Speaker: 00:00:00

Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world

become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.

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My name is George, I'm your host today and with me is Josh Musgrave.

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That's a familiar last name, right?

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So, you know, just excited to get to know you a little bit more today.

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Josh is lead pastor at Calvary Crossway in Castle Rock, Colorado, which is right there in

the Denver area.

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So, super excited to know

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get to know Jeff Musgrave's son and do you have any interesting stories about your dad,

some dirt here and there?

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No, I'm kidding.

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But no, start us, man.

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Start us on your childhood.

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What was it like growing up and how did you get from, you know, growing up with your

family to where God has you now?

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Yeah, that's probably a lot longer story than we have time for.

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But obviously, I grew up in this, the Denver area here.

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My dad planted Highlands Baptist Church when I was two.

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And so I was a church planting kid.

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were then in different buildings throughout that time.

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God didn't give us a building till later.

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I think I preached my first message when I was two years old in the nursery.

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I really just wanted to be like dad.

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I would make people sit down.

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I'd probably pull hair and do all the wrong stuff and make people sit down and probably

just yell at them.

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But I think all growing up, I just had a desire to.

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love God's people well, like I saw my dad exemplify in many ways and to share the gospel

in that I learned how to preach really early in life and share the gospel.

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I think it took me later in life to really learn how to share the gospel relationally.

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I think I was really good at maybe a street conversation in, you know, five, 10 minutes,

here's the gospel, what do want to do with it?

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But I think as I've grown up and pastored it, I've learned

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so much about being able to share the gospel in a relational way as opposed to just a

presentation in that.

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So I think I'm supposed to be saying how I grew up.

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yeah.

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Yeah.

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We can see what you're excited to get into though.

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That's great.

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We'll get into that.

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Yeah.

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I really, so we grew up in a Christian home.

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I knew about Jesus, but I think it was when I was about 12 years old, I really trusted

Jesus.

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I remember hearing a message

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which I thought was about hell.

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One of my mentors was the person who preached the message at Nelson.

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And he said, I never preached a message like that.

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Either way, the Holy Spirit was working on my heart and I recognized I was a sinner and I

needed Jesus.

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And so I was embarrassed because I had already been saved and baptized.

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so I went and stepped back.

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My grandpa sat down with me at my dad's office desk at the church and offered me a

Werther's original across the table.

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He said, what do you have to do to take this gift, Josh?

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I just have to take it.

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He Jesus is offering you salvation the same way.

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Will you receive his gift?

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I trusted Jesus.

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I did a lot of rebelling against my parents in high school, but I don't know that I ever

really strayed from knowing and loving Jesus other than the fact that I wasn't obeying him

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by being rebellious.

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that first time that you air quote trusted in Jesus and then the second time when you

genuinely accept what was the differences what happened the first time and what was

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different the second time I am a people pleaser and I love for people to think well of me

or to fit in with the group and I was five years old I was at a youth crusade and they

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took an invitation at the end and everybody got up and I was like I should do this so I

got up and then they had me pray a prayer and you know I didn't need to get baptized and

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so I got baptized and

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So that was really what that was.

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I wanted to...

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So you were baptized and then your grandpa led I've been double dunked.

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I'm a double dunker.

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Okay.

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And that was all embarrassing.

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So after my

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senior year, I went off to Bible college.

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had a rough freshman year, and then I switched schools and was training to be a preacher

and really just wanted to share the gospel with people.

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And I think back then I thought I would be a traveling evangelist, which there's, that's

not what I am.

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It's not at all what I was, but I thought I would just go in and blow up and blow out.

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That was kind of what I thought I would do.

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And so I practiced a lot on preaching, but what I really learned is how to develop

relationships with people.

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I went to grad school for a year and then got called to come home and I was a youth pastor

under my dad for a few years and just got to love on teenagers.

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And there were really a lot of teenagers that I'd grown up with in youth group with.

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you know, I, was 22 and they were

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18 not a lot of difference in there and wanted to inspire in our teenagers a Passion to

follow Jesus.

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So you actually worked for your dad?

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for how many years I Think so I was trying to add this up It's gets confusing because I

worked for dad and I was the pastor at Harvest Baptist Church back then for a while I

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think I worked for three years

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But I do tend to get confused because those years when I worked for two churches and had a

part-time job get really, really confused.

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So, okay, you, you, you're a youth pastor, by the way, we talked about this with

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Pastor Joel, he was a youth pastor for a while too.

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Youth are so hard to reach today and it's critical that we reach in the world is really

pulling younger and younger on young people, know, so starting at 12 with the LGBTQ

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agenda.

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What would you tell somebody who's trying to reach a young person right now?

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What would you tell them to do?

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One, I don't think they're as hard to reach as a lot of people think.

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The world's put so many questions in people's minds and there's no real answers and the

Bible has those.

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And so do genuine relationships.

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What's lacking for every kid who's consumed with their phone is real personal touches,

real people.

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They feel like they have more friends than ever before, but everything is so surfacey.

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When a person genuinely displays to a teenager,

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Hmm.

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that they are loved.

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It is, for many of them, the only place they see that.

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People are so distracted and it's so powerful.

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And so I think sometimes we think the world's got all of this stuff and what the world is

doing is confusing people and what we have in the Word of God are answers for these

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people.

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And so you've got a group of young people

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that are questioning everything.

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They have to.

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They've got news from here and here and all these videos and they never know what's true.

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And we have the Bible, which we know is absolute truth.

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My wife is a teacher in a local public school and kids all the time are coming and

spending time with her because they see she loves them.

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And we have teenagers in our youth group that are

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Constantly giving out Bibles because their friends are asking what do you believe looking

for that?

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So I think we can really get afraid that this generation is gonna be so hard to law to to

win But they aren't there.

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They're so thirsty and they're so receptive To the gospel and I think the really the

pathway for that is really helping them see that they're loved You know, I don't know if

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you've thought this but I've seen this just generally right now with AI

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is that everybody keeps feeling very, very threatened by AI and is AI gonna replace me?

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And to me, AI actually enhances human interaction because there are things AI can never do

for you that a human relationship can.

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So I think the humanity of humans shines all the more in a very autonomous, intelligent

world.

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I don't know if you're seeing that where you are, but I mean, that's probably something to

talk about is,

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Is AI, how is AI affecting ministry?

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And I think actually it enhances our ability to minister to people because.

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Yeah, I think it tends to cripple teenagers because they use it too much and then they're

not thinking for themselves.

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for their they're thirsty for real relationships.

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Yes.

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And no computer, no interaction, even if you're interacting with real people through

Instagram and TikTok are going to provide what a real human interaction.

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is.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Okay, so you're you're youth pastor, you're pastoring harvest, you're kind of doing that

three years.

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Yeah, actually.

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So dad threw me into harvest.

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So, so kind of what happened is, so Pastor Nelson, he was the pastor there, he was 88

years old, they had, they had asked, I think, 12 different guys to come and actually

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asked, they candidate in

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They asked the guys to come and be the pastor and all of them said no.

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Wow.

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In hindsight, maybe I should have.

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But they, I came with our youth group one Sunday to just fill in the pulpit for Pastor

Nelson.

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And then after that, the deacons came to my dad and said, Hey, would he come and be the

pastor?

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And so dad asked me and I said, no, I am not interested in that.

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I wanted to die a youth pastor.

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I figured out that's the easiest way to stay immature the rest of my life.

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God had other plans for that.

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I and then so dad and Pastor Nelson made a backroom deal.

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And I really wanted to stay the youth pastor and so they allowed me to stay as the youth

pastor and to train underneath Pastor Nelson as his assistant for a year, which was one of

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the greatest gifts that I think I've been given is the ability to train underneath of

Pastor Nelson, who at the time was 88.

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to be able to hear his stories.

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I think most of our pastoral meetings went something like, Josh, you didn't do this well.

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And that was very short.

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And then let me tell you 10 stories.

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And I would just hear story after story after story of God's work in his life and in his

ministry.

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And it just inspired me to pursue ministry in a hard place in a way that was very hopeful

and hope-filled with him.

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So we did that.

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I overlapped the two.

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So I worked at Highlands Baptist Church as their youth pastor and at Harvest Baptist

Church as the assistant pastor and then as the lead pastor for a time.

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If anyone ever asks you to work at two different churches at the same time, I would say

that's probably not a great idea.

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But it was really a time of growth for me.

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I don't think I've ever worked as many hours before in my life, but it was really, it was

good.

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And it was good to be able to learn from Pastor Nelson, who funny,

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Pastor Nelson was also my dad's mentor.

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And so it was neat to be able to be mentored by the man who helped set up dad and help him

plan a church.

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And then me as I came in to help replant a dining church in Castle Rock.

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I think there's probably a thousand guys out there that would have killed for the

opportunity to be mentored by Ed Nelson towards the end of his ministry with all that

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wealth of experience and wisdom, knowledge that that's truly gift.

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Okay, so how do you go from that

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those years to where you are now.

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Yeah.

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Well, our church needed a lot of change.

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We had...

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You mean Highlands or...

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Harvest.

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Harvest.

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Yeah.

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Harvest Baptist Church needed a lot of change.

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Our culture had changed.

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A lot of things had been, had changed and transformed.

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But the passion and legacy of our church was to...

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be passionate about the gospel, to share the gospel, to make the great commission of the

same.

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We call it now in our church to make Jesus non-ignorable.

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And I wanted to honor the legacy of these older believers, but also help us become

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culturally relevant to the place that we were able to impact Castle Rock, Colorado.

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And so we did this, we did replanting the slow way.

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would advise people now like tear off the bandaid and you know, here are the things that

you need to do.

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But we, we took 10 years of training and then making a change.

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And then we would train and they would make a change.

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And then we would make some more training and then we would make a change.

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And in that time,

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God blessed us in amazing ways.

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The Lord gave us a building that we were able to use and grow in and just did some really

amazing things.

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And so for 10 years there was just, we'll train, here's what the Bible teaches and then

make a change and then train and here's what the Bible teaches and then make a change.

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then throughout all of that, dad was coming in and doing exchange seminars through our

time there.

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And so I think we've had

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the exchange seminar in our church in every rendition that it's been in.

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So every time I look at us doing a new one, I have to say, Hey, no, not those books.

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Those are the not the new ones.

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We'll use the new ones.

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And in that, but just trying to keep a passion for evangelism on the forefront of our

church as we move forward.

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And then in 2018, just a number of things happened.

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Our church ran out of money.

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The exact thing that a church pastor is not supposed to do is run out of money.

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so that we couldn't keep the building and we had to decide, do we keep the building?

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Do I go full-time for work and then the church keeps the building and the church made the

decision to sell the building.

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We sold the building and moved into a mobile church.

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And one of the things that we'd recognized then is as a church, we had gotten to the place

where we were just trying to survive.

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We weren't thinking about our community and how to reach our community or how to share the

gospel.

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We were just trying to figure out how do we survive?

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How do we keep our church going?

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How do we keep moving?

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And our focus had actually turned away from relational evangelism to how do we stay

together and how do we make this work?

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How do we keep the building?

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And we made a pointed decision when we went and moved mobile that we are going.

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to pursue reaching our culture.

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We don't have control over that.

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The reality is we could have failed and we were willing to do that.

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We were willing to go in and to say, we're gonna give everything we can to be able to

reach the people of Castle Rock, to be able to lift people up, to be able to encourage

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people, to be able to help people see Jesus, to make Jesus non-ignorable.

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And I think our first years of Mobile Church, we moved from a building into a trailer and

then

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every Sunday set up, tear down, were hard.

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I think we went from 50 people to 30 people.

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While we grew less in numbers, we grew deep and we started to help people learn how to,

how do you talk to your neighbors?

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How do you develop relationships where when people are struggling and those real soul

needs are seen, they're able to then share the gospel.

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And we came out of that time, very deep.

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but not a whole lot of people when 2020 hit, I had been working for a social media

marketing agency and, was teaching people how to use video and praise the Lord.

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That was exactly where the church needed to go.

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And we, we started doing video and started seeing people, get excited about it.

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We went into COVID lockdowns at 30 people.

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Our first meeting was outside in a huge tent.

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And it was 50 people by the end of that summer.

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We were 75 people and seeing people who would never darken the doors of the church just

excited because there's live music and there are people gathered together and and it was

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beautiful to see people come in.

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We saw people come in and get saved.

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We saw the Lord just do some amazing things in that time.

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And I look back at the time when we had to make a lot of change and things felt static.

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What God really did during that

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time was take us and grow us deep, deep in our relationships with each other, deep in our

relationship with God so that we could begin to create a deep relationship with our

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community and be able to help and share Jesus with them.

225

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And God's done some amazing things since then.

226

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So relational evangelism, that relational aspect is a super big deal to you.

227

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So why relational evangelism?

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I think when I grew up,

229

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I did, I mean, I would go down to 16th street mall and just grab anybody and ask them

where, what would happen if you died?

230

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And it's not necessarily the best way to be able to start a relationship.

231

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They're like, are you planning something or what's going on?

232

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But it was so not relational.

233

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I, I was passionate about people wanting to know Jesus.

234

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I did want people to know Jesus, but my methodology was, let me speak at you.

235

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And what I've learned is

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The gospel is so much more powerful if I come beside someone and let's look at this

together.

237

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And it deepens that relationship in a number of the men that I've seen come to the Lord

over the last few years.

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When it comes to then discipling these men, it's so easy because we have a relationship.

239

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I know them, I know their family.

240

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We've spent time together.

241

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We've gone to the coffee shop together.

242

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They've trusted Jesus and now they're like, well, what's next?

243

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Let's get excited.

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What do I do next?

245

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And let's go through the book of John and look at conversations with Jesus.

246

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And then let's let's look at how do I study the Bible on my own?

247

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All because we developed a relationship.

248

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If I did just sit down with some of these guys and said, hey, let's talk about who Jesus

is and share the gospel without that relationship.

249

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The discipleship pathway would have been cut off and what developing a relationship does

it want?

250

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It makes it easy.

251

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I'm investing in the person's life.

252

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They're invested in my life.

253

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So they want to hear what's most important to me.

254

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And then they hear that I'm, they're important to me and they want to invest in that.

255

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And, and so, and that's what Jesus did.

256

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I Jesus invested in relationships.

257

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He invested in people.

258

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He touched real people and didn't just touch them and heal their diseases, but he touched

them, healed their diseases, and then encouraged them to walk with him or to follow him or

259

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to go tell about him or

260

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He calls one woman, his daughter, a woman who is an outcast of society, he's constantly

pursuing people for relationship.

261

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My sharing of the gospel when I was younger was there wasn't about a relationship.

262

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Let's see if people get saved and then I don't know those people.

263

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I I had people pray, but now the people that I've seen come to the Lord, they're my best

friends.

264

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I sit down every Monday afternoon.

265

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with a couple and a man that I trusted that trusted Jesus.

266

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And right now we're studying theology.

267

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We just looked at the hypostatic union.

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The fact that Jesus is fully God and fully man.

269

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And here's a guy who didn't understand anything.

270

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And now he's beginning to say, what is theology?

271

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And what does the Bible say?

272

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And why is that important?

273

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Never could have done that without a relationship.

274

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to play the devil's advocate a little bit because this is kind of, sometimes what gets

thrown my way is, well, there's no urgency in relational evangelism.

275

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mean, people can die now.

276

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I mean, Jesus could come back today.

277

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And so where's the urgency in that?

278

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How would you answer that as somebody who really believes in relationships like we do?

279

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What would you say to a pastor who criticizes our approach this way?

280

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God doesn't operate on my timeline.

281

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I really believe God is sovereign and he's in control.

282

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And when I see God beginning to work in a person's life to the point that they're willing

to say, I'll do the Bible study, I know God's at work.

283

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And I know this too.

284

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I'm not the one who's supposed to like pull all the strings and say all the right things

and convince them God's gonna do that work.

285

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That's one of the beauties of the Bible study is.

286

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I, they get to look at what does the Bible say and wrestle through that.

287

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And I think the urgency many times is something that I get, I add that God doesn't have.

288

00:20:05,213 --> 00:20:08,944

God's, if God's got that person's number, they're going to come to them.

289

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And that's exciting.

290

00:20:10,495 --> 00:20:19,301

I can enthusiastically with great freedom pursue these people for the gospel, knowing that

God's already at work.

291

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And when God's at work, he finishes what he starts.

292

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And it takes the pressure off of me as a human.

293

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If I had to just convince people, here's what the Bible says, man, I would fail, but I get

to work in partnership with the Holy Spirit and watch him convince people that God is

294

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holy.

295

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And then them recognize the gravity of, not, I don't match up.

296

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And then the next week to recognize God's just.

297

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And I deserve judgment and to...

298

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to feel the gravity of that and then to see the beauty of God being loving and providing

his son who's reached out to us to provide us salvation in a way that satisfies his holy

299

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just nature and seeing people begin to have that hope.

300

00:21:01,087 --> 00:21:06,618

I'm following the Holy Spirit's pathway for a person as God reveals that to them.

301

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And I'm not putting urgency, I'm not scaring someone into a decision.

302

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They're able to process through that.

303

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And it's so much more powerful.

304

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and it's lasting.

305

00:21:16,836 --> 00:21:22,660

Someone's not just saying, I better pray this so that they'll leave me alone, or I better

pray this so that I don't go to hell.

306

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They're saying, I want to trust Jesus because I want to walk with him.

307

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I want to follow him.

308

00:21:27,143 --> 00:21:35,240

Well, and I think what urgency misses is, I guess there's a couple ways to define it, but

I think the Lord wants us to be diligent.

309

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He doesn't necessarily need us to be quick.

310

00:21:37,632 --> 00:21:39,623

And mean, he wasn't quick with the disciples.

311

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That was three years in the making.

312

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He chose 12 guys nobody else would have chosen.

313

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They were nobodies.

314

00:21:46,899 --> 00:21:54,614

And then he goes and the Holy Spirit comes down at Pentecost and I mean those guys changed

the world.

315

00:21:54,634 --> 00:21:57,356

But it did not happen in three minutes.

316

00:21:57,356 --> 00:22:01,452

And Jesus often had to be such a patient teacher.

317

00:22:01,452 --> 00:22:03,499

He gives us that inside look into his ministry.

318

00:22:03,499 --> 00:22:04,700

He has to repeat himself.

319

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If there was a book to be written, my friend Nathan Messler says he would write a book on

discipleship, on the disciples called

320

00:22:10,604 --> 00:22:12,026

lessons and not getting it.

321

00:22:12,026 --> 00:22:16,620

Because here are guys, very smart guys, but they just did not get it spiritually.

322

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And I mean, that's what it's like ministering to people.

323

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I don't know about you, but I didn't get it in one shot.

324

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It's like, it took you a couple tries.

325

00:22:23,145 --> 00:22:24,505

I to get dunked twice.

326

00:22:25,186 --> 00:22:29,659

So when we look at people and think microwave, I mean, think we got it totally wrong.

327

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We got to be crockpot.

328

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It's got to be, it's a longer process.

329

00:22:33,172 --> 00:22:34,714

And I love the way you put it.

330

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It's not about, is urgent really a way of you?

331

00:22:37,767 --> 00:22:40,429

inserting your timeline into what God is doing.

332

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What is urgent really about?

333

00:22:42,281 --> 00:22:49,845

So I, would have been two years ago, I got to see a police officer, trust the Lord.

334

00:22:50,085 --> 00:22:56,208

He had been married for 18 years to his wife and his wife had been praying that he would

get saved for 18 years.

335

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Wasn't really interested in religion, was a really, really good guy, like very moral, very

ethical, loved his family deeply.

336

00:23:05,364 --> 00:23:06,205

Good dad.

337

00:23:06,205 --> 00:23:11,647

great husband, didn't necessarily see a need for the gospel.

338

00:23:12,788 --> 00:23:20,440

In 2020, was like, he loves music and he loved going to concerts and there was no live

music anywhere.

339

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And he was like, sure, I'll go to church with you.

340

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And so he started coming to our church and I started developing a relationship with him,

which was hard.

341

00:23:28,063 --> 00:23:30,734

As an officer, one of his desires was to be not seen.

342

00:23:30,734 --> 00:23:35,885

He's like all the time, I wear this uniform and I'm seen and I'm the focal point and he

didn't want...

343

00:23:36,376 --> 00:23:48,490

But again to pour into him and we began to develop a relationship and began to be my

friend and then we had two officers attending our church at the same time and so one

344

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Sunday this would have been a year later.

345

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It might have even been two years later.

346

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I just said hey would you be willing to do a four lesson Bible study with this other guy

and I and he said

347

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Yeah, what time is it?

348

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And thing is, both of these officers worked opposite shifts.

349

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And so, was like, hey, we can do it on our own.

350

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We can do it together.

351

00:24:11,056 --> 00:24:16,318

And so, we started studying the Bible together and started just looking at the Bible

study.

352

00:24:16,758 --> 00:24:24,271

And the last study, we got to it and I asked him this question.

353

00:24:24,271 --> 00:24:28,488

It was at the end of everything and he hadn't trusted Jesus yet.

354

00:24:28,488 --> 00:24:30,364

I asked him, if you were to die,

355

00:24:30,364 --> 00:24:30,754

right now.

356

00:24:30,754 --> 00:24:34,278

It's one of the last questions in the Bible said if you were to die right now, where would

you go?

357

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And he said, hell, I would, I would go to hell.

358

00:24:37,100 --> 00:24:40,023

And then I asked him another question and his answer surprised me.

359

00:24:40,023 --> 00:24:43,877

I asked him, if you were to die five years from now, where would you go?

360

00:24:43,877 --> 00:24:45,709

And he said, I would definitely go to heaven.

361

00:24:45,709 --> 00:24:48,572

And I remember asking him, what's the difference?

362

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And he stopped and he looked at me.

363

00:24:50,385 --> 00:24:53,417

He's like, I think I need to change my answer.

364

00:24:53,598 --> 00:24:56,071

I, I, I trust Jesus.

365

00:24:56,071 --> 00:25:04,531

And that began a process of us meeting every single Friday morning for two years, studying

the Bible.

366

00:25:04,531 --> 00:25:07,351

We studied conversations with Jesus.

367

00:25:07,351 --> 00:25:12,310

We went through that, learned how to read the Bible, and then went through the rest of the

book of John together.

368

00:25:12,310 --> 00:25:14,622

And then we started, how do we read the Bible?

369

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And who am I?

370

00:25:15,782 --> 00:25:22,802

A book by Jerry Bridges and a guy who his wife had been praying for him for 18 years.

371

00:25:22,802 --> 00:25:23,393

Wow.

372

00:25:23,393 --> 00:25:26,753

our urgency at year one would have been, you need to get married.

373

00:25:26,753 --> 00:25:27,753

How are you going to be a good dad?

374

00:25:27,753 --> 00:25:28,513

How are you going to do this?

375

00:25:28,513 --> 00:25:29,744

What's going to go on with this?

376

00:25:29,744 --> 00:25:32,204

But God's timeline for him was different.

377

00:25:32,204 --> 00:25:37,695

And when, when, when God began to work in his life, he came to the Lord and it was

glorious.

378

00:25:37,695 --> 00:25:38,515

It was beautiful.

379

00:25:38,515 --> 00:25:41,206

He was then attending the church with his family.

380

00:25:41,206 --> 00:25:45,766

I remember the first time he used to stand in church and kind of watch worship.

381

00:25:45,766 --> 00:25:49,346

And I remember looking over my shoulder while we were all singing together.

382

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And for the first time I saw him singing.

383

00:25:52,457 --> 00:25:55,278

not just a little bit, like singing.

384

00:25:55,278 --> 00:25:56,598

He had trusted Jesus.

385

00:25:56,598 --> 00:26:00,999

Jesus was working in his heart and he just wanted to worship the Lord with his voice.

386

00:26:01,540 --> 00:26:07,334

Relationships are powerful and God's timeline for a person is often different than ours.

387

00:26:07,334 --> 00:26:16,856

And the Bible study and the exchange allows us to be able to rest in God's plan for a

person and trust that the Holy Spirit is going to do that work.

388

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And he does.

389

00:26:17,957 --> 00:26:19,128

I will say this though.

390

00:26:19,128 --> 00:26:22,099

it takes work to get Bible studies planned.

391

00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:24,891

The first lesson is hard to get someone to come in for.

392

00:26:24,891 --> 00:26:28,132

And sometimes you have to plan and plan and plan.

393

00:26:28,132 --> 00:26:32,045

And I think that sense of urgency should be, hey, let's start doing this.

394

00:26:32,045 --> 00:26:35,917

Let's get going on this and continuing to be to go after people.

395

00:26:35,917 --> 00:26:40,458

Jesus was, He is the shepherd who left the 99 to go and get the one.

396

00:26:40,458 --> 00:26:42,129

And oftentimes we get involved in that.

397

00:26:42,129 --> 00:26:46,232

So I'm not saying you're lazy or you don't pursue people.

398

00:26:46,232 --> 00:26:55,029

But you let God do the work as the gospel is shared, you let God do the work and then try

as hard as you can to be able to get the time to be able to let God do that work.

399

00:26:55,090 --> 00:27:08,471

So if somebody were to walk up to you in your congregation and say, know, pastor, I really

don't, it's not easy for me to build relationships and I want to, I want to do evangelism.

400

00:27:08,471 --> 00:27:13,877

How, how would you help somebody be relational in their evangelism?

401

00:27:14,065 --> 00:27:15,516

How would you lay that out for somebody?

402

00:27:15,516 --> 00:27:16,726

How would you?

403

00:27:16,745 --> 00:27:24,691

I think those people who say it's not easy for me to be, to do relationships are actually

going to be the best at building deep relationships.

404

00:27:24,971 --> 00:27:30,895

Because it's awkward and hard, they are so much more intentional and think through it.

405

00:27:30,895 --> 00:27:34,528

For a person like me who tends to be an extrovert, I'm everybody's friend.

406

00:27:34,528 --> 00:27:41,521

Like I get to spend time with you and for a person who's not, they have to intentionally

go and say, what questions am I gonna ask them?

407

00:27:41,521 --> 00:27:42,823

And then listen and...

408

00:27:42,823 --> 00:27:44,274

They tend to be the best listeners.

409

00:27:44,274 --> 00:27:53,321

So one of the things I tell those people is you may feel like this is awkward at heart,

but I guarantee you, you're going to be better at this than a lot of the extroverts who

410

00:27:53,321 --> 00:27:54,372

this is easy for.

411

00:27:54,372 --> 00:27:55,903

So that's one of the things that I tell them.

412

00:27:55,903 --> 00:27:58,866

The other is the Bible study makes it so easy.

413

00:27:58,866 --> 00:28:02,609

Like this isn't going to be driven by you having to figure out what questions do I ask?

414

00:28:02,609 --> 00:28:03,710

What do I do?

415

00:28:03,710 --> 00:28:04,750

It's so easy.

416

00:28:04,750 --> 00:28:09,174

You just grab that leader's guide and ask them, Hey, what did you think this week?

417

00:28:09,174 --> 00:28:09,595

And

418

00:28:09,595 --> 00:28:14,979

If they ask you a question that's over your pay grade or you don't know yet, say, Hey, I'm

going to go talk to my pastor.

419

00:28:14,979 --> 00:28:17,651

I'm going to get an answer and we'll, and we'll come back and talk to you.

420

00:28:17,651 --> 00:28:23,819

You don't have to feel the urgency of I have every answer for you, but I do think anybody

can do this.

421

00:28:23,819 --> 00:28:28,204

And one of the beautiful things is the Bible study guides that relationship.

422

00:28:28,204 --> 00:28:33,748

So take that step of faith, recognizing God wants me to do this and embrace the

awkwardness.

423

00:28:33,748 --> 00:28:34,879

It might be awkward.

424

00:28:34,879 --> 00:28:36,862

It might be hard at first.

425

00:28:36,862 --> 00:28:40,456

and just trust that God will do the work because he promises he will.

426

00:28:40,456 --> 00:28:51,075

And I would just say too is, you you look at the great Shema Deuteronomy 6.4, love God and

love others, but not as two separate things.

427

00:28:51,316 --> 00:28:54,139

If you love God, you will love others.

428

00:28:54,139 --> 00:28:59,983

And if you don't love others, might there be a problem with your relationship with God?

429

00:29:00,495 --> 00:29:04,108

I think that's very important base for us to operate from spiritually.

430

00:29:04,108 --> 00:29:06,280

That's what fuels my love for people.

431

00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:12,815

even if you are very loving and you have a deep desire to be relational, it can be a

struggle.

432

00:29:12,815 --> 00:29:17,269

What would you say are the things you've learned in relation...

433

00:29:17,269 --> 00:29:19,431

You have a lot of relationships going on right now.

434

00:29:19,431 --> 00:29:21,442

I know you do right now in your ministry.

435

00:29:21,923 --> 00:29:27,297

There's a guy who just came to Christ and another police officer, I think, or you know,

all these things going on.

436

00:29:27,297 --> 00:29:27,858

And so...

437

00:29:27,858 --> 00:29:30,747

What would you say are the marks of a relational person?

438

00:29:30,747 --> 00:29:34,399

I genuine care for that person.

439

00:29:35,660 --> 00:29:44,112

Not just trying to make conversation, but it's probably less talking and a lot more

listening, like just and asking those questions.

440

00:29:44,112 --> 00:29:46,964

You when someone's you ask someone on Sunday, how you doing?

441

00:29:46,964 --> 00:29:49,255

They're always going to say, great, doing awesome.

442

00:29:49,255 --> 00:29:52,877

And looking back at him and saying, no, really doing.

443

00:29:52,877 --> 00:29:57,249

And then remembering maybe things that you talked about with the person the last time.

444

00:29:57,249 --> 00:30:01,691

So, hey, last week you mentioned this being a difficulty.

445

00:30:01,792 --> 00:30:02,953

How's the Lord working in that?

446

00:30:02,953 --> 00:30:04,954

How can I support you in that?

447

00:30:04,954 --> 00:30:06,935

How can I love you through this?

448

00:30:07,435 --> 00:30:08,856

And sometimes we don't have the answers.

449

00:30:08,856 --> 00:30:11,640

When somebody's struggling, I may not have the answer.

450

00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:18,274

And I can immediately then, and we do this all the time at our church, we stop, I put my

hand on their shoulder, hey, can I pray for you?

451

00:30:18,274 --> 00:30:19,045

And just pray.

452

00:30:19,045 --> 00:30:20,536

Let's go to the Lord together.

453

00:30:20,536 --> 00:30:23,038

One of the best ways to develop...

454

00:30:23,038 --> 00:30:26,269

meaningful relationships is go to Jesus together.

455

00:30:26,269 --> 00:30:29,600

He's the one who created us for relationships.

456

00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:34,542

I'm gonna dive into deep relationships, dive into relationship together with him.

457

00:30:34,542 --> 00:30:39,762

I like praying together is one of those listening to people, remembering what they are

doing.

458

00:30:39,762 --> 00:30:42,182

And if you're a person who doesn't remember, write it down.

459

00:30:42,182 --> 00:30:43,442

Like go ahead and take notes.

460

00:30:43,442 --> 00:30:44,282

This feels weird.

461

00:30:44,282 --> 00:30:45,233

I've got all this.

462

00:30:45,233 --> 00:30:46,773

We want to love people well.

463

00:30:46,773 --> 00:30:50,233

Do what it takes to love people well in that.

464

00:30:50,465 --> 00:30:54,939

You know, so genuine care, genuine interest, you're asking those questions.

465

00:30:54,939 --> 00:31:01,604

Pray, I mean, I've talked with atheists that won't listen to what I have to say, but if I

ask them, how can I pray for you?

466

00:31:01,604 --> 00:31:03,145

They will let me pray for them.

467

00:31:03,145 --> 00:31:07,139

That's really a funny thing, but like, I don't know if you've experienced that.

468

00:31:07,139 --> 00:31:11,743

I don't know that I've, I can't remember an experience where a person said, you can't pray

for me.

469

00:31:11,743 --> 00:31:12,043

Right.

470

00:31:12,043 --> 00:31:18,270

I think sometimes we're like, man, if I ask if I can pray for them, they're gonna say no,

and I'm gonna offend them, and.

471

00:31:18,270 --> 00:31:23,132

The reality is most people are super happy for you to do that with them.

472

00:31:23,132 --> 00:31:24,613

And it develops a relationship.

473

00:31:24,613 --> 00:31:27,085

It's genuine care.

474

00:31:27,085 --> 00:31:27,926

Yup.

475

00:31:27,926 --> 00:31:28,886

Yup, it is.

476

00:31:28,886 --> 00:31:31,467

And so I love that.

477

00:31:31,467 --> 00:31:36,870

And by the way, I think that's a great practice for pastors is sometimes a pastor will be

told, hey, pastor, can you pray for me?

478

00:31:36,870 --> 00:31:37,905

And we'll say, OK, I'll pray for you.

479

00:31:37,905 --> 00:31:39,001

And we go do it somewhere else.

480

00:31:39,001 --> 00:31:44,375

I think what can mean the most to that person right there is say, let me pray for you

right now.

481

00:31:44,375 --> 00:31:47,586

we actually started something in our church and it's a little bit awkward.

482

00:31:47,586 --> 00:31:50,047

I know that and we're going to keep doing it.

483

00:31:50,828 --> 00:31:58,722

At the end of each of our services, we want, we've got, you know, a bunch of chairs that

needed to be set up and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be done.

484

00:31:58,722 --> 00:32:02,985

And so we want something to kind of slow people down and dig into relationship.

485

00:32:02,985 --> 00:32:10,459

And so we ask a question every week, something like, what are you most excited or anxious

about in this next week?

486

00:32:10,660 --> 00:32:11,271

And then

487

00:32:11,271 --> 00:32:15,532

we encourage everyone to ask someone that question and then say, can I pray for you?

488

00:32:15,532 --> 00:32:19,945

God works in your life this week as you approach those circumstances.

489

00:32:19,945 --> 00:32:27,148

And God is using that to deepen relationships because it's not just how was your week,

what went on, what are you excited about?

490

00:32:27,148 --> 00:32:28,069

It really is.

491

00:32:28,069 --> 00:32:32,250

Let's go talk to each other and then let's go to the throne of God together.

492

00:32:32,250 --> 00:32:36,722

It develops those relationships inside of the church and it's true outside of the church

as well.

493

00:32:36,722 --> 00:32:44,279

When people share their real genuine felt needs and you don't know what to say, sometimes

the best thing to say is, I pray for you right now?

494

00:32:44,580 --> 00:32:45,551

That's awesome.

495

00:32:45,551 --> 00:32:47,913

Well, Josh is one of our exchange trainers.

496

00:32:47,913 --> 00:32:50,675

I failed to mention this at the beginning of the video.

497

00:32:50,675 --> 00:32:57,781

So we've had, this is the fourth episode where we've had exchange trainers come in and get

to meet you guys and know you a little bit.

498

00:32:57,781 --> 00:33:00,744

I would just encourage you guys, if you're in the Denver area,

499

00:33:00,744 --> 00:33:07,027

and your church needs an infusion of some relational evangelism, relational culture in

your church.

500

00:33:07,027 --> 00:33:11,660

I know that Denver, I was told this a while back, I visited Will Sen's church.

501

00:33:11,660 --> 00:33:16,893

One of the guys there said, Denver's cold, but not just cold weather-wise.

502

00:33:16,893 --> 00:33:19,494

It can be very cold relationally.

503

00:33:19,495 --> 00:33:25,597

And so one of the things I know it's critical for churches in the West is that

relationship.

504

00:33:25,597 --> 00:33:27,189

It can be a very hard thing though.

505

00:33:27,189 --> 00:33:33,553

and Josh, I mean there's nobody else that comes to my mind who would be somebody

phenomenal to bring in and talk about relationships.

506

00:33:33,553 --> 00:33:40,588

You can see from the podcast just hearing him, he's fought back tears several times

because he just deeply loves.

507

00:33:40,588 --> 00:33:42,139

It's a genetic issue.

508

00:33:42,139 --> 00:33:43,520

Now I think it's his heart.

509

00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:46,992

He loves people and I love that about him.

510

00:33:46,992 --> 00:33:51,896

It's what encourages me about him and so I'm just glad to meet a pastor like that.

511

00:33:51,896 --> 00:33:53,927

Josh, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

512

00:33:53,927 --> 00:33:56,660

Thank you so much for your time and letting us get to know you today.

513

00:33:56,660 --> 00:33:58,411

And thank you guys who are listening.

514

00:33:58,411 --> 00:34:04,344

If you're listening for the first time, share this with somebody who would benefit from

it.

515

00:34:04,344 --> 00:34:07,456

if you haven't subscribed yet, we'd love for you to hit that subscribe button.

516

00:34:07,456 --> 00:34:10,617

It really helps our podcast out to get the word out there about us.

517

00:34:10,617 --> 00:34:11,837

And so Josh, thanks man.

518

00:34:11,837 --> 00:34:13,318

And thank you audience.

519

00:34:13,318 --> 00:34:14,028

We love you guys.

520

00:34:14,028 --> 00:34:15,460

We will see you next week.