What about Discipleship: A Conversation with Ron Tewson

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I am joined today by Ron Toosin. He's the president of The Therefore Project at www.thereforeproject.com. And he's also the author of a book called Threads, Living a Life of Peace and Purpose in a Chaotic World. Ron and I have had a previous phone conversation and we're going to be talking a little bit about discipleship and, you know, various other topics today. But it was just a great conversation, good connection from a mutual friend, Jeff King. And so I decided to have him on the podcast today to discuss some things. And Ron, welcome. How are you doing? I am doing so good. I'm down here in Florida at 75 degrees, lots of sun. So I'm loving it. Not a bad place to be. Not at all. Well, tell us a little bit about The Therefore Project and what you're doing in your work there. Yeah, Therefore Project actually comes out of the word therefore. And therefore, honestly, as we all know, is a response to some information. It isn't just information. And I think as a follower of Jesus that I've been now for 50 years is that the frustrating thing is that we can tend to think that being a disciple of Christ or being a mature Christian is being able to know a lot of biblical information. And that is really the start. So nobody's against that. But then, therefore, it leads to something. And the word therefore is used over 400 times in the New Testament. And Jesus used it a lot. He would say something and then he'd say, therefore. Paul did the same thing. He'd say something and say, therefore. And when I think of people coming to Christ, I think a lot of us are pro-evangelism. I hope we are. We want to see people come to Christ. But what's the therefore? Then what do we do? What's the action items? How do we live that out in 21st century America? How do we live that out at work? And how do we live it out in the neighborhood? And so I began to think why people don't have conversations about Jesus more in their work environments and in recreational environments. And so I began to ask people. And I've asked hundreds of people. And it came down to generally two things. Number one, I'm not really clear on how to present the gospel. I mean, I know the pieces of the gospel. I know what works because it's changed my life. But I don't actually know how to put it together and tell somebody so that it makes sense. And secondly, I'm just afraid that I'm going to get asked a question that I don't know the answer to. And by golly, I don't want to look like an idiot. So I just kind of stay away from those conversations. So I thought, you know something? I can help you with that. I've been doing this for a lot of years, so I can help you with that. So we decided to put together this organization called Therefore Project. It was just a project to help people, to help churches, to help followers of Jesus feel what we call comfortable conversationalists about Jesus. So that's how it all got born. And it's been going now for several years and seeing a lot of things happen. That's fantastic. And does that relate into sort of the theme of threads then as well? Do you see threads as sort of an extension of the Therefore Project in some ways? Yeah, that's a great question. And honestly, yes and no. I ought to be a politician, right? Yes and no. But honestly, I think of it like this. I gave you those two reasons of why people said they don't communicate the gospel. But quite honestly, there's a third that very few people really say but is really at the core. And I call it being a satisfied customer. When I'm a satisfied customer of a product, I'll tell people about this great hamburger I had at this place. Well, you know, what kind of meat was it? Well, I guess it was beef, you know. And what grade was it? I don't really know. What kind of ketchup did they use? I don't really know, but man, it was good. So when I'm a satisfied customer, I can talk about stuff I don't even know because my enjoyment of the product comes out. So I began to think about Christians. And when COVID hit back in 2020, I got to tell you, I was kind of disappointed and really kind of taken back at how Christians seemed to, so many Christians that I knew, seemed to respond to it the same way as non-Christians, with fear, with anxiety. Oh, the world's falling in. I don't know what's going to happen. And I thought, now, wait a minute, aren't we the people that say we know the creator of the universe? Aren't we the one that says that we worship the God who protects us? We have security in that. What's wrong? And so I began to think about my own life. And I thought over the last 50 years, because actually when it hit, when COVID hit, it was a little inconvenient at times, but it really didn't change my life or my attitude hardly at all. And so I thought, what are the threads in my own life that have kept me stable and moving for so many years? And so I just began to jot down these threads. And it was a part of Therefore Project from the perspective that I realized that I want people in the middle of chaos to be able to live with peace and purpose as well as they can in times of prosperity and peace. And so that was the beginning of Therefore Project. I wanted to have that done because the real goal was when you are living a life of peace and purpose, when you have a confidence in God, you'll be talking about him as a satisfied customer. So that's really the point of the book. It's just 10 threads that have been consistently woven through my life over the years that have made a huge difference and it makes me excited to tell people about Jesus. You know, I think it's really interesting. I mean, I think COVID, while I'd like to think it's sort of over, you continue to see sort of that narrative popping back up, like the implications and the consequences of all that was done during COVID keeps coming back up. And I think it's a real, even, you know, it's one of those things that you go through and you react to it as you go through it. And I think I saw a lot of what you saw, you know, people being very frustrated and in some respects, there were some stressful moments there trying to adapt to a, you know, a lot of public closures and those kinds of things. But the sort of the sky is falling attitude that many Christians took, you kind of sit back like, yeah, well, probably not. You know, we do still live in an unshakable kingdom. And so maybe we just, you know, not be quite as anxious about all this. But then I think you have the other side of that, which is how do you deal with post-COVID life? You know, how do we go through and really process a lot of the consequences that are stemming from the way people responded to COVID and continue to be peaceful through those things? And so I think an idea like the book, you know, like Threads makes a lot of sense to me because we are supposed to be living peacefully and in a content manner, right? Whether we have riches or we're in poverty. And so, you know, we still have to learn a lot of this. I think even now, even though COVID is what I would say over. Yeah, no question. No question. Here's probably a basic premise that it sometimes, James, can almost sound arrogant, but when you hear what I'm saying, you'll go, yeah, as a follower of Jesus, I know at the core of my being, everybody wants what I have. Everybody wants it. And if a follower of Jesus doesn't feel that way, it'll really slow them down to want to tell people about this wonderful God who fills in all those cracks and walks through you through the deep waters. And that's what people want. And so when a Christian really lives with that, they are not trying to convince people of something that they don't want. Those people want what we have. And that's why those threads are so absolutely critical. Like I think in the book, these threads are really just things that I have. I think about my whole life. I think about in many situations every day. I've already thought of some of them today. Like one of the threads is God's always up to something. So when something happens and I'm sitting there on the side of the road because my car breaks down, my really almost my first thought is, God, what do you want to do? Is there somebody you want me to meet here? It's not that he made my car break down, but since it did break down, is there a tow truck driver you want me to meet? Is there somebody you want me to encourage that I would have never met if my, if my, if my truck hadn't hadn't, you know, stopped running. And so that's a thread that I think many times a day, God's up to something. Another thread I think is this isn't heaven. I go when people go, I can't believe that happened. I go, what do you mean you can't believe that this isn't heaven. Heaven's where that kind of stuff

You can see that in scripture as well. I mean, obviously, you're probably drawing on scripture in threads, I'm sure, it's not just a personal reflection, but I mean, I go back to things like, you know, Genesis 50:20, you know, and this reflection on the life of Joseph that we see where God says, you know, you meant these things that you did, you know, Joseph is talking to his brothers, and he says, you know, you sold me into slavery, you sent me over here for all these, you know, these horrible reasons, you meant it as evil, but God meant it for good. And so here it is, God's up to something. He's working through the brokenness of the day. My head goes to Deuteronomy 8, right? The 40 years in the wilderness. Probably weren't particularly comfortable for the Israelites. I mean, I don't get the impression they were sitting around in recliners and sipping pina coladas or something, right? Like, they're out in the middle of the desert living on manna and having probably what was a relatively rough time with it. But what God was trying to teach them there was dependence on him is the important part of the way to live. And I think we can see that even, you know, in just New Testament teachings like James, you know, finding joy in suffering. You know, it's not that we're to welcome suffering, but to recognize that this suffering is refining us, it's changing us, it's drawing us closer to the Lord. And so we always have something that we can find if we're aware of God being up to something. Yeah, and because, you know, like Therefore Project, like I said, it's all about helping people to have these, be conversational communicators of the gospel. A lot of people think, oh, I'm not an evangelist. I'm not talking about being an evangelist. We're talking about just being comfortable in conversations. And a lot of those conversations are set up because God's up to something. I mean, you think they're in Acts 16. You know, Paul wants to go in Acts 15. He wants to go up north in Asia, in Asia Minor, and God says, no, I want you to come over to Philippi. Oh man, this must be great. He goes to Philippi, he ends up in jail. You know, he's probably thinking, now, wait a minute, did I get this wrong? I thought I was supposed to do some good here. What happens? He has conversations in jail, and the strongest, one of the most encouraging churches in the New Testament started in a jail because he had a conversation with somebody because God was up to something. Now, Paul didn't know that. And if he'd been like a lot of us in COVID, oh no, the sky is falling. You know, he would have missed that. And so I think what happens when we live as satisfied customers of God and we live with the reality that He's always up to something, He doesn't plan this stuff, but by golly, it hits us because we live in the real world. It's not the end of the world. The sky hasn't fallen. God very well may have set up an environment for a conversation that would have never happened. I mean, when would that jailer had ever had a conversation about Jesus if it hadn't been for Paul sitting in that cell? Now, it wasn't comfortable for him. And I even, I write about this. Sometimes we get very inconvenienced to step into what God is up to. But we call ourselves followers of Jesus, and whenever I followed anybody, whether it's my wife or my friends, it's been inconvenient a lot of times. You know, but that's what friends do. And following Jesus has been very inconvenient sometimes. But wow. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. 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Well, that raises an interesting question, and maybe we can start kind of pivoting over to discipleship a bit, but I think, you know, when we think about convenience, you know, one of the things that Jesus often did with his disciples, it didn't seem like, you know, when he's calling the original disciples, he's promising them a life in the lap of luxury. You know, often he talks about discipleship being difficult. You know, the one that's coming to mind right now is, you know, foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Like he's inviting them into this more or less uncomfortable situation. But right after he says that, at least in the Gospel of Matthew, he talks about the difficulties of discipleship, and then he takes them out on the sea and he calms the wind and the waves. And so you kind of get this sense that, no, following Jesus, there's a... this is the only person who's ever going to calm the chaos of life. And so, who else are you going to follow? So even when it's uncomfortable, you know that there's something at the end of this that we're all shooting for. But I... I wonder, you know, as we sort of go about sharing the gospel and having these conversations with people about becoming disciples of Jesus, where do we begin to have those conversations about, look, the Christian life is not lived in the lap of luxury? I mean, that's a good question. I probably can't give a one answer to all. Yeah. I think, okay, I pastored for over 35 years. I planted churches. The churches that I pastored were primarily the ones that I started. And I'm just giving kind of a context here. I began to realize as I would meet Christians that would come into the churches, because we were not designed... let me go back and say something that is really critical, because it's at the core of really so much of what Therefore Project is about. When I read the book of Acts, I don't actually see the Apostle Paul going into any city to start a church. I didn't see him go in to start a church. I see him going in to communicate the gospel of Jesus. And when people became Christians, when people became followers of Jesus, a church was born. But he didn't go in there and start a church. He didn't gather all the Christians together. Obviously, there weren't any. So that wasn't part of... that wasn't the MO, you know? So he would go in there and preach the gospel. He was in Athens. It didn't seem like anything happened there in Acts. Where is it? I think it's Acts 19. No, that's Ephesus. In Acts 17, when he went in there, nothing seemed to happen and a church didn't start. It started later, but it didn't start then. So at the core of everything is the gospel. And so we better be really clear on what the gospel is, because that's how we start. What happens so many times is when somebody goes in to plant a church, and I'm familiar with a lot of church planters and I love it. I love what they're doing. I'd never cross the street to argue about it. And so I just a few weeks ago somebody said, hey, I heard that you planted churches and I'm thinking of doing one, and I wanted to know where you'd think. I live in Winter Garden, Florida. Where do you think would be the best place to start a new church in Winter Garden, Florida? I said, Winter Garden doesn't need any more churches. He said, what? I said, if you're just going to gather Christians, you know, from around and just you're just going to kind of shuffle the oranges from crate to crate and you're going to start a new thing and everything, we don't need anything like that. I said, but if you really want to start one which starts with redemption, because when I think about the church, James, I put it into just three words. It's redemption, restoration, distribution. Everything starts with redemption. When Paul went into a city, it all started with redemption. When Jesus came to the earth, it started with redemption. He came to redeem the lost. And then once they're redeemed, they get restored. Then they start build their life gets built and they and they, it changes, it changes everything about them. But then as they grow up, they the third word is distribution. Now they start distributing the goodness of God, whether it's like you said, an activism types of things or in the gospel itself, they become distributors. They become the God's divine supply chain. And when I think of the church as a supply chain, it all starts with people coming into a relationship with Jesus. So how we communicate the gospel is really key because I discovered that when I talk about Christians being, if you want to use the word dissatisfied or not satisfied customers. Yeah. One of the reasons is because they became Christians with the wrong idea. Right. They, they thought it was all

But it means how you deal with them is going to change. And I think that's so true of my life. I mean, I've had cancer. I write about this. I've had so many things happen to me. I've had my home burned. You know, I've had cancer. I've had several things, and it didn't lead to disappointment with God. It led to thinking like, man, this sure ain't heaven. You know, can't wait to get to heaven. So in communicating the gospel, what our message is, is coming into a relationship with the living God. And I just can't get over that. Just the God who's alive. I'm not worshiping some, you know, piece of stone. Coming into a relationship with the living God that changes everything that I walk through because now I have somebody who is for me in every single environment. And it makes a difference in how I react to those environments. So it's more about telling people that they have a, in a relationship with God, you have a best friend who's going to be with you in every single one of the environments and walk you through it. Yeah, and I think, I really appreciate the emphasis on the expectation of what it looks like to become a Christian. Like what does that, what does that look like? Because I do think that there is some sense, I think when I first became a Christian, when the gospel was shared to me, you know, it was that sort of four spiritual laws. And so God has a wonderful plan for your life. And that sounds pretty good. Like a wonderful plan seems pretty amazing. Right, it's absolutely true. I think the part that was maybe never emphasized or maybe my hard head just never let it sink in early enough, you know, is that effort and suffering and difficulty remain a part of the Christian life and they remain parts that really God uses to shape and refine us into people who are dependent on him, who really do have a loyalty and a trust toward him. And so, yeah, go ahead. I'm just going to say, when you talk about any relationship, like I've done lots of premarital counseling. And you know what I learned from premarital counseling? No one hears anything, you know, it's just because it's all theory. Yeah. And they don't know what it's like. And so what I wanted to try to set up, but haven't always been successful at it, is set up and say, I want to get with you six months from now. And we're going to go through these same issues. And now you're going to have a real live relationship that you're going to be able to see how it works with. So I think before somebody has a relationship with God, they'll never understand really what it means to have a, like where Paul says, I want to have the fellowship of his suffering. But that's not going to make a whole lot of sense to a non-Christian. But once they're in a relationship with God, and that's where discipleship, I think part of discipleship is walking them through that and making sure that they understand that they have a relationship with the living God to navigate the job loss, to navigate the loss of a friend, to navigate death, to navigate, I can't teach people what that's going to mean before they have that relationship because it just doesn't make any sense. What I think this gets into something that we discussed on our previous phone call, which is the language. And I think not only the language, but the separation of the activities of evangelism and discipleship. You know, because there's a sense in which, you know, there is a way to do evangelism. And I don't want to mischaracterize it, but in some sense, this may sound like a little bit of a straw man, but I think there's a way to do evangelism that just gets people saved and then leaves them to their own to figure out discipleship. You know, there's not a lot of direction given after they're saved. It's like, okay, great, go join a church. Right? And so there's a lot of assumptions about what's going to happen, that people really understand what that looks like, that they're going to be able to do that, you know, all those different things. And then there's this other side, which I think you alluded to previously, where being, becoming a disciple means learning a lot about the Bible. Now, it certainly entails learning a lot about the Bible, but it's more than that. And so as we were talking on the phone, you know, just sort of the way we talk about evangelism, discipleship, I think does condition the way we go about doing these activities. And so maybe give your impression of some of that language and how you talk about it and sort of train people to have these casual conversations about the gospel. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question because that's really what I think about literally every day. You know, in the idea of discipleship, and I'm sure lots of different people who use different definitions of discipleship, and I'm not saying one's right and one's wrong, but the one that I use, it's becoming like Jesus in his person, which we think of him as, you know, being loving, kind, forgiving, generous, all those things. We want to become like Jesus in his person, but we also want to become like Jesus in his purpose. And a lot of discipleship that I have heard and seen is all about becoming like Jesus in his person. So it's almost like, come to Jesus and we'll help you have a better marriage. Come to Jesus and we'll help you have a better job. Come to Jesus and we'll help you be a better parent. It's almost like the end goal, the end goal is kind of narcissistic. And I don't think any pastor in any church is trying to be narcissistic. But I think a lot of times, because I had to ask myself this, as you step back and look, you go, am I just trying to make people's lives better? Am I trying to make happier people, people that make more money, people that have a more secure financial future, people that are better parents? Is that really the goal? And you know, you think about when you think of John 3.16, which really a lot of what I do is wrapped around that. And you know, if you're talking to somebody who's not a follower of Jesus and you give them John 3.16, sometimes you put their own name in there. God so loved the world. Well, Larry, it isn't just the world. God so loves you that he gave his only son. So we're really trying to point somebody that God loves them. Well, what can happen without, you know, inadvertently, is the gospel becomes all about me. Isn't that good that God loves me? And one of the things I write about in the book is now we got to put the world back in it. We got to go back to God so loves the world. We get in by God loving me. But once I understand God's love for me and his love begins to just germinate at the core of my being, God wants me then to turn it and have a love for the world that he loves. And so I think what happens is a lot of times we keep it on the narcissistic level. And when God loves the world means the whole idea of evangelism isn't separate from discipleship. If I'm going to become like Jesus, you know what's going to happen? I'm going to start loving the world. I'm going to start caring about people getting redeemed. It isn't a separate thing. Like in most churches, if you'll have a discipleship class or a parenting class or a marriage class, you don't have a really hard time getting people to sign up for those. And we're going to have an evangelism class. Now tell me, which one sounds the most fun? You know? Yeah. It just kind of goes, ah, I think I'll go into the parenting class. Or how about how to do good in my finances? I'll go into that class. Because those all feed you in your need where you live right now. But the purpose of God, of redemption, kind of gets lost. And to me, that is at the core of discipleship. Because a family that has the God's love for the world at the core of who they are as a family, it changes the way they behave. It changes their expectations. When somebody who's in business or is working on their finances understands that the core of their being God's love for the world, it changes the way they look at money. It changes the way they look at their time. It isn't just about my marriage. It isn't just about my parenting or my kids or my future. It's about joining God in his purpose, which changes my family. And I've seen so many and read and attended really a lot of family kind of things. And there's so many good ones out there. And there's so much good discipleship material. So I don't mean this as a negative. But I honestly see very few that have much about communicating the gospel outside of our home to the world around us. At school, you know, at work. Because that changes what you do. It changes how. And I just don't see that very much because it's kind of become a separate thing. So we have becoming like Jesus in our person, which makes us kinder and more generous and more forgiving, which definitely helps our marriage. But then if you want to go over there and have evangelism, which is about helping other people, you can do that if you want to. But it's really not part of discipleship. It's at the core of discipleship. Seeing people come into a relationship with Jesus is at the core of discipleship. And so we need to be training people to do that. In fact, it's interesting here, James. And I don't know what your thoughts are on this. We never talked about this. You know those great verses in Ephesians 4

Interesting that, you know, the word evangelist is used only three times in its English form anyway, in the New Testament. And one is, I think, there in Acts 21 where it says Philip was an evangelist. And then in 2 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, do the work of an evangelist. So neither one of these tells us what it is. Now, we're pretty sure we know what an evangelist is because I actually, a big impression on my life was made by Billy Graham. So we understand this idea of what we think of as an evangelist. But when you get to Ephesians 4, it's the only verse in the whole Bible that actually tells you what an evangelist does. Equipping saints for service, verse 12. And the job, the primary job of an evangelist is to equip followers of Jesus for service. But what kind of service is an apostle, or is an evangelist going to teach people to do? I just kind of think in my mind, if he's an evangelist, then of course he tells people about Jesus. But one of his main responsibilities is to help followers of Jesus know how to tell people about Jesus. So I think that's a huge part of discipleship. So of those in Ephesians 4 where it lists those individuals, I'm not against any of this, but it doesn't say he gave them a worship leader, and he gave them a student leader, and he gave them a children's ministry person. All very valuable things. But when he got right to the core of how the church was going to keep moving and moving and moving, he included only about four or five key positions, key kinds of people you need to have. And one is an evangelist to equip people for service. So I think that's a huge part of discipleship, is to train people how to be able to communicate the gospel in a very easy, comfortable, conversational way. Well, and it's difficult to get around that. I mean, in this passage, you know, 4.11 and 12, you have the clear statement of why these things were given. They're given to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. And in that context, that building up of the body of Christ doesn't seem to involve multiplication. Now, you know, obviously, you know, in the broader biblical corpus, it obviously would. But in this context, particularly, given that it's paired with equip the saints for the work of the ministry and the building up of the body of Christ, I think we can assume that it's intended to be, you know, sort of building the body of Christ internal to itself as opposed to simply reaching out. And so it is a really interesting point. It's an and. In fact, the next book that I'm going to be writing is one called And. It's called Living in the Gray. We love to be right black or white, right or wrong. There's so many ands, which is confusing sometimes. And so this is a key and. Of course, there's all kinds of ministry going on to the saints to build them up in all kinds of areas. But of those people that he put in those positions, one is an evangelist. Now, why do they have an evangelist for equipping the saints for ministry? What is an evangelist going to teach them how to do? In fact, I just was at breakfast with somebody the other day. And they said, if my pastor, we said this in a very kind way. If my pastor tells me to tell people about Jesus one more time, I'm going to blow up. I want him to tell me how. He says, we're always being told to do this, but would somebody please tell us how? Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, I think, so I teach a course for Wheaton College. It's called Biblical and Theological Foundations for Leadership. And when I was writing the course, one of the things that I talked about was leadership is a contextualized form of discipleship. And what I meant by that is to say that you don't do good leadership unless you're first committed to discipleship. I tend to think of it in terms of, you know, Augustine's ordered loves, right? We begin by, you know, loving God with all we are and have. And from that allegiance to God, there is an outflow of love for neighbor. There's an outflow of love for country, let's say. There's an outflow of all these different loves that we could have, but they have to be ordered rightly in order for us to really enact them in our daily lives, to really participate. And so what I was trying to do with those is you say, well, if I love God with all I am and have, this is my primary love. This is the thing that I'm always shooting for. This is what I'm always doing, always being a disciple. And occasionally, I'm also being a leader, right? And occasionally, I'm also being a, you know, a father. Occasionally, I'm also being a brother or whatever it is, right? Whatever role that you happen to be doing at that moment. Now, when I say occasionally, I don't mean, you know, for a specific point in time. But there are these occasions where we are asked to lead. There are occasions when we are fathering. There are occasions when we're doing whatever. And so, but that's all nested within discipleship. And I think that's the part that as we think about, you were talking about, you know, helping people achieve these different goals, right? Financial security and happiness in marriage and all these different things. I think there's a sense in which those are difficult goals because really all we're going to point people back to is, hey, are you loving the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength? Are you giving everything you've had to him? And then how is that outflowing into love of neighbor within this particular context? Yeah. Now, that's a simplified way of framing the whole idea. But I think it's really crucial because if we don't understand that we're only capable of loving others to the extent that we understand, you know, that we start with a love of God. I think we can get sort of skewed in the way that we help people. And our helping can ultimately, I think, sort of push people away from God in some ways. How do you mean that? By helping people, you push them away from God. I think that we orient people to, like, let's say in a marital counseling situation or something like that, you'd mentioned you were in sort of a lot of marital counseling situations. I think there's a way that we can push people to solve their own problems. So, you know, hey, here are five steps that you can do to help your marriage. And so they go off and they do those five steps. Well, maybe those five steps work. Maybe they don't. Either way, I'm not sure we've oriented them rightly to God and their spouse. We're really just trying to orient them rightly to their spouse. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah, so that's what I mean when I say kind of pushing them away from God. Maybe it's not pushing, but it is, let's say, keeping God at the margins of our lives when he should be front and center. Right. You know, I love it when you say that because, you know, one of my pet peeves, is that okay to say that or irritations? Yeah, absolutely. Is that I see so many wonderful churches and come Christmas time, we're going to give gifts. And come Thanksgiving, we're going to give food and we're going to do all this stuff, which is absolutely wonderful. Now, our local country station does the same thing. And our local R&B country station does the same thing. And, you know, the Lions Club does the same thing. So I go, what's different about the way we do it? We have a message that they're not going to get from the country station. You know, they're not going to get this. So if we just become a glorified Red Cross, what have we really done? We've missed God. And so when I talk about distribution, when I think of we're being God's divine delivery system, we deliver all kinds of stuff, but at the core of our delivery is something many other delivery systems don't have. We have the message that can transform somebody's life today, tomorrow, and forever. And so if we're not trained as we're giving that gift, it's not like we'll give you the gift if you'll listen. That's, you know, we're not a rescue mission. You know, right. But we'd be glad to do this. But that's why if you can have conversations. See, people think I'm not an evangelist. Well, I'm not asking you to be an evangelist. You just know how to have a conversation and you have no idea. You know, here's the thing, honestly, James, that I have some common things that I think in my head all the time. And maybe they're wrong, but they work. But they work, you know. And so I start with the thing that everybody wants what I have. I really believe everybody would love to know Jesus and have a relationship with God. I mean, who wouldn't? Even when people that are atheists, I said, if there is a God, wouldn't you think it'd be cool to know him? Well, yeah. Who wouldn't want to know God if there's really a God? You know, so there is this understanding that people would like to know God. And secondly, we're programmed to think nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it. And yet surveys show that there are people that would long to talk about it. Let's say that if there's somebody out there that God starts to do something

You know, so they're just in trouble. So they're probably not going to go there. No one will talk to them at their office. Who are they going to talk to? And I just think the world is ripe. Well, Jesus said, lift up your eyes. Look, man, it's just ready for harvest. We're not convinced of that at all. We think nobody's interested. Why should I get involved with this? Nobody cares. And I can't tell you how many times I've had the joy to lead people to Christ that I had no idea when I started the conversation that they were just like fruit ready to fall off the tree. But they don't go around and advertise that. We need to know how to just have some conversations over coffee and not say, you know, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Although that's true, that's probably not a great opener to most people. But who knows what's going on in their life? And I mean, think of this, James. This, I mean, don't get me too excited about this because I'll go on for a long time. But think about this. I believe at the core of my being, God has a heart for the world because I love John 3.16. John 3.16 is the most encouraging verse and it's the most sobering verse because John 3.16 tells me God loves the world. It also tells me that those that don't find Jesus are going to perish. That isn't sobering. I don't know what is. And he doesn't want a single person to perish. So when I read that, I said, if God didn't come up with some kind of a plan, some kind of a master plan to make sure all these people that he loves will actually have an opportunity to hear about him, then I have a hard time thinking he really loves all those people and he doesn't even have a plan to get the message to them, the only message. And so my logical thinking self goes, he had to have a plan. And he did. He had a very simple plan. It was simply every person who's a follower of Jesus, being in love with Jesus, being a satisfied customer and talking in the environments that they're in. And that's why we look at some of these countries and we go, oh, the church got shut down in Iran. And yet there's a revival going on in Iran. Why? Because it's about conversations. It's about conversations. You can't stop. You can stop the Internet. You could, I mean, at least you can try to control it in some environments. You can shut down the churches. You can't stop conversations, which is why the jailer in Acts 16 is in heaven right now. You know, you can't stop conversations. And so if God set up something that he had a plan, like if I were to talk to somebody right now and say, do you think it's possible to reach eight billion people? That's about the number on our planet right now. Not in my lifetime. Really? Not in your lifetime? Wow. I think it is possible in your lifetime. And jumping to the end of the story, if you look at my city, I live in Orlando, Florida, it's made up of so many communities, recreational communities, work communities, sports communities, art communities, cycling communities. I mean, they're every place. There's all kinds of communities. And there's a good chance, there's a good chance there's a Christian, there's a follower of Jesus in every one of those communities. Now think of that. Think of that, James. So God says, I got Orlando covered. I got one of my followers in every community. Now, if that person, now that person's praying that somebody will reach all the people in his community for Jesus. And Jesus is going, excuse me. You know, that verse in Acts 17, again, when Paul was in Athens, I think it's around verse 25, 26, 27, somewhere in there. It says, God has appointed people's time and the boundaries of their habitation so they would search for God and just might find him. I tell you, James, when I think of that verse, I tell people, God has put people in some boundaries right now. It's called your work environment. They are there so they can find God. And you know who else God put there? You. He didn't put me. So don't be asking the pastor to come over and do it. He put you. Well, I don't know what to say. Well, let me help you with that. Let me help you with that. And so we have a way, if I'm God, which I don't want the job, I make a lousy God. But if I'm God and I look down on Orlando and I see my people in all these communities, and I know I've told them that I want them to be, you know, that I've given them a ministry. And you go back there to, let me get to that in just a second. But he says, I've got Orlando covered. I've got one of my representatives. Just think if you're trying to sell a product and you're trying to get enough salesmen and you look at the whole city and you go, I've got one of my sales representatives in every committee and every community in that city. Wow. Got it covered. Yeah. So when I was talking about, go ahead. No, I'm interested because, you know, as I think about, so I 100% agree. I mean, I think that God puts us in places where we are to proclaim him in word and in deed. And that is the way we get the message out. And I've been thinking about this a lot. So one of the questions I have for you, you know, I've been thinking about soup. Okay. It's getting close to lunch. All right. Yeah. So, you know, we don't eat soup off a table, right? We don't just pour soup on a table and try to slurp it up. Like we put it in a container and the container gives that soup sufficient shape. It sort of contains the nutrients that we would, you know, and it keeps it from making a mess. It keeps it from, you know, spreading out in ways that maybe it shouldn't, you know, that would do more damage than otherwise, you know, than help. And so I've been, I've been thinking about that and wondering to myself whether that is one of the functions of the church is to sort of contain the soup, right? To offer a level of shape and boundaries and accountability and just to help target, let's say, or contain the influence of people within a given sort of boundary and place and time. Like, it feels like... How do you mean that contain the influence? Well, I think some of what I've wrestled with, Ron, is, you know, like we're on a podcast right now. There's nobody who's particularly holding either one of us accountable. We can say pretty much whatever we want, you know, within reason. And, you know, my only recourse is just not to launch the podcast, right? You really have not a lot of recourse. Maybe you have people who are holding you accountable for what you'd say out in public or what have you. But I think we're in a situation where we are betting on the fact that many people have sufficient scruples to hold themselves accountable as they're speaking in public. And so as we look out, we do see a lot of people who are Christians. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. I group a port to be Christians saying things in public that really aren't aligned with the gospel message. And so what I'm searching for, I think, is some understanding of the church that says, no, the church is where we coordinate together in order to understand how to walk and work as the body of Christ in the world in the various places where we end up going. And so I agree that we have to understand how to do all these different conversations. And then I also think that there is a way in which the church needs to be there for us to come back and almost be reset to have this moment where we are further trained, where we are shaped and molded more closely into the image of Christ, where we can reflect on our experiences and understand what's going on there. And so soup is not the greatest analogy, I realize, but you can kind of understand where I'm coming from, that soup on a table is chaos, right? Like it's gonna go wherever it goes. You've got kids, you know the chaos. Yeah, soup in a bowl is contained. It's now available for us to benefit from its nourishment. And it just feels to me like what we need is that the church is this place where we benefit from the nourishment. And now we're also...

And so I guess, yeah, that's the, you know, sort of the, not the counterpoint, but the, the and to what you're saying is that, that we really do have to focus in on discipleship in order to make this work, to make this happen. Is that, am I, am I being naive about that? Am I, or am I overstating that in some way? No, you're, no, you're, you're good, James. It's an and. If you think of what Jesus did with his, with his guys, in fact, I've often said that if you want to see, you know, let's call Jesus the best discipler there ever was, all right? So if you want to see what the product looked like of the best discipler that ever lived, look at how, look at what happened to the guys that he spent time with. He spent more time. Look what happened to him. Now Judas didn't do too well, but, you know, other than that, you know, how did the other guys turn out? Well, he was doing an and right there. If you've got a message of salvation and redemption, but your life is a mess and you're always greedy and you're selfish and, and you're saying things that aren't right, you're not going to really do a good job. So it's almost like you have to be, your own life has to be shaped and designed and discipled and trained. But the end game, I mean, if I were to say this right now, I mean, just, I have said this to people. Okay, when you get to the, when, when Jesus left and he had this, he had more than, more than the, than the 12 or the 11. He had more than them, but let's just use them as an example. If you were to talk about what made the people that Jesus trained stand out and why we're still talking about them today. Yeah. What put them on the map? What made them different? Was it they had the best marriages? I don't even know who was married. Right. Yeah. Was it they were the best parents? I don't even know if they had any kids. Yeah. You know, I don't know anything about them. So when Jesus spent up to or between, you know, however long, no more than three years with these guys, he changed their whole outlook on the world, their whole outlook on life, their whole outlook on everything. And if they were married, it was reflected in their marriage. And if they were parents, it was reflected in their parenting. So I think what I'm, what I'm saying is what, what the word that I've used for the church for many years, and I always say this, James, so get comfortable with this. I could be wrong on this. I could be wrong on this. Yeah. But I, I, I often call the church a movement because it started in Jerusalem and then it moved to Judea and it moved to Samaria and then it moved up into Asia and Asia minor and it moved into Europe and it moved to America, you know, and it moved. It is a movement. So it's not, it's never a stationary thing. It's a movement. And so the people in the church need to see themselves as a movement, a collective movement that is, that is, that accomplishes and furthers what is at the heart of God, which starts with redemption. So if I were to walk into a church and talk to the pastor, I said, is one of your core values, redemption, seeing people come to Christ. Almost every one of them, by the way, would say yes. Sure. Yeah. Okay. How about restoration? Absolutely. And they would give me the list of programs they have for restoration. That would be the biggest piece. And they have something for marriage and something for family and something for all this and something for discipleship and something for on the New Testament. And it's great stuff. Okay. And how about distribution? Yeah, we do this at Easter and that would be a little bit smaller. But when you look at the church calendar, probably the smallest piece would be redemption. The biggest piece would be restoration. And the average piece would be like you say, being socially active or something, or distributing out to the community. Now, when I look at the disciples, as far as I know them, which I don't know many of them very well, you know, but when I look at the recording of their life, at least what got recorded, the main thing about them was redemption. That was the main thing. The core. And they started churches. And one of my favorite, one of my favorite things is in, in Acts 19, remember when Paul was in Ephesus and there around verse 9 or 10. Remember when things got a little, we don't know exactly what happened, but he said he took them away to the school of what, what was his, the school of, it was a, I can't remember. Anyway, he took, he took them away from the synagogue and they met, they met every single day. You remember that? They met every single day. That's intense discipleship. Okay. Now we're not even told what the discipleship did, but we're told the result. And as a result, all of Asia heard the word of the Lord. They didn't, that's all he chose to tell us about the results of them being together with these guys every day. The only, and I think there's dozens of things that happened. Their businesses probably were better. Their relationships were better. Their kids, maybe had better families, better marriages, but it doesn't include that. The only thing it tells us is that all of Asia heard the word of the Lord as a result of that group being together. I can't help but think this whole idea of redemption had to be involved in that discipleship program. Because what happened, I don't know how, I don't know how it was taught. I don't know how it was said. I don't know what words they used. Right. But I love, I love the result. And so when I look at a local church, yes, it has to have all these things. It has to have this bowl. It has, you know, because we're not going to spread things all over the table. But at the end of the day, we're feeding that soup to people that are hungry. We're not just eating it ourselves. We're, we're really seeing that, that, you know, that, that great verse again, it's in Ephesians. I think it's the end of Ephesians 1 where it says, it says, it says the church, we know this, the church is the body of Christ. Think about that. And it says, it's just, it's the fullness of Jesus. The next phrase, it's the fullest representation, of course, it's human, but it's the fullest representation of who Jesus is. So if the church is the fullest representation of who Jesus is, I have a hard time thinking that Jesus wasn't a lot about redemption. Yeah. Like they brought him to earth. And yet that's the smallest piece of the church. Now, not in values. In values, it would be up there at one of the top values. We need our people to be telling other people about Jesus. I mean, you believe John 3 16. If you believe the great commission and you're a pastor, you can't say anything else. You've got to. But in the programming, it's like you say in the world of finances, if you want to know where your money goes, just look at your visa card, your checkbook. You know, you want to know where your heart is. Look at your visa card and your checkbook. Yeah. You want to know where your passion is at the church. Look at your checkbook. Look at your scheduling. What are you spending time doing? What is, and it's not diminishing the others. I don't want to diminish the others. I want restoration to go higher. Discipleship to go higher. I want them all to go higher. So it isn't like, let's, let's make, let's diminish one. No. Let's keep going on every one, but let's include this. And I just don't see it. I see it included in, in theory, but I don't see it included in practice. It's like, by golly, we're going to train every single one of our people. And, and when I say train, I don't mean that they're going to get the answers to every question. If you look at an attorney, they'll go to an attorney's office. What has he got? A shelf full of books. He doesn't know all the answers, but he knows where to go. He knows where to find them. He knows where to find them. So if people say, I don't think I can talk to that person because if he says, that person says, why, does God allow evil in the world? Uh, I'm supposed to know that one. I don't know the answer to that one. You know what I say? You know, that's a good question. I tell you what, let me think about that for a few days and I'll get back with you on Thursday. I say, that's become one of the most common things I say. I don't know. No big deal. It's like an attorney says, let me check, let me check the, you know, the case studies. Um, and so, and so that's actually part of the, uh, of the therefore project website. It's got a whole thing called bite-sized answers and little short answers. Why does God allow evil? Now there's great apologetics websites that I appreciate. In fact, I have some of them on my website to direct people to, but that's not what we do. What we do is try to help you answer that question in less than five minutes

But it, you know, because it's not a moral issue, we usually don't think of it in the same category. But it's obvious that it has significant theological implications. And so, I think we just have to be careful about letting people frame our questions for us. So I mean, I love the idea of the five-minute answers. I love the idea of reframing those questions and giving people a glimpse into the broader biblical narrative about, you know, how God actually works within a broken world and what really our role is in that. Yeah. And see, James, that's really what my passion is, is to help followers of Jesus, help Christians understand their role in what God wants to do to redeem people. And the core of who we are, in fact, our byline for Therefore Project is winning people, not arguments. Winning people, not arguments. Now, after somebody comes to Christ, there may be some moral issues that we have to talk about, but I don't even bother talking about those moral issues with non-Christians. They don't have the Spirit of God in them. By golly, how am I going to convince them of something that their culture is telling them is true and they don't have the Spirit of God convicting them? And I'm going to try to be logical enough to convince them that X, Y, or Z is wrong. I don't even go there because I want them to come into a relationship with Jesus knowing if that happens, now we can have some of these other discussions. So I try to train people when somebody says, you know, hey, I'm, you know, I'm bisexual or I'm homosexual or, you know, you can name any sexual things that you want to do. I go, yeah, okay. They're looking for a rise out of me if they know I'm a Christian, but they don't ever get it. They don't ever get it. Now, if we're talking about politics, if we're talking about, you know, the voting box, what you're voting, boy, you vote morality, you do all this kind of stuff. But I'm talking about on a conversation where I say, you know, we're trying to win people, not arguments. And so I let things go because I want to communicate the gospel with them. And they don't understand this. Like the thing about evil, you know, and, you know, the second thing I usually say is, okay, if God, if it was God's job to stop evil, who's going to decide what's evil? Do we want Hitler deciding what's evil? Probably not. He thought he was doing good. Do we want a terrorist organization doing it? They don't, they're going to wipe out whole groups of people because they don't agree with them. Oh, no, that's not right. Well, we already decided we didn't want God to tell us what was right and what was wrong. So who's going to decide evil? Well, I don't know. So really here, here's my approach. Here's my approach. And I wish more Christians could understand. And by the way, we train people to do this. This is what the website's about. This is what our training seminars are about, is that we're partnering with God. We are partners with God. God does all the heavy lifting. God scores every point. You know, he, he draws people. He convicts people. He saves people. I just get to come alongside and work with him in what he's doing. And so I'm not trying to win anything. I'm trying to communicate something so I can get into a demonstration or a communication of the gospel. And so, you know, at the end, I would say, you know, you know, just listening to your questions, I'll bet you, you don't really understand a whole lot about what God makes available to us, do you? I tell you what, if you've got a few minutes, I'd like to show you actually, it's the central theme of the whole Bible. And that way you'll understand that. You'll, you good with that? 95% of the time people say yes. 95. I never answered their question because what we do is like in a, in a legal, in a court case, you have the prosecution. What do they have to do? Prove guilt. What does the defense have to do? Create doubt. That's what we get to do. We don't have to answer the question. Now I appreciate apologetics. I've spent hundreds of hours studying apologetics, but when I'm talking to a non-Christian, I very seldom use it because all I want them to do is create a little bit of doubt. What makes you think it's God's job to stop evil? I didn't answer the question. I just created some doubt. And so if we can create doubt, it opens up an opportunity to communicate the gospel. And then I've seen many people come to Christ in those environments and believe you me, after they come to Christ, I've had people that were living together. I've had people that were in homosexual relationships that it didn't take long before they were asking me, what about this? And the spirit of God started convicting them and they changed. The other side of salvation, I could have talked about it all day. And what I would have made was an enemy. Instead, I made a brother or sister forever. And if we can learn how to do this, my favorite in Therefore Project is 2 Corinthians 5. It's got six therefores, more than any other chapter. And we know this therefore. Therefore, if anybody's in Christ, they're a new creation. Think of that. So we get right out of the chute. I'm a new creation. Well, then you ask the question, so what does a new creation do? That's nice to be a new creation. So the verse continues. Now all this is from God who gave us the ministry of reconciliation, mainly that God is communicating through us. He's giving, he has given to us the message of reconciliation of how to help people be reconciled to God. Therefore, so now I have a new responsibility. Now we even get a new identity. Therefore, we're ambassadors for Christ. And so God, we're entreating through us. So I just think about that. God, thank you for making me a new creation. And you didn't make me a new creation just so I could do better at the things of this life because I'm already involved in business. Now I'll do better in business. I'm already involved in marriage. Now I'll do better in marriage and I'll do all those things. I'll continue. And believe me, it has changed my marriage and changed my parenting and changed my life. So I'm extremely appreciative of all that. But now he's given me a whole new thing that I can do with my life. That's what he did when I look at the twelve, did they go back and fish? They, those guys, some of those guys probably fished their whole life, you know? And Paul made some tents. And so it wasn't that it was against all this other stuff. It just gave them a whole new framing of their lives. And I think for a follower of Christ to have a new framing, wow, I need now get to join God in his heart for the world, which involves learning. It involves, it involves help. It involves all of it. It's and, and, and, and, and. So I love to live in the and. I love to live in the gray. It's not as comfortable sometimes because then you got to do two things instead of just one. Right. It's a lot easier to think of, you know, good and bad, better and worse, you know, those kinds of things. And I think what we realize is that as God is remaking us and as he is redeeming us, as he is restoring us, what we're learning is a whole different way of living that can't just be encapsulated as, you know, hey, this was good and now it's bad, or this is bad and now it's good. There are certainly some of those things, but I think in so many ways, what we're learning is I've often thought of discipleship as a complete and utter reorientation of our senses. Oh, I love that. I love that change because that's what it is. And it, it does again, I go back to the 12. They just tend to become better fishermen or better tax collectors or, or noble tax collectors. Okay, now I won't steal, you know? Um, yeah, then I'll be a nice riselot. They didn't, they didn't change. They didn't take the reality of God and overlay it on what they were doing. They got a whole entirely new reality. God so loves the world. And in his, in his three years of those guys, he taught them that the world was way bigger than their little circle. Yep. Well, Ron, we're coming up to the end here and uh this has been a great conversation. I so appreciate what you're doing there at the Therefore project. And um I I've enjoyed reading through threads. So um thanks for writing that as well. And I just think that there is so much here to explore on discipleship for the church and really helping people understand that, you know, as we go out to make disciples of others, we do need to be keeping in mind that we're not trying to win arguments. We're trying to win people. And so I love that. Let me, can I add one thing? Can I add one thing? Because this to me is important. I love pastors. I don't want any pastor to think, oh, I'm screwing up because, oh, I'm not doing it good enough. You know, this, I would, I don't know any church or very few churches that do this, but I'm just going to encourage churches to do this, to have somebody on their staff that they are committed to helping or a key volunteer, whatever they want to do, that they, that this is the

The extent that we have folks in our congregations who can help with this, we need to encourage them, recruit them, put them in positions to really help others within the body of Christ. Because we are all together in this, and we all bring certain gifts. And so it's not all on the pastors if this is going to work. I love, you know, I work for the D.L. Moody Center, and one of the things that D.L. Moody said at the beginning in the preface of his book called To the Work, and he says, you know, it's far better to have a hundred men doing the work of the gospel than just one. And I think that that is absolutely right. And so I think that's what we need to be encouraging folks to be doing. And so, yeah, Ron, I just really appreciate your work at the Therefore Project. I appreciate you taking the time today to talk it through. And folks, if you want to get in touch with the Therefore Project, we'll have all the links in the show notes. And just thanks for being here, Ron. And hopefully we can do this again. I enjoy our conversations. Sounds great. Thanks so much, James. All right, thanks. And we'll catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care, everybody. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Feeling stressed? Let's take better care of you. I'm Bonnie Gray, the host of Breathe, the stress-less podcast. Subscribe at lifeaudio.com.