Shownotes
- A little about the environment that Jesus discipled in. (Hint: it was never a classroom.)
- Why it’s vital to disciple and model the gospel in normal rhythms of life.
- Caesar and Heath’s personal experience and model for doing “Cigars & Theology” as a part of their community life and discipleship.
- Alternatives that may work better in your church and context.
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: Join Caesar for Cigars & Theology + Story of God LIVE at his home SLOW BURN: Relaxing Into Theology (Caesar's book on the entire Cigars & Theology process)
Transcripts
The good news, the gospel, is just as good of news, and sometimes even better, experienced with a cold beverage and friends.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, don't think that God somehow looks down on your efforts of discipleship if they're not done in the church building, or somehow formally with giant thick Bibles out on your lap and, you know, lots of note taking.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Your old school board members may not believe that, but God does not look down on you.
Speaker:They might, but God does not.
Speaker:Um, Jesus went into all the places and participated in the customs that his people did and loved and frequented.
Speaker:And you can too.
Speaker:It's okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It really is.
Speaker:I'm going to say it's the better way.
Speaker:Discipleship and leadership development should be normal and reproducible.
Speaker:Classes are great, but if you want people to know how to talk about and live out and apply the gospel in normal everyday life.
Speaker:Try and do more of your discipleship and training and development stuff in normal settings that are familiar and Reproducible and cost effective and fun because that's where they're gonna have to live it out
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 In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
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:Alright, here we go.
Speaker:Hope you're doing well today.
Speaker:Rolling, feeling great.
Speaker:I'm going to kind of dive straight in to the topic at hand today, and here's why.
Speaker:I'm kind of flipping the script a bit.
Speaker:I'm going to be talking about something called cigars and theology.
Speaker:Now don't run off if you go, I don't like cigars or whatever.
Speaker:Hold on a second.
Speaker:We do discipleship and leadership development in community.
Speaker:That's our best way to do it.
Speaker:I don't want it all to be classrooms and all that.
Speaker:We like it to happen in everyday life.
Speaker:And one of the things that we have done here, Heath and I together with a whole bunch of guys is something we call Cigars and Theology.
Speaker:That's what we're going to talk about on this episode.
Speaker:And you're going to hear why it is such a powerful way to do disciple making.
Speaker:It really is.
Speaker:Now it's an alternative way.
Speaker:I get it.
Speaker:And in fact, the principles we share here would work with.
Speaker:No cigars and it could happen for women tours or whatever, but but here's a real cool thing I want to tell you we're gonna be doing a cigars and theology live at my home Coming up here in just a couple months and I would like to invite you to that now you go I don't know.
Speaker:Why would I don't know listen to this conversation with Heath and I we're gonna unpack Everything about how we do this Cigars in Theology and you're gonna go like man, that sounds so fun I'd love to do that kind of get a first hand experience and maybe kick off something like that here in my own world
Speaker:It's coming up real soon.
Speaker:Literally, our house, Tina and I are open up our home to 30 people for a full weekend, and we're gonna take you through cigars and theology live right on our deck.
Speaker:But here's the thing, we've never done this before.
Speaker:We're also gonna walk you through the full story of God from Genesis to Jesus.
Speaker:Both of these are big Disciple making and leadership development things we do.
Speaker:They're incredible.
Speaker:There's only 30 spots total, and I want you to be one of them.
Speaker:So right now, go to everyday Disciple dot com slash theology to grab a spot.
Speaker:But otherwise, I want to get into the episode and tell you more about how the Cigars and Theology part of this is gonna work and what it looks like.
Speaker:Go ahead and take a listen here to Heath and I, as we discuss this thing that we really love doing together.
Speaker:And I'll wrap up with the big three.
Speaker:Stick with us.
Speaker:Even if you're like, eh, this doesn't sound super interesting to me, or I'm
Speaker:a.
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:People are going to love this.
Speaker:This is really about discipleship and like the gospel touching down in your neighborhood.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Hey, before we
Speaker:jump in, we want to give a shout out to a review written by Maui Warrior, who I'm assuming is a warrior from Hawaii, who says a friend of mine shared this with me for the first time before he even had the chance to listen.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's nice.
Speaker:And to
Speaker:that episode,
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm assuming.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But he's found a great value with your insights.
Speaker:Thanks again for sharing.
Speaker:And I'm going to subscribe and share myself.
Speaker:God's blessings upon you, my brothers in Christ.
Speaker:Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker:You know what
Speaker:I love about that is this guy's friend hadn't even heard the new episode, saw the title and said, my buddy's going to need this.
Speaker:And that's how the podcast grows.
Speaker:And you know, uh, this is free of charge.
Speaker:And so, you know how we get repaid is that we know it's going out there further.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:It takes, it takes something.
Speaker:It costs something.
Speaker:It costs you time to do what this guy's buddy just did with him.
Speaker:And that's share it.
Speaker:Like share it on your Facebook page when you see it.
Speaker:Or tell somebody, you know, when you grab some amazing wisdom from Heath or myself, uh, you know, and you tell somebody about it, say, you know, I got that from the Everyday Disciple Podcast.
Speaker:See if you ever checked it out.
Speaker:Let the word go out.
Speaker:Um, if you're finding benefit, there's a really good chance other people will too.
Speaker:And that'll bless us.
Speaker:And again, our
Speaker:website is everydaydisciple.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:You can go to the episodes and look through them all.
Speaker:If you find one that like, man, this one might fit perfectly with so and so, you can go ahead and just email them the link to that specific episode.
Speaker:Yep, and uh, might bless somebody, catch them off guard, which would be really fun, but uh, yep.
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Speaker:from you.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So Caesar, one of the, uh, as we move into the episode, one of the things that I love most in all of my life is just these Friday, Saturday night hangs we do occasionally and it's always once a month called Cigar and Theology.
Speaker:Their hangouts and yeah, we've got a good group of guys that come in and yeah have joined that community I know you had a similar group like this back in New York that kind of helps catalyze the start of that here Would you mind sharing kind of about that New York
Speaker:community?
Speaker:Yeah, we well we used to do something before I moved to New York We used to do something called brothers of the leaf and we would sort of do the same thing We get together and smoke a pipe or cigar and talk about God and it's theology.
Speaker:I love that yeah, but then you know, we do live in Washington State here and the people are like These guys are all toking up, you know, like, no, we're not, you know, um, so when I was in New York though, yeah, some pals, uh, were doing this thing called Cigar and Theology is like, Oh, it's just like brothers, the leaf, but that makes more sense, you know, and it wasn't bait and switchy, you know, like there's going to be.
Speaker:cigars, and we're going to talk about theology and there's food connected to it and all.
Speaker:And to be honest with you, like, let's just say right up front, not everybody who comes smokes cigars, do they?
Speaker:No, it's not about that.
Speaker:Like it's the bar to entry, like, you know, take it puff, you know, it's like, no, you don't have that at all.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, and, you know, and some of the guys will have, you know, a glass of scotch or a beer or wine.
Speaker:And some guys like, you know, like myself, I, you know, just, just having a soda water, you know, or whatever, but.
Speaker:It's, it's not even about that, but we call it Cigar in Theology because that just, I don't know, it was fun and cheeky and a lot of guys do like cigars and, but, um, we were doing that in New York and I, and I fell in love with it there because of, um, the diversity of thought and people coming.
Speaker:And, you know, people are believers, not believers, not barely believers, sort of were, but not sure anymore.
Speaker:And they found a really safe place to kind of have a meal, find some dudes that were kind of roughly in the same age and stage of life.
Speaker:Whereas like, but our, our CNT, our CR theology is pretty young and old.
Speaker:It's kind of all over the map.
Speaker:But, um, and then.
Speaker:When we steered it well, you know, when those when we kept it to not just an opinion fest But we actually kept it to hey, we're gonna we're gonna have fun and we're gonna be respectful and cool and it really is fun I mean, it's pretty relaxed.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I'm cigars and you know drinks and all but But we're actually gonna stay on topic and we're gonna try to have some value come out of that then it was real valuable Sure, and that's what kept people coming back the community And the fact that there was some tangible learning and applying going on.
Speaker:And so that's what we've kind of mirrored here.
Speaker:I love hearing guys go like.
Speaker:Man, this is my highlight of my month.
Speaker:I walk away with insights for this that affect all my life Yeah, we should have written them down.
Speaker:Yeah, we can start now Yeah, so maybe we get into some of the internal logistics that we go into to make sure that people feel welcome
Speaker:Show up, know where it is
Speaker:Yeah, inform them well And then what this can also do is show like the people listening to this show that there actually does need to be a good Amount of intention to starting a group kind of similar to this like anytime you want to grow a community I don't just throw everything in a pot and I hope it works.
Speaker:There's intention.
Speaker:And it's not
Speaker:one off either, right?
Speaker:It's a rhythm.
Speaker:We do it every month.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I mean, I'm not saying we never missed, but it usually just gets moved around if we have to, right?
Speaker:But we don't really miss.
Speaker:So it's a rhythm.
Speaker:It's predictable pattern.
Speaker:That's key.
Speaker:And you've done an amazing job of making sure it's on Facebook and you update the pictures, they're funny and stuff like that.
Speaker:Or here's a deal on some cigars you can get online or, you know, and, and, and just touching base and reminding people.
Speaker:And it's, in many ways that Facebook group's kind of become a touchstone and point of conversation for us guys.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Cause it really is a life on life discipleship thing going on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so, you know, people sharing verses or I'm reading this book or let's get started reading this book together who's in, and it's definitely grown and taken on a much.
Speaker:bigger life of its own, which was hoped for and has happened.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But you're right.
Speaker:There's some other logistics like to make people feel, you know, welcome.
Speaker:Like, um, yeah, like our house is lit up.
Speaker:It's easy to find.
Speaker:It's not like, Oh, is it here tonight?
Speaker:Well, why is it pitch black?
Speaker:Oh, we're around back.
Speaker:I didn't even think of it.
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:You know this is where it's at.
Speaker:The house is unlocked, come on in, everybody knows that.
Speaker:I think sometimes we just put a sign up, come on in.
Speaker:Yeah, just walk in.
Speaker:Click the door shut when you come in.
Speaker:Um, we usually have food, my wife usually makes up a, you know, big ol bowl of soup, or pot of soup, or chili, or.
Speaker:pastas or something and bread and, and, you know, some of that's just, cause you know, you'd be good host.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Um, some of it else is just like, well, some of the guys are going to be drinking and I don't want people, you know, like no one's really over drinking, I don't think, but I hope not.
Speaker:Um, but we also gonna make sure they're eating and plenty of water and just be careful, right?
Speaker:You can have fun with it.
Speaker:I know right away some people are thinking like, Oh, it's just, you know, in our tradition or denomination, whatever, we can't smoke and we can't drink at all.
Speaker:I'm done.
Speaker:I'm out of here.
Speaker:I want to say you get to vote your conscience on this.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:We've done other episodes and we will do other episodes having to do with abstinence or alcohol or all that stuff.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:Keith and I both feel the freedom to non abuse these things and to participate and actually use them for the sake of the kingdom and expansion of the gospel and discipleship.
Speaker:But if you don't, there is no condemnation in Christ, really.
Speaker:So not here, you know, to talk about that this episode.
Speaker:We make people feel, uh, welcome, but we also care for them.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Eat some food, drink a lot of water, and all that.
Speaker:And then, we also are not afraid to say, because we're treating people like family, um, hey guys, can we help clean up?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, last week, you know, last week I had a split so quick to get to the airport and you took me, and so the guys were still kind of, you know, kind of having to clean up and all that, and Tina had just walked in as we were walking out, when I came home it was like perfectly, like it never had happened to her.
Speaker:I mean, it was all put away.
Speaker:It was perfect.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:And I, yeah, and it's not like they had to, but see the good brothers do that, right?
Speaker:Good family members do.
Speaker:So there is a little bit of like, okay, when is it?
Speaker:What time is it?
Speaker:It's online.
Speaker:Who needs a ride?
Speaker:Here's the address.
Speaker:We're letting you know if there's food or like, Hey, there's not.
Speaker:Why don't you guys all bring some food tonight?
Speaker:Or, and then.
Speaker:Just from a logistics of the cigars and the rest of it people usually bring their own smokes if they want them But then there's a couple of the guys that are so generous with that I love that man They just bring like a humidor full and they like lay them out on the counter and like anybody take as many as you want And I'm just leaving these, you know, take them and there's a serving
Speaker:aspect like Bruce is great at that He'll go like oh, what's drinking?
Speaker:Okay, you know, this is gonna go great with this Yeah, brought
Speaker:this, try this, taste this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And what I love too is there's always somebody every month that, that shows up with a bottle of something that we've probably never had that is super high shelf.
Speaker:It's just a really cool, there's, there's this growing generosity
Speaker:of like, Hey, there is a growing generosity.
Speaker:And isn't that a picture of the kingdom in itself?
Speaker:And I got to tell you for, for either people that are new to the faith or checking out the faith community, Or maybe have been part of the faith, but in a church community, it's very, very formal.
Speaker:They've never seen discipleship or leadership development done, like, outside of a building in a classroom situation.
Speaker:The fact that there's generosity and, sure, try it, take this, keep it, you know, um, yeah.
Speaker:Someone else just brought me over, like, this is for you, humidor, this will keep it wetter and it's easier, and you just put a couple drops in there.
Speaker:People are, we're just caring for each other and, and that's really the point.
Speaker:Wink, wink, hidden, you know, like we're discussing theology and we're going to talk about how we do that here in a minute, but wouldn't the goal and the hope be that we become more like God and more like Christ and, and, and together, even this ragtag bunch of guys who were smoking cigars and drinking and talking about God stuff are actually becoming more like him, more like Jesus.
Speaker:That, that was our goal.
Speaker:I think a
Speaker:perfect example is even two months ago when Joseph locked his keys in the car and it's, you know, it's 1130 at night, there's an alarm going off in your neighborhood.
Speaker:There's It's pouring
Speaker:rain, and it was like every bad thing going on.
Speaker:Yeah, and these guys are hanging out going.
Speaker:We're not going home till you get to go home, and so they're
Speaker:far out there.
Speaker:Just what a hanger.
Speaker:Yeah, hangers.
Speaker:They eventually got it.
Speaker:It was a miracle, too.
Speaker:I watched for the first half hour, and I finally think I good luck.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay, so so like you said, just to set up a little bit of background, uh, the kind of format that we take, um, and if you're interested in starting something like this, we're happy to help you.
Speaker:You know, think through that a bit more, but we always put something out on Facebook, so it's not a random like, Hey, by the way, tonight we're doing this.
Speaker:It's three, four months out schedule.
Speaker:Get it on your calendar.
Speaker:There's
Speaker:a lot more people who get invited than actually show.
Speaker:Yeah, and we don't stress that.
Speaker:Make it if you can.
Speaker:Obviously, there's the regulars.
Speaker:Yeah, they diehards, you know, they never almost missed.
Speaker:But then there's a whole contingency of guys that we see them every other time or every third time.
Speaker:And that's fine.
Speaker:I want to let people know like when you're doing these kind of things, don't get sucked in by that whole, um, church consumerism thing.
Speaker:Where it's like, it's all about attendance.
Speaker:This was successful based on how many guys showed.
Speaker:Some of our deepest best talks is when there's been only five or six of us.
Speaker:And we are able to really go down deep into our own experiences of it and how this theology reflects on my own understanding and behaviors and yeah.
Speaker:Well, I think the
Speaker:format of hospitality is important too.
Speaker:I mean, we spend a decent 30 45 minutes when people are showing up, where It's not like, Hey, come in, grab your Bible, sit down.
Speaker:We're going to go.
Speaker:It's catching up.
Speaker:How's the
Speaker:kids?
Speaker:What's going on at work?
Speaker:What's new?
Speaker:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker:Get that remodeling done.
Speaker:Yeah, there's like a
Speaker:community.
Speaker:And then also the format of throughout the night while we do have a format of the questions we walk through.
Speaker:Um, it's not a classroom setting.
Speaker:I mean, people are sitting down, they can get up at will, go to the bathroom, grab a drink, grab a refill.
Speaker:A
Speaker:lot of laughter.
Speaker:Holy moly.
Speaker:Yeah, it's so much fun.
Speaker:Sometimes too much, isn't it?
Speaker:Sometimes
Speaker:you have to snap us back to the topic.
Speaker:We are here to talk about, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, so maybe we
Speaker:could start with talking through kind of what a night like this looks like.
Speaker:We follow a pretty typical format of a question is
Speaker:across the board.
Speaker:The first format, like you just said, though, is a little bit of food, a little catching up, a little sharing of stuff, both physically, drink, food, cigars, all that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then usually I'll just call it together.
Speaker:Hey, top up your drinks.
Speaker:Yeah, we start around 730 and then usually By 8 I try to say, hey guys, grab a drink if you don't have one or whatever you want to do and let's go ahead and go outside and I want to get this rolling.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:and the reason we do, you even just referenced, the reason we start a little bit later, like 730, is we want the guys to be able to help get the kids down, help the wives clean up the dishes.
Speaker:So we're pretty systematic even in the times that we've chosen so it's not like, hey, dad's gone,
Speaker:weeknight because people got to work and school and homework, situations, bathing and all that.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So on a Saturday we can do it a little later or Friday, usually one of those two nights.
Speaker:That's intentional.
Speaker:I don't think any of our, uh, wives of the guys are all ticked off about him being a part of it.
Speaker:In fact, it's birthed into a whole lot of other stuff, including them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Talk about on some other issues, uh, or episodes.
Speaker:I mean, um,
Speaker:So yeah, so you call us together, everyone tops up their drinks, grabs a cigar, we sit down.
Speaker:So then it
Speaker:always starts exactly like this in our, if guys are listening, I know some of our guys are listening in, but this will sound very familiar, but we always go, okay, so hey, thanks.
Speaker:for being at Cigar and Theology.
Speaker:If you don't want a cigar, that's fine, whatever.
Speaker:But we are going to talk theology a little bit tonight.
Speaker:And so let me just define theology.
Speaker:The o, theology, the o, the word God.
Speaker:Theology is the study of who is God and what he's like in the, you know, what his character, um, and, and we don't want to just throw out proposition.
Speaker:Or like, uh, nice warm fuzzies about go, God's like this, or God's love, or God's like a rock.
Speaker:He's powerful.
Speaker:Like, but, but what has he done to show us and prove that's true in scripture, in our own lives in the past, and then usually magnified in it through the life and death and resurrection of his son.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then we look at that and we go like, okay, if God's that way in light of that topic, whatever topic we pick.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Um, then we're going to look at and what he's done to prove it.
Speaker:Like, what does that say about us?
Speaker:What's true of us?
Speaker:And then, um, what does that lead to how we get to respond?
Speaker:How do we get to live our lives and make our choices in light of that topic?
Speaker:And so what we do is we frame theology around the same four questions that we use to teach and train gospel fluency, which is who is God, what's he done to prove it, what's true of us and our identity, authority, and privilege now, and how do we get to live, right?
Speaker:And our guys know that now, right?
Speaker:And I have to be the bumpers, you know, you and I both, we have to kind of be the bumpers when we was like, well.
Speaker:Like, pick a topic and we're talking about, you know, fatherhood, you know, okay, great.
Speaker:So like, what do we know about God and his character and fatherhood, you know?
Speaker:And people are like, well, he's done this, like, well, that's the second question.
Speaker:What's he done to prove it?
Speaker:And we know our hearts tend to want to go to like action before character, like we do to be.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We talk about that on the the time.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:By holding people to that sequence.
Speaker:There's also a safety net, like none of, and I've had guys go, man, that was some heavy lifting tonight, keeping us sort of on task and keeping us to the questions, but it nets so much.
Speaker:And I've been a part of so many things where it's just like you get together and it's like an opinion fest and it's kind of fun and okay, but it really feels like a waste of my time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This always feels like life changing and.
Speaker:I wish, you know, we did it way more often, you know, kind of thing.
Speaker:And I think that's because of the structure.
Speaker:Now, side note here, I'm a little bit of an older brother than some of the other guys coming.
Speaker:You know, I'm not an old, crazy old buck, but, um, but my level of gospel fluency and belief that God loves me and I'm accepted and I don't have to earn anything.
Speaker:It leaks down into the way that I can hold us to this because I'm, I'm not worried about like, Oh, you just cut that guy off.
Speaker:It's like, well, I didn't do it rudely, but I am going to stick to the format.
Speaker:We're going somewhere.
Speaker:For the greater sake of where we're going.
Speaker:And, and by letting people know that up front, that's important.
Speaker:When it happens, when I have to go like, Awesome.
Speaker:But how does that answer that question?
Speaker:You know, you know, Mike, Todd, whoever, you know, it's like, how does that answer that question?
Speaker:Oh, I don't know if it did.
Speaker:Let me go back.
Speaker:Hold on a second.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and snap it back.
Speaker:I think we love the accountability, but I think people learn to then trust the process.
Speaker:Like by asking these four questions and not letting it go too far afield, we're going to really get somewhere.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now I want to say this too.
Speaker:Those four questions are key, but I always break the rules immediately then, right?
Speaker:I always start out with a question that's not one of those four to kind of ground it in the everyday.
Speaker:Like we're already sitting on my deck, fireplaces going, right?
Speaker:We got good smokes, got whatever beverage of choice you got going.
Speaker:And I laid out the ground rules and these are the four questions that are that we're gonna follow.
Speaker:Who is God?
Speaker:What's he done to prove that?
Speaker:What's now true of us and our identity?
Speaker:How do we get to live?
Speaker:But I always go then let me break the rules right away.
Speaker:Let me start with a question and I ground it I go like when in your life have you
Speaker:whatever one of the yeah One of the topics that comes to mind that I think was the best kind of was the topic of authority when we hit on that and your question to start it off was What is the one time in your life where you've had, or thought you've had, complete authority in one situation and how did that work out for you?
Speaker:And within, and what I love is that we don't let anyone off the hook, like Everybody's going to contribute to that question.
Speaker:If they're quiet the rest of the night, they have to answer that first.
Speaker:I mean, we're kind of strategic like, Hey, I haven't heard from you.
Speaker:They're it.
Speaker:Yeah, I
Speaker:know.
Speaker:What are you thinking, Joe?
Speaker:And so that question came back and it was dark, man.
Speaker:I mean, it, we, we learned really quick that for the 15 of us, it didn't go well, which primed that bump.
Speaker:So now we're
Speaker:all on the same page.
Speaker:So now what do we know about God and authority?
Speaker:Yeah, we've all got
Speaker:skin in the game because we're in the conversation already.
Speaker:We've, we've had to answer and lay our cards out a little bit, but then, okay, what do we know about God versus authority?
Speaker:And that was.
Speaker:I love that, that first question that primes the pump of the heart so that we can actually
Speaker:What are some of the other topics you remember us
Speaker:going through?
Speaker:We did one recently on, uh, on, uh, privilege.
Speaker:We did one on refugee.
Speaker:We did one on, I mean, we've, we've gone all over
Speaker:the board.
Speaker:We did generosity.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We've done
Speaker:scarcity.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like the scarcity, the mindset of fate.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Theology of fate.
Speaker:Uh, one of the ones that was.
Speaker:Hardest for me to swallow, but actually jacked me up a year later.
Speaker:I can't unthink it is the, uh, the different views of atonement, the atonement views.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We did that during Easter and just.
Speaker:Theology of atonement.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so sometimes it's, it's not always like, I mean, laying the cards out, we're not all sitting there with Bibles in
Speaker:our laps.
Speaker:It might shock some people that we're doing arguably some of the deepest dive theology talks I've participated in my life.
Speaker:And it's not that never we pull out a Bible, but generally we're, we're asking people to think and we're seeing that we're teaching that we're smarter together than any of us alone.
Speaker:And it's very easy to proof text, so if people just like gay verses, there's the, there's your answer.
Speaker:No, but what's his character?
Speaker:What's he like?
Speaker:And what's that say about our identity and all, see, those, those lines get drawn through conversation not through just chapter and versing each other.
Speaker:Yeah, there's
Speaker:a narrative to the theology that we're building which is really beautiful.
Speaker:The other thing that I really like about Cigars in Theology, uh, and you actually did this at a training recently I was with you at, um, is this concept of, of High Invitation, Low Challenge, Low Invitation, High Challenge, High Invitation, High Challenge, Low Invitation.
Speaker:I mean, there's this, there's boxes.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:matrix of sorts,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And a lot of times in the church, We immediately like want to jump in bed with a person, right?
Speaker:It's super low invitation high challenge.
Speaker:So right away like hey first week here We got you in a Bible study, got you new members, got you plugged in, and you're going like
Speaker:high challenge It's like whoa.
Speaker:I just met
Speaker:you.
Speaker:I'm not getting in bed with you.
Speaker:Like let's let's work up to that And this is beautiful because it's super high invitation.
Speaker:You don't have to be here every week You don't have to be here.
Speaker:Bring a friend,
Speaker:come.
Speaker:Don't even knock, just come in and go in the freezer Get what you need.
Speaker:If you don't see it, ask.
Speaker:Well, you know, it's yours.
Speaker:We're gonna take care
Speaker:of it, yeah So, maybe we could talk a little bit about these different avenues, uh, and the purpose of why this works so well, being that it is an open door to so many people on the front
Speaker:end.
Speaker:Well, our goal in everything, uh, for us, you know, Heath and I, but hopefully as the church is, is to make disciples who make disciples.
Speaker:That's the mission.
Speaker:And so really, this is a discipleship event.
Speaker:This is a leadership development event, wherever people are at, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and the offline conversations that this then leads to and proceeds and all that.
Speaker:Those are all part and parcel to discipleship and disciple making.
Speaker:And um, disciple making, you know, who, who do we look to for that?
Speaker:Who is the master of this?
Speaker:Jesus.
Speaker:And Jesus mastered invitation and challenge, this dynamic between the two, where he lived his life, high invitation, come, follow me, be with me.
Speaker:Like they just did life together.
Speaker:But then he appropriately would up the challenge in the types of questions he would ask, what he required, I'm sending you out, you gotta try this, that didn't work, go do this, you know why that didn't work?
Speaker:And he mastered the toggling up of imitation and challenge.
Speaker:A little more invitation, a little more challenge.
Speaker:And we have purposely made Cigar and Theology very high imitation, and it's a low challenge.
Speaker:I mean, you can sit there in silence, but we're probably not going to let you.
Speaker:But it's a low challenge in the sense that there's nothing you have to do to prepare.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm going to have homework afterwards.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, we've had atheists come and have deep conversations, but there's no pre qualified knowledge required because communally there's a lot of knowledge, right?
Speaker:We're pulling up a lot and, which is
Speaker:great because we never give the topic out ahead of time.
Speaker:So everyone's showing up is yeah.
Speaker:And that's, that's been intentional.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:We want people, somebody studying up and showing up like, you know, Bible Answer Man, you know, boom.
Speaker:Like you just blew everybody out.
Speaker:Like, well, I guess that's everything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Nothing left to talk about.
Speaker:Apparently.
Speaker:So, right.
Speaker:We always, and we've even asked the guys, Hey, do you want to know about, you know what we're talking about before you come?
Speaker:Like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker:Just lay it on my heart.
Speaker:Let's go.
Speaker:I just want to, I want to, I want you to reveal like who is God and what he's like, and let's, let's go there.
Speaker:And by providing high invitation, easy step on nothing required and low challenge, people feel comfortable.
Speaker:They feel safe.
Speaker:And what they find is actually the challenge is toggling up in the four questions.
Speaker:Cause when it finally gets to what's true of you.
Speaker:There's a challenge in that because do I believe that's true of me?
Speaker:If God's that way and he did this in and through Christ, is that true of me?
Speaker:Hmm, and then the fourth question, what what what do I do with that?
Speaker:You know, how will I respond?
Speaker:How do I get to choose and live?
Speaker:That's where the challenge comes, not from like, you got to perform, you got to fill in the blanks properly, you got to use the right Christian language.
Speaker:We do these talks and it's so, it's so non seminary sounding, right?
Speaker:And I think that's blown away some of the, you know, our pastor friends that have shown up and do show up and I'm grateful for it.
Speaker:But I think some of them are a little, you know, like shocked that it doesn't sound, it's not, it's very not highbrow in its language.
Speaker:It's very common, purposefully in its language.
Speaker:Because If anything, um, I don't know if I've ever been accused of being a theologian per se, though clearly we all are one.
Speaker:But I'm, I've definitely been called a practical theologian, you know, and I think that's, that's a very high, you know, compliment, like, and I, and I'm trying, we're trying in Cigar and Theology to have practical theology where it sounds and tastes and it can be used and chewed upon and applied normally.
Speaker:So that when you talk about it with your son, your daughter, someone at work, your neighbor across the fence, your wife, Um, it's all the same language.
Speaker:It's not like, well, what is superlapsarianism?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:You know, it's like, you know.
Speaker:We keep it low.
Speaker:Hey, uh.
Speaker:One of the things that I've, I thought of just in light of what you said at the beginning of this episode, um, and one thing that we found is that cigars and theology works really well in the Northwest.
Speaker:For our lifestyle, again, finding the freedom that we do, and it works well in New York.
Speaker:Yeah, it works well in New York.
Speaker:But if you're like a, if you're a, a 25 year old who hates cigars and your wife's deathly allergic to cigar smoke and you guys don't believe in having any alcohol in the house, you might not want to, probably don't want to do cigars and theology.
Speaker:So, while it works for us, it might not be the case everywhere.
Speaker:How can we encourage people to understand their culture and know their culture well enough so that they can see what works best in their context and get started in that?
Speaker:Yeah, I think what you're
Speaker:really getting at here, Heath, is that, um, we often in the church sort of do church and do Bible study and do, I don't know, small group or do worship or whatever.
Speaker:We do it in ways that are pretty foreign to the rest of everyday life.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:We just do.
Speaker:You know, sometimes I'll joke and I'll say like, Yeah, I invited my friend to church on Sunday and they were like, you know, I'm like, you know, like, look, we were, we sit in rows, uh, in silence pretty much staring at the back of each other's heads, take an occasional note while one guy talks, you know, like we, we, we do in the rest of our life.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Never.
Speaker:Not a normal.
Speaker:And so, um, I think what we're talking about is like, do you, do you understand your culture enough and are you participating in the normal?
Speaker:Rhythms of life and culture like Jesus did, but bringing redemption and hope and light and, and gospel and who is God and what's he like and what's that mean for us into it.
Speaker:And so for us, because there is a bit of a cigar and coffee and sort of scotch tasting culture out here, it was a very normal way to get to the hearts of guys and make them feel comfortable.
Speaker:Though from the get go, not everybody smokes and not everybody drinks and they, but they get it.
Speaker:They sort of get it intrinsically.
Speaker:Now, we said earlier on, if this is offensive to you or you believe it's actually sin, you got to go with your convictions on that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So we're not looking to make you stumble and say, well, you're not doing ministry unless you're firing up cigars and drink, you know, no.
Speaker:But what is it, what is going on in your own culture that, that guys like to hang out with?
Speaker:Now I will say this.
Speaker:We have women listening to, and after years of doing this.
Speaker:Like we used to call it, you know, Brothers of the Leaf, like I was saying earlier, um, the women started going like, Hey, where's our version?
Speaker:Like this sounds like too much fun we're missing out on.
Speaker:So they started doing something called Sisters of the Vine and they get together and, you know, have a glass of wine and talk mom stuff and talk basically the same stuff, kind of theology and life applied.
Speaker:And there, there you go.
Speaker:It's a perfect adaptation there.
Speaker:The women didn't go like, well, I guess we're going to have to learn how to, you know, smoke cigars and drink, you know, Jameson or something, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Kathleen, my wife actually enjoyed the last Sister of the Vine because Your wife Tina who leads it said, What I want you to do is bring something from your kitchen that's just been in the shelf forever that you're not going to use.
Speaker:And we're going to create something.
Speaker:Make something.
Speaker:Everyone's going to bring it and we're going to make something that combines all of them.
Speaker:So it was using our gifting.
Speaker:And one thing just before we end here that I just Nothing
Speaker:like, uh, nothing like, uh, Jujubee pot pie with chocolate sprinkles and tulips sticking up.
Speaker:That was amazing.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:One of the things I just
Speaker:want to say is, uh, and I think you would encourage this as well, is, I wish somebody a long time ago would have pushed my convictions for me to actually follow the spirit versus, uh, the denomination, what they were saying.
Speaker:And so, that's super helpful.
Speaker:It's like, if you're just not doing something because that's what your denomination does, or.
Speaker:Never really research it yourself.
Speaker:Consult the spirit.
Speaker:I know guys have done the exact same thing around a barbecue night You know like or a chili cook off You're like they do a monthly chili cook off or one guy brings a chili and everybody like critiques the heck out of it Yeah, or they bring their hot sauces, you know, like what is it that works in your setting?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean in your setting but do it with rhythm Yeah, right do it predictable pattern and I would encourage you to use those same four questions.
Speaker:Yeah And so those will be, we'll make sure those four questions are in the big three.
Speaker:And I even have full on training in how to use the four questions and deep, get deep into gospel fluency and all that.
Speaker:I can make that available for people who are really interested in this because.
Speaker:A lot of people think, Oh, it's easy to have friends over and have some cigars and you know, some drinks and all that, but how do you lead that thing and how do you drive those four questions without it being weird and getting, you know, personal opinion fest and all that.
Speaker:So we can even offer additional training.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:We're running a little long.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Let's get a big three.
Speaker:You can get the big three by going to everydaydisciple.
Speaker:com forward slash big three and the big three are the three takeaways we'd love for you to leave with right now.
Speaker:Caesar, what would be the big three for this week?
Speaker:Big three minimum takeaways.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:At minimum.
Speaker:One.
Speaker:Discipleship and leadership development should be normal and reproducible, okay?
Speaker:Classes are great, but if you want people to know how to talk about and live out and apply the gospel in normal everyday life, try and do more of your discipleship and training and development stuff in normal settings that are familiar and reproducible and cost effective and fun, because that's where they're going to have to live it out.
Speaker:They're not going to say, well, I'd love to talk to you about that, but let me drag it to Sunday school at 9 a. m. on Sunday.
Speaker:It's a beautiful day and we're sleeping.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Second, um, the good news, the gospel is just as good of news and sometimes even better experienced with a cold beverage and friends.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So don't think that God somehow looks down on your efforts of discipleship if they're not done in the church building or somehow formally with giant thick Bibles out on your lap and you know, lots of note taking.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Um, you know, you're, you're old school board members may not believe that, but God does not look down at you.
Speaker:They might, but God does not, you know, um, Jesus went into all the places and participated in the customs that his people did and loved and frequented.
Speaker:And you can too.
Speaker:It's okay.
Speaker:Yeah, it really is.
Speaker:In fact, I'm going to say it's the better.
Speaker:way.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then third, sort of like, so what are you going to do with this?
Speaker:Give it a try, host your own cigar and theology group.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Or try something else that makes sense in your context, but get started with some less conventional and more normal settings for training and equipping in the gospel.
Speaker:And by the way, kind of hinted at this earlier, but events like this with a little tweak of language, so they're not as churchy and Christian y in our posture can be great evangelistic opportunities to bring, you know, just guys from the neighborhood together, you know, around a campfire.
Speaker:We used to do it that way.
Speaker:And I couldn't believe where it would go every week and half the guys had never ever stepped foot in church But we weren't hiding who we were.
Speaker:We just changed the tone in the posture a bit, right?
Speaker:I love that, man.
Speaker:Okay, so now you've heard about what cigars and theology is about, and maybe you're sitting there thinking, I wanna do that.
Speaker:I wanna learn how to do that with my people.
Speaker:Well, awesome.
Speaker:Like I mentioned earlier, Tina and I are opening up our home, our actual home to 30 people for a full weekend of training that we're gonna do.
Speaker:And we've never done it this way before, but we're gonna do the full story of God first.
Speaker:The entire Bible genesis to Jesus.
Speaker:It's narrative and dialogical.
Speaker:You've probably heard me talk about it.
Speaker:There's other podcast episodes to do that.
Speaker:We connect the whole narrative.
Speaker:It's very, very powerful.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:When that's done, we're gonna be doing the cigars and theology part together, live right on the deck by the fire, and you're gonna love it, and you're gonna leave knowing exactly how to do both of these and have resources to do all of that when you get home.
Speaker:So it's, face to face and you're gonna love it.
Speaker:Right now, if you go to everyday Disciple dot com slash theology, that's where you can find about all the details and travel and how's it work, and what's the schedule.
Speaker:And I really hope we get to do this in person.
Speaker:Okay, check it out now.
Speaker:These slots will go fast everyday.
Speaker:Disciple dot com slash theology.
Speaker:I hope we see you soon.
Speaker:Hey, I'm out of time, I gotta let you go, I hope you'll join me again next week, we're gonna continue to share everything we're learning about discipleship in everyday life.
Speaker:And how it all weaves itself together, making the gospel good news for everything.
Speaker:We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit EverydayDisciple.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:And remember, you really can live with the spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.
