Successes and Slip-ups In Disciple Making | Justin Gravitt

0:00 Hey everybody, welcome back to the Disciple Makers podcast. This is your host Josh Howard, and today's episode features an interview with Justin Gravitt and Roy Fitzwater from the Navigators Church Ministries about Jesus style disciple making and partnering across organizations and denominations. Let's take a listen.

0:35 Welcome everyone to discipleship.org. I'm so glad to have you with us. We have some very special guests today. They're special because of their extensive period of experience where they're going to have much to share with us. Let me tell you first about discipleship.org. Discipleship.org champions Jesus style disciple making, and we champion that wherever we find it.

1:01 In fact, our dream and our desire is we look forward to the day when disciple making, Jesus style disciple making, is the core activity or the core mission of every church in North America and beyond. So to help us with that, we know there's no one organization that can do that. And so we partner with organizations like Replicate and Lion Share and the Relational Discipleship Network and many others.

1:34 And we do that because we want to encourage everybody everywhere who's practicing Jesus style disciple making. We're kind of like the Chamber of Commerce of discipleship.org and that our business is to help them be successful at their business, which is helping make disciples the way Jesus made disciples.

1:57 So in that quest, we have two special guests from the Navigators. In fact, the Navigators Church Division with us today, Justin Gravitz and Roy Fitzwater work every day in this focus of making disciples of Jesus. So I'm going to start with Justin so that he can tell us a little bit about the Navigators and about the Navigator Church Division.

2:26 Actually, Justin, if you'll start, tell us about yourself first, and then the founding of the Navigators. We have a lot of people who may not know about that. And then introduce us to your colleague. Sure. Thanks, Bobby. We're excited to be here. My name is Justin Gravitz. I work in Dayton, Ohio with Navigator Church Ministries.

2:48 Been with the Navigators for 20 years now, 18 years on staff. Started on the campus working with college students and then moved to working with Buddhist students on a campus up in Indiana. And then my wife and I moved overseas as missionaries in Southeast Asia for a number of years. And for the past about five years, I've been with Navigator Church Ministries and more about me, husband of one, father of four.

3:16 And just my kids are all young and rambunctious. So it's a lot of fun. Eight, six, four, and two are their ages. The Navigators are an organization that's been around for 85 years. We're founded in 1933 by Dawson Trotman, who some people say is the father of modern day disciple making. And he kind of fell into it, to be honest, because he had just a passion for ministry, a passion for evangelism.

3:45 And as he shared his faith over and over again, he had a rule that he set for himself that he would not go to bed any night without sharing his faith. And one night he realized he was in bed and hadn't done it yet. And so he thought, well, I'll just do two tomorrow. And then the spirit checked him and he said, no, if you let it slide tonight, you'll let it slide another night.

4:07 So he got out of bed, he got dressed, got in his car and went down the highway in South California, found a hitchhiker, picked him up. And the hitchhiker says to Dawson, where are you headed? And Dawson said, I'm headed exactly as far as you are, because I've already been in bed tonight and I want to get back.

4:26 And so he explained what was going on, shared the gospel with this guy. The gospel made it, the guy made a profession of faith. And as they were talking, Dawson realized that he picked up this guy before, about a year earlier, and he saw no difference in this guy from the year prior to that night. And he said, something's wrong, he said to himself.

4:48 And what he discovered was wrong was that he was just praying with people and sending them off and trusting them to the Lord, Philippians 1, 6, being confident of this, that you began a good work and you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. And off he went. And there was flesh and blood example that this was not working.

5:07 And so that was kind of a crisis for him, that he began to wrestle into the scriptures and say, well, no, it's not me that entrusts new believers to God, God entrusts them to me. Wow. Yeah. And so that's kind of a start of the Navigators, is when he started to figure that out and started to work with Navy midshipmen that were coming in off the ships and kind of really blew up a disciple making movement that through the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, really expanded through that time.

5:40 Wow. That's great. Yeah. All right. So, Justin, tell us about what's unique about the church division of the Navigators. Oh, by the way, I had never heard that Dawson Trotman story before. And that's pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I know the story of how he died. Just so everybody knows, the name Dawson Trotman in disciple making circles is huge.

6:08 And evidently, Dawson Trotman died, that they were on a boat and a woman fell off and she was drowning. And so he dove in and held her up so that she was rescued. But evidently, it got so cold or something, he ended up drowning. And so the caption, I think in Time Magazine, was he's always was holding other people up.

6:35 Yes. Yeah, that's right. And that was in Spruan Lake in New York. And yeah, what a way to go out, right? To save somebody else. And that's how he lived his life. So Navigator Church Ministries is a branch within the organization where our role is really just to focus on helping the local church pastors and church leaders figure out disciple making in their context.

7:01 And it's such a joy for us to do this because we are a vital part of churches ourselves. And we've been working with our own pastors and church leaders and seeking to lead within our own churches in appropriate ways. And so that's what we get to do for our nine to five job as well, which I sometimes feel like I'm stealing, you know, that I get to do this and somehow be supported by it.

7:28 So that's really the focus that we have. And what we really, we try to work with pastors and accomplish a few different things. So the first thing is that we want to see pastors and church leaders become disciple makers themselves. A lot of times churches will come to us or they'll hear about our work and, you know, they'll say, hey, we really want to launch this in our own churches.

7:50 And we're excited and encouraged by that. But we often try to slow them down and say, well, before we can do that, we need to have a disciple making pastor before we can have a disciple making church or disciple making culture. And so we humbly walk alongside them. About a third of our team are former pastors, about a third of our team are former missionaries or other things.

8:13 And about a third of our team are career navigators. And so we have a diversity in that mix. But none of us, you know, regardless of our background, have all the answers in terms of moving into a church and trying to help. I mean, it's complicated, as you know, Bobby, a lot of moving pieces. But what we really try to be is a friend and a confidant to the pastor that he can trust and that he can lean on because a lot of times they don't have that.

8:45 So the first, like I said, the first one is pastors, church leaders, disciple makers. Second outcome that we're trying to find or develop is a culture of disciple making in the local church. And so that is an express high value in the culture. I work locally. Most of my churches are local to Dayton, Ohio here.

9:07 And another pastor that I just started working with took his kids across town to Awana at another church that he didn't know I was working with. And he came back to me and he said, hey, you're working with this church over here, aren't you? And I said, well, yeah, but you know, why do you say that? He said, well, my son was in Awana and I was just walking around the lobby and I was looking at some of the things on their wall and some of the things that they were talking about in their literature.

9:34 And I thought, man, that sounds like the stuff that Justin's talking about. And so that's an example of when it gets deep into the culture, you know, from a first visit, maybe sometimes just walking around the lobby of a church, they can sense, boy, disciple making is important here. And this is what this church is giving themselves to.

9:52 So disciple making pastors, a church culture that functions and revolves around disciple making. And the last one is probably our most ambitious goal, to be honest with you. And that is that disciple makers will be sent to the nations from the churches that we're working with. And this one is deeply personal to me, because being a missionary for a lot of years in Southeast Asia, I was engaging with people that had never met a follower of Christ.

10:22 And as they engaged with me, they were hungry. And when it's time for us to come back, my heart was grieved because I stay in and continue to stay in contact with a number of them. But I knew there would be no new people that would be met, because there was nobody around that could take my place. And we looked hard.

10:41 And so I really believe if we're going to reach the nations, we need to become sending churches and disciple making churches are the ones that need to lead that charge. That's that's really awesome. Okay, let me ask you this. You work with a lot of different denominations. Talk to us about that, because we sent out a blog actually a week or so ago, through our database, just trying to talk about how disciple making can actually be one of those things that as long as we agree on the core gospel, and, you know, we understand the authority of scripture, that we can actually work across denominations.

11:29 And I know, Justin, that's one of the things that you especially champion, and, you know, given your life to talk to us about that, because it's at the heart of what you're doing. Right? Yeah. That's one of the unique ways that we're positioned. So as the navigators, we're kind of alike, none of the denominations exactly, but we're kind of in agreement with all of them on the major things.

11:54 So we work with churches all over the denominational map, a couple denominations have approached us as a denomination and said, Hey, could you come and help us as a denomination? And that's been really helpful. But locally, what I'm doing and seeing is that these pastors in different denominations, they often feel isolated around this concept of making disciples and being high value first priority type outlook on disciple making.

12:24 And within their denominations, they're not finding a lot of peers or a lot of people that are on board with that are championing it the way that you are and discipleship.org is. And so when they're connecting with me, it encourages them, they don't feel like they're so you know, isolated in that way.

12:41 And one of the other things that we're able to do locally, is develop a network of pastors that have that on their hearts that come from these different denominational backgrounds. And it's just so fun to watch them interact, because they're all on the same page of disciple making reproducing their life the way that Christ did.

13:02 Roy said that he might he switched out a laptop. And so let's give it a try. Hey, sorry about that technology is great till it doesn't work. So take just a second and tell us about yourself, Roy, and what you do with the navigators. So my wife and I co direct the navigator church ministries. I've been married for 38 years, and with the navigators for 13, and have two adult sons.

13:34 And so we get to not only direct the ministry, but also remain involved with individual churches. And as Justin was talking about these denominations, Margaret and I are working with one of the clusters in the Carolinas with those. That's great. So before joining the navigators, you said it's just been 13 years.

13:54 I assume you were in some version of ministry before that. Yeah, so we were with a retreat ministry for pastors. And then prior to that, we're in the corporate world, worked for Frito-Lay at different times. That's great. Well, so glad that you could join with us, Roy. One of the things I want to jump right into, if we can now, guys, is 85 years of the navigators, really with a laser focus on making disciples in relationships, start talking to us.

14:29 We want to accent the positive, because I really think that's important, as you all said that you wanted to make sure you emphasize. Let's start off by talking about some of the negative things you've learned, because in so many ways, that can be just as helpful as the positive things. Sure. So I think one of the areas that we as a parachurch organization have made some mistakes is that we haven't always recognized the value of the church and the fact that we're better when we work together.

15:02 So I think that's classic among church and parachurch. There's sort of this suspicion, a little bit of pride, that you're stealing my guy or my gal, some of those kinds of things. And so I think we've really learned a lot about that in the last number of years. The fact that Navigators has a division that focuses on helping churches be intentional about making disciples is certainly a clear part of that.

15:27 And Justin and I were talking earlier, we're really coming against a common enemy, and the enemy is not those that are not yet in the kingdom, and it's not each other. It's ourselves and the things that God hasn't changed in us yet. And so instead, we need to unite against our real enemy, Satan. No, that's good.

15:47 I agree. I think that when we look at the other side, and we think that we have it, and we've figured it out, whether it's church, parachurch, whoever, it's really a downer for the kingdom, right? Because we're all trying to do the same thing. And one of the things that we are really committed to as the Navigators is being a part of the church, right?

16:12 So we don't even see ourselves as parachurch, we see ourselves as pro-church. We are part of the church and seeking to work in it and through it. And as I mentioned a bit earlier, Bobby, just about the nations and sending people to the nations, that is something we need all hands on deck to do. That was one of the things that over the course of our history, there are certainly places where we can look and say, and we kind of went off the rails there a little bit.

16:42 That might be too strong a way to say it, but you know what I'm saying. I do. And I just really appreciate your vulnerability and transparency there. Because on the one hand, there's a problem, I'll come back to that in just a second. But on the other hand, what often has happened going back even to the days of Dawson Trotman and maybe even more so back then, is the churches weren't doing it.

17:08 The churches were not making disciples. And so if you wanted to, out of frustration, many times people just had to go and do it apart from the local church. But instead, what I hear you saying is, no, it's a partnership where we want to do this in partnership with the local church, because God's plan A is making disciples in the local church.

17:36 Sure. Thanks for sharing that. Talk to us about any other lessons on the nation. Another one that we've been reflecting on, and that certainly is in our history, is performance driven disciple making. Or another way to say that is discipling just above the waterline. So the waterline being what we can see, right?

17:59 Our behaviors, our words, our actions. The Navigators really began high performance. A staff member of the Navigators, 60 years ago, was expected to pray an hour a day, read the Bible an hour a day, and to memorize a verse a day. And that was just common. That was just the way it was. And I'm not suggesting that for those people that started that, that that was a bad thing or a wrong thing, because the gospel, I don't think the gospel is opposed to striving, but it's opposed to earning.

18:32 And so the problem comes when we start to try to put those expectations on other people and make that as like, well, if you're really a disciple, you're going to do these things that scripture doesn't indicate. Certainly we need to be reading scripture and reflecting on it. It doesn't tell us we need to do it an hour a day, right?

18:52 And so what we've really learned a lot of is, well, how do we get down deeper in a person's life to understand character, to understand motivations, to help them untangle deep issues and problems that they're facing, that even though they try to grunt and will themselves to do something different, they just find themselves continuing to fall short of that.

19:19 And so how can we come alongside people and help in areas like that? So kind of moving more in a more focused way on not just the above the waterline stuff, but below, not just the performance, but also the heart and the motivations. Well, that's really good. You know, in the Q&A box, somebody asked the question, Charles did, it says, do the navigators emphasize prayer with fasting as a component of disciple making?

19:49 And I think you just said, yeah, we used to emphasize it so much for an hour a day, but now rather than just focusing on external metrics, we try to get to the heart of the issue. Right. Yeah. That's good. Go ahead, Roy. When we first were considering joining the navigators, we had a friend tell us, oh, you can't be a navigator.

20:11 You have a quiet time every day, but it's not 4.30 in the morning, it doesn't count. So was the historical background on that just a real, almost like a Marine's commitment to reach people and make the world different? Like where did that come from? Yeah, I really think that was it. I mean, it grew out of the military, and so people were used to command and control performance sorts of things.

20:41 So I think it easily flowed into that. Oh, that makes sense. I've heard stories from some older guys. When they were trained in the NAVs, they were trained on how to fold their socks, and their discipler would come in and check their drawer, and if the socks weren't folded exactly right, the drawer would be dumped and do it again.

21:01 But you can see where that would come right out of the militaristic culture. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay, guys. So let's transition and start talking about the positive things that you've learned, that you're sharing, that you're advocating for, you're calling people to. Yeah, we wanted to share about our Growing Intentional Disciplemaking Cultures process.

21:27 And I think Roy was going to share the screen. Do you have that, or I can't get you? Yep, I got it. Hold on one second. Switch laptops. As he's getting that, what is it, Justin? So this is our process that we help churches through, and so I talked about our three outcomes that we're searching for. The first is disciplemaking pastor, the second is the disciplemaking culture, and the third is disciplemakers are sent out all over the world.

21:52 And so this is specifically that middle one, where we have worked with a pastor enough or are in the process with the pastor. We see him taking those steps and discipling a few people or one person at least, and then as that happens, then we begin to say, well, what would happen if we started to think about moving this into the culture of the church?

22:13 I think Roy's going to explain that to us. Yeah, so if you look at the first circle, and this is a process that we work with a church leadership team over about a three-year period of time, because we're out to grow their culture into being one that is characterized by disciplemaking. So first, we invest in a leadership core.

22:31 It's typically the senior pastor, three to five other folks, a mixture of laity and pastor, and we're really seeking to create disciplemakers there. So they have experience doing it, they know how to pass it on to somebody else. And so the goal out of that first circle of the leadership core is leaders who model and can really take that forward into the rest of the culture of the church.

22:56 And then when we move into the culture, we move to a larger team of folks, usually somewhere between 10 and 25, depending on the size of the church. But cultures are characterized by shared language, values, vision, and pictures. And so that's really what we're trying to develop within a church. Today, most churches have a mission statement and a vision statement.

23:20 Some even have written core values, but very few of them have a picture of a disciple. So if you are trying to produce a disciple, but you don't know exactly what that is, it makes it very difficult. So during that year, in that circle there, we're really working at producing those five things, the purposeful leaders, a picture, a pathway.

23:40 So one of the things we learned from working with the folks at Reveal is that people want a clear pathway. How do I move and grow as a disciple? And that's true even among millennials, and they want to know, how can I grow in this area, in that area? Understanding they're not going to master any of them at any one time, but they want to see progress and growth.

24:00 And that's actually one of the other things we're doing, is ways to measure progress. But we have more disciple makers today than we did a year ago, and are they deeper in their relationship with the Lord? So out of that, what we're trying to produce is mature believers who are out in their local community.

24:16 We're sending them out where they live, work, and play. I mean, Justin, you want to cover that last circle? As we think about the church, one of the things that I consistently face in working with the pastors, and then the first leaders that emerge, are there's a focus kind of within. And I don't think it's necessary that it has to be that way.

24:37 I'm not suggesting all churches are that way, but many are, especially the ones that we end up working with. And so what we're really pushing the actual, the labor, laborers, not laborers, the actual normal people, sorry, I'm losing my phraseology. But the lay people. Every day disciples. Every day disciple makers, thank you, is that they are having a ministry of their own, right?

25:05 Because we believe that God has called them to be disciple makers. We look in Acts 17, where God says that he has determined the time set for us to live on the earth. And so he's picked out out of all of eternity, the exact years that we're going to be here. And it also says that he determined the exact places where we should live.

25:24 And so we don't believe it's an accident that you live in the house that you live in, on the street that you're on, in the city that you're in, in the workplace that you go to, you have been strategically placed in those areas, in those exact locations, to reach people for Christ and to make disciples.

25:41 And so what we try to do is to help equip average lay people to be disciple makers in their place, wherever they are. And that's a role really that only they can fulfill, right? Because there might be some overlap at work, there might be some overlap in the neighborhood, but nobody has overlap in every slice of that person's life.

26:04 And so what we want to do with the church is to help them figure out, well, how do we move as a community, as a faith community, to an outward focus, a missional focus that people can be equipped to go out? Because we often hear, and I think about this a lot, the Great Commission, when Jesus said it to his disciples, his disciples were ready.

26:28 And they were so ready, they had to be told to wait, right? Now, wait on the Holy Spirit before you go. But when we talk about it in churches, people nod their heads, and then they leave, and then they don't do anything. Why is that? I think a lot of it has to come back to the culture that we are grown in, it's a culture that we tend to go in.

26:53 And so if we're raised in a culture that's informational, where we just look at maturity as knowing certain things, or like I was talking about before with performance, doing certain things. But we don't look at it more holistically of who are you, and are you focused the way that Christ is focused? And people look around and they say, well, what do you mean?

27:14 Go where? I'm not a pastor, I don't have something to lead, nobody's asking me to preach, you're not asking me to do a class, and if you did, I wouldn't feel confident enough to do it. And so one of the ways that navigators can help, especially those of us who have never been pastors, is that we can say to them, and we can help the pastor see kind of as a bridge person.

27:37 Well, you know, with my pastor friends, they realize I'm not exactly a pastor, but with my other friends, they realize I'm not exactly like them, but I can function as a bridge. And so with that, we help them, all right, well, how do we reach the people that are around you that God has brought into your life?

27:55 And what we see is as we orient a culture around that priority, then new Christ followers begin to come in. And so to finish up the illustration here, so we see the arrows, well, as the arrows come through, the new Christ followers come in, new leaders come in to leadership core, new models emerge, new Christ followers are sent in the community, and so we kind of have a figure eight pattern that begins to flow from the local church into the community, back through the local church, back into the community, and that's really what we're looking for.

28:31 You know, you guys, I really like what you've got here. I want to dive down a little bit more into what you're doing with leaders. And again, I just think this is really good. Is this the kind of stuff of the National Disciplemaking Forum that you're going to be talking about? So this year at the Disciplemaking Forum, we're talking about some aspects of this, but the process in and of itself, we're not going to be spending a lot of time on this year.

29:03 Last year, we did have a workshop that was focused on that. This year, we really want to lean into this theme of relationships. And so kind of like we mentioned before with performance versus below the waterline, we're having three workshops, and they're all on the theme of disciplemaking relationships, get real, and go deep.

29:24 And so the first workshop we're having is we get real and go deep by nurturing people instead of programs. And not to say that programs can't be leveraged in certain ways for the benefit of the kingdom, but many churches are program focused and program centric. And so the focus becomes just getting through the program.

29:44 And what ends up happening is people are excited about the program, it begins, but it never quite, they never quite see the transformation that they're hoping for. And so they start the next program. And so what we try to do both with pastors, but also helping to equip both the pastors and the laity to do is how do we develop relationships that help us to model what it looks like to be like Christ in other's lives, you know, not just for an hour or two on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights, but how do we engage people where they are in a skillful manner.

30:20 So that's our first workshop. The second one is going to be focused on disciple making relationships, get real and go deep by healing relational pain, instead of hiding it. And so when we're in real relationships, there are often real struggles, right? One of the biggest things we face in churches or that we help assist in and some of our staff, this is what they major on and two of our staff that are leading this workshop are those that major in this is the conflict that happens between pastors of staff level between lay people and their neighbors or workplace.

30:58 But then the relational pain that we get from those relationships, what we do with it, right? Because all of us can relate to that. We have it sometimes. And we realize we want to get it out and we want to somehow process it, but we don't know how we don't have the skills to do that. And so that workshop is going to focus on that.

31:17 Our third workshop is going to be focused on disciple making relationships, get real and go deep by freeing people instead of sidelining them. And this workshop is focused on helping non-relational people become relational disciple makers. This is something that I have lived, you know, and people have helped me because I am not a people person.

31:41 I have had to learn people's skills and really develop that in myself. But I see over and over again in churches, and sometimes in the life of pastors where they're relating professionally, but they're not relating personally. They're not, they don't want to get deep with people. And so this workshop, we're going to look at, well, why, what do we do with that?

32:02 Because most of the time what disciple makers do with that is they just overlook those people and they say, well, I'm going to select somebody else. And part of that is they don't know what to do with them. Part of it is, you know, we have a faith acronym. So we've heard of FAT for selection, faithful, available, teachable.

32:21 Women don't like that one. And some men don't like it. And so there's a faith, right? And so faith becomes the I is initiative and the H is heart for God and people. I never liked, especially the I, because I was not an initiator, especially in terms of people and leading and stuff like that. But somebody took the time for me to help me overcome things within myself that allowed me to be free to be a disciple maker.

32:52 And so that workshop is going to be focused on how do we help people like that who really are still called to be a disciple maker and can become that. Well, let me just say, spending time, Justin, with you and Margaret Fitzwater, Roy's wife, which is great because Margaret brings a female perspective, that you guys just do a great job.

33:14 I mean, the whole thing of 85 years, you guys actually are the repository of so many lessons learned that I just think it's fantastic. I think Jason has a little flyer he's going to put on the screen so you can get a discount through the Navigator code. There it is. If you use the discount code NAVIGATE, excuse me, you can get a pretty significant price off to join us at the National Disciple Making Forum.

33:47 Okay, back, Roy, I want to go back to you. And I'll tell you, if you're a church leader, as you were describing what you're doing with the churches, if you would take the screen back and talk to us a little bit about that category with the local church. I think many people will be interested in how you define a disciple and the explicit path that you have.

34:14 Sure, so because we come in as coaches and not consultants, we don't come in with answers. So what we want to do is engage this leadership team with God and his word to help define those. So, for example, in a picture of a disciple, there's a Bible study, you know, there's no single passage that says a disciple is, but there are lots of passages that give us an idea of what does a disciple need to know, what's their character need to be, what are the things they need to do, what should their vision be.

34:46 And so working together with a group of folks, we facilitate a process through this Bible study to come up with an actual picture of a disciple. Many times, the church will reduce it to something that's memorable, like a mnemonic, like love well or follow me or those kinds of things that mine out what is it that we hope to be creating as we make disciple makers.

35:12 So that's kind of the way we approach the picture side of things. And then the pathway is really around helping things to be clear. So how do I move from brand new believer to beginning to grow in Christ? So some of the things include scripture memory, and, you know, there are five basic assurances that many times we include, like the assurance of salvation, assurance of answer prayer, assurance of victory over sin, and we encourage believers to learn those.

35:45 So I'm actually discipling two guys right now. One of them was learning Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, and came to our meeting and just talked about how powerful it was to know that he could go to God and depend on him for everything in terms of answers, walking with him, believing that scripture and following it.

36:06 Yeah, that's good. So I just want to go back to, I've heard George Barna describe it this way. People don't need a menu. They need a pathway. Tell us a little bit more about why that's so important because most churches don't have a pathway. They have a menu. Yeah. In fact, in the early 80s, Margaret and I were part of a megachurch in Dallas that called it the cafeteria approach to ministry, and you could come in and pick from, you know, six different women's Bible studies and eight men's and all that sort of thing.

36:42 But that really becomes confusing, and it's also very difficult to reproduce. So if we're able to give somebody, and it's not a check the box, it's not move from point A to point B, point C, but it is, there's some natural progressions, some ways that we want to grow people up, some of those foundational verses that we want them to learn.

37:07 There are certain topics that can wait until later, or, you know, in many ways, it's sort of a just-in-time kind of thing. So I don't need to know about subject X in the Christian walk until maybe I'm facing that, and I'll be much more open to not just learn it, but to apply it. Justin, anything to add to that?

37:27 No, I totally agree. I think the pathway really helps us get to that picture, right? So we really look at the picture as, you know, we put on the wall or it's out there on the horizon, the pathway is, well, how do we build, you know, a path or a road to get people there so that when people come into the church, you know, wherever they are, we know, okay, well, here's where you start, and then here's the next thing, and we're going to help you grow.

37:57 And this, from day one or week one or whatever it is, we can communicate, this is who we're seeking to become. And I think what you said a little bit ago, Roy, about each church develops that for themselves is really important, because a church in the inner city is going to have a different picture. They're going to emphasize a little bit different things about being a disciple than a church in the suburbs.

38:20 And one's not right, one's not wrong, but that's who God's asking them to be and creating them to be. And so the pathway then is also going to be a little bit different for each church. So we go in and try to help them develop that for themselves. And so we really function as a coach role in that process.

38:37 No, that's really good. Hey, just talking about the richness, the depth of the material that you guys have accumulated over all these years. I know that we've talked a little bit, you're going to be sending everybody who's on the webinar or who requests it through our Facebook Live group an ebook. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

39:05 Again, just appreciate so much these resources, but at the same time, I've got to say, you've done a great job with your diagram and the way you go about a very simple to follow process. So I just commend you guys. Roy, you want to tell them that? Talk to everybody about the book you're going to be sending out.

39:32 So the book is a book that focuses on our process. And what it tries to do is it gives you a picture of a church working through the process. And so it's a fictional account of really a conglomeration of a lot of different experiences that we've had with different pastors. But walking through that process of the illustration that Roy explained, and it's an ebook, so it's not super long, but it is enough to get a sense of what would it feel like and look like to work with us and to move this process into your church and to see disciple makers emerge as a result.

40:10 It focuses on some of the obstacles that we see really often in different churches, and how do we get through those. And so we hope it will be a real help to people out there who are trying to figure it out on their own or who are considering working with us or someone else connected to discipleship.org.

40:27 Yeah, as you're reading the book, it's really you're kind of looking over the pastor's shoulder reading his journal. And so as he anticipates meeting with his coach, he shares both concerns and fears as well as what he's looking forward to. And at the back of the book, the three circle diagram is there as well.

40:45 So for anybody that wants to drill down on that a little bit more, other than what was on the shared screen up there. Oh, that's good. I do want to, we have a question that came about in the Q&A box on leadership that I want to ask you guys. But before I do that, if I'm watching this webinar and I say to myself, I'd like to follow up with the Navigator Church Division.

41:13 Most people didn't even know a church division existed, but I'd like to follow up and get some help as we're trying to make disciples in my church. What's the first and best step, Justin? So the first step I think would be to get on our website. Roy, can you remind them what that is? Remind me really, but.

41:32 Sure, it's navigatorchurchministries.org. I couldn't remember if it was org or com. Yep. Navigatorchurchministries, singular, dot org? Plural. Plural. Navigatorchurchministries.org. Yeah. And then from there, what will they do, Roy? So there's a place, hold on, I'm going to bring it up just so that the address is right down here at the bottom of this.

41:59 So from there, there's a place that they can click contact us and it'll basically open up an email that'll come to the person who does our kind of oversight of all that. And then they'll be back in touch. Typically what we do then is, depending on where they are regionally, we'll pass that information on to one of our eight regional leaders and they'll follow up with them.

42:21 So wherever we can make face-to-face, we do that, although we do lots of stuff by phone as well. Okay, great. Well, we did get a question, actually, we got a couple that we probably want to hit on real quick. And the first one is, Justin, somebody was asking for the acronym FAITH. Again, if you'll give that just to make sure it's really clear.

42:42 F-A-I-T-H. FAITH. Yeah. So that's the acronym. The first one is FAITHFUL. The A is AVAILABLE. The I is INITIATIVE. The T is TEACHABLE. And the H is HEART FOR GOD AND PEOPLE. Although I'll be honest, Bobby, I want to change the H. I was talking about this with a pastor about six months ago. And he observed in the scriptures, we're just looking through, well, what do you see in the disciples?

43:09 Because he was getting ready to select. And I said, well, what do you see in the disciples? And so he went and did that. We talked about it the next week. And he said, well, in each and every one of them, I see a real hunger for more. I really like that a little better because the heart for God and people, I feel like should be assumed, right?

43:26 We wouldn't even be considering them if they didn't have a heart for God. But that they have a hunger for more than what they're currently getting in their church context. That's pretty good. But you're not allowed, once you're in an organization and you have acronyms, you can't change them. It's not allowed.

43:43 That's a good point. No, I think that that's good. The initiative is really helpful as the disciple maker is kind of the lead person. Because if you have somebody who takes initiative, you're not the one that is every time texting, Hey, are we getting it together Monday morning? That sort of thing. If they begin to do that, then it's also kind of proof that they're going to be able to turn around and do that with other folks.

44:07 Boy, I just, that's so good. Okay. I want to get to Terry's question because I think it's a good one. There's a big push on leadership in the church today. You know, leadership pipeline and all that. How is that different than disciple making or discipleship? So many times, I think with church leaders, we look at the same qualities that we'd look at for a business leader, and that's often how we select elders and deacons and that sort of thing.

44:39 Boy, they're great at the bank. They'd be great in our church. I think the difference between that and disciple making is that we really want to be looking at those, the core practices that Justin talked about earlier, you know, spending time in the word, hearing from God on a regular basis, being transformed by that time in prayer.

44:58 So, and leaders can certainly evidence all those things, but if you only focus on being a good leader and not a disciple or disciple maker, I think you can miss some of the spiritual aspects of that. No, I think, Justin, I'd like you to go ahead and comment on that. I would add to that that, you know, when I was overseas, I realized how much our culture influences the way we think about leading.

45:29 And you know, as I looked at Southeast Asia and some of the things that were enviable, the characteristics that were enviable in people. It was, you know, things like being peaceful, you know, trying to build harmony among people. And it was much less of the really being assertive and, you know, being a strong leader and communicating, you know, strongly and being able to do that in large groups and, and all that's fine.

45:56 But what it caused me to do was really go back to the scriptures and look at Jesus from a new lens and say, well, how much of my view of Christ or my view of leadership is influenced by my culture? And how much is actually what I see in Christ? And so, you know, I offer that just as that helped me so much in looking at and understanding the difference between becoming like him and looking and acting and smelling like him and my relationships and, you know, just doing things because that's, that's the water that I'm in and the air that I'm breathing of a culture.

46:34 And one other thing to add, I would say is that, you know, disciple making is for everyone, but not everyone is a good leader. So Well, that's good. You guys, both of those are really, they're all three of the things you guys said is really good. You know, I can tell you from the position of spending, you know, three decades now as a senior pastor of a church, that oftentimes there's so much pressure put on us to do better that you know, we reach more people have better programs, that is very attractive to think leadership development, because leadership development is about efficiency, like you're saying Justin, but everybody may not be a leader.

47:20 And a lot of times, leaders are not true disciples, nobody's ever discipled them. They might have skills, but they're not being formed organically into the image of Jesus. And when I say organically, I don't ever think it's strictly organic. I think it's intentional, but spiritual growth may not equate to leadership development at all.

47:44 In fact, it's a mistake. I think all three of us would agree. It's a mistake and not biblical to equate leadership development with disciple making and spiritual growth. Years ago, there was a movie called The Accidental Tourist, and we don't want to make accidental disciples. We want to make intentional disciples.

48:03 Now, that's really good. Well, we just have a few minutes left. So I want to give you both just a chance to say any last things in closing that would be encouraging to those who are joining with us. Roy, I'll start with you. I think part of it is the understanding that everybody is capable of making disciple makers.

48:31 God did give the gift of evangelism, the spiritual gift, and so some people are especially gifted at that. But there is no spiritual gift of disciple making, and I think that's in part because everybody can do it and is really expected to do it. It's not the great suggestion, it's the great commission, and God asks us, everyone, to do that.

48:51 So if you don't know where to start, find somebody who's more mature in their relationship with God and ask them to walk alongside you and do disciple making. Oh, that's good. Another thing I would add has to do with the way we talked about successes and slip ups. It's another thing that we have not always done well in The Navigators, but something that over the past probably eight years now we've really been focused on, and that is becoming more diverse.

49:23 The Navigators have been a, you know, think about Acts 1, 8, we've been focused on Jerusalem and the ends of the earth, but we have missed Judea and Samaria. And so those people that are not quite like us that live around us. And so, you know, I would encourage, you know, disciple makers, those of you who are already regardless of your ethnicity, skin color, to move outward towards somebody that doesn't look like you, that has a different background than you, and really just begin a friendship and see what God does.

50:00 Because I've learned in my life, I learn a lot from them, whether or not they follow Jesus or not, I just learn a lot. And I found that they are profit from it as well. And so one of the things that we've focused on, like I said, the past eight years is becoming more diverse, because I think it's increasingly important for us to grasp.

50:20 But also, you know, in our country, that's where we're going. And not only our country, but that's the kingdom, right? That's where we're going to spend eternity is with people. Every tribe, town, nation are going to be with us there. And so that's a big thing that we have focused on internally, and that we've been learning.

50:39 And I think that all of us, especially here in America, we can grow into that. Oh, that's great. Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. I think it's really, really been a good thing. So God bless you. Thanks for having us. And thanks for all you guys are doing. So appreciate all that you're doing to advance disciple making all around the country.

51:02 Thanks. It's our pleasure. God bless. Thanks, Bobby. See you. Bye. Hey guys, thanks for listening to this episode. For more great content like this, come check us out at www.discipleship.org. And we cannot wait to see you guys next time. Take care.