← The BEMA Podcast
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- [00:11]
A
This is the Baymaw podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today we are with Elle Grover Fricks to nurture the roots of the third pillar discipleship.
- [00:19]
B
Let's see what Elle has to say about discipleship today. We talked community. Have we already done a re. I'm all messed up in our production.
- [00:27]
C
We did community. Yep. We kept that one neat and tidy because you were there. So we had to check all of our boxes, cross our T's, dot our I's. No weird stuff.
- [00:38]
B
That's right. I had to say that because in between that recording and this recording, your text pillar episode dropped.
- [00:45]
A
Sure did.
- [00:46]
B
And we were talking about spiral dynamics.
- [00:48]
C
Sure were.
- [00:49]
B
We were talking about. And I was like, I gotta get back in there with hell. I don't know where the Baymont podcast is going.
- [00:55]
C
It's rain it in. Rain it in. You know, when Moses comes down from the mountain at the golden calf, he tells Aaron, I see that you have let the reins off of the people. That's what happens. That's what happens when you're not here. Aaron is running off, grabbing some jewelry. And the jewelry is miracles and supernatural stuff.
- [01:16]
B
I love it. It was well spoken. And I have thought about it much all throughout my day, and I thought it was really well done.
- [01:22]
C
Oh, well, wonderful. Surprise, surprise.
- [01:25]
B
Absolutely. So tell us about discipleship today, Ellen.
- [01:29]
C
Okay. Well, I was just checking with Brent before we started. Cause I haven't gotten to hear you and Reid's recording, but I want to make sure. Did they say that, like, taking people out for coffee is discipleship? Cause I wanna say that it's not discipleship. And I wanna make sure I'm not, like, actively contradicting or dishonoring anybody. But apparently all three of us, or I don't know about Reid, Marty and I. That's what's important. Marty and I are on the same page. Coffee.
- [01:57]
B
Love me some coffee.
- [01:58]
C
It's great. We love coffee. We love. Yeah. Espresso, little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of cream in there. We're good to go. I also love programs. I'm a huge program person. I know that's not really in style, but programs give me life. Curriculum structure. I'm sorry. Don't tempt me with a good time.
- [02:18]
A
It is helpful in a lot of ways.
- [02:20]
C
Honestly, it's great.
- [02:22]
A
We don't need to reinvent the wheel all the time.
- [02:24]
C
Yeah, yeah. Bring back programs. That's my hidden soapbox. That'll keep in the closet for now.
- [02:29]
B
Nice, Nice.
- [02:30]
C
However, we're not here to talk about why all things. We should have more programs. We're here to talk about discipleship. And I'm going to kick off with some etymology, because for me, maybe it's my science brain, my science background. I need somewhere to start that feels like tangible and concrete. And etymology is one of those things.
- [02:52]
A
For me, this is the moment I've been waiting for since I got your email.
- [02:57]
C
It's not that exciting. It's really straightforward.
- [03:00]
A
I know, but I love it, too. I'm right there with you. I love this.
- [03:03]
C
Well, wonderful. Two nerds coming together. Disciple comes from the Latin, which looks like discipulus, but it's been a long time since I had Latin class, so we'll put a shrug emoji next to that one. But it just means pupil or student. Pupil or student. That's all a disciple is. A pupil or student. That's in English, in Hebrew. The word, of course, is in the title of this episode, and it's talmid all the time. This should be a normal word for B listeners. Talmidim. We talk about Jesus's Talmudim. It's the same word that we get Talmud from. And the root there is lamed. And that's just the word that means to teach. So also pretty much the same. A talmid is someone who is receiving teaching, which is the same as a pupil or a student. And then in the Greek, which is not my specialty, I believe it's Manthano. I don't know where the emphasis goes there, but, oh, well. And that's also the same. Pupil, student, learner, receiver of teaching. All of those things go together. I don't feel like we're breaking shocking new ground in this foundational layer. Probably stuff that's already been said, but it's important for me.
- [04:29]
B
I remember when I was learning Hebrew with you, El, when we were talking about Lamad. And then we get to the actual letter in the Alphabet, which comes with this image.
- [04:40]
C
Yes.
- [04:41]
B
And it has like this. My brain just remembers, like Catholic nuns with a stick whacking your. But it has like a. Tell us about that image that lies at the root of lamu, of the lamed. Lamed, yeah.
- [04:54]
C
Yes. So this isn't in my outline, but it is funny that I underlined that while teaching you that it was a smacking stick. So it's a staff, a teaching staff. But in the Hebraic world, a staff is about authority more than actual smacking. So we already talked about Moses. Moses has his staff on the ground. It's Turned into a snake and God. One of God's very first encounters with Mosheh, he's like, pick up your staff from the ground. It's not just a conversation about you need to grab your staff. Even though it looks like a snake, the staff is a symbol of authority. And Moshe is all up in his head about his identity and all these other things. So he doesn't want to take up his authority. So there is authority embedded in the relationship of discipleship, which is important and good and something we're going to go forward and talk about, but hypothetically can be used for smacking. However, mostly an authority symb. Moshe, of course, uses his to do miracles. Uh, oh, bum, bum, bum already. Okay, so that's our basic straightforward. What is a disciple? It's somebody who is learning, teaching. And there's this element of authority swirled in there that Marty brought out. But I want to start in our Tanakh or Old Testament, and I want to walk through a couple verses that have this word lamed in it, this word disciple. And I'm going to translate it that way, disciple. Even though. Though the rest of it is of my translation. And I want to see if you guys notice a theme from a couple verses in the Old Testament. You ready? It's a game show.
- [06:39]
B
I'm so ready. Hand over the buzzer.
- [06:42]
C
Beep. Deuteronomy 4. Gather the people together, and I will make them hear my words that they may disciple to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may disciple their children. Number one. Deuteronomy 11. Ye shall disciple your children, Speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk, by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. A classic. Deuteronomy 31. Gather the people together, men, women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear that they may be discipled and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this teaching. Psalm 34. Come, ye children, and hearken to me. I will disciple you in the fear of the Lord. Jeremiah 9. But they have walked after the imaginations of their own heart and after masters about which their fathers discipled them. And lastly Isaiah 54. And all thy children shall be discipled of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. What'd you notice was the little theme strung together there?
- [07:59]
B
I was hearing a lot of children talk a lot of. I mean, the one passage was foreigners. A lot of those that have. And those that are being raised up in. I Noticed that. I noticed not. In every passage, there was often a gathering component.
- [08:17]
C
Yes.
- [08:18]
B
Gather people and disciple them. What did Brent see?
- [08:21]
A
I noticed that we have Torah and prophets and writings.
- [08:25]
B
I like that.
- [08:25]
C
Ding, ding, ding.
- [08:26]
B
Did you just ding, ding, ding. Brent's answer. Does that mean he won this game show?
- [08:33]
A
I don't. I don't feel like I won.
- [08:35]
C
If that means you have more energy for next time, then yes, Brent's winning.
- [08:40]
B
You got it. I'm ready. Round two.
- [08:43]
C
The thing I'm circling in on was particularly the thing you notice, Marty, about children. That each of these times, whether he's specifically talking about children like in the Shema, I think that is not metaphorical. I think he's talking about raising kids. However, in the other texts, often it's a metaphorical children. I'm going to teach you. Moshe is talking to all of B', Nai, Yisrael, all of the people, even the title B', Nai, right? That's sons of Yisra'. El. So it's emphasizing this childlike thing, this image for children keeps being brought into play in the same verses that God is talking about, discipling, about teaching. To me, that makes a lot of sense because the disciples that Jesus chooses are what I would call children, right? Very young people around 13. Those are children. Jesus was a youth minister. He's surrounded by kids. He teaches them, you've got to be like a child to enter the kingdom of God. Children are voracious learners, right? And they learn with humility and openness and excitement for the material. I was teaching my kids a thing about nocturnal animals, you know, just going over predators and prey in nocturnal realm or whatever. And Lewis was so excited, my five year old, because he knows something about this topic, that he was just yelling things like bioluminescence location at different times. Like, I know this, I've got this, let's go. That's the kind of energy that kids bring into learning, right? So it makes sense to me that when we're coming to the things of God, we're showing up with being like bioluminescence grace. Is this about Jesus? I think it's about Jesus. Let's go.
- [10:35]
B
Well, next time I teach on the man of transfiguration and Peter goes to say something, I'm just going to have him shout bioluminescence into the. I do like that image.
- [10:43]
A
Elijah, Moses.
- [10:48]
C
I'm telling.
- [10:50]
B
I do really like that. I feel like there's. I was thinking about the passage where Jesus says the kingdom of God. Unless every teacher I'M going to butcher the quote now, but unless every teacher becomes a student or every. Every teacher that becomes a disciple becomes a student, it's like a house owner that brings out of the storehouse new treasures as well as old. And that play on not just teacher learner, but that child image. When you think you've arrived but you're willing to go back with some level of humility and innocence and curiosity and wonder. But you'll find more treasure. There's still more treasure to be buried there.
- [11:31]
C
Absolutely love that. A small Talmudic intermezzo here, just a moment to be like, well, we talk a lot about first century discipleship, right? When we talk about following Jesus and teaching other people to follow Jesus. At Bama, we're doing it with the early lens. So using the Talmud as a little camera, a little telescope, microscope to peer back there, the Tractate Sanhedrin and Sifrai, Deuteronomy are both going to say that whoever teaches Torah to a person becomes like that person's parent. Philo, though he's pretty annoying. If you've read a lot of Philo, he says that teachers are fathers of the soul. So we see this Old Testament, this Tanakh tradition about when you're teaching, you've got to be like a child. That goes into our early Jewish tradition as well. But of course, as Christians, our emphasis is going to be on the second half of our book as well as the first half. And so let's see if this trend continues into our Epistles. So first core four says this, for though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. Okay, great, Paul. Let's see if that continues. First Timothy says to Timothy, my genuine child in the faith, grace, mercy and peace, Titus 1:4 is going to say to Titus, my genuine child, according to our common faith, grace and peace. Philemon10, I am appealing to you concerning my child, whose father I have become in my imprisonment. First John 2:1. So moving out of Paul into John. My little children, I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. First Peter 5. She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you, and so does Mark, my son. Okay, so if being a discipler, of course, we're all disciples of Jesus. I left that First John, second half of that verse in because ultimately heavenly father is God, right? We're being discipled by Jesus, we're following Jesus. But if we're in the business of making disciples. These verses stacked up together make me have the impression that part of living out the Great Commission takes on the significance of being a spiritual parent to people. That discipling being in a discipleship relationship may include taking on this role of spiritual parent. What stands out to you guys about that? What are things that pop to mind? What's different about that between just having a professor you like at university versus having a spiritual parent?
- [14:46]
A
Yeah, I don't think I typically think of the parent metaphor. I've definitely had some people in my life who I'm like, oh, yeah, you're like an extra mom for me. And those people are people who have a spiritual influence on me.
- [14:59]
C
Right.
- [14:59]
A
But I think I'm typically thinking of like, yeah, God as a father and we as his children, but not as much like, oh, I need to seek out spiritual parents or be a spiritual
- [15:11]
C
parent to somebody else. Yeah.
- [15:12]
A
Or sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [15:14]
B
I liked your. The last part of your question, El where you asked about where you compared it to, like, a favorite professor. That helped things click into place for me because there's a care component. There is a. This is more than just the task at hand or the data under examination or the objective to learn. This is a relational and interrelated and interdependent spiritually nurturing relationship. I think my other part of my brain was always seeing the danger of how this has been, like, misused and abused. And so the other half of me
- [15:48]
C
is like, yeah, totally.
- [15:49]
B
I'm not going to get too wound up in the title or the position or the call to be a spiritual parent, because there is one Father in heaven and there's one rabbi. And yet there's this. There's also this, whether you want to call it the big Brother or the, like, a spiritual parent. There is this role that clearly the apostles and others see themselves called into probably as a model for us.
- [16:11]
C
Of course, we all have our primary authority being under Jesus. Right, Under God. He's the chief shepherd, et cetera. But we still have pastors who have little s. Shepherds. Thankfully, those relationships can absolutely also be abused. But that doesn't mean that we don't have pastors anymore, because some people mess it up. And it doesn't mean that we aren't still following the head shepherd. I think it's similar of God, of course, his father, full stop. And also we have earthly parents. And also we maybe seemingly Paul, Peter and John all found themselves to be spiritual fathers as well. To all of these people. Sometimes over long periods of time and lots of ministry and a lot of investment in pouring in, and sometimes because they met somebody in prison who they wanted to intercede for and they're stepping into that role.
- [17:08]
B
Yeah, it's a great example of one of the things that we just. Because something can be so distorted and so twisted, we throw out something that's so valuable and so precious and so good.
- [17:17]
C
Right.
- [17:18]
B
Because when this is done with humility and care and nurture, and when it really does reflect and model Jesus, there's nothing else that does that. That's why discipleship is such a valuable thing.
- [17:29]
C
Right. And in American culture, especially Protestant, white American culture, we're all individualists all the way down, right? And so the idea of any extra kind of authority figure is like, what are you talking about? It's me and Jesus. Leave me alone. What do you mean? You're trying to get in there with a staff. Excuse me, you don't get to tell me what to do. And sometimes, again, that's for good reason, because we've had negative experiences. But can we restore the good thing? Because we also find that in the early church, right. When we talk about the early church, fathers and mothers, they're all called Abba and Ima, they're called Father and Mother, even continuing in Orthodox and Catholic tradition. Right. Kept that title because it is communicating something of relationality and care beyond. Just. Have you clicked through this program? Have you sat down and had coffee and talked through the thing? So these are the things that stick out to me, the significance of being a spiritual parent. And you guys can jump in if any other little bullet points pop up for you guys. To me, one of the differences between meeting with folks for coffee, which I do in being a spiritual parent to somebody, is it involves taking responsibility while still acknowledging their independence. So I can go out to coffee with somebody and be like, oh, that sounds. That doesn't sound like a super healthy relationship. How does it feel when they do blah, blah, blah, and they'll be like, oh, bad. You know, and you can talk through that with them. But then like, two weeks later, they're like, we're engaged. Like, oh, okay. There isn't authority there, where it's just like, you're reflective, listening, you're talking, you're catching up. If you're invited to share any wisdom, you're in a place to share wisdom. That's awesome. That isn't always the case, but it's very clear that there's still, at least in my experience, maybe I'm doing it wrong. But the other person is still going to do whatever they're going to do, Whether that's in a friendship relationship or someone who's younger than you, or whatever, they're their own person. Your kid is absolutely still their own person. And dry as you might, you are unable to control their destiny or who they're going to be or where they're going to go. And yet also, a parent has an extra measure, an extra portion of responsibility for their child than they do for any other random person. Right. This is my kid and I love them. And also if they're not doing well, there is extra onus on me to be like, where are you? What are you doing? I think one of the reasons that discipleship isn't so prevalent even in the church is that's scary. It's like taking responsibility and wanting to be there and saying your well being is something that I want to watch out for and walk alongside you in is a lot more work than just taking people out for coffee once a month and checking in and texting every now and then. Right. It's the difference between pointing the way home and saying, hey, you're gonna turn left to the big tree, you're gonna go past the gas station and then the house will be on the right. And walking somebody home and saying, whoa, you're not safe to drive. I wish you hadn't been at that party. I'll go with you. Right. Versus just calling somebody a taxi. That's being apparent.
- [21:04]
B
Yeah, you said that there was the responsibility and your responsibility and their right paradox. And I feel like far too many of us, and when we're in the wrong spiritual headspace for this task, we get those things backward. We want to take away people's independence and neglect responsibility and call it discipleship. And we do that all, which is why it goes so haywire in the church. But there is a I'm going to take responsibility and I'm going to preserve. Not begrudgingly, but because I care about them like a parent would. I'm going to preserve who they are and who they're becoming and their independence. I started to realize later in my time in field ministry, like my approach to discipleship could be so beautiful. But if you just turned a couple things just a couple degrees to the left or the right, it could get really wacky really quickly.
- [21:56]
C
Yeah.
- [21:57]
B
And those were some of the things I was observing is, well, I can just like completely manipulate people or try to strip them of their agency or try to force them into this program. Or this house or the rules. This is the house rules. Because it's a discipleship thing and we're going to be like first century rabbis. And I really like how you framed that of. I'm going to take responsibility and I'm going to give them independence and agency and autonomy, and that preserves a healthier relationship. And that's good. I like that.
- [22:24]
C
Yes. If you have a kid and they are going to grow up to be a hydrangea bush, you cannot make them a tulip. They are going to be a hydrangea bush. But it is still your responsibility to weed, to try to get the pests off, to make sure they're getting the water. If the frost is coming. You got to protect your plants. All of that. That's all the work. And sometimes you've seen more on the authoritarian side. I've seen more on the laissez faire side of somebody being like, you're going to be. You're going to be. And that's that. And so that's who you are. You know, depressed is just part of your personality, so nothing I can do about it. They're their own person. Right. It's like, no, of course that person's going to grow up to be a hydrangea. And there's so much work to be done to make sure that they can be successful in being who God made them to be. And that doesn't look like trying to form them into an exact thing like ourselves.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah. It's another brilliant metaphor because I. We just planted a few years ago a hydrangea, and I have to care for it differently than I did the. So I can't just have the same program that I show up. And I'm like, well, this is when you're going to bloom and this is what it's going to look like. And this is. I have to be like, wait a minute, what are you? Who are you? How do I care for you? When do I prune you? What can I expect out of you? I can't expect you to be something like. That's just another great metaphor that I love, too.
- [23:55]
C
Awesome. Yeah. The word for teacher, which was in my zoom name for a long time when I taught Hebrew. I don't anymore. At this moment, everybody who emails me every single day, I'm so sorry. It says Mora El Grover Fricks Mora, which shows up, by the way, in the text. Isaiah 30 says, and you will be my teacher, and I will see you face to face. And I will hear your voice behind me saying, turn to the left and turn to the right. Another great image from the text, that word more your teacher that you will see. That word means to flow like water. And to me, that's really helpful when thinking about what it means to be a good disciple maker, a good discipler, a good teacher. Because if you have the source, you know, you have your relationship with God, you have all your teachings, you have all your knowledge, whatever it is. The task of being a good teacher, a good disciple maker, is when to send what down the river, right? Because you can have all your facts and be like, well, actually, Sadducee means sadakim, which is from, you know, the sons of Zadok or the high priest, whatever. And if you hit the wrong person with all of that, they'll blink at you and be like, okay, and move on. And it will have zero impact on their life other than thinking that you're strange and are passionate about odd things. But if you're meeting somebody and you've noticed, oh, boy, they are finding a lot of their worth and value in their spiritual disciplines. And even though we've talked about grace, it doesn't feel like they yet know that their identity is already in God, and God already loves them and God already calls them good. This might not be the right time to be like, here's eight more spiritual disciplines you could be doing, because it's like crack to them.
- [25:40]
B
Yes, sir.
- [25:40]
C
Versus maybe somebody who needs some structure in their life and is like, I don't know. I really want to encounter God and grow in God, but I don't know, like, what to be doing. Like, people keep saying relationship with God. I don't know what that looks like. Great moment to talk about spiritual disciplines. So being that teacher means saying like, I've got all these things up my sleeve. I have all these different things that we can do together. But first I need to figure out who you are and where you're at and what you're struggling with. And. And today we're going to do a little pruning, or today we're going to do a little watering. And that's going to look like this versus this. Plants. Plants, plants.
- [26:15]
B
I was trying to see if I could jog Brent out of his reflection. He was just reflecting reverie. So I just shouted plants into the camera.
- [26:23]
C
Good.
- [26:25]
A
I've been thinking about Judas and really the other disciples, too, and the analogy is a little complicated because Jesus is a different sort of disciple maker than the rest of us can be. But we've talked a lot about how the Disciples that Jesus called are very different types of people and have different strengths and different tendencies. And Judas in particular, like, Jesus didn't demand, like, okay, if you're going to follow me at all, you're going to follow me the whole way. Like, at some point, he let him go to be what he was going to. And I don't know if I feel completely comfortable with the analogy, but hand
- [27:03]
C
one of your kids over to Satan.
- [27:05]
A
No, don't do that. Please don't do it. Yeah, it's just the disciples are different. And it is. I think Marty's talked about this a lot as we've gone through the reboot especially. It's like, yeah, it's a lot cleaner to put things in this framework. And I sure like that. And Marty likes that. Some of our personalities are very much geared towards, let's make this very clean and very simple. And that's fine. Sometimes. Sometimes we as disciples are in the spot where that's what we need. And it's also good to move past that and say, yeah, it's more complicated than that. It's more nuanced than that.
- [27:44]
C
Yeah, I think with parenting, half of it is helping the kid figure out their own giftings to be like, you seem really passionate about this. I've noticed this thing about you. I've noticed this thing helping them discover or that differences, whether they're a hydrangea or a tulip or whatever. But also there is the. And in this house, we. X, Y, Z. In this house, we speak with integrity or whatever it might be. And I think, again, it's the balance of marrying those two things together. Like, if you're going to be my disciple. Right. Consensual relationship, you're not secretly discipling people. I don't think that that works very well. I don't think you can have authority very well and be able to speak into people's life in the same way. If you're just like, oh, yeah, I've got these disciples. But you haven't had that conversation anyway. Because when you do need to say, hey, in this house, we don't do. We're not seeking after our own glory. We're seeking after the glory of Jesus. Right. If you don't have that side of things and you're just like, I'm gonna figure out who you are. And who you are is someone who loves themselves so much that they hurt other people, but that's just, like, who they are. Because we're just so, like, fun and easygoing. Right. It's Always, always a balance. Okay. Last thing I want to talk about with the difference between a professor kind of teacher, a preacher kind of teacher, perhaps even versus a spiritual parent teacher is the idea of I do. We do, you do. So if I'm with my kid and my kid wants to help unload the dishwasher. That's awesome. You can watch me the first time when you're little. Wow, look, the hoop. Do you remember where the silverware go? Yeah, you can point now. I'm going to put the silverware away. But then at a certain age it's. We do. Yeah, you can help me. Awesome. Yes. You remembered where the spoons go. Nice work. And all of this. The whole time we've got positive affirmation. We're working on other things. Right. It's not just the point of the task, it's how we're growing the kid. I love that you want to help. That's so great. I love that you. Look at you being such a hard worker. That's amazing. Obviously, if you're talking to a 30 year old, that's a little condescending. But you find ways to call out the goodness that you see during that process. It's not just about making a really good dishwasher unloader, but then at a certain point it's you do. Okay, that's your chore. You are now the dishwasher unloader. Bye. I'm going to go to work and you're going to unload the dishwasher. And I think we see that in the ministry of Jesus because he is constantly doing right. He's teaching, he's resting, he's healing, he's exercising, he's doing all of his stuff. And he has his disciples with him. And then he also is teaching them how to pray. Right. They're saying, hey, how do we do this? And he gives them the altered Amidah or the Lord's Prayer, however you want to of that. And then we have the sending out of the 70, the 72. What's that number? Should know that number depends on which.
- [30:57]
B
I think there's two different. There's a manuscript discrepancy because of the midrashic tradition.
- [31:02]
C
Perfect, Perfect. I'm right both ways.
- [31:05]
B
Yes, you are.
- [31:06]
C
That's what I'll go with.
- [31:07]
A
Right.
- [31:07]
C
Twice the sending out of the lot of people. And he sends them out two by two and they go out and they do stuff and they come back home and they say, hey, this didn't work. We couldn't heal this person. What's going on. And he had a real authentic conversation with them. Right. He said, why are you so faithless? Which is a bummer of a thing to hear after you come back for the first time. But they have a breakdown, a debrief. Hey, how'd it go? Not great for this or this went really well. And then he gives them pointers on how they could do differently and he does it for them again. So it's not just three stages that's going back and forth, but he definitely sends them out and gives them instruction on how they can be successful and keeps working with them to build them up before ultimately. Right. Ascending and giving the great commission. Go now it's you. And so sometimes also I have seen in discipleship a dearth of that, a dearth of, I do. We do. You do. It's just you're over there and you do your thing and I'm over here and it's all one direction, the band. Yeah. That's what makes you beautiful, the fact that you have no self awareness.
- [32:23]
B
I appreciate that too, because I discovered I am not good at saying at some point in there, you were talking about the we do, and it's about full of affirmation.
- [32:32]
C
Yeah, I just.
- [32:33]
B
I'm so bad at that because I assume as a discipler that what's supposed to. Yeah, that's how it's supposed to go. So I'm not going to say anything about that because that's the default. Like that is the expectation.
- [32:43]
C
Right.
- [32:43]
B
What happens is I only end up pointing out all the things that we do wrong. Like, oh, well, you put 80% of the dishes away in the right spot, but, you know, you left us in the wrong spot and you forgot about that drawer. And then the disciple just ends up hearing like, I was assuming. I was assuming 80% awesomeness. I just never said it. It. And boy, did I kill the spirit of disciples in my early, early ministry and even struggle with it today because I just assume, oh, yeah, of course. Well, what's right is right. I would assume what's right. I'm only going to talk about what's negative. And I think that's a helpful reminder for any spiritual parent or literal parent, because I'm bad at it in that spot too. How valuable it is to say the things that we might assume because they're right and good. Don't assume the right and good Praise, celebrate, applaud, not for our glory, but because it's good. It's because it's right and good and those things should be celebrated.
- [33:38]
C
Right.
- [33:39]
A
Well, Marty, now that everybody has heard exactly my perspective and struggles, do you have anything you want to share as
- [33:45]
B
well about more than I just admitted to?
- [33:48]
A
No, I do the exact same thing. I felt like it was me talking through your voice somehow. That's. Yeah. What a struggle.
- [33:56]
B
Oh, God, I love it. I was like, wait, what? I just. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's good. It's hard. Parenting is hard. Literally, parenting is hard. Spiritually, we get. We're really wound up in not. Not necessarily the title, sometimes the title, just the position. Whether it's. It's the authority held in the wrong way. It's not the authority and responsibility, it's the authority and the. And the ability to control. And discipleship is supposed to be such a nurturing thing.
- [34:27]
C
Right. And what can be so devastating about that that you see all the time if you work with kids en masse, is that what we all crave, child and adult alike, is relationality. And so if a child is only getting attention when they've done the wrong thing, then they'll keep doing the wrong thing because, hey, at least I'm getting some kind of attention. At least my parent looks up from their computer or their phone to say, hey, get the couch. When I jump on the couch.
- [34:57]
B
Yeah.
- [34:57]
C
And so I'm going to keep jumping on the couch. And so with our disciples, we want to be saying even when it is stuff that we're like, of course. That's the expectation we want to be saying. I noticed that you were able to do your text writing the whole time without asking me a question. I don't know what you're working on with your disciples. If you have people in your house doing your disciplines with you, that. That's awesome and amazing and I'm excited for you, full stop. And also, let's make sure we're calling out the good we see around us as well as the things, because encourage one another as you are already doing, Thessalonians says, and exhort one another. Right?
- [35:37]
B
Yeah.
- [35:37]
C
Our baseline ought to be speaking life, encouraging people.
- [35:42]
B
I know with my kids, like, when my kids see my face light up in a positive way, that's more powerful than, you know, five to one chastisement, like, right. The positive light up. I think the same is true spiritually. When you see a spiritual community or a spiritual leader or somebody go, that's it. You get it. Like that. That moment, right there was little, but it was full of Jesus. That is far more powerful than all of the critique we might be able to shape into Somebody. It's just such a powerful thing to remember because we're. We don't do it enough.
- [36:16]
C
Yep. Which is why the childhood thing to me is so helpful to imagine. Okay. To God, we're all just little toddlers running around so proud of ourselves because we just tied our shoes. And yet, even though tying your shoe is not really that big of a deal, how does a good parent who loves their kid respond when you tie your shoes? You did it. That was so amazing. Do you feel proud? Nice work. I loved how you struggled for a minute, but then you were able to figure it worked so hard. I'm so proud of you that my kids light up every time, and so it doesn't even feel like work because it's joy. Okay. I want to talk about spiritual disciplines to do with disciples, and I'm going to pull from my own life with my kids. I've had different discipleship relationships in the. The past where I have been the discipler, but that's not the season of life that I'm in right now, because I have three young kids. And if we go back to all of those passages we had over and over, children, children, children. Some of them were metaphorical, and some of them were literal. And there are plenty of people out there who do not have kids or their kids are full grown. And that is a beautiful season of life as well. And, you know, of lots of opportunity to pour into other people. But there are also lots of people out there who do have kids, whether they're teenagers or young or somewhere in the middle. And so I want to talk about some of the things that I do with my kids that can be extrapolated to people who are not kids and also be usable by other folks as well. But do one of y' all want to go first with what you do with your kids? Because you both have things that I admire and think are great that I don't do yet.
- [38:12]
B
Well, some of the. I mean, we. We've chatted a bit about it on the podcast before. We lean a lot into holidays because we think the power of cultural storytelling is totally. Is a really big deal, and it comes around on a regular calendar basis. We taught our kids when they were getting ready for their bar and bat mitzvah. We had them spend three years in a pretty similar relationship to us as a college student disciple in our program. We. They got up early and they memorized the text, and they engaged in disciplines, and they had followed dad during the school year, and they followed mom during the summers, and they Got a little bit of different experiences. And then they got to build their own life once they were Byron B. And it's now their own spiritual journey, and they get to curate their own spiritual practice and discipline. We have our own family values we've talked about before that aren't really spiritual disciplines, but they totally are. Yeah, it gives you that. So those are just things that we. We leaned into and then we purposely kind of stopped because we didn't want to drown our children in discipline either. We wanted to give them the practice, show them the power and the value, and then let it sit there and they can pick it up and use it as they feel inspired, that agency and independence that they. So that's part of what we've done.
- [39:33]
C
Yes. Can I say you also have. Of blessings, name meanings, prayers for them outside their rooms.
- [39:41]
B
Yeah. There's probably things that I don't even think of now that you. That other people probably notice that we take for granted. But yeah, when we named our children, I sat in the hospital the day they were born and wrote up what their name means and the legacy that I hoped my wife and I had kind of planned prior to their birth which names we could pick from. And so we kind of knew what we had prayed over and. And what we felt like God was leading them to be. So, yeah, every birthday I read their name and their legacy off their wall to them and. Yeah, absolutely. There's probably all kinds of fun little things like that we've buried.
- [40:13]
C
Yeah. Do you do that when, like, other family members or people are there, or do you, like, wait for quiet time when it's just you as the four of you?
- [40:23]
B
If it feels at all performative, we don't. But we also are not afraid to. We think there's great power in people seeing and bearing witness to that. That. But we're not doing it to make sure that. But we've done a little bit of both. Like, they've been around even when we light set, like when we will light Sabbath candles and I'll go around and say the blessing for my kids. Yeah, we love to do that. With their friends over. We don't seek to do it with their friends over. But we don't at all shy away from. We lean into this. Like, there's something that we get a. We get a show when we get a mimic to the world. And I know that their friends think it's synchronous whether they say that outside or not, but, yeah, it's good.
- [41:02]
C
That's awesome. I have room to Grow in that. Brent Billings.
- [41:08]
A
Yeah, I have kids. They are currently 7 and 5 and my 7 year old, I've just recently he's to the point where he is writing a lot and starting to write in cursive even.
- [41:25]
C
Nice.
- [41:25]
A
Because yeah, I mean he's got to be able to read the letters from his grandparents and so currently we have to read that to him. So he's working on that. But he just needs more practice writing. And so I've been thinking about getting a notebook with him and having him write text with me. And we haven't actually started that, but maybe by the time this episode comes out, we will have done that.
- [41:50]
C
That's awesome.
- [41:51]
A
But we spend a lot of time in the evenings doing various prayers. Sometimes we'll do the Lord's Prayer and we've gone through various stages of I say part and you repeat it and then more recently we're saying it together and other types of prayers as well. Some text memorization.
- [42:11]
C
You did that from an early age. You had, like Darius said, all of Genesis 1 by something crazy was so inspiring.
- [42:20]
A
Yeah. Maggie is the driving force behind that. So that's credit to Maggie on that one. And really a lot of it is Maggie's doing. So I can't really take too much credit for it. But yeah, it feels very simple. But yeah, I'm just hoping that we're building in the important stuff, the foundational stuff, and then as their attention spans and their abilities and interests morph over time, those will change what we do.
- [42:46]
C
Amazing. I think I already said my kids right now are five, three and eight months old. And right now they're non teenagers. And so we are in the drowning them era. Drowning them in all the things they can figure out their own independence later. Five is not. I'm like, how would you like to spend your morning? Oh, Thomas the Tank and shit. That's not it. That's not what we're doing.
- [43:14]
A
That's right.
- [43:14]
B
That's right.
- [43:16]
C
That era will be later. So it's not right now. So first thing for us in the morning, I am up. I am doing my text writing, I'm doing my devotional things. Talked about that in another podcast. Can link to that. But almost every morning I'm up at like 5:15. It doesn't matter. One of the kids at least will sneak downstairs before they're supposed to, probably by about 6. And the problem is if I send them back to their room, they will wake up their sibling because the older two shares room. And so what that means though is because my brain can be scattered. Don't know if anybody's noticed that I have a sermon that was facetious. I have a sermon going or a podcast going at the same time that I'm doing my text writing or reflective prayer writing. Whatever I'm doing. Because when my brain gets distracted, I want it to be distracted by something else that's pointed toward the Lord, not by like, oh, when I'm working later, I'll start doing a to do list. I can't have that. So if I'm going to be distracted, I'd rather have it be by a sermon or whatever. It's usually a sermon. Which means if my kid comes downstairs, been doing that for long enough, they know, hey, that's what mom's doing. And if I'm quiet, can snuggle in on the couch. That means they're listening to that sermon with me. Which one of the preachers that I listen to a lot has a deep older voice. And my son fully believes that it's Doc Hudson from cars. And so he's like, is Doc Hudson teaching about Jesus again? Yeah, he is. That's what's happening right now. Whatever captures your interest. So that's what starts. That's the I do, or the we said you do. We do. No, I do. You do. We do. Too many do's. That's the I do. They're listening. They're not text writing with me. They're just noticing that it's a key part of their mom's life, that if they come up in the morning, they can find me and they can be next to me, but this is what I'm doing. We're not going to be talking to them about other stuff. Something that when the two of them came down recently, they found a radio dramatization of the NLT on blb. I don't love the nlt, but that's fine for kids. It's engaging. It has all these different voices. So they were tapping around on my Bible app. It's like, great, listen to that. Awesome. So we might keep doing that because they were captivated. The angels sounded a little creepy, but that's okay. Doesn't matter. They're listening to the text. Big monotone voices are fine. After I'm done, which is usually like 6:30, the next thing that always happens, worship music is going on. At first there was resistance to that. I know if people are like, inspired, they want to try to adopt things, they can get pushback from the rest of their family, and that can be hard. So I will say yes. At first my 3 year old just yelled as a song, Elsa song, because that's what she wanted from Frozen. But we say, yep, you can have Elsa's song later at lunchtime. Right now, in the morning. Morning is when we have God music, which is what we call that with the kids. And then later they get whatever. And that means that now that it's been long enough, even when it is later in the day, they'll still ask for hey, can I have God music? Hey, can I have this particular song? So it's building their interest in their tastes. It's not that they're just like mom all the time. It's amazing to watch the spirit work and their interests start to change. Number three during breakfast, thanks to read. That's one we read. That's when I read to them from the text. We probably have like 12 children's bibles by now and like five good fat catechism style books and four different pilgrim's progresses. And I do that specifically because novelty is so important for young kids. Different drawings, different illustrations, different ways that a story is told, captivates different kids differently, not just going through the same one. Hopefully later. I look forward to leaving that era behind, but right now it's great. The question might be, well, how have you found 12 great children's bibles that don't have anything problematic? I have. I just changed the words. There's stuff in the story that is just added in or I don't think is helpful or I know would be not great for my kid or that I actively disagree with, I can edit that line out. You can change it while you're talking. I even stop and go sometimes. My kids just keep eating their cereal. It is fine and it's great. They love it. They ask for that. If I'm still doing something else, part of getting ready in the morning and they're sitting down to eat their breakfast, which happens at the same time, they'll be like, mommy free Jesus. That's my three year old. Everything's Jesus. Where's Jesus? On every page. She's a good little like reformed theologian. Everything in the Bible is about Jesus and they have great conversations based off of that. They've grown so much listening to those stories. You'd think they don't care about Tower of Babel or whatever they do. They are tiny little theologians and philosophers. So many good questions, so many good. So much engagement. More than I would have ever have guessed if come out of that practice. So just being faithful to it and if it's a morning that it doesn't seem like they're listening and everybody's just watching the eight month old shred a banana into complete mush on her face, then that's okay, that's that morning. George, my husband, then takes the older two to preschool and he tends to do that early. And then they sit in the car and they have their memory verses they're working on from their baby dedication. I'm not totally sure how that's going other than that it's quote very cute because I'm not there. But it's a lengthy portion. They're both from the prophets, so they are doing call and response back and forth in the car while they wait for the school to open. And I really like sending them out into the rest of the world because it's not a Christian school. Not that that would necessarily make a difference, but. But just you're going out in the world. Last thing you're going to hear is something that's about you and your identity and God that we feel like God picked out alongside us for you. And this is what you're going to hear every day before school. Once they have that memorized, I'm sure we'll move on to something else. But that's what we start with. Every conversation, if we've picked up from school, every conversation that has to do with classmates or how's this going, or how's this, we're looking for every possible opportunity to talk to them about the way of Jesus, talking to them about their calling. So if something went poorly, we're talking to them about that. If somebody else did something, because kids have lots of questions about like so and so said toilet during reading time, you know, that's a conversation that we're going to have about the way of Jesus. Surprise, surprise. If they get positive reinforcement from a teacher, whatever it is they're going to hear about about their calling and who God made them to be. So all of those are very intentional. And then we have all of our Shabbat practices that we do, we've talked about that elsewhere, but that's only God. Music all day. We get movie only happens for them. They get ice cream during that movie. If we have to run an errand on Shabbat, like stop and get gas, they get to pick out a little treat from the convenience store because it's Shabbat. So we have lots of different Shabbat things, things that we do that's big in our house. We're still working on holiday stuff because they're so young. But that's where we're at right now. So things that translate over to adults, if you are discipling young people or full on adults, talking to them about calling, everything's an intentional conversation with adults. My family history has a lot to do with personality profiles of all kinds of. That's part of the culture of my family and the history of my family. I love to do that with people. I'm discipling to be like, I'm noticing this and this and this and this. And we talk about those different assessments together and go over the direction that they all seem to be pointing. Dreams, all of the above can pretty easily be brought over to discipling adults. Having special verses that we think the spirit led us to doing text reading, talking about the text, bringing stuff up, wrestling through stuff together. But that's jumping to the next episode. So hopefully folks out there, if you have kids, if you don't have kids, if you're thinking about what it means to start discipling, if you've been discipling for a long time, hopefully there's something in here. Being a spiritual parent, may we find spiritual parents. May we be good spiritual parents. Parents, may we find God to be our ultimate source of joy and protection and love and nurturing. Go out great commission words, go here, make disciples.
- [52:43]
B
And lo, he is with us always.
- [52:46]
C
Even to the end of the age, baby.
- [52:48]
B
Even to the very end of the age.
- [52:50]
C
Yeah.
- [52:51]
A
Yeah. As you were talking, I was like, man, Elle's doing all kinds of stuff. But then I was like, okay, well, no, we. We have some Shabbat stuff and we have, you know, these other things that I was remembering.
- [53:00]
C
But I think it's not a competition.
- [53:01]
A
No, it's not. And what I'm trying to say is that I think I'm just inspired to do more of what I do with more intentionality, by the way that you're talking about it. Because a lot of that stuff is there. And I think. I mean, I'm sure you have days that it's better than others, but just being more intentional about how you. How you bring that together, actually we
- [53:26]
C
nail it 100 out of 100.
- [53:28]
B
Oh, wow.
- [53:29]
A
Okay. Well, that's good. Still. Still squad goals, I guess.
- [53:33]
B
Yeah. It's always so much more about quality than quantity, which is so cliche. But such a wise piece of wisdom to. Wise piece of wisdom. Don't be surprised by a surprise, everybody.
- [53:45]
C
Don't be surprised by a surprise. I would alter that. Sure. Yeah. Quality. But I would Say consistency, even over quality, because it can feel like, man, my kids didn't get anything about that. That didn't go well. Don't just stop there. Don't just say, well, that was a bust. Keep showing up, keep doing it. And once you have that culture set in your family, like, first off, the whole family benefits. Right. I'm getting stuff out of my children's Bibles and calling across the house. George, did you ever realize that, like, changing their languages is not the norm in ancient Near Eastern culture? God just would have demolish everybody. That would be the norm. Never thought about that. Right. So that's happening. Yeah. The whole house gets blessed by worship, music, etc.
- [54:33]
A
Yeah.
- [54:33]
C
So building patterns.
- [54:37]
A
Okay, well, thank you for your teaching
- [54:41]
B
on discipleship, for being the more of mores.
- [54:45]
C
Someone here has to do it correctly. That's just. Okay, so to be clear.
- [54:55]
A
All right, well, I don't know if we have any, necessarily resources for this one, but if we come up with any links or anything, those will be in the show notes@baymodiscipleship.com or in your podcast app. You can use the contact page there to get in touch with us if you want to share some of your practices, some of your struggles with discipleship. We have community space where. Where we can do that as well. We have a slack where you can get on and talk about, like, hey, I'm dealing with my kids. And you'll probably find 20 other people who have dealt with the same thing. So lots of ways to do this in community, whether you're in a discussion group, through our map, or anything else. But thank you for wrestling with us. Thank you for joining us on the Bama podcast today. We'll talk to you again soon.
- [55:51]
B
Check that mic. I have Elle's beautiful voice.
- [55:56]
A
Check, check.
- [55:57]
C
Incredible. I didn't know I sounded like that, but, boy, am I blessed to find out.
- [56:02]
B
Well, I had to get it in a higher register than normal. You wouldn't want to be like, I have those beautiful voice.
- [56:08]
C
I mean, why not? Apparently, for vocal health, we're all supposed to say mmm, and then we're supposed to talk up there, wherever that was. And so I'm like an octave and a half below that. And I should be. Hi, everyone. Welcome. It's so good to see you.