How to Use the Men’s Discipleship Resources at PursueGOD.org

bryan:

hey there man welcome to the very first episode of the pursue god men’s podcast on pastor brian wire joined with host pastor john belles and every every couple of weeks john and i will publish a new episode will have guests on this podcast and everything we’re doing here is about helping you to discover an experience and be equipped for resource for what we call biblical manhood this is all about calling men to be men and in this first episode john and i just want to walk through kind of the men’s resources pursue god dot or if you’ve never seen that before you want to check that out pursue go dot org forward slash men and these resources are full of conversation starters for men’s

john_belles:
m

bryan:
groups for one on one discipleship they’re great for you and your son to have conversations

john_belles:
m

bryan:
to begin talking about discipleship and we’re going to get into all of them details the nittygrity of the men’s resources here and just a little bit but john i think we should probably start by challenging men we’re gonna be doing this a lot in this podcast challenging men to lead to step up and lead and when i say man i’m talking about men and young men as well we’re gonna be talking to men of all ages but if you’re a guy you have

john_belles:
my

bryan:
a calling on your life to lead and sadly the church is filled with guys who are failing to step up whether it be at home at church or in society and john i know you’re passionate about this because you are a man’s man and you love to hunt and hike and you like camp out in sub zero weather so you’re a better man than i am but i think more than anything is you love jesus and you have a passion for challenging men to step up and be a man

john_belles:
i think this is an area brian i do have a passion about it because i see so many guys tend to fall to one side of the spectrum of the other so the one side of spectrum would be what i would call pass ivity where they don’t lead at all or the other side is they lead tyrannically right there their atirent in their home their atirment with their wives and their children and when we look at this model of biblical manhood and leadership we look at jesus who is a servant leader so yeah i am excited i’m excited about this topic i’m excited about the podcast and hopefully we can pass along biblical truth to men and help them lead more effectively as you mentioned in all three areas in their home in the church and in society in general

bryan:
guderonomy six is a is a passage will probably cover a lot in this podcast it’s pretty foundational for men men if you’ve never heard this before i want to read it for you and then we want to apply it to this is moses this is after their forty years in the desert and moses is giving the israelites this final pep talk before they enter the promised land so it really is a good metaphor for men okay getting ready to lead in their homes or in societies and and here’s what moses said it says he said these are the commands decrees and regulations that the lord your god commanded me to teach you he had just given them the ten commandments and he says right he had just he had just sort of recaped the ten commandments he had given given the commandments to the people earlier in the in the wilderness experience but now he’s about ready to um i mean this is kind of his his last words to these guys right and he says you must obey these commandments in the land you’re about to enter and occupy and he says you and your children and grand children must fear the lord your god as long as you live if you obey all these decrees and commands you will enjoy a long life listen closely israel and be careful to ay and then all will go well with you and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey just as the lord the god of your ancestors promised you and john i think probably people men need to recognize who moses is talking to here in kind of this final little pep talk

john_belles:
absolutely he didn’t single out the priests to have this conversation right he wasn’t just talking to the religious leaders of the day he was speaking to parents and grandparents and i would say m there’s even a level of responsibility on fathers and grandfathers even more than mom’s and grandmothers now that certainly they are they are called to help help their children know god’s truth but but really we as men should hae primary responsibility and i would just even encourage our listeners to think about their story growing up you know who took the lead in your home and talking to you about jesus if either parent did you know who took the lead and making sure you went to church who took the lead and praying with you and i would bet the majority of our listeners it would be their moms which i think is a sad indightment on on biblical manhood particularly in america

bryan:
yeah look nothing against mom’s nothing against we love women and

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
we think women are very important moms are very important in the home so as we speak about biblical manhood over the years over the months and years ahead on this podcast we’re not in two sort of denegrate women or the place of women we’re just trying to raise up men we’re just trying to challenge men to step up and be a man and so you know and if you’ve got some sensitivities in this area and you and you feel offended by that we apologize we’re not trying to offend we’re just trying to call men to step up and be mental i think john a lot of times the reason women have the lead is because men aren’t leading and we’ll talk about this at in future episodes and some of it will be a little controversial i guess but we have a just full disclosure we believe that men should be the spiritual leaders of their home and in the absence of male leadership women have to step up and i don’t think that’s god’s best plan for the home

john_belles:
right and thank thank the lord for all those women who have stepped up as you said brian when there’s been an absence of male leadership within the home but god’s design god gave is in order and i would say specifically for leadership in the home in the church although you and i want men to step up and lead in culture i don’t i don’t think there is a specific calling let’s say civically for men to lead you know i think it’s perfectly biblical for a woman to be in a position of leadership you know in your in your state government even national government local goer men and corporations etcetera but i think in the church and in the home specifically as you pointed out god has given us an order of leadership and hey i’ll just be the first to admit as a broken and sometimes i wish that wasn’t the order sometimes i wish god’s calling wasn’t for the man to step up and lead in the home in the church but but that’s that’s what the bible teaches

bryan:
in fact let’s go back to duderonomy six it says in verse four so we we already read moses’s initial words in versus one through three but then in verse four he says it’s listen and this is a really fame as part of scripture for especially for jewish people over the millennia this is called the shama he says listen o israel the lord is our god the lord alone and you must love the lord your god with all your heart all your soul and all your strength so jesus quotes this later on pretty famous passage pretty foundational it’s kind of like the pledge of allegiance for the jewish family i’ll read it again the lord is one and you must love the lord your god with all your heart all your soul and all your strength so he moses is calling parents and grandparents to remember this it’s kind of like really sort of a summary of the ten commandments right the ten commandments are all about loving god and putting god first and then and then of course how that impacts the way you relate to people but then he says this and you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that i’m giving you today repeat them again and again to your children member john he saying this to dad’s and grandparent and grandfathers and he’s saying repeat these commandments again and again with your children talk about them when you’re at home when you’re on the road when you’re going to bed when you’re getting up so this is i mean this is thousands of years old but it still applies to men today to dad’s today to small group leaders to men’s leaders today to men in the church today is you have to be engaged is what he’s saying you need to engage with your kids and i think it extends to more than your kids but you need to engage with people and you need to talk with them about the stuff that really matters you need to talk with them about biblical values and that’s really what the pursue god resources are all about

john_belles:
yeah two things really jump out at me one is the order he reminds the dads and the grand dads you’ve got to commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands right kids aren’t dummies if we’re if we’re hypocritical if we’re you know teaching them but we’re not honoring them ourselves they’re going to pick up on that sofa and then the second word that jumps out of me is intentionality you you mentioned engaging but just

bryan:
oh

john_belles:
we need to be intentional

bryan:
oh

john_belles:
we don’t get these long periods of time where we’re off duty as a dad or as a grand dad so he talks about being intentional at home on the road when you’re going to bed when you’re getting up are you and i as man are we looking for opportunities you know my son and i you mentioned rinaliktahan i just took my son out on a rabbit hunt last saturday and and i knew going into that he and i were going to have four or five hours of a lone time and so i prayed through and i thought through the kinds of questions i wanted to ask him he nineteen he’s he’s in a period of his life or he’s he’s kind of floundering a little bit not exactly sure where god’s leading him and i knew that was going to be a golden opportunity for us to have these kind of conversation so just just being intentional about those opportunities i think it’s so important

bryan:
well well again we’ll talk about how you can use the resources to be intentional with your sons fathers with your men’s group with maybe a young man at cure that you feel called to disciple i mean that the pursue god tools are perfect for all of the above and we’re going to get to that we’re going to we want to end this episode about getting really practical about this but i think before we do that john it might be good to talk about mature masculinity we’ve got a topic in the men’s resources and we’ll do a full episode on this later on in the year but for now i thought this would be real good to kind of give people a sampling of the kinds of content we have at pursue dot or on the men’s page but in particular i think the information here is really good five the topic is called five marks of mature masculinity john let’s just kind of cover these points real quick before we get into how to use the pursue god tools so number one mature masculinity doesn’t initiate every action but it fee a responsibility to provide a general pattern of initiative i think this is good for guys to recognize as your wife might even be a little bit more spiritual than you are maybe her personality is she’s she’s more more of an initiate or whatever that happens sometimes but you still have if you’re the man mature masculinity means that you should a responsibility to provide the general pattern of initiative

john_belles:
i think that’s important for guys to hear i really don’t want to go too quickly on this one because we’re not saying that that you lead in every single detail of your household right ere not saying that your wife isn’t capable of of taking the lead in certain specks of raising the children of even finances you know you know we tend to break down roles i think but if you have a wife who is just better with the figures and the numbers than you are it’s okay to let her lead in the the book keeping and in the budget setting but she’s not doing that in a vacuum like you are setting the tone for that in your household you are talking with your wife about that you guys are coming to those decisions and and in a situation where maybe you have a slightly different perspective if you’ve both really sought god about it and and you just can’t come to an agreement i believe god is called the man to take the lead in that situation

bryan:
okay number two mature masculine mature masculinity does not assume the authority of christ over others but it advocates for it right john i mean the last thing we need the church or even in society is more men who think that it’s all about them

john_belles:
again i go back to our model brian of jesus and how he led he was such a servant he didn’t force people to follow him he called people to follow him and as men as we lead well by serving others you know we look for opportunities to lead we advocate forward as we mentioned the point but we don’t sit

bryan:
number three mature masculinity grows out of love not out of self assertion too many men lead from a place

john_belles:
oh

bryan:
of insecurity and when you do that end of promoting yourself instead of leading from a place of love for others

john_belles:
i think that’s why our identity in christ has been is so important if i don’t know who i am in christ if i don’t recognize the value that he’s placed on me not because i’m so great but because he’s so great you know because of who created me then i’m always trying to feel that need of edification you know the adam ways in the way that i lead and and when i recognize what the god of the universe thinks about me and how he sees me through the blood of jesus i don’t have to do that again i can lead like jesus led ou know jesus left the comforts of heaven he didn’t consider equality with god as something to be held on to but he came down and he became a servant and he went to the cross for us at’s how he led so that gives me a model of how i need to lead

bryan:
yeah that’s the fourth mark of mature masculinity is that it expresses itself not in the demand to be served but in the strength to serve others so really that connection with christ that connection with the vine helps us to to lead out of love which means necessarily that we’re going to lead we’re going to serve we’re gonna be servant leaders it always goes hand in hand being a servant leader at least if you’re trying to lead like jesus and then the fifth mark john is that mature masculinity recognizes that the call to leadership is a call to sacrifice right so biblical manhood always ends in the same place that jesus where jesus ended up which is on the altar of sacrifice

john_belles:
i think there’s something that resonates about that and in our manhood you know you hear a statement like that and there’s a part of you that what i wud call the fleshly part the selfish part that goes that’s just not right that’s just not fair i think there’s something deep within our soul that when we hear that we’re like yeah that’s how it is i’m called to sacrifice i think often of ephesians five where husbands in particular since we’re talking to the men to day are called to love their wives like christ love the church and gave himself up for her like that’s my daily you know my my daily reminder when i sensed tension or conflict in my just wait a minute as the man even though you know that passage gets into talking about how my wife should submit to my leadership the first call is to me like i need to give up my life for her like christ in the church

bryan:
oh so guys if you want to talk more about that particular topic again it’s called five marks of mature masculinity

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
there’s you can find that a pursue gudotorgford slashed men and we’re going to cover

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
that in its episode later on this year will make sure to do that there’s so much to unpack their you know to go back into description will do that later but but for now for this first episode of our podcast we really want make sure that we explain to you as a guy if you’re listening to this we want to make sure that you know how do i use this with my son how do i use this with a men’s group at church or my men’s ministry how do i use this to isciple a young man at church or or the disciple of friend at work or whatever so we want to we want to really spend the rest of our time in this episode talking about first of all something we call the flex method and then secondly what we call something we call the three ease of pursue god disciple making so john let’s start with flex method f l e x we’re not talking about flex your muscles as a man we’re talking about the f stands floor find a topic on our site so again there are there are resources for men there’s stuff for marriage there’s stuff for bible and bible study there i mean there’s if you if use search topics at pursue god dot or there re thousands of topics in all kinds of categories and so first of all number one step number one is you find a topic step number two is the l so f x so find a topic l as you learn about it ahead of time and john this one is really important and i’ll let you explain this here in a second but learning about it ahead of time is crucial to the method especially for men and young men and we’ll explain why here in a second and then the ex

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
is where you finally come together to explore it in conversation so you find a topic learn about it ahead of time and you explore in conversation so john let’s talk for a second about the importance of the resources for that because every one of our topics on the site has either a podcast top or you know podcast link like like what we’re doing right here right all of the men’s podcast episodes are going to end up as a conversation starter on pers got dot org so there’s podcast topics and there’s also for a lot of the content there’s shorter videos as well so there’s a long form audio with podcast and or shorter form video and what is the value john because you’ve used this for years what is the value of sending it out ahead of time sending a topic out ahead of time before you show up to have the conversation

john_belles:
well i’m gonna i’m gonna break it on to a couple of reasons let’s talk about first maybe someone in your life that is not a follower of christ yet i think many of us know if i called my buddies up who who

bryan:
yeah

john_belles:
hunt with me or guys who used to coach with me and said hey i want to talk to you about john chapter three probably be little bit of an awkward silence but all of those guys are dad’s all of those guys are husbands all of those guys face financial pressure so if i were to say hey i just watch this gray eight minute video on how to manage your money well or i just listen to this fantastic podcast on how to be a better husband the majority of those guys would say yes send it to me i’d love to check it out so so the f to find a topic were so blessed to have so many different topics in the library i i was fortunate brian to have a young man who i’ve been entering now for about nine months he had his wife he just put his faith in christ on on tuesday night and as i was looking back at how we started the relationship he and i and his wife first started meeting because they had some marital tension that conflict in their marriage so we spent probably the first three months of our conversations were all cindered around marriage topics we did marriage basics you know we did communication topics and marriage we did how to not be selfish and it was really neat to see god working in their marriage and things were improving and then they said hey we also have two young kids one is think one is seven one is five we could use some help parenting so we did some parenting topics and then we got into spiritual topics we we took them through the pursuit which s kind of the flag ship series

bryan:
yeah

john_belles:
here pursue god i took them through the pursuit then i did a couple of episodes of systematic theology with them and then tuesday we were all set to do less on three and systematic theology and he said hey can i can i just ask you some questions about ephesians instead tonight and i thought oh here we go we’re going to go ephesians one it’s going to be about predestination and election and he goes man ephesians too on through ten i read it and he started getting emotional he said that’s me that’s me i was a child of darkness now i’m or i was a child of wrath excuse me now i’m a child of god and it’s all because of grace through faith and jesus christ so so we the value of all these topics we have a pursue god i’m just thankful every day to the lord for what we have access to

bryan:
yeah

john_belles:
and then to learn ahead of or learn about it ahead of time if you really want to have substantive conversations with the people you’re entering i just think it’s so important to watch the video or listen to the podcast ahead of time you can be processing it you can read the scripture that’s attached you know every conversation on pursue god we’re not just we’re not just giving our opinion it’s not you know it’s not the brian show not the john show it’s what does god’s word have to say about this topic

bryan:
oh

john_belles:
and so it’s going to give you an opportunity to read through the scriptures attached to the topic to read them in context so you’re going to have a more effective conversation when you get to the explore part

bryan:
you think about you know some of you listeners out there might be part of a men’s group or you’ve been in small groups before think about how a typical small group works a lot of times you show up to the small group and then the teachers there saying here’s what we’re going here’s what we’re teaching today this john this is actually how sermons work right you show up to church and you’re just you’re like completely unprepared the teachers prepared you’re totally unprepared so i like to think of it like this you’re kind of like back on your heels learning this information for the very first time so you’re kind of having to process

john_belles:
oh

bryan:
it take it in think about it you might have some questions about it of qoese in a sermon you can’t ask the questions but in a small group you might be able to ask the question but either way small group or sunday school class or or sermon the typical way that we do this in church is so unhelpful it really is like it’s all about the teacher separating him or herself from the students it’s all about the teacher sort of doing all the work all the prep doing all the thinking about it and then by the time the person who’s listening or who’s participating shows up they don’t even really get to be much of a part of it and then they go home and maybe they think about it some more but then they come back next week and we’re on to the next topic and so that is that’s why we created the flex method the flex method flips that whole thing on its head it’s it’s kind of like what in the in the schools in the education system they call flipping the class room you know the best teachers now they actually i used to be a t a math teacher the best teachers now they they set they allow the students to go home and watch the lectures or learn the lesson on their own at home and then when they come to the class room they can do home work with the teacher and that’s so much more helpful for them because because at home the student can if they need to learn if they need to watch the lesson five times they can watch it five times because everybody learns a little bit differently right so they can listen listen watch watch watch watch watch and and then by the time they come to the class room they can actually work on work on home work together have conversation s about to talk about it whereas in the typical typical classroom and this is true in a small group two or even at church learners are at different levels at different stages and so you’re sitting there learning some people might be getting it right away and they want to talk about it right away some people it still be stuck back on what you said in verse one and there and now they’re the rest of the time is lost on them and so again that’s the beauty of the flex method is if you send it out ahead of time and guys trust me if you if you do this a few times guys are going to do the home work because the home work is just listening to the podcast or watching the short video real quick it’s not like they have to take a deep dive but john what i’ve experienced is is more than once it’s really cool is that i’ll come to a mentring conversation with somebody and they and i said did you listen to the podcastadthen say i listened to it three times i had to listen to it three times to understand it and then what happens is when you come for the conversation and we have discussion questions for all of our topics online so simple discussion questions you can use the ones you want to use you can bring your own if you want they’re just suggestions but man once you come to the conversation with people ready to talk about it it takes all this pressure off of you as a small group leader as a men’s group leader because people have crept not just you you’re not the only one who’s prep for it in fact you don’t even have to show up and present the co present the topic you don’t have to teach because the teaching is already done now you can if you want to

john_belles:
my

bryan:
you can go over talking points real quick or have somebody go over them or watch the short video or whatever but you don’t even have to if everybody comes ready for the conversation now you’re just jumping into the conversation and ally exploring the topic together and that’s the whole beauty of the flex method

john_belles:
yeah we use the flex method every thursday morning for amends group that i lead we’re following along with the sermon from the previous sunday and that that small go video has been posted so all the men in the group can watch the video before they come now we still play it on thursday mornings because we just recognize there’s probably one or maybe two guys out of the group just a busy week and didn’t get to it and we don’t want them in the dark but but i can clearly tell on a thursday when the majority of the guys have watched the video ahead of time the conversation is more robust the questions are better you know we just get into better conversations so so that learning step doing it ahead of time is a big benefit for your one on one entering or your small group

bryan:
yeah and i want to just make a little note for you men who might be using this in men’s group if you prefer to show a video fair warning a lot of our men’s content is only i have a podcast and so you won’t always have a video a short video option you you’ll have a longer you know thirty to forty five minutes podcast option and so what i would encourage you to do in that setting and we’ll do more content on this later in our training but what i would encourage you men to do in that setting is just maybe there’s always the talking points summary little talking points there is you in lieu of a video you can just talk through the talking points in three to five minutes and that really essentially as a video or even assign somebody to kind of lead the conversation which might mean that you just give a quick little three to five minutes summary just reading through those talking points again you’re not trying to get into great detail because that’s going to come out conversation so essentially reading the talking points is the same thing as watching the video and john if i had my brothers we wouldn’t have any videos on the men’s content because i’d rather honestly i’d rather challenge men in the men’s group setting to to do the little summary talking points themselves because it really does it challenges you instead of just kind of sitting back watch eating popcorn and watching the video watching one of us do it

john_belles:
again it gives us an opportunity for for men to step up and lead it which is how we started this podcast that men are called to lead and so i agree i’m excited and we’ve we’ve had more video content previously and we’re moving more towards the podcast content as you mentioned i’m excited to see how guys take and run with it

bryan:
okay so that’s the flex method and john thought with the time that we have left on this first episode i think it’s important for us to go over the three es this is all about how to make disciple s so we have these what we call the three es that’s a process that you can repeat over and over in fact john you already basically describe the process with this young i and this young couple that you’ve been mentoring over these months and so let’s use that as a as our example let’s go back to that example and you and i have discipled many people using this simple e process for how

john_belles:
m

bryan:
to make disciples with the pursue god tool so this is true for men’s ministry this is men you can use this for your sons to disciple your sons you can use this to disciple your wife your kids your daughters you can use this in small groups you can use this in one on one discipling at edin level and of course we’re talking specifically about how to use this for

john_belles:
my

bryan:
discipling men and boys but it’s just really simple and you know we need men especially needed to be simple were cave men jesus called fishermen to do it and so that’s encouraging to us and this is the this is the way that you can make disciples at pursue god doutlework and by the way incidentally this is topic what we’re about ready to say here you can find it it’s called how to make disciples you can find it in topic eleven in our twelve topic flagship series called the pursuit and we’ll explain that a little bit more in just a second but here the three es number one you engage number two you establish number three u empower so john let’s talk about engaging what what do we mean and how did you engage this couple i mean tell us the story again how did you engage them with the pursue god resources

john_belles:
well when you’re engaging with someone keep in mind discipleship is really relationship so so how can i meet a need in that person’s live where do they need help how can i bring value how can i you know bring encouragement so for this particular couple when we first met i knew their felt need because they shared this with me was their marriage and so we started out with just doing the marriage basics series at pursue god dot or fantastic series it’s a three week series and we went through that together and then we continued to dig into some other topics related to marriage we talked a lot about communication topics that was one of the issues in their relationship one of the individuals is a non verbal process or there is a verbal process or and for for guys listening who maybe you can relate to that you and your wife are opposite on that spectrum and the tension that can create that that’s where we started it was a topic that i knew was important to them now obviously even from the beginning i wanted to talk about jesus and i wanted to talk about sin and salve tion and and the things that that we know as believers ultimately are important but they weren’t ready for that they had a felt need when we first met that i knew i needed to address for and then it also was going to give us an opportunity to build trust right i was able to build trust with them they knew that i really cared about them i cared about their marriage they weren’t just a target that i had to try and and get him on the jesus train right

bryan:
yeah so you want to ask if you’re trying to engage someone even men if you’re thinking about disciple and your son your junior higher high school son ask yourself the question what kind of conversation does you want to have is there a topic that they want to talk about not that you want to talk about you’re not trying to force your truth down their throat you’re trying

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
to meet them where they are you’re trying to engage them in an area of conversation that they’re ready for again it might not even be spiritual there’s tons of content at pursue god dot org that’s not super super spiritual and those are great topics to start with and here’s why you know paul said paul said this in first corinthians he said people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from god’s spirit it all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it for only those who are spiritual can understand what the spirit means and so that’s such a good concept to remember you know some of you are listening to this saying i can’t make disciples because i’m not the guy that that you know goes out there and shares my faith with everybody will go what you don’t actually have to be just yet you just have to be someone who cares about someone enough to engage them and put yourself in the position and put them in the position to be interest did in spiritual things like your story john because because this guy you mentioned is at some point what was it a few months you said that you were meeting with them and then all of a sudden he was ready it’s like his spiritual eyes were open and he was ready to have a spiritual conversation oh

john_belles:
totally and we’ve had some spiritual conversations peppered in throughout our time together but again i didn’t i didn’t rush into that and even again i want to make sure we’re clear guys even the mayor age basic is based on god’s word so when we say you know they’re not ready for the spiritual conversations we’re not saying that that we’re looking at things from a secular perspective so even the marriage basic series is all rooted in scripture so i just want to make sure everybody understands that when we when we say hey they’re not ready for the spiritual part

bryan:
yeah

john_belles:
we’re imparting god’s truth to from the very beginning

bryan:
right but we’re doing it in a way that recognizes that people are at different places in their journey and you’ll you’ll see that as you as you begin to explore the resources that pursue god some of it is pretty hard hitting like you mentioned systematic theology like that’s not one you want to bring probably your junior high boy through right away you might

john_belles:
right

bryan:
be interested in it might be great for your men’s group at church but

john_belles:
m

bryan:
maybe for your your high son it would be better to talk about

john_belles:
may

bryan:
you know one of the student topics about using cell phones or making friends or insecurity things like that again we’re not i think one of the biggest mistakes that that christian dads can make john is there so spiritual in the way they talk to their sons that their sons just don’t find any connection to that you know their sons might not quite be ready for that and so this is this is learning how to be pathetic this is learning how to show a little bit of pathos like i want to really i want to really put myself in their shoes i want to try to think back to when i was a junior high boy or a high school boy and i don’t want to like be so spiritual about every conversation that my kid only talks to me about bibles stuff but then talks to his friends about life stuff that’s the worst thing that could happen we want to be accessible and approachable so our kids will want to talk about life stuff with us not just bible stuff because it’s it’s all bible stuff but our kids might not know it because we’re using too much cramming too much spiritual information into our kids rather than peppering the life conversations with some spiritual truths right as much s far as they can handle it

john_belles:
i think that’s a great point and then as are particularly our young man so you know i spent i remember one semester of my son andrew’s high school career every thursday morning on the drive to school instead of him driving i would i would drive him one day well we would he would still drive any way we’d meet at mc donald’s nd we just have breakfast in and we would go through a conversation we go through a topic and the first three or four weeks i always had to pick those topics but once he got used to it and once he got used to kind of the format then i would turn that over to him i’m goin i would say hey buddy you know you pick what you want to talk about for this coming week and i would say brian it was probably a three to one racesiow life and family topics over what we might call a faith topic

bryan:
yeah yeah i remember with when my son was in junior high that’s what i would do we would we would

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
we would you know go to

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
basketball practice and i would tell them ahead of time hey pick a topic out for the ride over we ad a thirty and at twenty minutes thirty minute ride pick a topic and we’ll listen to the video together an i’ll just have a little convo about it but you pick the topic right and so he would go to the student section at pursue god and he would i remember one the first topics he picked was a topic about sex and i thought okay perfect because i know those are hard conversations for dad’s to have and again it takes a little bit of the pressure off because the talking points are there the videos there you can kind of laugh at the video together whatever you know awkwardly laugh at the video together we had a really good simple meaningful conversation about sex that day on the way to basketball practice three months later i said hey we’re going to basketball practice pick a topic and let’s have a little convoy on the way over and he sheepishly picked the same exact topic he said can we do that topic again so we’ll sure of course see what had happened as he had learned some additional information from his friends about the topic and he had a few more questions and so it was great that we were a using that method where you know we say the

john_belles:
m

bryan:
is find a topic but you don’t have to find it they can find it as well right and so i let him take some ownership and we had an even more enlightening conversation about sex on that drive to basketball practice

john_belles:
a blessing i mean just as you share that brian how many dads and i know i know that that conversation in particular i know it can be rough but guys don’t you want your son coming to you at those questions instead of going to his buddies or the internet or whatever sources because he’s not going to hear truth from them but you as his father you as a follower of christ who loves the lord and loves your boy you’re going to shoot straight with him you’re going to give him truth you’re going to base it in god’s word and in the conversation to help you do that i think that’s fantastic

bryan:
yeah i want to just even say to young man listening to this you know maybe you’re listening to this as a young man or as a son and your dad you would love for your dad to do this you would love to you know you old love for your dad to disciple you you can invite your dad hey dad let’s do this together your dad doesn’t have to take the lead you can take the lead or maybe a young man out and we’re gonna we’re going to spend some time talking to young men in the next few episodes but to a young man out there you know if you if the older men in your church haven’t clue in yet it’s easy for them to disciple you even if it’s not their idea so you might have to go find a disciple or find a guy

john_belles:
m

bryan:
in your church that you can trust that you respect and say hey would you would you do this let’s learn this together but would you do this with me would you would you mentor me would you disciple me i need someone to invest in me so you can you and initiate discipleship even if you’re going to be the menti not the mentor

john_belles:
yeah absolutely

bryan:
okay i marked that by the way so that you can um cut out that little bit of a pause right there

john_belles:
pas okay

bryan:
yeah yeah okay so check out the resources step number one is engage and again check out if you’re new to pursue god check out we’ve got in the category section we’ve got life faith and life we have marriage and parent we have women and men student and kids we’ve got stuff on addiction recovery we’ve got a whole page even on unveiling mormonism and more resources and categories to come over the years but that step number one is you engage someone on a topic that’s interesting to them or a series that’s interesting to them and then john at some point and it might be two and it might be two years in at some point you can move on to step number two and this is where we say to establish someone in the christian faith and we have a really important series we’ve already mentioned that we have a really important series for that it’s called the pursuit you can find it at pursue god dot or forward slash go and it’s a twelve part series to establish people in the basic basics of christianity john explained this to us walk us through what the pursuit is oh

john_belles:
the pursuit takes really the fundamentals of christianity of god’s heart for people the reality of sin the reality that were broken and set rated from him salvation how do we come back into right relationship with god through jesus christ and the cross and then once we’ve done that sanctification we talk about full circle followers of jesus throughout that series and we believe those those three steps are that we begin a relationship with god by trusting jesus once we’ve done that we we live to honor god and then lastly we mature by helping others and so those twelve parts that twelve lesson series is going to get into each every one of those topics and it really will help establish them in the faith they’re going to know coming out of that series what it means to be a true disciple of jesus christ what it means to go full circle in their faith

bryan:
oh

john_belles:
and as you mentioned brian you may lead off with that i have lady at our church who wanted to get connected to a mentor and and she wanted to jump right into the spiritual things just in the last week and it was really neat i was kind of closing down the arch on a sunday afternoon and two of the ladies who had agreed to mentor this this young lady were in one of our class rooms and i could tell they were going through conversation number one in the pursuit that’s where they led off because that was her desire the person that were mentoring wanted to start there so i mentioned my example with the couple where we started with marriage stuff i would say it it’s more likely you’ll start with other series than the pursuit in most of your entering relationships but sometime you’re gonna have the opportunity to just jump right into the pursuit the biggest thing to me obviously that the holy spirit leads you on the timing of that pray about it you know ask god when he thinks it’s the right time or i should say when he knows it’s the right time for you to invite individual to jump into the pursuit with you

bryan:
ah it’s it’s kind of like being a spiritual midwife this maybe seems like a weird metaphor to use on a men’s podcast but you know my understanding of a midwife is if if your wife is pregnant the midwife then is comes alongside your wife and helps helps her during the pregnancy to know when she’s ready when she’s ready to give birth and i think spiritually that’s what we’re doing as disciples as we engage them for a while but you really have to be praying about it paying attention to some of the conversation some of them things that that person is saying and maybe even just say hey if just just know that at some point i want to help you become a follower of jesus and when when you’re ready for that we’ll go through the sit together and you’re right john it might be it might be right away you know you might engage that person for one week and all of a sudden you’re moving on to the second e and you’re going to establish them and go through the pursuit together i did this with tracy my wife and i did this with a couple we started discipling about a month and a half ago coming out of the mormon church and we we initially thought that we would just you know spend some time talking about mormonism and their past and the questions they might ha and whatever else it was clear to us after the first time we met with them these guys are ready hungry to go through the pursuit and so we brought them start to bring them through the pursuit and by time we got to topic six topic six is where you can lead someone to faith they were so ready to put their faith in jesus so they became christians this was just last week pray to prayer salvation just last week i was super powerful and then just this just yesterday or just two nights ago we had we covered topic seven with them which is all about baptism and they’re excited about getting baptized so we’re going to be scheduling their baptism in the next few weeks at church and so again that’s what the pursuit is all about it’s just a really simple um

john_belles:
oh

bryan:
twelve part series all about how to become a follower of jesus and so it spends a few weeks giving some introduction about who god is in his heart for people and why the bible is important spends a few weeks talking about that first arrow john that you mentioned about trusting jesus so we talk about sin and jesus and salvation and then it’s spent a few weeks talking about what you called sanctification john or honoring god so we talk about spiritual disciplines and baptism and those kinds of things and then the last few topics are top is that cover that third arrow in the circle which is how to make disciples which is what we’re talking about right here so as i mentioned at the beginning of this podcast this much of we’re talking about right right now is actually topic eleven the second to last topic in the pursuit because we want to make sure that everyone we’re discipling we’re not just engaging that we’re not just establishing them in the christian faith but we want to make sure that we’re doing this third e this third thing we want to make sure that we’re empowering them to go make disciples so the goal john is by the time you’re done with the pursuit with someone by the time you’re done with topics ten eleven and twelve they’re actually ready they’re preped and ready to go out and make disciples and that’s the third step as you empower them once you finish the pursuit technically now they’re qualified to go out there and make disciples

john_belles:
and that empower step brian i want to speak to something real quickly in case some of our listeners are wondering well what if if the person i’m entering is already a christian would i still want to take them through the pursuit absolutely first off it’s always helpful to go back and review the basics you know the best football teams block and tackle better than everybody else and consistently just you do the foundational things better than anyone else but it also is going to equip them it’s going to empower them step three empower to go out and make other disciples because my experience your experience brian in the american church in particular very few christians have ever really been empowered to go out and make the next disciple maker so that’s the beautiful thing about the pursuit is is giving them very practical tools modeling for and i’m what it’s going to look like for them to go out and then help the next person pursue god

bryan:
yeah paul said i like this to one of his men tis timothy second timothy to two he said you have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses now you teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others this is what we call generational discipleship and i think it was happening in the early church and it just doesn’t happen that much anymore in church or in the christian community and that’s what we’re trying to change with the pursue god resources look at how many generations are in this one verse there’s five of them count with me says you have me teach okay so so paul is one of the generations timothy is is his next generation you have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses so there was a generation before all right

john_belles:
oh

bryan:
that’s three he says now you teach these truths to other trustworthy people that’s a fourth generation who will be able to pass them on to others that’s a fifth generation so look we have five generations this one simple verse second timothy two two and this is what we want to make happen with the resources that pursue god dot org and men this is for you to use there’s no charge there’s no cost there’s no pay wall you’re welcome to donate we encourage donations

john_belles:
m

bryan:
to pursue god so weak continue to grow the resources but it is all free and we did that on purpose because we want men women boys girls we want everyone to use the pursue god resources to go out and make disciples men you can use these resources in your family with your sons you can use them in your men’s groups in your men’s ministry at sure it’s so simple so check it out now pursue god org forward slash men this is one of the conversations you can have in fact this is probably the best first conversation to have the first the best first topic to cover if you want to bring these resources into your men’s ministry at church start with this topic and you’ll see how simple it is to have a conversation about something like this but then we encourage you to use the other resources that pursue god dutworkslash men and also one more thing we really encourage you to make sure to follow this podcast because we’ll be coming out with topics probably every other week maybe sometimes every week and then whenever we come out with a topic on the on the pursue god podcas men’s podcast then you can also find that same topic at pursue

john_belles:
yeah

bryan:
a dot or fort slash men complete with talking points to discussion questions and all that kind of stuff so guys go out there and make disciples jesus wants you to he’s called you to be a leader in your home in your church even in your society and you can do it it’s super simple to do it with the resources at pursue gad dot org forward slash men oh

john_belles:
yeah did