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This is The Oaks Equipped, a podcast from The Oaks Church in Liberty Hill, TX where Pastor Josh Mings talks through the stuff he didn’t have time to say on Sunday, answers the questions people are actually asking, and keeps things way more real than polished. Expect biblical truth, practical takeaways, and just enough humor to keep you guessing whether he meant it.
If you want to follow Jesus with clarity (and laugh at least once), you’re in the right place.
Welcome to The Oaks Equipped, a podcast designed to help you grow deeper in your faith. Each week we unpack sermon insights, explore what didn't fit on Sunday, and answer real questions, even the skeptical ones. Let's get equipped.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome to our inaugural podcast. Josh, we're ready to start.
Speaker 3:Howdy, everybody.
Speaker 2:Alright. Exciting. So, Josh, we're kicking off a podcast. We have all this great equipment. We're ready to go.
Speaker 2:What's the purpose of the podcast? What do we wanna achieve through the podcast?
Speaker 3:This is a really great opportunity for us as a church when what do you do when you meet once a week in a school that you don't have access to? And you only see each other on that Sunday. We're we're not a traditional setting where we have our own building, and we can meet freely every day of the week if we wanted. So the podcast presents a really great opportunity for us to take a scattered church that can only meet once a week together and provide resources, equipping, training, communication in a really accessible way for anybody. They can listen to us on their drive, commute in the morning.
Speaker 3:You listen to us while they're lifting weights in the gym.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just about anywhere.
Speaker 3:Anywhere Yeah. That their phone can be with them. They can have us in their pocket and make the use of technology so that what we're trying to make and build can be multiplied, developed, and accomplished. So this is a great platform that, you know, generations before really didn't have the opportunity or luxury to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And how how do you think that will make the Oaks Church more mislead minded? Or
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, you know, Glenn, you were a part of of The Oaks when we first started. And, you know, every week we were meeting, and it was just, you know, on repeat. This is what we're trying to do. This is what we're trying to build.
Speaker 3:This is who we're trying to be. And then now that we've launched and we're successful and things are going well, it's so easy for that vision vision and mission to be lost. And so this provides us the opportunity as we add new people. I was looking at our roster on Monday of this week, and we're well over 600 people on our roster. You know, people who have come, tried out, considering making The Oaks their home.
Speaker 3:Wow. You know? And when we started, you know, it was it was 25 couples in a little room, and those 25 couples got the mission. And so, you know, what we dreamed about and hoped for is coming to fruition, but now more people are coming, but they didn't have the luxury of hearing the heartbeat and the vision. So this podcast the way that we're gonna make sure that our vision is multiplied, and all those who come can learn that, understand that so that we can continue to see multiplication.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And what how would you articulate the mission maybe succinctly for somebody that's maybe listening for the first time, been been attending the Oaks, hears you talking about being missional, being on mission. We're a missional church. Yeah. Well, how would you express that that mission mission Yeah.
Speaker 2:That we're trying to get to?
Speaker 3:Mission and vision come together in the great commission. What Jesus called us to and expects us to do is to make disciples. Now this is what's funny. I I went to school hoping to be a Sunday school teacher. Like, that was my end goal.
Speaker 3:I wanted to be a Sunday school director, and and and that was discipleship. And very quickly, after twenty five years of ministry, I learned that that wasn't discipleship. That was data transformation. It was sitting in a classroom in a circle, and everything that's in my brain, I give to you. And then it ends there.
Speaker 3:What true discipleship is when Jesus says, go into all the world and make disciples. What he has in his mind is a multiplication where a group of people come and learn the way of Christ, what it means to follow him, to act like him, the daily rhythms of following Christ, and then them being able to teach that. So discipleship means we get together and we teach the way of Christ to an individual, and then that individual lives the way of Christ and then is able to teach someone else and then someone else. And so when we say that our mission is to make disciples, it's to do it in a way that multiplies, not just checks a box of, hey. We got together and we learned a certain thing about God.
Speaker 3:And we now know that, and we've crossed the finish line. This this process never ends until Christ returns.
Speaker 2:Sounds very similar to what you say on Sundays, that we're not just coming here to sing some songs, listen to somebody speak, we're trying to come and enter into the presence of God. Discipleship is similar. Right? We wanna we don't wanna just do a set of activities, readings, and such, but we wanna get to the point where we're connecting with God, connecting with Christ so that we are then that missional mind comes through that rather than us trying to maybe just, you know, pull up our socks and start knocking on doors.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Absolutely. And I I think that that the church gathered together to meet with God is how our heart gets conformed. I've I say it all the time. It's hard to love lost people if you don't love lost people.
Speaker 3:And the only way you're gonna love lost people is if you really know the father's heart, and you've been impacted by that heart, and you have a deep, burden to accomplish what he's tasked us with, which in the great commission. And so for me, you know, we gather together on Sundays as a church just to fill you up, And it assumes that on the week you're living in mission, and you come to church every week tired because you've been poured out so often, you know, trying to love your neighbor, trying to make disciples, trying to live this life that Christ has called us to. So you come on Sunday, and you just need to be with the people of God, and you need to experience his presence so that you can go out and do it again on Monday and be tired the next week and then come back to church.
Speaker 2:There you go. The missional gas station.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Come in, get filled up, and get out of there. Yeah. So you first you start off with the book of Ephesians. Interesting pick of all the books you could have picked. You could have picked Romans, heavy on theology.
Speaker 2:You could have picked maybe Philippians talking about joy and, you know, interacting with people. But you picked Ephesians. Why Ephesians?
Speaker 3:Well, it's funny you bring up Romans. That's the white whale. That's the that is my dream. I've never taught the book of Romans, and it probably would take us four years to get through. So one day, Lord willing, we will.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Ephesians is the perfect book for starting a church in my view because and and the theme that we put was rooted in. Ephesians sets the groundwork for a new church on all the things that we need to be rooted in that we we can call back to and we can glean from on what our true north is and what our center is. And so the book of Ephesians starts the first three chapters with what some have called the explicit gospel, like, just the bare bones. This is what the gospel is.
Speaker 3:And if a church starts and gets that wrong, their trajectory will be erred in the wrong way.
Speaker 2:And if I could just pause you for a second there because as silly as a question this might seem, but people often ask me this, like, when we're teaching about being missional or talking with our neighbors. How would you describe what is the gospel? If somebody just wants a plain vanilla understanding of what is the gospel, what does that mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I like the way Tim Keller always says it. He says, The gospel is this: we are more sinful than we could ever possibly imagine, but we are more loved by God than we could ever dream.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 3:And so the reality, the depths of our, as some theologians call it, our depravity, our darkness, that's all of us. But the good news is that in Christ, there is a way for us, to remedy that evil, that problem. And Ephesians is so explicit in it. It shows God is the initiator, and we respond to it. So the true gospel is not that you or I can fix ourselves.
Speaker 3:That's impossible. But that Christ is the hero who stepped down, put on our skin. That's what you know, I like how John says that he he dwelt among us. He put on flesh. He put on
Speaker 2:Dwelt among us.
Speaker 3:Carne. Yeah. You know, meat. He put on meat and dwelt among us is the literal meaning, so that he could associate with us, understand us, and, do what we could not do in ourselves. And so Ephesians is explicit in that, makes it crystal clear, and that's so important particularly in the Bible Belt where, morality, people's good intentions seems to be what they believe saves them, seems to you know, good old Texas boy.
Speaker 3:You know, I've gone to church every Sunday of my life, so therefore, I'm on the team. Right?
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 3:right. And Ephesians undo undoes all of that. Yeah. And it shows us that this is God's work in redeeming and saving us. And then that sets a trajectory for the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Interestingly, you covered Ephesians one where God was call calling us first. Right? We and you talked a little bit about free will and what it is or isn't. But Ephesians two talks about, we just talked about the depravity or how lost we were, how far we were from God, that we were more focused on the spirit of the age rather than the Holy Spirit or God.
Speaker 2:Why do you think Ephesians two emphasizes our depravity or or farness from God or sinfulness from God rather than having that be the starting point where it shows that in Ephesians one that God's calling us. He's making it possible for us to be in the family or to be, as you use the word, be on the team.
Speaker 3:Yes. It it's you have to address the depravity part, because each of us have a tendency to assume on a scale or as long as the guy next to me is worse off than me, then then I'm okay. None of us really think we don't we're not the bad guy. The bad guys are out there. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're Hitler. They're Osama bin Laden. They're, you know, Hamas. It's not I'm I'm one of the good ones.
Speaker 2:So you've taken us through the first three chapters deep in theology, and now we're going to turn the corner and get more into practical application or things that where we can apply this theology. But before we get there, how did how did the theology give us a better idea of who God is and who we are and how that will transcend as we start to apply this in in our lives?
Speaker 3:Yeah. At the heart of Ephesians, with a with an explicit arc and when I say explicit, I mean clear. Like, this is the gospel. That sets the right trajectory for a church, a person, an individual on where they are to go. Because I understand myself rightly, because I understand God rightly.
Speaker 3:The way that many people for years have said it is identity will dictate biography, that who I am will dictate what I do. And so Ephesians, the first three chapters, gives us a clear picture of who God is and what the gospel is. And so this is where the classic works debate comes in. So Ephesians is clear in telling us that we cannot earn our salvation. It is a gift from God.
Speaker 3:So does that mean I'm not supposed to work? Does that mean I'm there's not the good things that I should do? No. Ephesians now, as we get to chapters four and on, it's going to show us. It's gonna be a series of commands, a series of instruction on how to live in light of the reality of the gospel.
Speaker 3:And that's important because in that process, you know, it's gonna it's gonna instruct us how to order our home. It's gonna instruct us how to order the church. It's gonna give tons of instructions on spiritual warfare, and we're gonna fail at it from time to time. But we're not gonna lose our salvation because of it. We're not gonna lose our standing with God.
Speaker 3:It's going to just order our life on what God has called us to do, and we obey that not as a means of salvation, justification. It is a part of the refining process that God takes us through to conform us into his image. Ephesians is so important because where this hits home with the average person is they believe they have to do these good things in order to remain in God's good graces and love. And we're going to come up short in the way we order our home. We're gonna come up short in the way we we follow those commands.
Speaker 3:That doesn't mean that we lose what God has done for us. We're just called to course correct again and come back into the family. So Ephesians one, two, and three reveals to us who God is so that when we fail, we know we can come back to him. When we come up short, we know that we don't lose this precious gift that he's given us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And Ephesians one thirteen reminds us that we're sealed in
Speaker 3:this Sealed.
Speaker 2:Sealed. Held. Yeah. Can you explain, like, kind of expand on that, like, what you were just saying, that going forward when things we have our high points and our low points. When we get to those low points, we can sometimes doubt that we're saved or that we're not living the way we should be.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Maybe just talk a
Speaker 3:little bit about that. I mean, that is every every single person goes through this. I go through this. You go through
Speaker 2:this. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It's like it is the human condition, and we it is a grace that we feel that way. And I know that that seems weird to hear because it's like it's such a gut wrenching, like, oh my goodness. There's how could God love us? That that just reveals, it's a grace to us, how amazing the gospel actually is. That it didn't just save us once when we walked down the aisle in, you know, 1984 when we put our faith in him Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But that grace is still given to us every single day when we fall. And that love then I think that's the heart of the book. That love then should propel us onto greater works. And so but but as you're pointing out, that's the sealing of the spirit. The the New Testament refers to this a few times, even Peter refers to it.
Speaker 3:That sealing is a keeping. It's a it's, you know, the ancient idea of a of a wax seal that would would would mark God is saying when he seals us, you belong to me. You belong to me. And, I love what John MacArthur often would say. He's like, if you could lose your salvation, you would.
Speaker 3:So it's not it's not our holding that keeps us. It's God's holding.
Speaker 2:It would be gone by now.
Speaker 3:I would blow there's a there's no doubt I would blow it. Yep. God doesn't blow it. God doesn't make mistakes. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so when he seals us, that's his way of saying, you belong to me, and that seal is kept until and according to Peter's epistle, for the last day when he returns. He knows who belongs to him, and that's how he gathers his own.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. Well, this past week, you when we're when we're thinking about works and going, you know, towards the chapters four, five, and six and applying these things that you've been teaching us from the word. Last week you talked about that it's not just us pulling up our socks and trying to work harder to do these things, but it's a partnership, if you will. Remember the exact terms you used that between us and god, staying in Christ, dwelling letting him dwell in our hearts, and then allowing that to empower us to do the works rather than just saying, by might, I'm gonna get these things done.
Speaker 2:Can work on that one a little bit?
Speaker 3:It's a beautiful mystery, and it's one of those things that I don't know that anyone can put their finger on. I don't think you can systematize this. I don't think you can three, four, five step this. I think those who've who've walked with the Lord a while, they realize this happens without them even realizing it happens. So what I was trying to communicate is understanding the truth of Ephesians one, two, and three.
Speaker 3:We know the theology now. We are saved by grace through faith, not by works so that anyone can boast. That's God's work. He saved us. Now he calls us to fulfill the first commandment that he gave, Moses, be holy for I am holy, which when I hear that command is like Shaquille O'Neal looking at me saying, be tall because I'm tall.
Speaker 3:Like like, it's just that's an impossible task. So so simultaneously, there are two things going on. Now that we are born again in Christ, we have the ability that we did not have before. As a new creation, we now have the ability to live a holy life, but neither one of us will do that. None of us will do that completely perfectly until we're with Jesus face to face.
Speaker 3:But we're also promised we have the ability. We're not perfect in it, but we also have this promise that the spirit indwells in us and helps us. So the way that I've always described this process is salvation is secured. We're putting that aside. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:I'm loved. I'm sealed. I'm owned by God. And now I enter into this the the two step forward, one step back, back and forth of the slow process of being conformed into the image of Christ. That's how the New Testament describes it.
Speaker 3:And the best way I know how to describe this is that every one of us is called to follow Jesus now and to practice his way. And so I'll just use normal conversation people understand. Following Jesus means reading your Bible, praying every day. It's like brushing your teeth. Yep.
Speaker 3:And so every morning, faithfulness in that looks like you wake up and you brush your teeth. You get dressed. You go on your day. Mhmm. And before you go to bed, you brush your teeth again.
Speaker 3:And that faithfulness compounded over days and weeks and months gives results. The same is true reading your Bible, praying every day, obeying his commandments, loving your wife as Christ loved the church, helping those who are suffering, all the things that Christ comes calls us to. Mhmm. One day of doing, you probably won't see much fruit of. But compounded over time, our effort combined with the supernatural power of the spirit after days and weeks and months and years and decades, you look back and somehow supernaturally, you've changed.
Speaker 3:You're not who you used to be. And you can't point to the day or the minute or the second that it happened, but God in his providential care and by the power of his spirit has changed you into, I don't wanna say a better version of yourself, but into the version that Christ is calling you to be. And I it's it's supernatural. It's it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Closer to the person we actually are in Christ.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Holy. Like you said
Speaker 2:before, be holy. We're holy positionally. Yes. But each every day, like you're saying, we're working through the sanctification process, a word that you used the other day, trying to get closer to who we actually are and who we'll actually be in heaven.
Speaker 3:To make us yeah. I like how you said that. We we are positionally holy, justified. We're just not quite ready for heaven yet.
Speaker 2:Not ready. It's not ready for us. But the interesting thing too about, you know, about you talked about our sinfulness and the ebbs and flows of our faith. It also should be a reminder of why we need to go out and talk to other people because we can recognize our sins in those dark times, those hard times. We can see our sin.
Speaker 2:We wonder, how can I be a Christian all these years and still do this or that? Yeah. It should remind us that we're no different. We're sinners. Yes.
Speaker 2:We just need to go out and reach the people who haven't heard the good news.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, the the longer you follow Jesus, I think one of the realizations that you come to is that being an arrogant Christian, or prideful is probably one of the greatest oxymorons for a Christian. And as you rub shoulders with those who are far from God, it should be a humbling thing because we're we are no different.
Speaker 2:Well, we know one other thing that we watch out for. Yep.
Speaker 3:Yep. Yeah. You know.
Speaker 2:It doesn't go together. And even as you were saying, the the captain of the white whale, Paul Yeah. And I think it's in Romans six talks about him being the chief of all sin.
Speaker 3:Chief of yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, here's a guy that wrote, what, 13 books of the New Testament. Yeah. Lived out life across continents, goes to Rome, submits himself to the authorities, and yet writing from a jail, writes numerous books encouraging us, and yet he turns around and says, Me of all men, I'm the chief sinner. Ironic.
Speaker 3:When you look at see, this will be good because I have another anecdote. Someone did this once. They took the order in which Paul wrote. So his first book was Galatians. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And you see this progression of it's not pride, but, I mean, if he Galatians is his his strongest, harshest book, and then you see this as as it progresses, and he you know, you see over and over, like, I'm his last book, he's like, I'm the worst of all people. You know? So that would be a cool anecdote. You just kind of walk through that and you see as he matures and grows and ages, it's like he's just more and more overwhelmed. The goodness of God and the extent of his own depravity.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The goodness of God never stops.
Speaker 3:Yep. So
Speaker 2:we've talked about Ephesians, the theology, the application, the works. We talked about brushing our teeth each morning, getting into the word prayer. But we also have another tool that can help, the Discipleship with a Purpose, the Evergreen Study. We really would like everybody to at least go through that process and eventually lead others to that process as well. You want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 3:Listen, what
Speaker 1:your vision is for
Speaker 3:as I said, you know, I wanted to be a Sunday school director. Discipleship changed my life. The average person I know is struggling because their spiritual diet consists of, I go to church two, three times a month. And my heart breaks. I couldn't survive on that.
Speaker 3:What Evergreen does is it provides people with the muscle and instruction on how to self care and self feed. You know, God forbid, Glenn, you and I could be gone tomorrow. Yeah. No guarantees. There's no guarantee.
Speaker 3:So then what happens to my spiritual, my, you know, someone's spiritual development if their diet is I go to church?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So what Evergreen is, is it's a resource to teach you how to follow Christ. And that distinction is so important because so often discipleship has been, oh, well, I need to gather these facts. I need to know who God is. I need to know what this doctrine is. I need to know what this belief is.
Speaker 3:But learning how to self feed and follow Christ actually provides you the means to then address anything that life brings up. So you can take a class on parenting, which would be fantastic and wonderful and needed. But imagine if you had developed the skills in order to dig into God's Word yourself and discover the principles and precepts that the Word has. Taking a marriage class if, you know, your marriage isn't doing so well, it's a good thing. It's a great thing.
Speaker 3:Encourage you to do it. But if you know how to pray and you know how to seek God's face and you know how to rightly divide the Word of God and where to find truth to then lead your family, you're better off for it. And then the next step in that process is that then you also could share with someone else how to develop that skill. That's how the church expands. And we multiply leaders, we multiply more people who would be called into ministry, we multiply more people who know how to self feed.
Speaker 3:That's what Jesus had in mind when he said, Go and make disciples. And so Evergreen, after twenty five years of being in the discipleship space, you know, I think this is important to say, Evergreen is not a curriculum. That's what people think. Oh, I'm going go do this class. Check the box.
Speaker 3:I did it for six weeks. I did it for twelve weeks. I did it for six months. Check. I'm done.
Speaker 3:I've done it before. It's not a class. It's a means to teach you how to follow Christ and how to teach others to do the same thing.
Speaker 2:And what's interesting about that process as well, as you go through Evergreen, you're not doing it usually on your own, right? You have a leader, but you also have a couple other people you're doing that with. And the bonds that you build with those people, because you're going through it together, you're memorizing God's word, you're praying for one another, you have a community within the community of The Oaks, right? That is a lifelong community.
Speaker 3:Yes. Know, each one of my groups I've had unique and special relationships for in different ways. What's cool about it is my very first group, all those guys are now leading,
Speaker 2:which
Speaker 3:is you know, phenomenal. What I
Speaker 2:And if I could interrupt you, do you think that they set off to be leaders? No.
Speaker 3:Oh goodness. No. But the more and more time you spend with Christ, you catch a vision for what Christ's heart actually is. And this goes to show, you know, the preacher isn't the one who always has to be the leader. God raises up men and women with their own unique skill sets and their own unique giftings.
Speaker 3:And I like to say that no disciple making group is the same because they're made up of different types of people and the things that we do and the directions that they take. You know, this is the safe space where questions can be asked. This is a safe place where you don't have to have it all together. And, you know, not very often can someone just ask a question in the middle of a sermon, but in a disciple making group you can. People need that.
Speaker 3:So they need that ability to be a student and a learner, but they also need a place where they can take their spiritual burdens and have people contend and pray for them and grieve with them and cry with them. They need a place where they can strategize. Hey, I've got these lost people in my life and I'm trying to engage them. What have you seen or done or experienced? They need a place where they can share their wins and losses in life and have a group of people that have their back and celebrate and mourn with them.
Speaker 3:And so the DMG is where the church becomes small and personal and intimate and life giving. It gosh. I've just seen how it's changed people's lives. I think one of the biggest testimonies that I love is watching wives see their husbands finally turn the corner. And then because of the DMG, then they leave their homes the way they're supposed to, know.
Speaker 3:The idea would be you've learned how to self feed, so now you can self feed in your home.
Speaker 2:And lead. Lead. Because you're confident now what you believe and why you believe it and you can live out because of the precepts in that study.
Speaker 3:What dad doesn't want their kids to follow Christ? And so the DMG provides the means where you can make your own disciple making group in your home with your children. And so it is a beautiful thing. But let me be clear, It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But the most rewarding.
Speaker 2:But you don't do it alone. Within a few weeks of doing it, as you come, you fill out the answer, the questions, redo the reading, memorize the verse, you pray, but you start talking about your answers and it isn't very long before everyone's contributing something unique, a different perspective of what they've read, either in readings that we get from the Bible or from the answers themselves. And that just creates just a huge opportunity to grow.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very much so. So if I'm interested in this, I know that you said that you have a plan for the upcoming weeks here, maybe a month or so. Why don't you just kind of lay out what you're willing to do initially, just kind of corral those folks that want to get into DMG then how we're going to go forward in the year?
Speaker 3:We need to identify all the folks who have been in a disciple making group before and ask those to get together and make sure that we can gather those people so that they can serve as either leaders or co leaders or those who can help start new groups. But that group of people needs to come under and make sure that we're all aligned, you know, because a DMG can oftentimes take on the personality of the people in the group, and that's a beautiful thing. But we need to make sure that we're aligned on what we're trying to do. One of the hardest things that a disciple making group goes through is the idea that one day they're going to divide and multiply.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:You you you go through this process of being so connected and your lives intertwined. You know, my DMG group, every few months, we still get together with the wives and we go to dinner, and it's a blast.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic.
Speaker 3:And even though we've now divided and multiplied, we still do that because we still have that relationship.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 3:But but we need to understand that we have a strategy in this and that every DMG will be called to multiply. And you gotta you gotta so we just gotta come together on a few things about who we're gonna be and what we're gonna do as as we we work towards this. After that, what my prayer has been and what I'm trying to figure out if we can make happen is that in the New Year, January 2026, the entire church my prayer has been that the entire church would be in a disciple making group and we'd all start together and be on the same page.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Now those who have experienced this before, they might be used to what we now refer to as the old evergreen.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:It was, what, a forty week
Speaker 2:Forty weeks.
Speaker 3:Forty week dissertation, manual for an IKEA dresser, you know, 700 pages long. Evergreen has now evolved into a four volume set. And the first volume, if memory serves me right, is six weeks. And so what we what we're trying to do is we're gonna try to create some natural off ramps and on ramps and a kind of an ebb and a flow to it, but be unified in that. So new evergreen books will be available for purchase here in the next couple of weeks, but we need to first gather those who have done it before, get everybody trained up and unified in what we're trying to do, and then start the groups in the new year, on ramp those who've never done it before and start these new groups.
Speaker 3:And then out of that, then you'll see the flow of different ministries like men's ministry and women's ministry and, different things that we can do out of the birth of these disciple making groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And when you set up the leadership within these evergreen groups or discipleship groups, you have a you'd like to see two leaders, right? Maybe one that's experienced, one that's gone through it before with the idea that they can work together and then
Speaker 3:Yeah. Divide. I think if you if you plan for multiplication
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It just makes it easier because it's gonna be hard. But then that also life just happens. You know? I do I do my DMG at my house, so I can't wiggle out of it. It's it's at my house this time, this day.
Speaker 3:But you know what? There are some times in life where things happen and you need to miss, you're sick, you you need to go on vacation or whatever the case is. And so by having a co leader, that that allows for that opportunity because it's so so many times what ends up happening is you have we have, you know, something someone come up, it's like, oh, I can't be there, so the group gets canceled. Well, if you have a co leader, they can take it that day. And so what I always like to do is whenever I start a DMG, I always I just kind of pound into the brain of the group, we are here to make disciples and multiply.
Speaker 3:And then the first week, always ask, what's gonna be the one thing that causes you to not come? And like, let's just admit that as a group and then let's work towards, Hey, if it's work, I'm too busy. Hey, well, that's an opportunity for us to, you know, jump in with you and say, How can we help you with time management? Or whatever the case may be. But by having two leaders and a plan to say, What's going to derail us?
Speaker 3:It helps set us up for success. And true success is when we multiply.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And time can be a big factor, right?
Speaker 3:100%.
Speaker 2:In making that commitment. Because it's like you said, it start off with six weeks, but you wanna go week to week. You don't wanna miss a week if you
Speaker 3:100%.
Speaker 2:On that program.
Speaker 3:100%.
Speaker 2:What do you say to the person out there that's, I am busy, I've got two kids at home, You know, that you know, one day a week, you know, for two two hours or whatever it is, that's a lot. I don't I don't know that I can pull that off. I'd like to, but I just can't Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'll say I'll say it two ways. The first way will sound harsher than probably what I mean. But the first thing I'd say is everybody does what they want. You know, what's important to us, we do.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:And I don't mean that as a harsh thing. There's a common phrase that we say in my home and then we say the church is that every challenge is a discipleship opportunity. And so I hear you. Time is the most precious commodity that we have and everybody's busy. Everybody's busy.
Speaker 3:And so, but my first calling is to my relationship with Christ.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:And so I'm in a disciple making group because I too am a community project and I am learning the way of following Christ. And so it has to be a priority. The second reason I would say is this, of all the things that you do that cause you to be busy, the busyness isn't equally weighted in importance. And I think that because every challenge is a discipleship opportunity, it's a grace to us when we say, Oh goodness, I'm overwhelmed. I have so much to do.
Speaker 3:This is a grace to us to, Okay, well, what's the true priority? My relationship with Christ, my family. And so, yeah, in doing this, it will probably require you to say no to other things. And that's not always a bad thing. That's a grace and it could lead to some real freedom and life giving things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard one person suggest basically take a paper plate, knock everything off, and then just start with Christ in the center and the things around Him that are gonna help you grow and then start adding on from there. And then the things that are on the fringe, could start looking at and say, okay, are those top priorities for what I'm trying And to get out of
Speaker 3:that's the beauty of the new disciple making, not curriculum, but Evergreen,
Speaker 2:is
Speaker 3:that I'm I'm trying to work on I'm trying to work because it's now in volumes, I'm trying to think through, like, what is the right on ramp that flows with the, you know, with the seasons and Yeah. We're rolling into Thanksgiving and Christmas. Summer is typically a really hard time. And so now that it's broken up, I'm like, okay, well, maybe we can use the calendar. I'm just spitballing now.
Speaker 2:Yes. Smartly. But
Speaker 3:I'm just because now it's broken up, I'm like, Okay, everyone is always thinking everyone is always thinking in January 1 about their new rhythm. So that's a perfect time to start
Speaker 2:for sure.
Speaker 3:And then people re up on that in August. Yep. And summers are just like pulling teeth. Yeah. So, I'm actually I'm when I meet with Scott, tomorrow, I'm gonna ask him, what do you think about this?
Speaker 3:Instead of instead of fighting, this is where I'm different. I'm more a free spirit. Instead of fighting people, Scott's answer is gonna be, no, they need to be disciples. I already know what he's gonna say. I'm like, I hear you, but we also have to take people where they're at.
Speaker 3:And so it's like, we can find those natural on ramps and rhythms of people's life and try to do it all together as a church, then it's not because the big fear I have with the new book is like, okay, I've done the six weeks, check. But if we can take a natural break and then take the whole church and say, okay, we're starting book volume two, Then I can use the momentum of the crowd and so anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think though, you go through six weeks of that, you'll get hooked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hope
Speaker 2:You'll see the difference. Like you were talking about transformation, you'll see a little bit maybe, but your spouse might see a little bit more and your kids might see a little bit more because like you were saying, if you're trying to lead your family or if you're trying to be the best wife or husband, best father, it's just gonna make a difference because you're gonna be in the word, you're gonna be praying, probably praying with your family. They might go, Oh, this is Right? But it'll all be good. Six weeks will end very quickly.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to The Oaks Equipped. If you want to learn more about following Jesus or get connected here at The Oaks Church, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit us online at exploretheoaks.org or email us anytime at hello@exploretheoaks.org. Stay rooted and stay encouraged. Until next time.