, he, he discipled a guy and then

that guy ended up disciplining people in, in the, in the Navy and it spread throughout the military.

I mean, don't you think there's men and women in the military right now that could, they could

be discipled and we know there's, there's great programs out there, um, on military bases,

chaplaincy programs and navigators, navigators are still going. This is what Trotman started and

it's, it's in over 100 countries. It's on a lot of college campuses. Uh, their material is really

good. It's often used for, for discipl making and, and I've seen the material and used their

material before. Uh, we even have people in our church that are, have been through navigators

or started with navigators. And so, but it's a, it's a long-term vision. It's a future vision for

something that it, that, you know, continues to grow when I'm no longer a part of it, where I'm

no longer here. Uh, you know, if discipleship for you is about visibility, then you've probably

already lost. Um, you're, you're going to disciple somebody in a way that is very self-seeking

and self-focused and it's going to fizzle out really, really quick. And so, uh, uh, Trotman,

many had a lot of insults and a lot of people, Billy Graham, Bill Bright, with crew. And, um,

uh, there was, there was another gentleman that he was close to that I'm trying to remember

with that organization was that, that that person started because our members navigators, crew,

Billy Graham and, um, oh goodness gracious. Can't remember the name, but it was another,

another ministry that had, that had started where he, he didn't disciple those people necessarily,

but he helped them think through the discipleship model. Like Billy Graham, probably one,

one of the best evangelists of the 1900s, thousands upon thousands of people coming to Christ,

but Billy Graham knew he had an issue of like, uh, what do I do with all these people? We,

we don't want to leave them. Yeah. Now what? And so, and so Trotman, he turned to Trotman and

Trotman helped me and helped him with that process afterwards of how do we disciple them? How do

we connect them with the local church, same thing with crew on college campuses? And so he just had

an incredible impact. And, uh, what's interesting is most people don't know his name.

Everybody knows Billy Graham. A lot of people know Bill Bright, nothing wrong with no one his name,

but I didn't, I didn't know who started navigators, not part of navigators. I've known about

navigators for my entire, you know, since probably high school. Um, although the other person was,

uh, the guy who actually started young life. I don't remember his name either, but he had an

influence on all of them. And so it's, it's, it's just incredible. Like, like, I would love to have

that amount of influence in my life. Um, I would love to, I'd love to say that I was able to pour

into a couple of guys that then went and did the same thing and it multiplied out. But, you know,

um, I remember, may never see the fruit of that, but that's not the, the goal and then of itself.

It's just, it's really to see the gospel spread and some people, people come to know Jesus.

You ended with five prayer challenges. So for someone listening today who feels stirred,

but unsure where to start, what is one concrete action they can take this week toward

living a multiplication focused life? Yeah, if you have a stirring and you're trying to kind of

discern that, I, you need to find a believer who is more mature than you, uh, and ask them to

disciple you, get involved in a discipleship group, get involved in a one-on-one situation,

find a mature believer, an elder, a pastor, a teacher, somebody who loves Jesus, um, is, has done

it longer, who does it well and whose life just permeates, permeates Jesus. And say, hey, I,

I just, I want to grow on my faith. I want to be more Christ-like. I know those areas of my life that

need that, that I need to mature in. And I, I think God, I know God's calling me to more. I don't

know what that is yet, but I, I need somebody to walk alongside with me. And, um, you know,

that's something to look for if you're not in a, in a church, if you don't have a church home,

that, that is something I would say to look for. What, what, what opportunities are there for that?

Even beyond a good, you know, in-home Bible study model or a really good Sunday morning

worship gathering, which no matter how well you do that, there's still some levels of discipleship

that aren't going to happen in those two areas. It really has to be smaller and concentrated,

four to five people or one-on-one. And, um, I would say, man, go after it. Find somebody. Come see us.

Uh, we, we have people ready to disciple if that's something that you want.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for the great commission and for calling us to be part of your

mission to reach the nations. Help us to be faithful in discipling those you've placed in our lives,

whether our children, friends, or others in our community. Give us boldness to share the gospel

and wisdom to invest in the spiritual growth of others. Raise up leaders from among us and help

us support the planting and strengthening of churches around the world. May we be a church

that truly multiplies disciples, leaders, and churches for your glory. Guide us as we seek to live out

these truths in the week ahead in your precious name, we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to Growing

in Grace until next time. Keep your eyes on Jesus and keep growing in Grace.