Shownotes
- How to clarify the "win" that Jesus actually gave us for the Church
- What to do when you find yourself exhausted and overscheduled in ministry
- How discovering your true purpose sets you free from religious busyness
- How to find People of Peace and invest in not-yet believers right where you are
Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
Download today’s BIG 3 right now. Read and think over them again later. You might even want to share them with others…
Thanks for Listening!
Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Join us on Facebook and take part in the discussion! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of this page or right below. Also, please leave an honest review for The Everyday Disciple Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Coaching and Apprenticeship in Missional Living w/ Caesar and his wife, Tina Resources for missional living and group training - Missio Publishing Get Nic’s book: Reimagine Church and $250 in bonus materials (Free!)
Transcripts
Are you really leading church the way that Jesus would lead church today?
Speaker:How did Jesus do things?
Speaker:Does anything about your life in any way resemble the ways of Jesus?
Speaker:And, and people end up measuring the wrong things.
Speaker:They, you know, think about, you know, is my church growing?
Speaker:How many people bums on seats?
Speaker:You know, have I got a decent building?
Speaker:It's my budget, healthy, all that kind of stuff that we are familiar with.
Speaker:Instead of thinking, actually, am I making disciples?
Speaker:You know, the one thing that Jesus asked us to do to go and make disciples and we focus on the wrong things, we measure the wrong things.
Speaker:And you know, to be honest, and I'm, I, I'm, you know, if I'm true to, if I'm honest to, to my own heart.
Speaker:I know I've, I have fallen into this trap as well.
Speaker:Often the pastors have needs for approval, success, and significance, and so building a church that looks good to the outside world, that is maybe even looks successful to other pastors by the way they measure success, is also that kind of.
Speaker:Those, those deeper kind of needs that we have, that we are not no longer, we're not looking to Jesus for them to be met, but we are looking to the way other people perceive us.
Speaker:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast, where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Speaker:In other words, discipleship as a life's.
Speaker:Style.
Speaker:This is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
Speaker:And now here's your host, Caesar Kalinowski.
Speaker:Hey man, how are you doing today?
Speaker:Doing great, man.
Speaker:Whatcha up to, I am loving what's going on with our Facebook group.
Speaker:We're we're kind of like, I feel like we're doing life on life with more and more of the listeners, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it, you know, I just, I have to say right, the heads thank you to everybody who shows up.
Speaker:And goes deep.
Speaker:And I, I especially love when I jump on, there's a huge conversation that I missed, but everybody's been diving in with killer answers
Speaker:and yeah, that's super exciting when it's like, it's not the Caesar Heath show, but people are actually going, well, I tried this and it worked, and you actually see people.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I hope when people are listening, they realize that.
Speaker:You and I are on the same exact journey as everybody else.
Speaker:Yeah, totally.
Speaker:We're sharing what we're learning.
Speaker:Uh, we may have a little cloud to get a cool guest on once in a while, like today.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Um, but uh, yeah, I love that going on.
Speaker:So I am right now inclined to do like my best British accent 'cause we're gonna jump on here with Nic in just a second.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I've hung out with Nic a lot.
Speaker:He's from Liverpool and he's amazing.
Speaker:Uh, but I have, um, been told by my British friends that my seemingly awesome British accent.
Speaker:Is completely not anything British, so I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker:I'm not gonna embarra myself.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So, um, yeah, we're gonna be, uh, on here in just a second with Nic.
Speaker:Nic Harding.
Speaker:Uh, lemme just tell you a little bit about this guy.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah, please.
Speaker:So, I met Nic through, uh, three DM folks and different things we were doing together, learning from each other and how to make disciples, make disciples, and build out learning communities.
Speaker:Tina and I went over and, and worked for a couple years with Nic and a whole bunch of people doing Launch.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:cool.
Speaker:And many of our listeners have heard of Launch and Nic is a guy, I'll let him tell more of his story in a little while, but he planted what became and still is the largest church in Liverpool, England.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:As far as I know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then successfully handed it off.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But he is just a great guy and everything.
Speaker:He talks about, like, we are gonna talk about his book Reimagined Church quite a bit because it's awesome.
Speaker:I mean, it's so helpful.
Speaker:Synthesizing things from like our world and launch and some of the three DM stuff and then like, I don't know, decades of his own experience.
Speaker:I have spent weeks living in his house.
Speaker:My daughter Justine's been there.
Speaker:Tina, I've been there many, many times.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:He lives ex he lives outta everything he talks about.
Speaker:That's so cool,
Speaker:man.
Speaker:He completely does.
Speaker:So another one of those guys you can, you can listen to and go like, Hey, we don't all know everything about anything, but we're living out what we're talking about.
Speaker:At least we're trying, you know, so,
Speaker:and the thing people don't know is Liverpool's way cooler than, than it appears in the word, you know, like Liverpool, like.
Speaker:London.
Speaker:London.
Speaker:Might be Liverpool, might be the coolest city.
Speaker:No,
Speaker:it's the jam.
Speaker:It's the jam in England.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:London.
Speaker:And once you see like the bridge and you know, clock and a few other things.
Speaker:Great city.
Speaker:Big city.
Speaker:Wonderful.
Speaker:Good shows.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Liverpool is where it's at, man.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:And I know a bunch of our listeners are gonna go like, whoa, what about Sheffield's?
Speaker:Great too.
Speaker:Like it's great.
Speaker:It's all great.
Speaker:I love Liverpool.
Speaker:I could live there in a heartbeat.
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:Hey Nic, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker:So Nic, let's start out by telling our friends and listeners like your two minute version of your story, because I think the journey that God has brought you through and you know, in your life to be doing what you're doing today is pretty amazing.
Speaker:So, kind of start back, you know, I don't know, maybe just young in life, you know, before you were, uh, your first profession.
Speaker:I don't wanna give too much away.
Speaker:Just tell us like the two minute version of your story.
Speaker:My, my a starting point was birth in Nigeria.
Speaker:Uh, slightly unusual.
Speaker:Back to the UK at age of seven.
Speaker:Found Jesus at 12 when a friend invited me to a Christian youth camp, not from a Christian home, and just did my rebelling as a teenager by being a Christian in a non-Christian home.
Speaker:That, that was, yeah, that was quite a bit of fun.
Speaker:But at the age of 19, uh, a couple of things happened that were really life-changing experiences for me.
Speaker:One was a summer spent with you through the mission.
Speaker:On different missions in Paris and Amsterdam and where that DNA for mission and including people into the gospel and, and living in community together, and also discovering discipleship in that context of being discipled in a community whilst on mission.
Speaker:It was really my first experience of Missional Community, though I had no idea what that was at the time.
Speaker:And coming, coming back from that to Bristol where I was studying as a medical student and discovering the h, the early days of what was now called the House Church Movement, this dozen people in a front room, again, another experience of Missional Community, you know, the body of Christ interacting, living out life together and being on mission together.
Speaker:And those that sort of DNA of Mission and Church just grabbed hold of my heart and I thought this.
Speaker:Is what I want to live for, and that's what's got me outta bed for the last 44 years, Caesar.
Speaker:But anyway, after, after those 18 years in that church, uh, the Lord just opened the door for us to take a team, 12 of us to plant a church in the amazing city of Liverpool.
Speaker:The center of the universe, the promised land.
Speaker:It's a gritty, beautiful city with, you know, all of the normal city problems.
Speaker:But, uh, this great spirit about it, people who just love life and you know, you, the thing moving from the south to the north was amazing.
Speaker:We discovered actually, people say what they think in the north.
Speaker:Down in the south of England where Bristol is, it's, you know, people are, are pretty polite and you never really know what people are thinking.
Speaker:But Liverpool, you find out pretty quickly, like, like about the first 10 seconds of a conversation, which is, which is quite refreshing to be honest.
Speaker:And I loved it and I, I couldn't move south again just for that reason.
Speaker:Won't to be honest.
Speaker:That alone, the fact of all my family here.
Speaker:But I, I love the north, I love Liverpool.
Speaker:It's a great city.
Speaker:It was a great city to plant a church in.
Speaker:And we started with again, like 18 years on, 12 people in our front room.
Speaker:It eventually got called Frontline Church and, and grew over the years, over about 20 years to about a thousand adults and kids.
Speaker:And uh, it's just been a real joy.
Speaker:And, you know, as we began to discover some of.
Speaker:More about this life on mission together and making disciples in the context of community.
Speaker:In the last 10 years, uh, that journey has been formational for me.
Speaker:Even as a, you know, as an aging pastor, just like re going back to school again.
Speaker:That's what I felt like and rediscovering the joy of mission.
Speaker:Discipleship and community.
Speaker:All mixed up and integrated.
Speaker:Hey, so next.
Speaker:So what personally has been the biggest challenge that you've had at leading the church as people towards this life of discipleship and mission at the same time?
Speaker:There are huge challenges.
Speaker:I guess the first one that comes to mind is consumer mindset.
Speaker:I mean, people, I think of Isaiah, you know, when he responds to the call of God on his life, he says, here I am, send me.
Speaker:Uh, you know, I, I often think about people rocking up at church these days.
Speaker:Their, their kind of mantra is, here I am, feed me.
Speaker:Um, you know, it is a totally different mindset.
Speaker:What, you know, what not what you know your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country?
Speaker:You know, it's this kind of, we are here to make a contribution and that consumer mindset, which is so part of our western culture, is deeply ingrained in the mind of many Christians who.
Speaker:In order to to live that life of discipleship and mission, I have to think, okay, this is not about what I get out of it.
Speaker:It's about what I can put into it.
Speaker:Knowing that as I do that, I have the greatest joy of anybody I know in terms of living this life, which is an amazing life.
Speaker:And that to me also sort of ties into the, the next thing, which is about people just don't understand.
Speaker:This is the most adventurous, wonderful, joy filled life that anybody could have.
Speaker:And they just don't get it.
Speaker:They don't see it because they're full of their own concerns and worries.
Speaker:And, and, and for those who've been around the block a few times, maybe, you know, as a pastor in the past, I've contributed to this.
Speaker:Fear of being overwhelmed, you know, what's the pastor gonna ask of me now?
Speaker:And so, you know, in terms of engaging individuals, there's, that's kind of, let's just hold back.
Speaker:Let's just wait and see.
Speaker:Let's, let's protect my, my time, my, my home, my family, my career, and you know, that unwillingness to kind of engage and explore and experiment because of that fear.
Speaker:I think that's another big thing that holds individuals back as well.
Speaker:What do you feel is the biggest challenge that you have seen or maybe even experienced at leading the church as an organization toward discipleship as the
Speaker:main, from that particular perspective?
Speaker:I think, so number one would be the inherited model of Sunday centric church.
Speaker:You know, pastor pastors.
Speaker:Because priests have been raised in the tradition of a particular church where the Sunday service is the centerpiece, rather than saying that's just one and a half hours out of a whole week full of hours where we can be living for Jesus.
Speaker:And you know, thinking about get, helping people to understand.
Speaker:You know, are you, are you really leading church the way that Jesus would lead church today?
Speaker:What, you know, what, how does, how did Jesus do things?
Speaker:Does anything about your life in any way resemble the, you know, the ways of Jesus?
Speaker:And, and people end up measuring the wrong things.
Speaker:They, you know, think about, you know, is my church growing?
Speaker:How many people bums on seats?
Speaker:You know, have I got a decent building?
Speaker:Is my budget healthy?
Speaker:All that kind of stuff that we are familiar with, instead of thinking actually, you know.
Speaker:Am I making disciples?
Speaker:You know, the one thing that Jesus asked us to do to go and make disciples.
Speaker:I mean, you know, his promise is yet he'll build the church.
Speaker:But, you know, and we focus on the wrong things, we measure the wrong things.
Speaker:And, you know, to be honest, and I, I, I'm, you know, if I'm true to, if I'm honest to, to my own heart, I know I've, I have fallen into this trap as well.
Speaker:Often the past the pastors have needs for approval, success, and significance.
Speaker:And so building a church that looks good to the outside world.
Speaker:That is maybe even look successful to other pastors by the way they measure success is also that kind of, those, those deeper kind of needs that we have, that we are not, no longer, we're not looking to Jesus for them to be met, but we are looking to the, the way other people perceive us.
Speaker:And I think all, all of that stuff mixed up really just is a real blockage to people leading their churches into a true expression of discipleship and mission.
Speaker:I mean, I, I love a great worship service like anybody.
Speaker:And you know, I think the opportunity to bring teaching into that context is really important.
Speaker:You know, but it, it is just an hour and a half and, you know, we're told to go into the world, not to huddle in our buildings.
Speaker:And you know, that's the rest of the week where we live as disciples, making disciples.
Speaker:Okay, so the subtitle of your book, this awesome book, reimagine Church, is clarify the win.
Speaker:Escape, busyness and fulfill your true purpose.
Speaker:Why is this the case and and why do you see those three things as critical if we're going to reimagine and reestablish the workings of the church in our day and times?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, and they're, they're really, they're really big points in each and themselves, and they relates somewhat back to what we've already talked about.
Speaker:But for me, clarifying the win, I think we all want to be winners, you know, but are, are we, you know, are we climbing?
Speaker:Is our ladder against the right wall?
Speaker:That the ladder we're climbing?
Speaker:Are we.
Speaker:Aiming for the right things.
Speaker:Uh, what, what does a win mean?
Speaker:You know, does a win mean having a building full of people on a Sunday or does a win mean seeing third, fourth, and fifth generations of disciples making disciples in our communities, in our cities and, you know, have, have we got that kind of multiplication mindset, even a move mental mindset towards releasing people into the mission of God around us.
Speaker:So I think clarifying the win, what, what does the win actually look like?
Speaker:And, uh, how, how do we work towards that win?
Speaker:That's, 'cause that becomes a whole different set of questions.
Speaker:Then I think clarifying that and, and having our ladder on the right wall is really important.
Speaker:And I think some of us do come to that conclusion, you know, along the journey actually.
Speaker:Am I really aiming at the right things now?
Speaker:So clarifying the wind's big, escaping business.
Speaker:I think, you know, 21st century western culture business is one of the curses that, uh, you know, we, we deal with.
Speaker:And you know, sometimes some of us are busy just because we like being busy.
Speaker:Some of us are busy because we think we have to maintain a standard of living and therefore work every hour that got sent.
Speaker:Some of us are busy because we don't wanna stop and really examine our own heart.
Speaker:All sorts of reasons why we get busy.
Speaker:But busyness stops us really engaging with God, with the gospel, with the mission that he's called us to, and, and, and it joined people.
Speaker:You know, one of the things I say is, are you enjoying life?
Speaker:You know, if, if there's no joy in your life, you're probably doing something wrong.
Speaker:And the busyness just sucks the life out of us.
Speaker:And again, it keeps us engaged with all the things that you know are not the most important things in life.
Speaker:I think of the life of Jesus.
Speaker:I don't see any moment in the way the gospels are recorded of Jesus living a busy life.
Speaker:I seen living the most fulfilled, rich life surrounded by people, both people who love God and were learning to follow him, and people who didn't know God and wanted to find him.
Speaker:He seems like he, he seemed lived out of a kind of a pace, place of peace and fulfillment, and it probably ties into the third point because he'd actually full was fulfilling his true purpose.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:In where in, in John 17, he says to the, in the Gardner, Gus, he says, father, um, you know, I've completed, I've glorified you by completing the work you gave me to do.
Speaker:Wouldn't be amazing if at the end of our lives we could say.
Speaker:P way.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I've completed the work you gave me to do.
Speaker:And what did he have?
Speaker:He didn't have a bible school, he didn't even have a church.
Speaker:He didn't have a building.
Speaker:He just had a bunch of disciples who were ready to change the world and you know, but he didn't do that.
Speaker:There was no sense of busyness or rush or hurry in his life at all.
Speaker:But that fulfilling the true purpose obviously ties into all that we've said about Disciple making.
Speaker:And there are two questions I like to ask people.
Speaker:Caesar, you know, around this is, um, you know, around that true purpose.
Speaker:One is, you know, to whom has God called you?
Speaker:Because God places every single one of us amongst a group of people who don't yet know Jesus.
Speaker:And if we're pastors, we need to find where that place is because we can't spend every hour of the day just hanging out with staff and Christians.
Speaker:We, we are called also to a group of people, maybe young neighborhood, maybe, you know, a, a gym where we go to get exercise or there'll be people that God calls us to.
Speaker:So to whom are we called?
Speaker:And the second question is.
Speaker:With whom are we called?
Speaker:Who is that family, that community on mission together that makes this journey a great joy and where we share in each other's gifts and contributions to that mission.
Speaker:So finding your true purpose is about answering those two questions.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:And you know, for me, uh, it is the greatest joy I, out of all the things I do, you know, traveling nationally, working with churches and leaders, the thing that I most enjoy, and it's not because I'm a natural extrovert or a particularly confident person, I'm.
Speaker:I'm both introverted and by nature shy.
Speaker:But the thing that gives me the greatest joy is following that trail of breadcrumbs, allowing the Holy Spirit to lead me in my day-to-day life, to find the People of Peace.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, that that is the greatest joy Jesus sent his disciples out to find those People of Peace.
Speaker:You know, just in the last couple of weeks, we've just had a, a young guy move in with Jenny and I, he said, look, you know, we love to have you live with us, but if you live with us, it's, it's about being on the journey of finding Jesus and growing.
Speaker:In your followership of Jesus.
Speaker:And he said, yeah, that that's what I want.
Speaker:And this 26-year-old guy is just so hungry and it's just a joy to.
Speaker:Investing in his life.
Speaker:Your book is filled in each chapter with some really practical steps.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:It's, you're definitely not leaving anyone guessing on what's next.
Speaker:And the book has, I think, 48 different really cool drawings and diagrams included and sprinkled throughout its pages.
Speaker:Why such a wealth of visual aids and what are one or two of your favorite images in the book and why
Speaker:The, the pictures are really important simply because.
Speaker:You know, picture tells a thousand words.
Speaker:It's much easier.
Speaker:Most of us, you know, a lot of people, most of us learn visually and uh, and it's also providing simple, sticky and reproducible tools for people to pass on to others.
Speaker:Alright, Nic, well thank you so much.
Speaker:And, uh, I'm anxious to, you know, see people's response to the book.
Speaker:I hope they'll jump in on that.
Speaker:Now, tell us a little bit about Nic.
Speaker:Before we go, tell us a little bit about the work of Kairos Connection in the uk.
Speaker:Love to do that Kairos Connection.
Speaker:It's K-A-I-R-O-S.
Speaker:Connection.
Speaker:C-O-N-N-E-X-I-O n.org is the website and it's a network of leaders in churches that are really trying to live out this life on mission together because it's a challenging life.
Speaker:It's, you know, the easy, the easy way of doing church is put on a good show on a Sunday optional midweek groups, bob's your unco.
Speaker:You know, the life we've chosen is the life the way Jesus lived, and that it's a challenging one.
Speaker:We need the support and connection with each other to learn and grow together.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:It's a network of leaders and churches that meet together for encouragement.
Speaker:We do training, we do networking, we do coaching online.
Speaker:We run huddles for, for church leaders and yeah, and we, we simply try and help churches that want to go on this journey and we, we, people can connect with us through the website and we, we'd love to make.
Speaker:Have a conversation.
Speaker:See any way that we can serve you in what you're doing in the uk.
Speaker:Visit the Kairos Connection by going to kairos connection.org.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Then that's Nic helping train people and train organizations in church in discipleship and mission,
Speaker:and he's obviously amazing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So
Speaker:you gotta be in the UK for that, but there you go.
Speaker:Hey, Nic.
Speaker:One of the things that we often do on the show is ask our guests to provide us with maybe three tangible takeaways that people can walk away with right now from the episode.
Speaker:We call them the big three, and you can get a copy of the download of the big three by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
Speaker:Uh, Nic, what would you say the big three are for this week?
Speaker:Number one is focusing our, our understanding of church on the call to go and make disciples.
Speaker:Are we doing that?
Speaker:Is are, are we leading church?
Speaker:Prioritizing the making of disciples who make disciples.
Speaker:That's number one.
Speaker:It's a, the belief thing, the head thing.
Speaker:The hard thing would be, uh, you know, am I living my life for my, for my needs, for significance, for security, for the worth that others give me by their opinion of me?
Speaker:Or am I living it for the king?
Speaker:That'd be the, the heart.
Speaker:One bit of a challenging one, the practical one.
Speaker:You know, I just, the thing that comes to mind is.
Speaker:How are you doing?
Speaker:Finding People of Peace?
Speaker:It's the most fun thing in the world to do, and I wanna encourage you, if you're not already, you know, in integrated into a group, whole bunch of non-Christian friends, people who don't yet know Jesus, find a place to go and do that.
Speaker:Whether it's a coffee shop, or a pub, or a gym, or the school gates, or the park, wherever it might be.
Speaker:Start to invest in the lives of long Christians and asking the Holy Spirit.
Speaker:To lead you to who?
Speaker:Our People of Peace.
Speaker:And the reason I say that is because it is the thing that brings the greatest joy, not just to evangelists, but to every believer knowing that you're connecting with God's purpose.
Speaker:In that way,
Speaker:Nic, I, time is so slipping away as it always does.
Speaker:We try to keep the show moving and pack it, and you have helped us pack it.
Speaker:So I just wanna say thank you, brother.
Speaker:It's always, always a pleasure being with you and being with your family.
Speaker:Please say hi to everybody back home.
Speaker:I love 'em.
Speaker:You know, I do talk to you soon, man.
Speaker:It's been great to be with you and uh, God bless you.
Speaker:Those who are listening,
Speaker:again, if you want a couple links to what Nic's doing over there in the uk,
Speaker:they'll all be in the The notes.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:The show notes.
Speaker:Too hard to
Speaker:remember.
Speaker:We'll make sure they're all in the show notes.
Speaker:Again, you can get more information if you go to kairos connection.org.
Speaker:Those are some really great ways to get plugged into what Nic's doing.
Speaker:We'd like to thank you for joining us today, but unfortunately we are outta time.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:If you want the big three takeaways, you can give those four free.
Speaker:By going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
Speaker:And if you haven't joined us yet on a Facebook group, just go up to facebook.com.
Speaker:Type in the search bar Everyday Disciple Podcast.
Speaker:And you know what, if you have not done this yet, would you open up your iTunes and, and if it's on your phone, it's super easy.
Speaker:Go ahead and rate us, give us a bunch of stars, and would you give us a little review?
Speaker:It doesn't have to be super long, but we love them.
Speaker:And if you've been noticing, we tend to read those on the show, on the show.
Speaker:So appreciate that.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com and remember, you really can live with a spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.
