Skip to content Session 3 - Determine the End Product Sep 7 · 1 hr 8 min ...more
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Rev. Paul Jeyachandran leads the Intentional Disciple Making Church (IDMC) Movement, which is all about calling churches back to its disciplemaking roots. Visit us at idmcmovement.com
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0:06 Hallelujah. Shall we give the Lord a clap offering church? Wonderful. I hope you had a good rest last night. And welcome to the session 3 in our IDMC Conference0:18 20 20. Today, are focusing on determine the end product. I want to revise the 2 sessions that we have done so far. See the critical need0:30 because everything begins with seeing the critical need. And secondly, understanding the biblical strategy. And once we understand the biblical strategy, we need to come up with what is the0:41 product that we are producing. So today in this session, we're going to look at determine the end product. But as we always begin in our sessions, we want to begin with a biblical0:52 reflection. So I wanted you to turn to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 28. In Ephesians chapter 4 verse 28, Paul gives us a clear command.1:04 Let the thief no longer steal but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with1:16 anyone in need. I want you to pay attention to this obscure verse because in this verse, there is an inner life transformation that we talk about. Because when you1:28 look at this verse superficially, it looks like this, let the thief no longer steal. That's the first statement he makes. Let the thief no longer steal but rather1:40 let him labor. In other words, when you conclude that, you may say stop stealing and start working. Now what is that?1:51 That is a behavioural change. That is an outward behavioural change. Many times the outward behavioral change is what we focus on, whether it is with our2:03 children, whether parents want to discipline their children and correct their behavior or whether it is a boss wanting to change the culture that is in the prevalent among the employees. It's always what we are trying2:15 to modify is the behavioral change on the outside. But how many of you know that behavioral change on the outside is not a permanent change? Story was told of a young2:27 boy in a classroom and he was misbehaving and the teacher wanted to discipline him. So what did she do? She said, I want you to stand up on the chair. And the boy continued to remain2:39 seated and the teacher took her cane in her hand and said, I want you to stand up on the chair. Otherwise, you will be in trouble. So the boy refused to stand up.2:50 Again, looked at the stubbornness of this young soul and she said, I want you to stand up now. And then he quickly got up and he stood up on the chair but then he had a smirk on his face.3:02 So the teacher asked, what are you smiling about? And he said, I'm sitting on the inside. In other words, this is what happens. On the outward we change but3:14 inwardly nothing has happened. But in a disciple making church, our focus is not so much that the behavior changes but our focus is that the conviction of the heart, the3:25 condition of the heart completely radically transforms. Because when your belief system changes, when your value system changes, your outward behavior will also change, isn't it?3:38 And that is the emphasis that Paul writes here. He says, let the thief no longer steal. That's the first thing. But then he says, rather let him labor. So even though he focuses superficially3:49 on modification of a behavior, he goes on to say, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. I want you to just think through4:01 this verse with me. When someone stops stealing, just because they've stopped stealing doesn't mean their condition of the heart has changed, isn't it? Ask yourself this question, why4:13 does a thief steal? The thief steals because he has greed in his heart. He wants something that doesn't rightfully belong to him, but because he has this insatiable4:24 desire, he wants to grab something that is not his so that greed makes him to covet and as a result, he steals. Now this is the key. Just because someone has4:36 stopped stealing doesn't necessarily mean that the greed in the heart, the covetousness in the heart has been truly changed. And that is why you and I, we need to focus on the inner4:47 life transformation. So for example, if someone who was a thief has stopped stealing and now he has started to work, the world will celebrate him because that's what religion teaches.4:59 Stop doing bad and start doing good. But the reality here is just because the outward has changed, nothing inside has truly changed. I want you to listen to me. Even though he was a thief first who5:11 grabbed in order to satisfy his greed, now he is working in order to satisfy his greed. 1 was an illegal means of satisfying greed, now is a legal means5:23 of satisfying greed. In other words, the heart has not changed. That's why in a disciple making church, the fundamental thing that we focus on is an inside out discipleship, not5:35 an outside in. It's a transformation in the inner life. Therefore, the greed is now released. Die to yourself. That selfishness, that self5:46 centeredness, that self preoccupation, that self wanting to have its way. Now you die to that self and come out living a life that pleases God, honors God5:58 both on the inside and then your behavior on the outside matches. That's why Paul here writes, but doing honest work with his own hands and then he uses these 2 words so6:10 that. Whenever you read the word so that, it is the result, it is the reason for that change. So that what is the outcome that we want and the outcome here is so that he may have something to share with6:22 anyone in need. What a transformation. Someone who is grabbing things for himself now is sharing things for others. Someone who is only preoccupied with what he wanted, what he desired,6:34 what he willed, but now he's putting away his own preference and now he's earning good money with his own hands, with his hard work, but now he's willing to share and bless and be generous to6:45 others. I want you to see this inner transformation from greed he moves to generosity. From trying to grab everything he is now coming to release everything. This is the key.6:57 That life change is what we focus on in an intentional disciple making church. I believe that is the true gospel. The gospel doesn't come just to transform our7:09 behavior. The gospel comes to transform our heart in such a manner that we let go of our own selfish ways. We learn to take up the cross daily and die daily7:21 to our own preferences, to our own perceived rights, to our own personal ambitions and we come before God and we say Lord here is my life. For the 1 who gave himself for me, I7:33 wanna give myself completely for him. And that is the transformation that gospel brings. Let me summarize. What is the gospel? The gospel is 3 things. The gospel is number 1, it is a7:44 message to be believed. It is a message about a person to be believed. Number 2, it is a message not only to be believed but it's a person to receive. You need to acknowledge7:56 Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of your life. You need to acknowledge him as your Lord and Savior. So it's not only the message about him that you need to believe but it's a person that you need to acknowledge as8:08 your Savior and Master and Lord King over your life. That's the second 1. But the third 1 is that you are continually being transformed to live a life like him. You are being8:19 changed from darkness to light, from error to truth, from sin to righteousness. So in this case from greed to generosity. There is a transformation that happens so that you become8:31 more and more like your master. And that is what we focus on in an intentional disciple making church. The discipleship from the inside out. Shall we pray? Heavenly Father we thank you even8:43 for this morning. Even as we focus on this third session, we ask that you continue to transform our life from the inside out. We acknowledge that we are not here just for a behavior change8:55 but we want to radically change in our mindset, in belief system, in our value system, in our world view, in what we treasure and who we treasure so that mighty God we can live a9:06 life that pleases God and displays the Gospel to the world. It takes a crucified church to show to the world the crucified saviour.9:18 So Father help us to live the life and leave a legacy. So this morning we ask for your mercy and your grace to be upon all the hearers that they will not only hear but they will apply the word and you9:30 give me grace to deliver the burden that you have placed in my heart. We thank you in Jesus name and the people of God said amen and amen. Hallelujah. Determine the end product.9:42 1 of the core things that you and I we need to pay attention to is that what is the product that God is asking us to build. When you go into a shoe factory, you see shoes. When you go into9:54 a glass factory, you expect to see glass, everything made of glass. So when you come into church, what do you expect to see? What is the product that we are producing? There are 3 key10:06 important questions that we ask every leader. So if you're a pastor, if you're a leader, I want you to take this down because I want you to pay attention to these 3 questions. Number 1, the for what question.10:18 This is the purpose question. The purpose, why we exist? Why do we exist as a church? Why do we exist in this marriage, in this family unit? The for what question?10:30 The second 1 is, what's possible question? This is the question of how what has God promised us? What is the destiny upon this couple? What is the destiny upon this family? What is the10:42 destiny upon this ministry or this church? So 1 of the core things we gotta pay attention to is not only what for but also what's possible and the third thing is what kind question. And the most10:53 neglected question is what kind. What is the what kind question? It is the question about product. Many times we focus on the purpose, we may focus on the11:05 process but sometimes we forget or we tend to neglect the product. You and I, we need to be very clear as leaders what is it that God is calling us to11:17 produce. You probably might know this. When you walk into a church, there are some people that will stand out for you. These are remarkable people. Maybe in your small group, you walk into a small11:29 group within a matter of few encounters, you can already tell the ones who have a difference. There is a distinctiveness about their life. They are remarkable in some11:40 ways. They are humble, yet they are firm. They are very gentle and loving and kind like a shepherd and yet they are very much firm and able to lead strongly. At the same time, are able to11:52 manage their household and also able to counsel others. They seem to be spiritually mature and have it all together. You know, sometimes you don't know how to describe this. Now, that is what we call12:04 a certain kind. That they are able to stand out from the rest of the crowd. They are not the ones who are easily discouraged. They are not the ones who are offended very easily. They are not the ones who sit, soak and12:15 sour, turn sour in a church. That means they just want feed me, feed me, feed me and they are sitting, soaking and turning sour. But the reality is they have a robust faith in their life. They continually be faithful to12:27 the Lord and loyal to the people that God has called them to be in a community and they make a difference. Now that is the certain kind of product that you and I are called to be. So that's what we're going to explore in12:39 this session. What does that actually mean? The crisis of disciple making today is the crisis of product. The compelling question is, what kind of12:50 disciples does God call us to reproduce? Many times we always ask this question as a pastor. Do you have a discipleship program in your church?13:03 Or do you have disciples in your church? Which 1 do you ask? Do you have a discipleship program or do you have disciples in your church? Can I humbly say, reframe your question?13:15 Do you have disciples in your church? In other words, what kind of disciples are there in the church and what are we called to reproduce? This is something that you and I need to explore. But before13:26 I go any further, I want to give you a paradigm of thinking about change management. I'm a person who works with the church senior pastors and senior leadership team in various countries in13:39 church consultation. Not only that, I mentor a lot of senior pastors and business owners of various sizes of businesses. And this is the key thing that I've always helped them to understand. How do you manage13:51 change? Because conflict resolution, change management, decision making and envisioning, these are some of the skills we have to develop. If you're an entrepreneur, if you're a leader, if you're a14:03 pastor, these are the skills we need to develop. And 1 of the core thing is change management. How do you help people change? And in this I want to give you 4 levels of change. Change is the hardest thing,14:15 isn't it? Even though change is inevitable, change is the hardest thing and every pastor, every leader will say this, when I try to change, wow. All the fault lines in the church started to appear. It's somehow14:26 pushed the button or stepped on people's toes and people got offended, all those things. So how do we manage change? There are 4 levels of change. The first level of change is the knowledge. It's14:38 mindset change. We have a certain positions in life about certain things based on the current level of knowledge that we function from. So when you have new14:50 knowledge, things change. So that's why education plays a key role, isn't it? But sometimes people don't understand that they don't know many things. They assume they know. See the mother of all problems15:02 is assumption. People presume and people assume. And if they only know and come to that place of humility to say I don't know, they can learn, they can grow, they can have a mentor who15:14 can train them and skill them up. But the reality is knowledge is the first thing. The mindset change is 1 of the hardest thing to do. But even that can be changed if they bring in new knowledge and have15:26 a humility of heart to be a learner and to be a developer. Number 2 is the attitude change. How many of you know that there are attitudinal biases that we function from?15:37 Prejudices that we have. Sometimes we have the cynicism of mind. We always think that we already know what we have to do. So we have a lot of this thing. This is how we are brought up15:49 in a household. In a household, everyone was very selfish or self centered. They never thought about others and that kind of attitude actually comes across in a person and that attitude needs to16:01 change. It is also hard. But then comes the third 1. The third 1 is a personal behavior. What is a personal behavior? Personal behavior is how do you conduct yourself in16:13 an organization? How do you conduct yourself in a family? How do you conduct yourself in a role that has been given to you? That personal behavior where your attitude plays a role, your personal16:24 convictions, your value system, everything plays a role, your mindset plays a role. It is very, very critical. But personal behavior is the hardest 1 to change. But can I humbly say this, if you're a leader,16:36 1 of the most hardest thing to do, and this is the fourth level, is the group behavior change? Group behavior. You can even help a person change his personal behavior. But to make16:48 everyone in the family subscribe to 1 culture, 1 value system, that's the hardest because you have to change every person's mind. And that is why many times in churches16:59 we struggle to make any change happen. Why? Because the collective doesn't want to move. And we we try to we try to do this on our own. We can't. We need the help of17:11 God. For this, I always ask pastors to evaluate the culture that is already prevalent in the church. What is the culture? The culture is how we do things here. How we do things here.17:23 And certain cultures, even though you may have good vision, culture, if it toxic, if it is a disempowering culture, the ethos, the value system, the DNA,17:35 there is a dysfunction there. What happens is it will cripple the church from progressing any further. So these 4 things I want you to pay attention to. And 1 of the core things you and I are called to17:47 do is be a change leader. We need to bring change. So don't get discouraged. God is with you and don't just focus on incremental change.17:59 Many times, we focus on incremental change. What is an incremental change? For example, if you're a McDonald's owner and you sell burgers, but then all of a sudden you start selling fried chicken in the18:11 menu. What is that? That's an incremental change. You sell burgers and now you sell fried chicken. If you're KFC, you've been selling fried chicken and suddenly you start selling burgers also. In other words, these are18:21 incremental things. So sometimes in church, we just focus on doing certain things incrementally which doesn't move the marker. What we need is a fundamental radical shift in our thinking18:34 and really become exponential in our thinking and exponential in our growth to bring a cultural change in our midst. Let's focus on this. We must get back to the basics.18:47 First, we must distinguish between conventional church values and an intentional making church values. This is important for us. In my last 2 sessions, already covered with18:58 you how vital it is for us to embrace disciple making vision. Because in a traditional church, in a traditional church values, we sometimes want to just19:10 focus on things that work. And so we keep on doing the same things over and over again, hoping this year, the same things that we did last year will somehow produce a19:22 transformational effect. But can I humbly say this, we are losing the next generation and that's what you heard in the first 2 sessions? When I go to UK and Europe, it saddens my19:34 heart to see how many churches, once upon a time these were flourishing churches, today there are hardly anyone worshiping there. Many of them have been converted into mosques or Buddhist temples. This is the19:45 key because we are losing the next generation. Intentional disciple making and mentoring of the next generation has to be intentional. I want you to explore some of the values with me in both the traditional19:57 church values as well as the intentional church values. Look at this. Number 1, it's making converts versus making disciples. What is this? Making converts.20:09 Many times in a church we only ask this question, how many people prayed to receive Christ? That could be a marker, PRC, prayed to receive Christ. How many people have made20:21 decisions to follow Christ? But can I humbly say this? Christ's command for us as we looked at in the last session is not just to make converts but to make disciples. That means they needed to be followed20:33 through just because they smelt the prayer doesn't necessarily mean that their heart is now changed and being transformed. So, you and I, we need to work with them in order to help them change in their mindset, change in20:44 their personal behavior so that they can bring change within their own family. Does that make sense? So making disciples becomes a creaky critical value of a intentional disciple making church.20:56 So there must be a proper follow-up. There must be a proper way of nurturing the growth of a new believer. And that needs to be followed through systematically. Number 2, successful programs21:08 are valued whereas spiritual maturity is valued. I want you to think about this. Many times in churches we celebrate how many attended a church program. We look at the success of a21:20 program by the number that have attended. But can I humbly say this, church attendance doesn't necessarily mean that people are being radically transformed? We have reduced discipleship to a classroom21:32 but we need to make, we need to understand that classroom doesn't disciple people. Even the materials we use doesn't disciple people. It is people who invest their life in another that disciple people. So spiritual21:44 maturity is what we ultimately want to see. Don't reduce it down to spiritual giftedness or spiritual attendance coming to church attendance but have this within your heart. The church values21:56 is that we value spiritual maturity. What does spiritual maturity look like? Ask yourself this, 5 years ago, how did I live my life? Today, how do I live my22:08 life? 5 years later, what is the progress I'm making? Listen, because if you haven't made any progress in growing in-depth, growing in authenticity in your own life, being22:19 vulnerable about your own life, being able to recognize the vulnerability of your life and your resources and how you you need to align yourself with God. Living that authentic life.22:31 Living that broken life in constant dependence upon God. Crying out to him to say Lord I need your help. How are we growing in it? Do people recognize the fruit of our life and are they able to22:43 participate of the fruit of our life? We need to examine this. Otherwise, we could be 20 year old Christian and still have a chronic spiritual infancy, an extended spiritual22:55 infancy. So we need to value spiritual maturity. This is where I want you to think about the life change in your own life and if you are a person who23:06 chronicles or journals, I want you to write down your own life change story in terms of how you were 5 years ago and how you are today so that you yourself can recognize has my resolutions become23:18 stronger? Is my hunger for God become deeper? Am I growing in the deep things of God? Is a hunger to live for his glory, to do his will, to study his word? These are things we23:29 need to examine. Thirdly, 20 percent does 80 percent of the work and 20 percent accubes 80 percent to ministry. Many traditional churches, the cry is always for volunteers. The23:41 pastors are always giving invitation, we need volunteers. And no 1 wants to volunteer because they know it's a life sentence, sometimes it's a death sentence. People are stuck in that same thing. But I want you to think23:52 about this. Many places we say, 20 percent does 80 percent of the work. That means people have this wrong thinking that pastors, they're24:03 employees of the church, the church staff, they're employed by the church to do all the ministry. So they should be the 1 running around doing all the ministry. Nothing can be further from the truth. The Bible says very24:15 clearly that pastors and leaders in the church are equipers. They are the ones who equip. They're the 20 percent that equip the whole 80 percent, the rest of the crowd to be able to mobilize them into ministry.24:27 That's why we have to develop this kingdom theology that everyone is a minister. Not only everyone is a minister, everyone carries a gift that the body of Christ needs We need to be able to recognize them, develop them24:39 and release them so that the body of Christ can be fully blessed. Hallelujah. 1 of the key things that we do in Life Church is this. In Life Church we recognize24:51 that Life Groups are our key vehicle. So we bring people into the Life Groups. And 1 of the things we ask within the Life Group is look for the Life Group leader who grows in being a shepherd. So we25:02 empower them to be lay shepherds. We empower them to be the pastoral team that walking with people. And not only that, there is a support system around the life group leader. There is25:14 a zone shepherd that looks after the welfare of a life group leader. And also the life group leader looks after the welfare of an assistant leader and a core group members who look after their leaders. In other words, a25:25 communal care and in that community of care, everyone is doing their part. And if everyone does their part, every life group will be life giving group.25:37 Every member in the church will be filled with care and they will be able to recognize and be released into their potential. Hallelujah. 1 of the core things in a25:48 conventional values is this, laity led, clergy driven, whereas in a disciple making church, it's a clergy led, laity driven. What is laity led? You will find people who are26:00 lay people in committees and making all the leadership decisions and the pastors and the clergymen are running around doing things. But that's very limiting. Whereas26:12 when it comes to a clergy led, that means there is clarity of vision. There is concrete strategy. There is a common culture and we build the leaders with a certain kind. And then you empower and you26:24 raise the lay people to be leaders, lay people to be ministers of the gospel, lay people who are gifted and talented and skilled and they are equipped and they trained and they are released and empowered.26:35 Then it becomes a clergy led but laity driven. That's why 1 of the core things that I advise pastors is to keep the staff team lean. What do I mean by lean? Because if you rely26:47 heavily on just the staff doing all the work, lay people will not be able to rise up and be released. That's why in this house, we keep a very lean team on the on the on the on on the staff26:58 team But the rest is mobilized by the people of God. Why? That's the biblical model. He says let every joints and every ligaments release what it's what it is what it can do to the27:10 body. So that the body can continue to mature and become like Christ. Hallelujah. Number the next 1, disciples are made in church and disciples are made in every sphere of life.27:22 In a traditional church environment or conventional values, you bring everything to a classroom and you say as long as you are in this classroom, you are being trained and equipped. Can I humbly say this?27:34 Disciples must be made in every sphere of life. In other words, there must be people ought to be able to meet not just in a classroom but in a cafe, in the workplace,27:46 in homes and in every environment of life where you can bring discipleship and mentoring. Training of people, grounding them in the scriptures, being27:58 empowered by the holy spirit, living their life under the lordship of Christ. Hallelujah. So that they are walking in an authentic life and they are reproducing an intentional disciple making life. And this is the key.28:10 Disciples are made in every sphere of life. Church dispenses information whereas church transforms life. Many times people come to28:21 church because the sermons are good. Sometimes it is the whole worship experience is so good. And many times churches rely on this to just dispense information.28:33 See we are not called to make people become informed lives. We are called to transform lives. You and I, we need to not just pay attention to information28:44 download and instruction to how they need to live life, but we need to help them to truly be transformed. How? By working with them closely. See many times I28:56 realize as a as a puppeteer, I'm a preacher of God's word and I've been there doing that for the last 2 decades plus. But this is what I've noticed. Even though you can29:08 preach a good sermon, sermons don't change lives. It is God and his word working together. It's the holy spirit, a sanctifying work of the holy spirit and sanctifying work of the word29:20 of God that changes life. It's not the presentation, it's not the charisma of the person but it's the work and the work of the holy spirit and work of the word of God. But 1 of the core things you and I we need to pay29:30 attention to is that they apply the word. This is where life groups are important because you can only apply in the context of accountability. For example, I've known29:42 all these years that I should lose some weight. This year, especially after COVID happened, I looked at myself and realized, wow, in the last few years of my busy traveling29:54 to, in each year, I travel to about 8 to 10 countries and do so many conferences. I realized this, that in all my travels, 1 thing I've neglected is my own well-being,30:06 personal health. So in this COVID season, my wife kept me accountable. She said, Paul, I want you to recognize that this is the ideal weight. We need to work towards that.30:17 Once I have that accountability, I had to take into account what do I need to do in order to bring that alignment. So there was accountability and therefore someone is checking on me30:29 every single day in that aspect of what I eat and when I eat and how I am doing my exercises and doing all that. As a result, I just told my team this morning, about30:41 7 kilos have lost just in the last month or so. I'm thankful to the Lord. But I want you to listen to me. Transformation in any area of your life, whether it's in spiritual,30:52 physical, emotional, financial, social, relational, doesn't matter. It always comes back to accountability. Do you keep yourself accountable? Who is checking on you? And31:04 that's the key for transformation of life. And that's 1 of the things that we focus on in an intentional disciple making church. Now conventional values, unexamined church values for discipling, owned church31:16 values for discipling. Like I said to you, when I visit a new church for consultation, I meet up with 3 groups of people and ask the same question. How is31:27 disciple making prioritized here? What is the vision of this church? What's the strategy of this church? And I asked the senior pastor, and I want to see that passion within him. At the same time, I asked the staff31:39 team and I wanna see the same passion and the same orientation towards wanting to make disciples. The same thing when you call the lay leaders and you find the lay leaders also have caught it.31:51 Then that means there is an ownership of church values for disciple making. Otherwise, what will happen is you have a vision statement or a mission statement that is stuck up somewhere on the wall32:03 but everyone can quote it but no 1 is living it out. So you and I, we need to recognize that there must be an ownership from the top leadership all the way to every single believer that they need to be able to32:15 recognize this is the value system that we function from and these are the things that we want. And in this house, everyone knows value change. Nothing changes until your values actually change.32:27 So we pray that over time that families will embrace that intentional disciple making as their own values and disciple their own household, disciple their next generation, and in32:39 turn also disciple the community of believers that God has placed them, both the pre believers and the believers that they are part of a community. Praise God. Conventional values, ask how many attend32:50 church. Every time a staff team comes together after Sunday services over, maybe a staff meeting on a Tuesday or depending on whenever day you meet.33:02 The key question was how many attended church last Sunday? And I hope that you do measure those things because it's vital to know how many did come. It it recognizes the health of the church. But33:14 I want you to think about it is not just how many that attended church because we all know just because someone gives you attendance doesn't necessarily mean that they're hungering after God and they are transforming33:26 their inner life. So the key question is, what kind attended church? In other words, what are the kind of people? What are they becoming in the process? So this is what you and I, we need to continually33:38 engage in. So 1 of the key things that I use as a marker is, is our people increasingly yielding themselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Are people increasingly yielding33:50 their lives, all of their lives, all areas of their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ? Are they walking that authentic life? And are they embracing an intentional disciple making as a vision34:02 for their life? This is the key questions for us to examine. In a conventional value, looks for change in outward behavior. Whereas in a discipleship church, we look for value change.34:14 And this is something that I've shared with you over and over again. Finally, this is low expectation of Christians in a conventional value. In a discipleship34:26 church, we believe in the potential of 1 person and the power of multiplication. Let me highlight this. Many times in churches, we know that people are34:38 not motivated. People are dragging their feet to do anything. There's no real life. Church goes through different seasons, isn't it? Sometimes it is stagnated for too long When there is34:50 no real sustaining momentum, it will slip to a place of stagnation. And once a church has been stagnating for too long, they become so preoccupied with self.35:01 They become so preoccupied with what they want and who they are and they become so clicky. And that is the dangerous thing. And once the church goes through that place, noticed many times leaders, what they35:13 want to do is low expectation. They reduce the expectation to such a low level that all you're asking for is a lowest common denominator. What is it? Just attend church. Just be35:25 punctual. Or maybe serve in 1 ministry. Maybe consider going to a life group. Wow, we bring it down to low level. Do you know when people came to Jesus35:37 Christ, the first thing he said is take up your cross, die to yourself, come follow me. Go sell all you have. Give it to the poor and come follow me. Leave all the dead. Let35:49 the dead bury the dead. You come follow me. His demands were higher. It was greater. The reason is because he believed in the power of 1. He believe in the potential of that person. If a36:00 person's life can be radically transformed, if he can embrace a worldview that is biblical, a value system that is kingdom oriented, he can come under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Be36:12 rooted and grounded in the scriptures. God can release that potential to affect the world. 1 man, 1 woman, 1 child, 1 young man and young woman can change the world And that is36:24 what you and I, we need to believe in. That's why everyone matters. Every single 1 matters. That's why in this house, we always say, everyone needs to be discipled.36:35 Why? Because we believe in the power of that 1 potential and the power of multiplication. If 1 life is radically transformed, then that 1 family will be touched. If 136:47 family can be radically transformed, 1 community, that small group can be touched. If 1 small group can be radically transformed, that entire church can be transformed. I want you to believe in the36:59 power of that 1 and in the power of multiplication. That's the value system. Let me talk about the philosophy that we embrace in a disciple making church. Disciple making is all about a37:11 certain kind of person who is radically committed to a certain kind of purpose, who through a certain kind of process, reproduces a certain kind37:23 of product. I want to just give you briefly 1 sentence for each of them. I'll try. Disciple making is all about a certain kind of person. You can37:34 only reproduce after your own kind. So that's why the first thing is I need to change. If I'm going to work with a team of people, they will become what I am. They37:46 don't just become what I say, they become who I am. In other words, we always reproduce after our own kind. So I need to become a certain kind of product.37:58 And if I become the certain kind of product that is the certain kind of person. So in other words in my own life I'm growing in spiritual maturity and I embrace spiritual multiplication. I've learned that my life needs38:10 to be not only a witness for the gospel but I also need to worship the God. Hallelujah. I not only need to advance his kingdom but I also need to abide in the king. I recognize38:22 that I need to personally walk with Jesus and work with Jesus. That's the key. A certain kind of person and when that certain kind of person38:34 who is radically committed to a certain kind of purpose. What is the purpose? The purpose is what Jesus left us to do. The purpose is life on life investment. That you38:45 learn to invest your life in a few key men and women. You don't need to invest in the whole world but just of 1 or a group of people, small group of people, a handful of people38:57 that you are journeying with, you are pouring your life into. That is a purpose for life change. That's what Jesus did. At the end of his life he said to the father, father I have39:09 accomplished what you have given me. Long before he died on the cross he prayed that in John 17. What was that he accomplished? He accomplished journeying, pilgrimaging with 12 menShow more
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Paul Jeyachandran
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