Raising the Bar: How a 153-Year-Old Church Embraced Radical Discipleship

Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Disciplemakers podcast. And today we have a special guest, my new friend, I guess I should say, DZ, who is the pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist. Is that right? Good Hope. Good Hope. I almost had it, DZ. New Hope is better than no hope, man. Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, Texas.

And DZ is actually also going to be one of our speakers at this year's National Disciplemaking Forum in Houston. And so, DZ, we are just thrilled to have you, brother. So glad that you're here. And thanks for giving us time today, man, to chat a little bit. No, listen, Josh, I'm excited. You know, I remember when I first heard about the conference and gathered, you know, three of the staff members and was like, hey, we got to get there because I learned about it like two weeks or three weeks before the conference and was there, man, and was just so affirmed because, you know, there was a season, at least for me, both culturally and contextually where I almost felt like I was kind of like Elijah, like I was the last of the prophets,

like I felt like I was kind of alone, you know, using and things like that. And people ask me, you know, they would be like, how did you get to this place? And I'm like, the Bible, you know, just I thought I'd follow Jesus, you know, but really getting to a place, man, where I was just frustrated. I was tired with the attractional model.

I just really felt like, man, this is not what God wants us to do. And going back to the scriptures, as old preachers would say in our tradition, going back to the red letter and looking at what Jesus said, and then saying, now, what would this look like? What can this look like in our context today?

And so, man, I just thank God for discipleship.org, for the conference, for the resources, for everything that you all are doing. And, you know, if I can add my little log onto this fire, man, I'm happy to do it. Well, we're glad to have not just one of your logs, DZ, but a lot of them, honestly. I think we've got a lot to learn from you, brother, and just being able to run together and spend time together is going to be a blessing.

And so we were just talking before we started recording, just about your heart, like really what led you to start on this pathway and on this direction of really trying to shift a more traditional church into a real disciple-making culture. And so, honestly, for our listeners, DZ, I think that would be a huge blessing.

Because at the end of the day, you know, a lot of people are trying to go on this journey, but they're not quite sure what it looks like. And so I'd love to kind of take our listeners on that journey with you, brother, if you'd be willing to. Yeah. No, absolutely. You know, for me, Graduate Dallas Seminary, there it was inundated with a lot of concepts and ideas that I had not heard before coming up in a traditional church.

And to the extent that I heard those ideas, church planting, you know, church revitalization, and all of those things, and, you know, I left there recognizing that discipleship had to be part of a church. It can't get around that, right? If you're going to be a biblical church, you've got to disciple people.

And so for many years, that's what we did. What I really realized was that we made discipleship a programmatic choice for people. And it was set up kind of like the godly Green Berets, you know, the Navy SEAL Saints. Like if you really want to be a Christian, really, really sold out, you've got to be a disciple, right?

And there were two aspects of that that we missed. One was that every believer is a disciple. The question is not, are you a disciple? It's what kind of disciple are you? And then the second aspect is that you really haven't completed the discipleship process until you begin making disciples. So this consumerism that we're seeing in many congregations, it doesn't matter whether they're coming to consume the worship and the worship style and the church attainment on Sunday morning, or they're coming to consume great Bible teaching and great Bible preaching, right?

Like it doesn't matter whatever consumer we're creating, at the end of the day, that's antithetical to the call of Jesus to make disciples. We went through a really intentional process to shift our culture in terms of what I preached, what I taught. And then there were some things that I just laid out as demands and just said, hey, we got to raise the bar, you know, because Josh, what I realized for me, as churches are lowering the bar to get as many people to come into the building as possible.

When you expect or require nothing, that's typically what people will give you. And I came to this conclusion, man, I came to the conclusion that the power of Jesus's impact in ministry was not just in who he attracted, but in who he was willing to let walk away. And we don't think about- That's a good word.

Yeah, that's a good word, man. Letting people walk away. Right? I think about the rich young ruler, man. If he walked into most of our churches, we'd be fast tracking him to the trustees, right? He'd be on the finance committee, man. It's like, hey, man, this brother got a level of commitment and Jesus was like, no, hold on, let's raise the bar a little higher.

And the text says, when he told him to sell all his possessions, the rich young ruler walked away his head down, man, he's sad, right? And typically, we're not willing to let people walk away when we raise the bar. And that's what we did. We raised the bar. And it was, I look back now, I think it was a pretty bold move.

I think some people thought it was kind of crazy because we're coming out of the pandemic. And so we're trying to get as many people to come back to church as possible, come back to the building. And here's this pastor saying, no, we're going to raise the bar. If you want to be a member of this church, you've got to make a commitment to being discipled and being a disciple maker.

And if you don't want to do that, it's okay. Let me recommend a church to you if you want church tainment. But that's not who we are. And that's not who we want to be. Dude, DZ, that is, I mean, you are preaching it, brother. And you're just speaking my heart language, man. This is the journey that I've personally been on over the last, I don't know, 16 years of my life, maybe 17 years.

I don't know how much you know about my story, DZ, but I left the US and went to India to be on the mission field about 16 and a half years ago or so. Or actually, it's been about, actually almost 18 years ago now, but left to go on the mission field. And God began to really bring all the stuff that you're talking about into my heart as I was in the mission field in India.

And then about a year and a half ago, brought us back to America in order to honestly help churches in the States shift in this direction and to help mobilize more people, both locally and globally to see the Great Commission completed. Man, what you're talking about, dude, I can't tell you how many seasons of my life, you know, you brought up the rich young ruler, man, I would have, if I would have asked him to give it all and he said, no, I would have said, well, half's okay.

Oh, you don't want to give half, 10% is fine. Like what, like just keep negotiating with the guy until he's giving us money. You know what I mean? And especially as a missionary who needed to raise support, I would have been like, dude, listen, you give whatever you want, that's fine with me, you know?

But Jesus doesn't want half commitment. He doesn't want half of our hearts. He wants disciples that are really going to be fully consecrated to him and his work. And so I love, man, how you've raised the bar. I had a professor of mine early on named Neil Cole. He's written several books on like the organic church and leads a multiplication movement.

But one thing that he said is exactly what you're talking about. He said, you know, we, we had to lower the bar of what it meant to be church and raise the bar of what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. Because sometimes we get that backwards. Like we have this really high bar of what it means to be church, but the bar of what it means to be a disciple is so low that we end up getting what you call church tainment, which I love that word.

You should write a, you should write a book DK called church, uh, church or DZ, uh, called a church tainment. I like that. That's a, that's a chapter in the book that's coming. Oh, Hey, there you go, man. No, but I do think, I think the challenge is, you know, in, in his book, divine conspiracy, uh, Dallas Willard says somewhere along the line, we stopped focusing on how to make followers of Jesus.

And we focused on how to make good church members. Yeah. And those two things are not the same. Yeah. They, they, they, it would be nice if they were the same, right. But I think you can focus on having good church members and not have good disciples of Jesus. You know, if you have good disciples of Jesus, then you should have good church members.

Right. But absolutely does not happen. And so for me, I've really spent probably most of 2021 strategizing as we were kind of ebbing and flowing through the pandemic and is it going to be lifted or not? And then in 2022, very deliberate, very intentional around preaching, teaching, training, and, um, you know, that law of the diffusion of innovation had to wait till we got to that tipping point before we could actually shift the culture.

You know, I had some early adopters who were ready to go. They would chomp at the bit. Yes, let's go. And I'm like, hold on now. We can't, you know, there's a whole African proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go slow. So, you know, I really had to back up and kind of say, okay, now we're going to build this.

We're going to shift this. Um, you know, we did pilot groups, um, you know, I'm a life group guy, I believe in small groups as our core strategy, but out of that, we have, you know, one-on-one discipleship going on as well. And then I wanted to lean into this digital side and what does that look like, right?

How can we disciple on the digital platform? And I had a crazy conversation with one of the young men who, uh, I brought in, he grew up in the church. He's in his twenties now. And I asked him to co-facilitate a group with me and I did an interview with him for our staff and our team and our church. And I asked him, I said, listen, man, I said, you're, you're in Birmingham, Alabama.

Most of our group is in Houston. We have some other brothers chiming in from other parts of the country. What would you say to somebody who said, you can't have a life group if they're not meeting in person, you know, you gotta be in the room with them. Well, what would you say to him? And he said to me, he said, pastor, he said, here's what I would tell them.

It doesn't matter whether I can put my hands on you physically or not. What matters is, are you willing to open your heart to me? And he said, I could be sitting right next to you in person, physically, but if your heart is closed, nothing's going to happen. But if I look at you on a screen, if we're meeting online and you open up your heart, that's a game changer.

He was like 23 at the time. And I said to him, I said, man, listen, I'm gonna borrow the words of Jesus, flesh and blood did not reveal that to you. Right? Yeah, absolutely. But again, so how could we use all of the tools that God has given us and really just challenge people to think without a box to say, how can God use me?

Right? I don't want to think outside of the box, because when things get tough, we jump back in the box. Right? Let's burn the box. And let's say, hey, man, if this Christian thing was getting started right now, how would we use all of the tools and resources to help people who need Jesus, know Jesus and help people who know Jesus to grow in Jesus so they can help somebody else who needs Jesus and know Jesus?

Yeah, because there's only two kinds of people in the world. It's people who need Jesus and people who know Jesus. Yeah, we got to get everybody to live like Jesus, but there's only two kinds of people in the world. So what I teach our congregation is, it's not important whether or not we come to church.

It's not important or not whether we have church. What's really most important is, are we being the church? Are we being who Jesus saved us to be? Are we being the salt of the earth and the light of the world? And I think the problem in many churches is, we have redefined the commission and basically said, how can I be the best salt in the church?

And how can I outshine other Christians in the sanctuary? Yeah. Yeah, right. Like, man, oh, man, if I had your 100 watt bulb, I'd trade my 60 watt bulb in, you know, and it's like, we're not supposed to be trying to outshine each other. Yeah, there's a dark world out here that needs every size light, you know, from a nightlight all the way to a floodlight, man.

How can we take our light and be who Jesus saved us to be? So DZ, you told me offline that you're leading a church that's like 153 years old, right? And you're like the sixth pastor over the course of 153 year period. Let's say there's some leaders out there right now listening or some, you know, serious people in the church that are in a more traditional church like what you're in, because I mean, the way that I see it, brother, you're literally, you know, able to God is using you to inject fresh DNA and really new disciple making power into this church that has been around a long time.

What would you say if there's somebody out there in a similar situation, what are some of the first steps they need to take in order to really shift culture in this direction? Yeah. So the first thing I would tell them is realize what a reset really means. Dan Heath and his book Reset, great book, really, I think defines reset and lets us know that too many people use the term, but don't use it appropriately.

Most people think of a reset as adding something new to what they're already doing. And he defines reset as doing something new instead of what you've been doing. Okay. Are we really, really willing to take a hard look to say, Hey man, we got to make a shift. We got to make a change. And that takes a lot of courage, you know, because you're going where no man has gone before so to speak, if I can borrow that Trekkie phrase.

The other piece is to recognize that the number one problem in moving churches to this place, not the members, it's the ministers, it's the pastors, it's the leaders, right? I was talking to a group of young pastors and they said, well, you know, Dr. Cofield, what's the number one problem in churches today?

And I said, Oh, that's easy to answer. And they looked at me and I was like, really? And they were expecting me to say something like officers or, you know, members or whatever. Right. The number one problem is pastors. It's you guys. And they looked at me shocked. And I said, listen, man, a church will grow and go no further than the pastor or leadership in that church.

And so if a pastor is set in mediocrity, the church will not rise above mediocrity. You have to make a commitment to continue to grow, to continue to become who God wants you to be so God can continue to use you to help people become who they need to be. The late manual, Scott, who was one of my mentors from afar said, every pastor fights with two monsters, the monster of ignorance and the monster of meanness.

And he said, the problem is they're twins. You know, they look alike and sometimes you think people are mean and they're really just ignorant. They don't know. So how do we make sure that we teach and train people so they know? And it's a challenge, Josh, because in this day and time when we're seeing a proliferation of ads, you know, preaching to attract the unchurched and how do you have a relevant sermon and all this stuff?

We have forgotten that preaching was never intended to attract the crowd. It was intended to equip the saints. And there's one aspect in equipping the saints to be who God wants them to be. And so I think, you know, going back to this idea of church tainment, I think part of the problem in our society is, you know, that people have realized and why some people were challenged to come back to church is they figured out during a pandemic that they didn't need church to live.

And church did not give them a sense of value and purpose. Now we have a new group of people who are coming, who are looking for value and purpose. And some of them are frustrated because they're like, man, I didn't come here for entertainment. I didn't come here for business like my soul is hurting.

You know, how can I get help? And the idea of intentional relational discipleship, I think, is still the way to go to build the people that Jesus is calling us to reach and grow. Yeah, that's that's so good, DZ. And honestly, man, the reality is, I think the big the big issue right now within churches across the country is that they're asking, they're asking this disciple making question that you're asking, but they don't really have an answer to it yet.

Like they they keep trying different things, right? They may try this program here or this system here or, you know, this curriculum here. But the reality is, man, shifting the the illustration I use a lot, DZ, is this is really an operating system problem. You know, I've got I've got an iPhone right here, right with me.

And the reality is, it's like, you know, shifting from an iPhone to an Android or vice versa, that the undergird or the underlying foundation of most of our churches is just not a true disciple making system. The operating system is built on something else. And so getting that system to change is like you said, it takes courage.

It takes hard work. It takes failing forward. It takes, you know, messing up, you know, like, I mean, if I shifted my phone right now, I've been on an iPhone operating system for the last probably 15 years. And if I tried to shift to something else, there'd be a learning curve for a while where I just am not good at it.

Like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what the buttons do. And that's kind of the the struggle we need to be willing to have that if we're going to go away from that, like, you know, seeker sensitive, everybody come into my church and we're going to do this, like you said, for for, you know, the people or for lost people rather than actually our church is going to be about Jesus for Jesus to equip the saints to do the work of Jesus.

Like that's a very different purpose and a very different operating system to make that work. And it's it's hard work, dude. It's not easy. You know, it is. And that's why I said it really takes courage to believe Jesus and his word and to trust him to do what he said he would do. You know, it's on the tail end, right, of that command to make disciples.

And he says, and Lo, I'll be with you, you know, always. And can I rest in that and trust God's heart, even when I may not be able to see his hand always? Yeah. And and and for me, being the pastor of one hundred and fifty three year old traditional black Baptist church. Yeah. With all of the traditions, man.

Yeah. What I realized was, you know, I've got to give people. The time not just to believe something theologically, but to embrace it emotionally. Yeah. And what does this look like? And and then how does it help them to fulfill their potential? Yeah. Jesus Christ. And so, you know, it's just it's I'll tell you this, man.

You know, I'm sixty four. And I say, listen, you don't look sixty four, DZ, so you're looking good, brother. Well, I keep the gray man just so, you know, when I walk into really traditional settings, I look like I got a little wisdom. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But here's what's crazy, man. I told my wife several years ago, I said, you know, I've been at the church thirty two years.

They want to do another five years, maybe go back into the academy, do some teaching and some other stuff, do some writing. And man, when we made this shift and I would say this as a word of encouragement to any pastors who are listening, pastoring has never been easier for me so much so. And that's because everything is aligned for us now.

Worship is discipleship through song. Yeah, yeah. So that shifts how we approach worship from an entertainment value perspective to now. How is it going to edify and equip and encourage people? And when we made this shift, my God just moved in such a powerful way. And I was relieved of the pressure that most pastors feel.

When you move from being an equipper to an entertainer, you know, because what I realized just was even even Bible teaching and preaching evangelical churches, we've been as guilty of an attractional model as the high worship churches. We just changed what was at the center of the attraction. Right. The center of the attraction for the Bible churches and the evangelical churches was the word.

And I've got this great dynamic, charismatic preacher of the word. And you want to come in, get the word. The problem is the people who are coming are still sitting and they're still consumers. And now they're deciding where they go to church, not by the intensity of the worship, but that by the integrity of the word that's being preached.

Yeah. Yeah. Great word. And especially if that word doesn't challenge me as much as it does affirm what I already believe. Man, that's where I'm going. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. About identity politics. We really play identity preaching and identity theology. You know, I'm going to go someplace where, hey, man, people not only look like me, but they believe like me because I'm not trying to be challenged.

I don't want, you know, the pastor, you know, to say some things to me that, you know, might make me feel a little offended. Right. So, you know, what I say to pastors all the time is, man, this thing gets easier, man. I told my wife I want to do probably another five years at the time, which would have taken me to about thirty five.

Yeah. And I told her, man, three years ago, I said, you know, I think I want to do another 20 years. That's awesome. She was like, what? He was like, where'd that come from? What happened to retirement? And I just told her, I said, I've never had so much fun pastoring. That's great, man. People's lives change. I have a friend, man, that I've been working with his church and he's been at his church now 43 years.

And he's hearing the testimonies of people as he's making this cultural shift. And he said to me, he said, man, he said, I don't mean any harm, but I'm trying to figure out, like, what was I doing the first 40 years? I had a successful ministry by all of the metrics. He said, man, I'm hearing testimonies from people that I've never heard before.

Yeah. In terms of just walking with Jesus and and incorporating not just the spiritual disciplines, but they're taking on this challenge of being a disciple in earnest and now discipling other people. And when you hear people say one lady came to me, she said, you know, pastor, I just want to thank you.

She said, I've been discipling my nephew. She said, and the family has come to me and said, man, we don't know what you're doing with him. But man, we can see the change in his life. And she said, I never would have even thought I could do it before you challenged us to make this shift. Wow. He said, I just want to thank you because I see the difference it is making in me and how it's helping me to make a difference in other people's lives.

Bro, that's so beautiful, man. And what a testimony, DZ, for, like you said, for pastors out there that you're thinking that you're getting close to the end when you're wanting to retire. And then all of a sudden it's like, man, I've never enjoyed this more. I've never seen more impacts. It's never been so, quote unquote, easy.

We know pastoring is not easy, but compared to the uphill battle of the previous way of doing ministry, it seems so much more simple now. I mean, I love that testimony. And so for those of you out there listening, guys, listen, like Jesus, maybe he knew what he was talking about when he said to go make disciples.

You know, like this should be this should be the way we do ministry. There was a reason why he said his his burden is light, right? His yoke is easy. His burden is light ministry. If all we're feeling is ministry is so heavy and so difficult and we're burned out, maybe we're not doing it the way Jesus called us to do it.

Because he promised something different. And DZ, man, I'm so thrilled to hear that you found that kind of that when you're in flow with and in step with what Jesus has called us to, how much more simple things really gets. And it's just beautiful, man. Hey, we are we are almost out of time, DZ. I would love, man, if there's any last minute encouragements at the end of this episode here that you'd like to give our listeners or anything that's kind of burning in your heart or even a challenge you want to give them if they want to start stepping into this.

I mean, yeah, just feel free to to speak directly to our listeners, man, whatever might be on your heart. Yeah, well, I want to encourage people to really come to the conference, and I want to encourage pastors to not only come, but to also bring key people with you. And one of the things that I've learned, I've worked with conferences over the years, and those churches that really maximize the opportunity were the churches that made investments in leadership, not just in the pastor.

And they went to conferences, and they went to workshops together, and I love the format of the conference because you work hard during the day, and then you can have dinner and debrief in the evening, right? You know, we're not just, you know, it's not church, church, church, you know, service, service, service, sermon, sermon, sermon.

You know, it really is a working conference, and when you bring people and they see it, I know as a pastor, you can be inspired and you can be exposed and then go back and leaders, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally kind of pour water on your fire, you know, don't see it. They didn't see it, but when you have an opportunity to engage, I said earlier, the first time I heard about the conference, I brought three of my key staff people with me, because that's all I could get together.

Yeah, you know, last year, I had about 25 to 30 people that we brought to the conference. This year, we'll probably be 50 or 60 people, right? And it's convenient in terms of where we are, but I'm going to be honest with you, man. It had nothing to do with convenience, because the first year was in Indianapolis, and we had a great time, right? And I was determined, you know, hey, man, we're going to bring at least 20, 25 next year, because you have an opportunity to see and hear and fellowship and you receive affirmation for what you've been thinking, new information, maybe even some challenges in terms of I've been thinking about this.

And so I just want to encourage people to make the investment in coming to the conference and pastors make the investment, get your leadership elders, send more than just the pastor. The more people that see a vision, the less you have to explain, and the more you can talk about implementation. So many times as a pastor, I would go to conferences and I didn't know that lesson and I'd come back and I'd be on fire and man leaders knowingly or unknowingly intentionally or unintentionally would pour water on the fire, right?

They start critiquing, they start criticizing and this is such a powerful, powerful opportunity because of the structure of the conference as well. You know, I'm going to have 50 people, maybe 60 people coming and I'm already strategizing and saying, okay, when they get through, how are we going to meet? Am I going to have them meet in different teams and have different people talk about the discipleship implications for our church or our ministry?

And the other piece is, man, you're starting at ground level. And what I love about the conference is, you know, there's some high level discussions around discipleship, but there's some welcome to discipleship conversations. Got a discipleship one on one, man. Hey, you just heard about the phrase. What does it look like? What does it mean?

I think what's powerful about that is it can help somebody build a culture of discipleship from the ground up. Yeah, everybody's so accessible, you know, people, man, that I read for years, Bill Hull, Brandon, you know, so many other, Jim Putnam, me, you know, to put faces with names and to hear them actually say, hey, man, yeah, sure. Let's get together. Yeah, let's, you know, that's absolutely, man, amazing. And to me, that's an embodiment of the kingdom.

Yeah. Amen, man. Amen. Yeah. And so if you guys are listening, like, yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Cofield, like you guys have got to come and check out the conference. You can check out information at discipleship.org. You can come there and get your tickets. But like he said, it is in April in Houston, Texas this year. And so we would absolutely love to have you guys.

And Dr. Cofield is going to be actually in our final session of the conference, bringing the word. And I'm sure I can sell, brother, that just by the way you spoke on this podcast, you're going to bring some fire, man. Some of my favorite preachers, man, are good old black preachers, brother. And just it was funny, DZ, I was recording a podcast at a studio a few years back, and there were these pre-recorded buttons you could hit on the podcast, right? And so one of them was a laugh track. If you hit it, people would clap. And another one was a laugh track that or a clap track and a laugh track and all that. Right. And so so one of them, though, was a black preacher saying, come on, somebody, you know, and I hit that thing probably 30

different times during the podcast, DZ. And so honestly, brother, at the end, if I could get a really good come on somebody out of you, man, I would I would be forever indebted to you, brother. Well, let me just say, man, it's really. For me, an honor to be part of of the team, you know, I teach discipleship, I teach classes through my organization, I consult with churches and, you know, I've spoken at conferences and stuff like that. I never came to discipleship dot org saying, oh, I got to be on, you know, really came in and brought my people because I wanted them to see what I saw. And, you know, so far, I mean, you know, just not just the hundreds of people that have united with our church out of this, you know, because the numbers

are really not the issue to see people grow from the inside out and to see them walking in their faith, you know, to see our growth marked by right now, we're at forty seven percent of our growth is adult conversion growth. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's just exciting, man, to see people coming to faith and moving them into a discipleship process and then encouraging them to pray for those people who need Jesus and see them start discipling people who never thought that they were disciples. Because again, you know, we've always portrayed it as this Navy seal saying, you know, right, right. Christian that, you know, leaps tall Bibles in a single bound and your prayer for fasted in a speeding bullet, you know, and it's like, no, hold on,

man. No, you are a disciple. You know, let me help you understand who you are and then help you to walk in who God created you to be. Yeah. Amen, brother. Thank you, man, brother. Thank you for just your heart, for your passion, for this and for sharing that with our listeners. Guys, if you've been listening, I know you've been encouraged. I know you've been blessed.

And so, DZ, if somebody wants to reach out to you or to find where your ministry is, how would they do that? Yeah, they can find me at good hope.org. That's one word. Good hope.org. Our number is 713-524-6578. I have a couple of organizations that we've launched in the last three years. One is Church Training Institute, where we come in and teach and train churches.

And then I have a consulting organization called the Syrit Group. Okay. We come in and work with organizations. We work with colleges, universities, nonprofits. That's awesome. Come in to say, hey, you know, how can we help you get on mission? Here's what's interesting. And Josh, you remember this. There was a time when we were talking to church growth experts and we were applying business principles to the church context. And people were saying, man, you know, you need to have a mission statement. You know, church has got to have a mission statement. We're not on mission. And church has spent a lot of money calling in consultants and we're going to develop this really fly mission statement and this

fly vision statement. And, you know, I started telling churches, man, just recently, Jesus already has a mission for his church. He really doesn't need you to come up with this fly mission statement. He already has a mission. He just wants you to take his mission and make his mission your mission. Amen, man. And if you do that corporately and you help people do that personally, then I think we'll be defined as people who turn the world upside down because we help people turn their lives right side up. Hey, amen, man. I think that is a beautiful line to end on Dr. Coffield. Thank you so much, brother. And thanks for being here with us, dude. I'm so grateful for you. We can't wait to see you at the conference in April.

And so those listening guys, listen, come check us out. Come hang out with us. I'll be there with Dr. Coffield. And we've got several other incredible speakers that are going to be hitting the stage and also doing great breakouts as well. And so you don't want to miss it. Check it out again at discipleship.org. But until next time, let's go out there. Let's be disciples who make disciples. And like Dr. Coffield said, let's make sure that we are taking his mission seriously. And so we'll see you guys next time.

Thanks again.

Raising the Bar: How a 153-Year-Old Church Embraced Radical Discipleship

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