Josh Spinks - e3 Partners Audio

[00:00:00] The Missional Life Podcast, inspiring Kingdom-minded believers around the world to live the mission of God in their lives.

Dan: All right. Welcome back to micheli podcast. Today we have Josh Spinx on the show. Josh is the vice President of E three Partners, where he leads the North American arm of the ministry and serves as a key leader in the I Am second movement. With over two decades of pastoral experience and a passion for equipping believers to live missionally, he's here to share practical insights on discipleship, evangelism, and the new Made to multiply study.

Josh,

Josh: welcome to the show. welcome to the show. Thank y'all for having me. And man, that introduction was fantastic. It might have been a little inflated, 'cause now they're gonna expect some type of high expectation insight from me. But man, you killed it. Thank you so much,

Dan: We just like to set the bar high right there from the get-go

It's yours to [00:01:00] let down from here. Yeah. That's great.

Josh: Yeah. Alright man. Thank y'all for having me. I'm so excited to hang out with

Dan: You'all today. Same here. What an honor. Thank you. Let's just kick things off. What inspired your journey into discipleship and eventually leading initiatives like E three partners and I'm second

Josh: man.

I, I felt called to ministry as a young man. Started working in the church at 17 years old and started. Officially vocationally working in the church when I was 19. And then for, for the next, I would say 10 years of my life, I was on this journey where I kind of served at a small church and then a a little bit bigger church in a suburb area and then serving in a church in the city.

And what I noticed throughout my experience throughout my work in the church is that. We did a really good job of invi inviting people to come to church, but once they got there, we invited them to be a part of the community. We invited them to be a part of our family. We invited them to a bunch of things, but going deep.

In discipleship, uh, [00:02:00] helping people look more like Jesus tomorrow than they do today. I saw that there was just a real big deficit in that, and so it just sent me on a journey, read a few books, uh, exposed to a few paradigm shifts and just the disciple making, uh, arena. And man, the Lord convicted me. Then I went on a journey of church planting, hopefully my mindset, uh, along with a friend of mine who started planting churches with me.

Is like, how can we bring the focus back to not just the institution, church concerned about making disciples, but how can we empower the, the priesthood, the believers, to step into this, this practice, to step into this lifestyle of making disciples. So I would say that journey started about 14 years ago, and the Lord has completely turned my world upside down ever since.

And, I got a lot of experience along the way and just doing my best to help those that I rub shoulders with, see the insights that the Lord has given me on this journey.

Dan: That's awesome. So you've seen a lot [00:03:00] over the course of the years. Bring us up to speed. What have you seen over the course of the years and where are we currently in the state of discipleship in the US and, and if you can speak to it in the world today.

Josh: Yeah. , what have I seen, man? It's well, let me just start with one story and I can just share with you what it looks like to see somebody step into a different type or a different, different approach to discipleship as compared to what I was raised in and what I first, you know, participated in to where I am today.

I think where the biggest deficits that we see in. The disciple making paradigm here, particularly in the West. That's where all my experiences is, are I've had a chance to work abroad and cool places. Not as cool as Belize, but in other places around the world. So I don't wanna speak to what they're doing over there.

Lemme just talk about, talk about what we're doing here. But I think one of the things that we're seeing is. That Christianity church in [00:04:00] general has become a spectator. Sport, has been a, a thing that we go and consume almost like the content that we scroll through on our phones. This is kinda the, the way that church is set up in a lot of our communities.

Again, not because of, uh, the lack of leadership in our churches, not because of the lack of desire from our pastors. This is just the way our culture has framed up. Church. And so what tends to happen is that the leadership is laced or roped or mantled with the responsibility of all discipleship. All kingdom expansion rests on the shoulders of a chosen few that we give a paycheck to, and then what happens is that everybody comes to be disciple, but nobody is empowered to go and make disciples.

If you were to ask me. And again, uh, th this is not an accusation for any leadership in the church today. This is just, this is what we have today. This is what discipleship in church looks like. It's a knowledge [00:05:00] based discipleship, and we're not taught or discipled how to practice our faith. We're, we're discipled how to know it.

But not how to live it out, not give us simple tools so that we can apply the things that we see in God's word to our life so that we can take the good news that God's given us to the world around us. And when you start to give people tools and you start to help them make a paradigm shift from addition, which is.

The skilled leader adding and adding and adding, now shift it to multiplication where everybody is participating and seeing people come to faith in Christ. You empower people by giving them tools and know-how, how to participate in this way. It is, it is a game changer. For example, I was in Baton Rouge, this is not too terribly long ago.

Maybe a year and a half, two years. And we were doing a training. And, uh, and this training, what we want to do, we cover a couple different topics, but one, we want people to see, hey, there is a, a real call for us to go and share the [00:06:00] gospel. And then what if they say yes to gospel? Then the Lord's inviting you to disciple that person.

He's, he gave you that fruit. Now do something with it. And then what does it look like to start a group that moves towards church health? And so this training is about 6, 7, 8 hours long. And so somewhere in the middle, we just take 'em out and it's like, all right, you've learned these tools for sharing the gospel.

Now let's just go out and share the gospel with the community. You should see the eyes of these people when you're like, all right, now we're gonna take this tool and you're gonna put it to work. They're like, well, I didn't necessarily sign up for that. I just wanted to know how to do it. I was like, well, no, let's go practice it.

So we take 'em out and we pair 'em up, and we go out and, share it. Whether it be at a coffee shop or a mall, or even door to door. We'll knock on door to door. These couple guys that I took with me, the whole group, it was probably about. 40. I took a couple with me that seemed really apprehensive and it was these two gentlemen.

So I went to the first door and I just knocked on the door. I said, just watch how I do it and then you'll have a turn next. So I knock on the [00:07:00] door, person comes to the door, I said, Hey, we're with a church down the road. We just wanna love on our community and the best way that we know how is through prayer.

Is there any way that we can pray for your family today? Well, obviously most people, especially where I'm from down here in the southeast of the country. They're, they're pretty open to people praying for them. In fact, what I've seen in most of the trainings I do across the us, most people are not gonna balk at getting some prayer.

So we prayed for them. I shift it to the gospel, we share the gospel. Praise God, this person is already a believer. We let 'em know that we love 'em. Then I'm like, all right, you see how easy that is? I'm telling the two guys with me. I said, super simple and just try to level on them with prayer and then just shift it to the gospel.

So we go. To the next house. This is great. As we go to the next house, we knock on the door. I said, all right, sure turn. And a older gentleman comes to the door and they recited exactly what I had done at the house before. Hey, we're so and so with the church down the road. We just wanna love on our [00:08:00] community.

How can we pray for you? And this guy said, Hey, I'm good. But my son, who is 40 years old, is passed out in the back drunk from the night before. Would you come pray for him? Now, they didn't want to go out and even share the gospel. They were scared about that. But now they're being invited into, who knows, a hostile situation to where they need to pray with somebody who is passed out drunk.

But they did. They walked in there. And sure enough, there's a gentleman passed out and they started to pray over him and they're just praying what any one of us would pray for somebody who had a rough night and maybe wayward In the middle of that prayer, this guy wakes up and he sees these two strange men praying o praying over him, and he, and he just starts to cry.

Of course the guys that are praying, they're like, what do we do? I don't know where to go from here. And the guy praying, finishes praying, say, Hey man, please don't be alarmed. We just, we just want, you, want you to know that we love [00:09:00] you and God loves you. We want to pray for you. The gentleman who was passed out says, no, you don't understand.

Last night I had reached the end of my rope and I said, God, if you're real, make yourself known to me. When I wake up, I see two men praying over me right there, Johnny, on the spot. That dude got saved. The father and the son were reconciled and they've been involved in a small group house church setting twice a week.

And they're not only being discipled themselves, but they're. Figuring out how to make other disciples. I told you that story and I hope, and it wasn't too long, but this is what's really cool when you start to teach people how to practice their faith. Not just know it, but you go with 'em on a journey and say, Hey, it's real simple.

Pray for people, share your story and then invite them. Invest in them. Invite them to go with you as you wanna look more like Jesus tomorrow than you do today. What happens? This is incredible. Acts one, eight. We all know this passage of scripture, Jesus, right before he [00:10:00] ascends, he says, you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you for what?

To be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Sumerian to the ends of the earth. And what happens when we actually start to practice our faith? You start to get stories. You start to see the power of God at work, and I believe. That's what we're missing in our church today if we just know our faith. Sure. On Sunday mornings, the profound truth that we sing in songs, the profound truth that is taught from the word, from behind the pulpit.

Yes, that's gonna resonate with our heart, and we may get some really strong emotional feelings out of it, but if you wanna observe the power of God. Especially in discipleship, get out with people and go do what God's told us to do. Share your story. Share God's story. Make disciples. Start little groups in your house.

Develop leaders, help people look more like Jesus tomorrow [00:11:00] than they do today. So I know that was like a super long answer to your very simple question, but I think that's kind of where we are in the West and this is. The shift that can be seen and that I've had the chance to observe since I've been on this journey and to really make the center point of the Christian life disciple making.

Amanda: Oh no, that, that was not long at all. We, we love when, I love the

Dan: details.

Amanda: Yeah, we love all the details. So thank you so much. That was a beautiful story. I just, I wanna go back to what you said about people being afraid to do it. I feel like that is the biggest hindrance to doing what people know we should do and could do, and we get to do ultimately.

But can you just speak to that why? What is a common denominator of fear of doing that evangelism and sharing faith, and how can believers overcome that fear? How can, how can we bust through that fear?

Josh: Okay. So this is a great question and if I give you another [00:12:00] long answer, just give me a virtual kick under the desk.

Okay. Because like, like I get to, I get to do this all the time. I get to work with churches all the time and help, help believe or kind of step past that faith, but I think there. That there is fear for a couple of different reasons. Okay. I think the first reason, uh, that fear exists is because a lot of times what happens as a church, right, as the leadership of church, we tell people, this is what you should do, and then we just expect them to go and do it.

But the fear is there. Now, if we were as disciple makers to say, Hey, this is what we should do now come with me to do it. That is going to alleviate some fear, right? I'm sure in Belize you have been in the ocean, right? A few times. Now I get to have a little jealousness over here because you guys are enjoying beautiful waters there.

But I remember as a kid, my parents [00:13:00] would take me to the beach as a little fella, and I would look at these crazy knuckleheads, like a hundred yards into the water. I'm like, what is wrong with these? People, there are sharks out there. There's jellyfish out there. My grandmother used to warn us about the undertow that could take us out to the middle of the Atlantic.

Why would they be that far out there? But my dad would say, all right, let's go. And then he would take me by the hand and we would walk out there. And before you knew it, I'm looking back at the shore. And it's a hundred yards away because he took me with him. And it's something about, as a disciple maker with somebody that we're discipling, we have to be willing to invest in them, take them by the hand on this journey.

Discipleship doesn't happen on accident. It is very intentional and it happens on purpose. So as a disciple maker, I need to be willing. To go on a journey to take that [00:14:00] person by the hand and wait out into the water a little ways until they're comfortable, right? So I think that's one reason. The second reason that I believe that there is a real big fear when it comes to having any kind of spiritual conversation, much less and invitation being extended to somebody else to invite them into our faith is because there is a lack of.

Knowledge, right? We're just incompetent. It's not that we don't understand what God has done for us. We don't understand how God has taken us from lying, death to life. It's not that we don't know that, but articulating that in a clear and concise. Escapes us. And I believe what we need to do is we need to find a way, whether it be evangelism, whether it be one-on-one discipleship or whether it be discipling a group.

We have to find a way to put it on a, a shelf where everybody can reach it. Everybody in [00:15:00] the church, right? When we read the Great Commission, Jesus said, all authority is given unto me, both in heaven and on earth. Therefore, Jesus is saying, I'm the boss, like I have sovereignty. All over everything. And so since I'm the boss, this is what I want you to do.

Go and make disciples. And then how do we do that? We baptize them in the name of the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, and then. What's next? Teach 'em to do everything I told you to do. That seems pretty simple, right? So I think what we need to do is we need to gospel sharing, disciple making one-on-one like one-on-one, not 1 0 1, but one-on-one.

Disciple making a. Is there a way that we can simplify it so that everybody can participate in it? And I believe that the answer to that is yes. Now, again, the deeper things of the Lord, like doctrine and theology, understanding, uh, our faith better is a super important key element to our development of a, as a believer.

And not everybody right now is [00:16:00] equipped to step into those roles, but as far as just teaching other people to do what Jesus told us to do. Everybody can do that. And so I believe, uh, one thing that will also help people overcome this apprehension of sharing the gospel and making disciples is to put on a shelf where they can reach it.

Make sure it's biblical, make sure it's simple. And if it's biblical and simple, it will reproduce and you'll get to multiplication.

Dan: Man. That's amazing, Josh. What that made me think of, and I'm sitting here we're, , we're talking, I know you're, uh, you live in the southern part of the United States and I'm looking up above your head and you have potentially a deer or some kind of animal. Uh, yeah. On the, on, on your wall here.

Yeah. There we go. Got a, with all some Turkey feathers potentially. , I, this is a really bad example because I'm not, I'm not really. An outdoorsy person, I play the piano. And so I never really got into like this, like this tough stuff. Yeah. Um, but uh, but we, Jesus says like, look, I'm gonna, I want you all to be fishers of men, right.

And like, we gotta be, we gotta be fishers, we gotta go out there. And I'm thinking as far as like evangelism and discipleship, there's a lot of [00:17:00] people that, okay, I'm a Christian and they've been handed. A rod, they've been handing a reel and they've been handing like a hook and a, and like they don't know how to, first of all, put it all together.

Like someone like me just doesn't know how to, I got all these pieces, but what do I do with it? And then the second thing is like now we get out on a boat. How do, what do I what I need to take this hook. What do I put on the hook? And, and as a Christian, it's almost like you're putting your testimony on that hook, right?

And you're throwing it into the water, and you're waiting for somebody to bite. Well then, you're, you're throwing it, you know, as a, a, as a person that doesn't really fish, but you get, you get a, a fish on that line, it starts pulling and tugging, well, what do I do now? And you, you know, like, and so there's this whole process of catching a fish to getting it outta the water.

And then, you know, what do you do after that? I think. That's where a lot of us are as Christians, is like we don't understand the full process. We've been equipped in some ways we have everything we need, but now putting it together into a tool. And knowing the process. And to your point, really, it's having somebody walk with you.

That's right. And hey Dan, like this is called a rod. This is called a reel. This you, let's put 'em all together. And then this is how we fish. And that's what we're [00:18:00] missing in some ways is just that, almost that guidebook from A to Z, because we're all head smart or we all know that we need to go do it.

That's right. But at the same time, the process is confusing to us or it's a little bit scary. And when we're scared of something, we simply. Oftentimes just don't do it.

Josh: Well, let me just piggyback on the passage that you're referring to. Jesus said to when he was calling his disciples to himself, he said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.

So there was this investment that Jesus was making in the lives of his disciples. And like, I think that that's a key part that we miss out on in our church culture is we'll say, come and listen to me, then go make disciples. And I'm not, again, like what they have to say is polished. It's beautiful and you and a lot of our churches is polished.

It's beautiful and it's set inside of some good theological guardrails. But Jesus' pattern was. Follow me. Like, come with me, spend time with me, and I will make you fishers of men. And I think that you're [00:19:00] exactly right in your observation.

Dan: So organizationally, you lead a couple ministries that have created some tools on this and some kind of, some strategies, some techniques like the, the 15 second testimony.

Uh, you've also create kind of basically, believe in a lot of story sharing. And then in addition, you've, you've written a new devotion or handbook. Tell us about that.

Josh: Made

Dan: to multiply.

Josh: All right. So, uh. So E three Partners is a church planting organization, and so I get to serve there as kind of the guy that oversees some of the initiatives that crop up in North America to make sure that it coexists or aligns with our mission and vision.

A couple of those are are I am second. Have you heard of I, IM second. Are you familiar with those videos?

Dan: We have actually had, the. One of the directors from Im second on the show. So yes, we're familiar with the organization. Oh yeah. Who

Josh: was that? Who Who was that?

Dan: You know, I'm drawing a blank at the moment, but, we've had, yes, we've had one of the leaders from Alright,

Josh: awesome.

So I have the privilege of, of working with I am second. And what we wanted to do is we wanted to say, [00:20:00] okay Lifeway did a study maybe a year or two ago, and what they discovered is they surveyed a thousand churches across the US. 66% of those churches said what they need the most in their churches is training, right?

We, we know how to give 'em knowledge, but how do we kind of like equip them or what can we do to help equip them? And this particular study does just that it's seven weeks and it's meant to be a group study to help. An individual to help a group of people. All right, how do I recognize lostness in my part of the world?

How do I pray for lost or intercede for lost? How do I share my story with losses? And so what happens is in this study is what we wanna do is to start to turn people's hearts. Outwardly. Okay. Like there needs to be some care in this group. There needs to be some ministry in this group, but at the end of the day, the number one client of the church is lostness.

And [00:21:00] so we have to start build, start building our communities, our small groups, the church in general with an eye pointed towards lostness. And this study that I am second partnered with lifeway to put out is an effort to help. Shift people's attention from inwardly focused to start looking outwardly and start ma sharing the gospel and making disciples of new sheep.

Right? A lot of our Sunday school programs are used to divide the sheep that come on Sundays to these groups but what could it look like if we started making disciples and find new sheep all together? And so this study has really helps a group to kind of shift their focus from inwardly. To outwardly, what would it look like to build a group that has a heart for the losses in the community where they're planted?

Dan: That's amazing. I love how you described that as lostness is because oftentimes when we put a. Face on a person. Sometimes we can be really scared to go share. But if [00:22:00] it's a thing, it's not quite as scary in my opinion. And so, uh, I think that's just, I think that's really interesting way of, of looking at it.

What, what kind of results are you beginning to see from from this? And lemme just speak real fast. From our experience, we work here in Belize and Central America, and I'm looking forward to getting this tool because, here in Central America's. We often describe it as a place that's over evangelized and under discipleship.

Under discipled. Yeah. And o oftentimes that's what we have is just a lot of people that have heard a lot, but now they don't know how to go on and go on and, and disciple themselves. Take the next and disciple and to your point, not just add to, but multiply themselves and multiply Jesus in them.

And so what are the results you guys are already seeing from. From this,

Josh: The study is, was launched July 2nd, and so I would say as far as stories coming back to me as to how this study is having impact. Like I could make 'em up, but that would be dishonest. Let me tell you, everything that you see in this study we bring to churches through training.

And so we train churches from sea to shining sea [00:23:00] on this material. Thousands of churches across the us. And if it's okay with you, I'd love to share with you what we're seeing as we train. These tools that you'll see in this study, is that okay if I answer the question that way? What we're seeing now, there is certainly a spectrum, right?

Because you have some churches that are just wanting to get an evangelism training. But then you have some churches that are wanting to make a paradigm shift. Like we want to move from addition to multiplication. We want to be a church that is focused. So those churches we go on a journey with, we'll still train those that want an evangelism training in some capacity.

But those churches who have a big vision, those are the ones that we wanna labor with and we wanna lock arms with. The things that we have been able to see over the last few years of just really. Plowing hard amongst the North American Church has been fantastic, for example there was one church in Grand Rapids, Michigan that I had a [00:24:00] chance to train and it was a coaching relationship, so it started off with some Zoom calls with their leadership, then it was an all day affair training.

And then it was a, Hey, come and see what this looks like on the mission field. So they went with me to Lebanon and then it ended up being some other coaching and training. And before you know it, within just a few short years, this church had trained on their own. Now they own the. The training themselves.

Their training, I wanna say the last number they gave me, they have equipped 2050 people in their church to go share their story, God's story, make disciples, and know how to start a group. So you can see when a church really embraces like, Hey, we want to certainly disciple people in their understanding.

But we also wanna help people live this out and we're gonna go with them. When you start to see a church embrace that kind of life on life investment for discipleship, you start to see people get equipped and to go out. And that's just one example that we have in Grand Rapids, but know [00:25:00] this, we have 50 60 trainers scattered across the US who are doing this day in and day out with congregations.

And this study is helping us kinda. Increase our bandwidth and allow us to serve more and more churches, hopefully awakening the church to these endeavors. Let me just share this one thing with you real quick, because I just get to talking and just tell me to shut up when I need to. Dan. No, no

Amanda: problem.

We love it. All right,

Josh: so if you were to look at the studies out there, by and large about. Conservative estimations is one out of four people in the US are like not just a cultural Christian, but somebody who actually practice practices. Christian faith, one in four, right? And so most sociologists will tell you this, that if you can reach.

Any given population. So just take beliefs. If you could reach 10%, persuade 10%, convert 10% to Christianity, that [00:26:00] 10% will in turn evangelize the other 90%. Well, one out of four is 25% in the us right? So it's not like. We don't have an army here that can do the work. We just need to figure out how we can empower this army to go out and do the work and reach the rest of the US And what we're seeing as churches embrace this paradigm shift from addition to multiplication.

There are people getting trained to go out and do and be a part of the kingdom expansion, not just a consumer of Christianity. You're starting to see the church awaken envy. Again, knowledge based discipleship has its place, but it's not the only discipling that we need to be doing. We need to help people step into this obedience based discipleship so that they can practice their faith.

Dan: Amen. Wow. It was reminding me of this workshop that we did in Belize City. We recently. Uh, one of the things we do is, [00:27:00] is a spiritual gifts workshop. And to your point about, you know, you just one, you need to know, you need to know what you have. And, and so we've all been given gifts, right? And, uh, but how we use, we need to work together and, and, and share those gifts.

Those are meant to be a blessing to the, to the church and to the world. And so, uh, but a lot of times, many people just don't even know what their gifts are. And so we we started working with this church and did a workshop with them. And did, uh, we did a spiritual workshop on a Saturday and uh, this guy gets a hold of it.

He said, Hey, I have an evangelism gift. And we said, that's great, you know, uh, he's like, I didn't even know that. And so we said, all right, cool. Like, guess what? We're going out and doing door to door evangelism tomorrow. You can come with us. And, uh, so we go out and we go out and, uh, we divide up into a couple small groups and, you know, different, different people are going different directions.

And here we are, we're going house to house in the first house. This guy's, you know, he's timid, he's quiet wanting to do this, but he's still a little scared. Never done it before. The second house, he gets a little more comfortable. The third, he's starting to kind of give in a get in a groove by the fourth and the fifth man, I just stepped back and because his anointing was clear and he's just more and more comfortable with it, and he, by the end of the day, he's like, that was awesome.

I didn't know [00:28:00] I could do that. I didn't know that was in me. Yeah. And so then like by the end of the day he's saying, Hey look, you know what, like, and in Belize we don't have. Really police officers that patrol how fast you go. And like you get on a little highway, you could go as fast as you want.

The problem is, is that we have these sleeping police called speed bumps. And they're not just your, your small speed bumps. They're your big, big, like every month and a half I see a car that they're axles just off. Like it's just, they hit these things too fast and it just destroys their car.

And, uh, and so he says. At the end of the day, he's like, you know what? There's that big speed bump in front of our church that all these cars have to stop at, and then go over it very slowly and then continue on. And the journey says, you know what? We're gonna at the church. We're gonna go out there and we're gonna hand out cold waters to everyone as they drive by, and we're gonna tell them about Jesus.

Josh: You

Dan: , And so the story of that is like, is that 24 hours earlier he didn't know he had an evangelism kind of discipleship gift. And 24 hours later, now that he knows, he's dreaming up new ways of evangelizing and, and discipling people. It's just a matter of one, [00:29:00] knowing what God has equipped you with.

And two. Just stepping into it. And I think when we step into something, it's a lot easier and we're much more emboldened when we go as a group. And I know you guys really support that you guys are really about empowering people and to, to build a community about sharing your faith and maybe even going out as groups because we it helps us be more bold.

So I was just wondering if you could speak to that a little bit.

Josh: Man I love that story. Thank you for sharing that. I, so I, as I told you guys before we jumped on, like I have a mess of kids running around here, six of them and one thing that used to frighten me is, um. We would, especially when I was starting my ministry early on, there was this statistic that came out that, uh, when kids leave the house at 18 to go to college, that they leave the church at an alarming rate.

I think it was 96%. Uh, they leave the church, and that's not to say that they won't come back, but during those formative years in college. 96% are not in church. And , I was like, God, I don't want that to [00:30:00] be my kid's story. Help me, help me understand how we can avoid that. And so what the Lord just pressed upon my heart through parenting and through reading and understanding the word is they need stories their faith in my house.

Especially when they're young, is as strong or as weak as me and their mama's faith so their faith is built upon me and Tabitha's stories, but if I don't give them opportunities to go out and get their own stories. Get them out there and let them do a service project in the name of the Lord. Let them teach them how to share their faith so they can go out with dad and mom to share that.

Now all of a sudden, the faith transitions from me and Mama to now they're building their own faith. So when they hit 18 years old, if their faith is only built upon my story and Tabitha's story. Well then that's, that's not gonna hold 'em up. But as they step into the [00:31:00] real world and they're like, I know my faith is true because I seen it at work when I did X, Y, or Z.

So likewise with this gentleman that you had a chance to work on, like you showed him this task and it said that he was an evangelist. And it wasn't until he went out there and started doing it and he is like, Chucky ducky, oh my gosh, I need to be doing this every day. So his faith went from what you told him to what he seen for himself as he was out there doing it.

And so I would say that, what we need to do is create these on-ramps as disciple makers, as churches, for people to get out and get their own stories. And those stories will build their faith and give them the confidence that they need to keep going. Now you gotta guy that wants to go out there and hand bottle water to every Tom, Dick and Harry that passes by the church in the name of Jesus, like who to thunk.

But all you had to do was let him get out there. Build his [00:32:00] faith through living in obedience to the word, and then those stories build that faith., I done forgot what your original question was, but that just did I answer the question? Okay. All right. Good. I run off on tangents sometimes, but it's just a cool story that just was like, man, that's fantastic.

Yeah.

Dan: I, I'm, I'm. Still pondering. That may be the first time we've ever had Chucky Ducky said on the, uh, on the show. I'm not a hundred percent, but I'm gonna have to go back and review all our episode.

Josh: You're welcome. They get on to me all the time at E three. It's like, what does that even mean?

I'm like. I'm not sure. I just like saying it. So it

Dan: might not be the last time, though. The host may be starting to say that now too, so There you

Josh: go,

Dan: So for the believer who wants to begin living Missionally and feel stuck on discipleship, like what's the first step that they can do today?

What would you say?

Josh: , I remember when I was a kid and I was like, I know God wants me to do something. Dad. I know he wants me to do something. I don't know what it is. And I remember him saying, just get out and do something. And then [00:33:00] as you do something and you do something more and you do something more of those gifts that you mentioned start to really kind of emerge.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't. Practice everything that we possibly can practice in the faith, but the, the Lord will start to direct you and guide you. But if you just sit down and just be like, well, I hope one day God makes it clear. And again, I think he has made it clear. He said, go and make disciples of all nations.

Right. So we step into that is just do it. Now, my suggestion is, is to find somebody who might be a step or two in front of you and say, Hey, I want to go with you. I wanna learn from you. I wanna make time in my life to connect my life to yours, so that I can learn. I would say the first step is like, , at the end of the day.

Your growth in the Lord and your looking more like him tomorrow than you do today is not the responsibility of your pastor. It's not the [00:34:00] responsibility of your parents. It's your responsibility. And, and so I would just say, Hey, just. Go out and just share your story. Remember what he told the demoniac after he cast all those demons out of 'em, the demoniac wanted to go with him and and Jesus was like, no, I don't want you to go.

I want you to go tell the world, tell these people what I've done for you. He didn't have anybody there with him. There wasn't a a church that was planted somewhere in the opis. It was just him, and the only thing that he had was his story. So for anybody who is wanting to live missionally, just. Tell, just go with what Jesus told the demoniac.

Just go tell somebody what Jesus has done for you and just keep doing it. Find somebody else to do it with you. Pour into somebody else so they can learn to do it with you. And before you know it, you'll start to build this community of people that you can learn from and people that you can pour into.

Just, just do what Jesus said. Tell people what he has done for [00:35:00] you. And I think that'll be a good place to start with obedience.

Dan: Man, as we begin to close here, what's the number one thing you hope people walk away with after going through made to multiply?

Josh: Oh man, that's fantastic. Good question.

You can do it. I think what we do a lot of times is we've kind of. Set aside this part of our life as believers, evangelism and discipleship to this corner that only a few people who have been to seminary. Or have lived faithfully for 40 years, can participate in, and maybe one day I can be there, but I'm just not there today.

I don't have the know-how, I don't have the experience. But what my hope is, is that people will see that, hey, practicing my faith, taking somebody with me on a journey is not that difficult. You'll remember when Paul went to [00:36:00] Thessy, he was there for three weeks. A church was started. , Again, I'm not saying that we don't need the deeper things.

Paul had to write 'em back later on, but we can practice our faith starting today. And so I hope as you read this study, as you do this study with a group of people, that the light bulb that clicks on for everybody in the room is holy cow. Chucky ducky, I can do this, and I have everything I need to be a faithful, obedient participant in this kingdom expansion.

So that's what I hope they get from it.

Dan: That's amazing. Mm-hmm. Well, we do have a few other questions here for you. I have a couple fun questions we wanna make sure we wrap up here with and, but just so amazing to hear your heart and, let me actually back up one quick thing. You can do it as such a powerful message.

Josh: Yeah,

Dan: because we all have [00:37:00] that same voice in our head that says, that's saying the exact opposite. That's right. That you cannot do it. There's no way. It's impossible.

Josh: You no way. That's right.

Dan: And that's the voice we need to be listening to. You know, the word says that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

And so, that's an important message to get all of into all of our hearts that we can do it no matter where we are in our journey. Whether we're just starting off, whether we're, you know, we've been a Christian 20, 25, 30, 50 years, whatever it is, like that thing that God's asking you and us to do, that next step, we can do it.

Josh: That's right. You can

Dan: do it. And

Josh: do everything that you need. Everything that you need, his word, his spirit, everything that you need. So just step into it. You can do it.

Dan: Thank you for that message. That's such an empowerment.

Josh: Oh man, you guys are awesome. Yeah, y one of my favorite interviews. Woo. Shocky ducky,

you nailed it.

Dan: If you could disciple one Bible character other than Jesus, who would you pick and what would your first lesson be?

Josh: Oh dude, that's, that's easy. [00:38:00] One of my favorite characters in the Bible, and I think it's probably 'cause he's a little rough around the edges, is Samson like, I'd like to sit down with that dude and be like, Hey, let's go on a journey together.

Is there any way that we can rough out or smooth out some of these rough edges? And so like I would go with. I would go with him and probably take him through a series on how to look for the right gal, because she got him into a lot of trouble. So Samson, I'd pick that guy. Plus he'd be a great bodyguard, right?

As long as he kept his hair long, he'd be a great bodyguard

Dan: It's funny that you said that because I had, I was just reading that story yesterday or this morning, one or the other. And, there were some things that God was highlighting to me on, on that guy too. Man, we could double team him.

Can I come in? Yeah, he might need the double team. Him. He's a pretty tough dude.

Josh: We'll bring a razor just in case he gets outta hand, right?

Dan: That's right. Yeah, that's, that's exactly it, . What's the, what's the strangest place you've ever shared The gospel?

Josh: Oh man. That's a great question.

Strange. I feel, I don't think I've had too many, like, strange places. Maybe conventional [00:39:00] places, like on a subway or airplane, those are all super conventional. But let me go maybe with strange. Like somebody asked me this question, it was crazy, maybe about three months ago, and it sent me on a journey and

and like, I just like, no strange, but there was this one place where I got to share the gospel and it was in Myanmar and we were there trying to just pour into some of the leaders that we had over there. And so one day, you know, they had a regular rhythm of going out and sharing the gospel.

So we're like, yeah, man, we would love to go with you. And so, and I don't the, the people over there are a lot shorter than I am. I'm like six four, you know, and so I'm a, I'm, I, I stand out amongst the folks in that pa part of the world, but their houses are also super. I mean it, this was crazy. I mean, I think their ceiling was at five feet high, so I'm like, I'm crunching down.

There's no chairs, and so I'm having a sit Indian style, and so I look like a big. Bigfoot, fresh out across this little house. And so I would say that was probably, and of course we share the gospel, uh, with the lady that is in the house. And, uh, it was such a [00:40:00] sweet thing like, you felt the spirit got in there, like in this little bitty place.

And they have idols all in these shadow boxes around the wall, God's. Ministering to this woman. And it was really cool. It was strange, but, I'd say that was probably the most unique place I've had a, a chance to share the gospel. Amen.

Dan: Wow. And one more question. , You've led both local church, you've led national ministry.

What's one leadership lesson you've learned the hard way?

Josh: Okay. So this is a lesson I'm learning every day. And I remember when I first started preaching, like I felt a call to preach when I was like 12 or 13. And the pastor of that church that I was at, he was a great guy. He was like, well, if you're called to preach, well then at 13 years old, we're gonna let you preach on a Sunday.

And oh my gosh it was a five minute message. I was wearing a tie and I kept fidgeting with the tie. And at the end the preacher took me to the back to shake everybody's hand and my face [00:41:00] was red because I had cut off circulation to my brain from playing with that tie. And so, but then he started letting me preach about once every six months.

And then he sent me to the nursing home to preach once a month and then to the prison once a month. And so like I was getting all this experience. Well, anyways. I go into pulpit supply and start doing pulpit supply, and then I start working at church. They invited me back to come and preach at this little church where I got started.

And in my mind I was like, I am going to, I'm gonna wow these people. I'm gonna show them the man that I have become. And I'll tell you right now that the Lord, he showed me real quick that this is not something that you do in your own strength. That this is something that we depend upon him for.

It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's sharing the gospel, whether it's teaching a Sunday school class or whether it's preaching from behind a pulpit. And so in that moment, the Lord started to teach me and still teaches me, you know. 20 some odd years later. [00:42:00] The importance of leaning into him for everything that we do, for every ounce of sustenance that, we need, he is our source.

And so walking in humility I think is the biggest lesson, that I have learned. And the best way for me to practice that is to try my best. To out honor those people around me. And so if God ever gives me the opportunity to go back to that little country church, that really allowed me to learn, I would do my best to celebrate that church and everything that they're doing, rather than elevate myself there.

So I would say that's probably been the biggest lesson and the most embarrassing lesson, that I've had to learn as a follower of Jesus in leadership.

Dan: So well said. Josh. So good to have you on the show, E three Partners made to Multiply. How can we learn more about you, you, and the organization?

How can listeners get a, get ahold of Made To Multiply? Tell [00:43:00] us.

Josh: Okay. E three Partners, as I said earlier, is a church planning organization and we have missionaries all over the world, 115 countries we have strategy in. And so if you're looking for an opportunity to do some short term trips or really even be mobilized, God's calling each other the nations.

E three wants to see that you get trained and mobilized, whether it's you and your church on a trip, or you as an individual who wants to live like you guys on mission and beliefs. I am second if you want to get, and that's e3 partners.org. I am second is a storytelling media ministry of E three partners.

And so there's a lot of ways that you can go and just. Watch the content of I Am second and see these stories, these transformational stories of people who have walked with Jesus and how it impacted their lives. You can find I am second on all the social media platforms and YouTube, but we also have a website.

I am second.com. And then the study that we just released, if you're interested in taking your church on this journey [00:44:00] to practice their faith and simple tools so they can,, you can find that study@lifewaydike.com made to multiply study. And there you can find the and then if you want to get in touch with me, you can actually go to the made to Multiply dot.

Come maybe. Yeah, I think it's dot com. Oh no, it's dot org. Dot org made to multiply.org. And you just click the form to find a trainer and that will go straight to me and I'll connect you with a trainer who can take your church on the journey.

Dan: Listeners. We'll have those all in the show notes for you. And Wow.

Josh, what an honor to have you on the show today. Man. We just speak blessing over, over you and what you're putting your hand to over E three. And I'm second and we're just in the Made to Multiply book,. We just are excited to see how God continues to work in and through all these different things, and we are thankful for you guys, staying faithful to the mission that God's called you to live.

Josh: Amen brother. Thank you. You guys are fantastic. I had a great time today.

Amanda: Thank you.

Dan: Amen. Thank you so much.

Josh: Alright.

[00:45:00] Thanks for joining us today on the Mission Life Podcast. You enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss out on future conversations. And don't forget to share this episode with your friends, family, or anyone you think will be blessed by it. We also wanna invite you to check out our free 31 Day Devotional Living and Mission, all life designed to help you step forward into the purpose he has for you.

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