Guy and Neal dive into why they think there is a particular need for the DMM (disciple making movement) and CPM (Church planting movement) model of city churches in a western context.
Website: https://loveoneanother.life
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Episode 1 Snippet:
I just can't get away from the "Commands of Christ" to "Go and Make Disciples" and I feel like what we do here is what we need to do there so that the Kingdom of God gets everywhere. And so I have a sense of a calling towards Multiplying Disciples. So, in a city like Houston, and in most large urban cities, we're losing significant ground. And I feel like only a multiplication model or lifestyle is the only way we're going to get to where we need to go.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING TRANSCRIPTION HAS BEEN AUTOGENERATED AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS]
Welcome to the L1A podcast. A space to connect, communicate and collaborate for the advancement of the kingdom in North America and beyond. Here we will discuss the disciple making movement that is happening in this Western context and the return to God's design for discipleship. Church and life.
All right, Guy. Um, for the sake of people who maybe don't know you, why don't you just start–give a one-ish minutes? Sort of. What are you up to in Houston? You know, let's just start there?
Sure. Uh, wow I mean, Houston has been my heart for many, many years. And so just seeing the church begin to really emerge and working together in ways that it never has before is recently what we've been up to. We've been planning churches and making disciples in the city, Kelly and I for many, many years. You know, so for me, it started out at like 23 years old. I got disciple by Charles Culpepper. And from there, I started multiplying out disciples and just learning and and also making a lot of mistakes.
Yeah, how long? How long would you say you've been kind of laboring in an intentional way towards like multiplying of disciples, multiplying the simple churches? How long would you say roughly you've been...
Since 1989?
Serious...
Yeah, that's when it started.
See, this is it. That's one of the I just think it's beautiful that you've been pushing into something that for many of us, even even myself, who'd still be myself as young in this, in many regards. You've been labor faithful in ways that have been out of the box, out of the paradigm in Western regard for many years. So I just praise the Lord for that. One of the things that, like I think you'd have some awesome insight into is why do you think the intentionality of multiplication if people want to call it DMM, CPM, whatever like? But why do you think we need that in the Western context? What burns in your heart for that? You've been doing it for a while. Why? Why?
Yeah. I mean, for me personally, I just can't get away from the commands of Christ to go and make disciples. And I feel like also what we do here is what we need to do there so that the Kingdom of God gets everywhere, you know? And so I just have a sense of a of a calling towards multiplying disciples and also on a city like Houston. In most large urban cities, we're losing significant ground. And I feel like only a multiplication model. So it's the only like called a model. Let's say a lifestyle is the only way we're going to get to where we need to go. But I do think it looks different and we've talked about that more a little, but I do think it looks a little different here than it does there. But the principles are the same, but why is the same? So that's that's important to me.
Yeah. And even if you think about that because you're in Houston, what's the rough population of Houston?
They say anywhere 66.5 or 7.5 million based upon what you call the Greater Houston area? Yeah.
In, I'm putting you on the spot right now, but what are some...if you had to say, roughly a population that might seem like they have a relationship with Jesus, one of them: Do you know of any of the trends that have been going on with that in the Houston area? Like like, so what do you think of people who are maybe church goers?
Yeah, for sure. one of the ways that we've been kind of casting vision in Houston, even some larger associations of of denominations and legacy have been saying that the pull of the reaches is getting smaller and smaller.
Mm Anglos. And we're in a we're in a city that the majority is Hispanic. So but the majority of believers are Anglo, and that population is getting smaller and smaller while the city is expanding and growing and growing.
So our city is now going back and forth with New York. In L.A., I think it's being the most diverse city in the nation. Wow. And you're getting to work with different teams now. Mm hmm. And I like getting to go do some of this stuff throughout that population.
seven, 8 million people. Yes. What like what has been one of the major points we could talk about, like what has been one of the major things that you think you've you've learned over these past years that you've been living in this.
I can say my major repentance in my learning has been around individualism. I mean, Texas is very much a very proud individual. I mean, I am a Texan and built that way and also as an athlete and just my temperament.
Super competitive. Yeah. And so the thing I've had to repair Adobe is my individualism, recognizing that we are better together, honoring the different gifts, honoring one another, honoring gender, honoring just all of it, just being a culture of honor and working together rather than kind of in the early days as a church planter, I thought, finally, someone
who is on the church planning team and we're going to be I'm going to get something done and I'm going to lead us to do. This and instead of kind of a wee thing, and I feel like that that has that is something that God's done in me, and as a result of that, I'm seeing teens and
us working together far better. That's awesome. If you think about the the church, the Bride of Christ throughout the North American United States out of context, you can speak, you know, more so in Houston. But I know you're familiar.
Yes, some of the stuff, it's been just some of the things burning in your heart for the bride price, which one of the things related to my repentance has been the system and structure of kind of the what we call the rock star preacher.
The domineering leadership, I think, has contributed attributed to many of the big evangelical falls that we've seen. And so as a result, we're not I don't think we've created a culture of honor. We're not working together as a team of deans across the city.
We have kind of a rock star megachurch approach to these things. And I thank God for what he's done. But I also see we're seeing one right after another, a fall and in difficult things that to me breaks my heart.
And I would like to see some of that culture change, and I think it's related to the culture monarchies. OK? What do you would say that a little bit more like the culture of honor? Well, I just feel like that we are better together, and what we have a tendency to do is want one leader.
And then when that happens, we look to that leader rather than looking to Christ and one another. I guess that I mean, you could call it the the starfish and the snake, or the starfish and the spider. You know, if it's just one person, you chop the head off and it's gone and falls apart.
But if we see it more as a starfish, it can multiply, survive and thrive in that way whenever it's persecuted or chopped. I just think it's a better reproducing system. Yeah, yeah. You and I were both recently. There was a friend of ours who put together this.
It was just a short one pager sort of a document in as he tried to read and said some of the brutal facts of the breakup of the Church of the United States and such. And this is the sort of stuff we don't want to go in like we don't want to go and bash the bride or
part of the bride, right? We love the bride. But simultaneously, we wanted to call some of these things and just got to be like family. We need, we need to talk. We need to consider this. Yes. What are some of those statistics?
And yeah, what are some of those statistics that have really kind of stood out to you hit you hard as you've thought about what you're doing in terms of the multiplication and such? Like, are there any that that come to the forefront?
Sure. I mean, Barb did the research recently there, like I think it was 51% of the church existing church in America was unaware of the great commission. That's pretty significant to me. one of the most just unbelievable ones to me is the cost of $1.5 million to baptize one person.
Yeah, I mean, that's that's unbelievable to me. And when one of our simple churches, we had twelve people baptized 24 and one year, and it did cost us Adobe. Yeah, because we were contributing our money together towards the mission towards the work we're meeting in civil homes.
Yeah, I remember when I read that one of the there a couple that stood out to me that were pretty recent. And one of those was the I can't remember exactly where what Paul stated, but said that for the first time, we have less than 50% of people who would profess membership, whatever that is, exactly the membership
to a church. So we have more people now in the United States in that trend has been going down right now. Right. Year after year. And that is well in 2019. So this is even pre-COVID was the first year that I'm just speaking of Protestant churches, because that was the statistics were more Protestant churches closed in 2019
than actually open. Yeah, that's tough. And this is the sort of thing where we as the right need to start thinking outside of the box. And I'm not saying outside of the scripture, you know, we don't we don't.
We're not talking about thinking outside the scriptures, but we're outside of the framework of just what we have known, but still within the context of the scriptures that it's almost like meant we have we're going to have a family meeting.
That's the bride and be like, Guys, let's start living some things. But that's hard, right? Yes. I mean, to for us, I know I've grown up in the church. You've grown up in the church and have about 20 years old, so that's OK.
I didn't grow up in my church. So you started then just living in more than multiplying sort of mindset from a very young age, in part because I came across reading the scripture, it's so intuitively, you know, as the spirit taught me, I saw things differently and I had a mentor, a disciple that really affirmed just thinking
differently about things. I read biographies. All of these are crazy. Yeah, that's awesome. What? What is there now as you've been living with this? Obviously, there's been certain things that have probably been huge hindrances towards actually getting to see some of the multiplication.
What would you say? I know you talk about method, idolatry, method, idolatry. Yeah. Speaking of that a little bit. What has been kind of your noticing of some of that? A lot of it has to do with us training people and tools and people not understanding the why behind you?
Yeah. And my age, even though I'm getting close to getting out of middle age. But, you know, 55 years old. 35 years of walking with Christ. Imagine how many different tools of sharing the gospel that I walk through, and many of them have been super effective.
But sometimes we act like Jesus. When he wrote with the adulterer in the sand that he wrote the three circles, you know? And so if you don't use three circles, then you're not walking where God cannot stop. Rather than understanding of why the principles behind it, the tools are important to us, you know, multiply.
And there we want to use the best tools to the best time because we want the best artists. We want to be the best farmers we can be. But the reason why is the principles behind the the farm.
The principles behind the kingdom is what we want to follow. What happens is we start kind of worshiping tools and then we get stuck. Yeah, I know when we started kind of laboring in this way as well, that was that was one of the first things that we learned is we it's almost hard to say, but we
elevated the tools so much we can get people to go pass on the tools onto the next person, the next person, but not pass on the essence of God. Yes. And then as well, there's the mentality of you take your tools if you want to silo up just with those people who use the same tools as you
and not being able to work with others. How do we learn to get past that? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. one of the great illustrations I've I've watched a lot of different survivor reality shows. And one of the things we started observing was that the military guys were not making it to the end.
And then there were several of them that were saying, Well, we were only trying to survive in these contexts for two weeks was our training and we were relying on all these tools. And often they're not given those tools in those survivor situations.
So therefore they do not know how to adapt. And so there was not an underlying why they were relying on the tools that were provided to them from the military branch or service, whatever. It was just interesting. That's not always the case, but that has been general in those shows, and I think that applies to what we're
doing. Yeah, if we're going to sustain over time, we need to understand the why yet and the principles behind it. And then you and I can work together if we agree upon principles. Yeah. And therefore, the methodology breaks us up when we analyze the tools rather than saying we're on the same team and we're going to work
together on these principles apply. What's the analogy that there's the relational piece behind that, that when we when we learn to labor together relationally now we have the ability to sharpen one another. So now, instead of, hey, it's either my way or the highway, there's a relationship there.
We can start talking. We can compare. Hey, I found this useful in this context. Did it find it useful in this one? What did you learn here? OK, in now it's a it's a spurring one another on. It's a sharpening of one another rather than just here's my way if you don't get out of this in.
I really hope that is more movement stuff takes it continues to gain momentum among people throughout the western North American context that we can actually learn to labor together, even across some streets that might utilize different tools. But I think what we need to grow in with that actually is relationships.
You know, it's it brings me back to the scripture about I, Paul, or I'm about politics or whatever. You know, you start to just identify rather than something so much more on the surface, that's what's man. And it's so you you mentioned, how do you say to get that idolatry?
Not that idolatry. You mentioned there. Have there been any other significant step into those sorts of things that you love as you've been doing this, getting to see some generations grow and such like that? Yeah, I mean, I think it does kind of relate to this.
Is that. The oil costs in villages are so connected when you say, take me to your leader, everyone knows a leader in a Western context. We don't have that, that the oil gas is broken down and we're fragmented and segmented and siloed.
And so we have been utilizing events with a jet a lot. And in the early days, we were considered almost and movements, people like that, you know, particularly the younger guys that were method idolaters were saying, You can't do that.
That's not the way any movements work. And what was happening is they were gathering two or three and then they would get those people to say we were a church and they would fall apart because of no critical mass while we were using events, mining relationships and the events with an intent to follow it up.
And then we would gain a lot more critical mass, and many of those churches are still going today when the other ones had fallen apart. And I want to remind you that Zacchaeus had a blowout party at his house.
Levi had a blowout party at his house at the festival of Pentecost. We had the DA, the powerful move of God at these types of events. So I think it's really important for us. We want to good look for participation.
We want to send people out by twos. But I think it's real wise in Western culture to see events with a debt. And still also we see that what I call the 2020 vision where there still I think the viability of any particularly large city churches across 2020, we met publicly and house to house.
Now I've done it. I think we can go either side. You know, some would say that all they have is a large gathering and then some. All they have is the small. When you see in the New Testament, they seem to work together in certain contexts for the good.
So can we learn from these things? I mean, so I think we're always too often looking for a silver bullet to have already with that sweetness. I do agree with that and I think that's where as well we make an idol of that method in.
How do you how do you encourage the people who you're coaching into pouring into yourself to make sure that Jesus is truly staying as the central piece in the midst of this because. There is the temptation there we are a very program oriented kind of society, all that sort of stuff.
We can latch on to a program real quick and then when else and something goes good, we get credit to the program. Yeah. You know? That's really the name of this. What's it look like for us to make sure Jesus is truly that be the center, the all in all of what we're doing in not me, whether
it's a DMEM or CPI-M or whatever the item, what's what's been your experience with that? How are you? How are you? How are you hoping to see that grow more in yourself and the people around you just speaking about it now?
I mean, I think that's that's the key is for Christ to be that the head, the foundation, the DNA, everything that that holds it all together and that takes modeling. I think sometimes we think that somehow we're going to exhort people to that when what we need to do is model.
I tell people often I'm not a I'm not a preacher, I'm a liver, you know? And yeah, sometimes I do use my mouth, but I live this stuff out of my life. Not that I live it perfectly by any means, but when it's one been one of the good things about living this stuff out in a Western
culture and receiving, particularly in the early years, things like a cult leader people a lot of resistance because it really pushed me. It was almost like persecution, even though it's nothing like what our brothers and sisters are experiencing globally.
But it was least me going against the flow of that, said Jesus. I can't do this without you. And the only reason why I am doing this is because I believe you told me to do this and I love you and want to follow you.
And of course, we can talk about all the disciplines are super important, but this is a relationship that I must continue to surrender to. Moment by moment, day by day, and those disciplines help me live this type of worship as a lifestyle, praying without ceasing.
Constant reminder that the business of Christ is with me, and they're a model that for those around me, that's good in in that one of the things that we talk about a lot is that walking with somebody in this has to be relational.
So you were just talking about modeling, if there's somebody that that's so much more is gathered in the relational environment rather than just that, here's the program to grow through the program. How do you see yourself living that out more?
Some of the people around you like, what is what's that looking like in your context? Sure. You know, again, we say it's more than it's taught. Yeah, but also I think we see even Paul kind of a shifting in roles where I'm moving more to kind of a grandfather role in a lot of the guys.
Call me pops. You know, I've always worked with younger people the whole time, but it's still having people in my home. Kelly and I are meeting over dinner with people. It's still the breaking of the bread, you know, together and letting them see my family.
But there are a lot of times I'll spend a lot more time parenting parents, you know, working functioning like the whole entire incident innovations. 19. I'm still I still get out on the streets and still hit the streets, but nothing like whenever I was younger, where I was constantly on the streets now by myself, working in parenting
and grandparenting, lots of different strands and generations of churches. So my role has shifted over time. But we still must model, you know, at the same time, so to speak, a little bit into this aspect of, um, I think, what a lot of people first hear intentional multiplication.
Maybe they go some through some training with it. It's easy just to pick up the program and also be like, Do I do this stuff that I do this stuff and then I do this stuff, you know, sort of.
But we're talking about it being much more of a relational endeavor. And honestly, this aspect of holistic disciple makes what's been what's been some of your learning of not just adopting a program, but seeing actual holistic disciple. Like, how important is that to you?
Have you seen that theory? Yeah, yeah. The the whole piece of holistic even I'm afraid of in some moments, we say discipleship is short term discipleship. So we think I've got a set up in this set will move us to healthy church.
And you know, and I've had some guys in the younger in the younger stages of learning to facilitate and lead a healthy gathering at church. And they'll say, Yeah, the leader of the group. Yeah. And I'm like, Well, I understand that, but we've got to say, look, it's it's more of a process and it takes us together
. There's emotional pieces to it that are extremely important. There's belief structure, there's living it out. There's different stages, singleness versus marriage versus detracting. Yes, I mean, all those things, all those things, different parts of the sickness. That's why it takes a village.
That's why the whole me doing it all is a total mistake. Yes, in this this is where I think one thing that's kind of confused. At times in this is honestly the easier part of it is teaching people the tools, yes, for sure, that's the easiest.
You can go teach somebody how to shoot, you know, teach somebody how to gather people together in need. Here's the who's kind of a forum for that. That's the easy part. The hard part in many regards is walking with somebody when they have hard shit going on.
And you don't always have a blueprint. You don't have a tool in the tool belt for that. Maybe. Yeah. So you have to rely on word if you rely on the spirit and you have to rely on others around you who maybe have more wisdom than you than me than who ever to speak in the US.
And that's why I love you mentioned the aspect of the city church, where it's not just you and your giftedness, but instead there is a body with many other gifting. So like you might actually be walking, just speak a little bit into yes, speak a little bit into some of the cross-pollination with maybe people who you've gotten
to pour into. But then you've got to see others who have come in and help contribute to to that for different individuals or such. I know I'm speaking very generally when I see it, but I'm trying to give you a little room is that, you know, we've got a great example.
So there was one of our networks that mainly focused on hip hop culture, and that's pretty broad. I mean, you could probably even say a lot of suburban white kids love hip hop. Yeah, I'm talking more kind of a gang culture.
African-American, Hispanic, predominantly in the poor wards and hoods of Houston. So this network really got up and I'll get it started. But Train on was just got to shoot him. He's like the counterparties in the godfather of hip hop and in our city.
We call him both. You know, we teach you about that, but man got really used to him. And I helped serve that network. But then it merged and started multiplying, and then it kind of drew back a little bit in.
And so what happened in that situation is I felt like that all of us, as the five different networks, decided to work together on that one network. Wow, OK. And so it took all of us. We had one that was more clarifying, some that were a little more pastoral.
And of course, Trey, a super high evangelist, bit towards this kind of apostolic and every evangelist. And so us together, all these networks served his network where he is stuck. And then since we did that for about six months, focused on them, we serve all of us.
What about coaching all of his leaders? And as a result of that, we got out of that rut and stuck. We saw one church, two church, three church began to come out of that of us together, all of us together.
I think if me tried to fix all of that, it will never happen. But us, we we are better together. We work together on this strain and it was a beautiful day. I think is a great example of how we city our city leaders working together, even different strains working together to help one of the streets get
out the bodies. We do it. That's awesome. You spoke something in there that that this this is off script, and that's great because I want to go, I wanna go deeper into you mentioned some of the different gifting stories we talked about Apostle Prophet Evander Shepherd, Teacher Pass e speaking Adobe.
How does how did those objectives help within the framework of the movement? Yeah, just an observation, as I've made a lot of mistakes in this era. Try to plug my teams in. It's got to pigeonhole them into 28 parts.
And I just think it's like a lot of things. It's a lot messier. Yeah, it's not always as wide when we want to make. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But also, I think until we get to kind of a broader city level of multiple streams, I think that apex function is something that came out of all going through
Glacier Macedonia and then Asia Minor. And then he writes back that these apex giving and notice the next 21 through six, he's got leaders with him as he's riding back to Rome in the 15th chapter where he says, Man, I've laid the foundation.
I better, not by just my mouth about the power of my life. And now there's no other place in these regions because he's laid a foundation. He's got all these other leaders with him. And then he writes, that is the apex gifting that matures the church.
And I think this is through him walking through movements, experience with other movement leaders. And then we see the apex function really coming to fruition as movement is maturing. Yes. And I try to put those eight pastors like one church network.
Yep. Or plugged them in. Yeah, plug and play manager. We try to we try to get some that. I I think some that's been really unique. You are apostolic and you're gifting in many regards. And I think one thing when you look at it in the scriptures.
Jesus was perfect at all of us. He was the only one who is absolutely the perfect apostle prophet of Andrew Shepherd and teacher. You know, what's interesting, though, is Paul was clearly an apostle. You know in but there's something to that apostolic person having just function in almost all of those roles to a degree for a while
as you're waiting for more of those gifts to emerge and others. Yes. What was that like for you as as you're kind of working on the front end, you're you're just starting in the trenches years back and you're having to function in some of those.
You're not the best at all of them because that's not that's not what you're supposed to do. What was it like for you trying to function in those, but also longing to see others raised up in those over time?
Yeah. I mean, part of that journey even started earlier when I honestly almost hated on fellow Christians because I would get out and go, Yeah, and and and so it was other elders in that context of relationship in my early and mid twenties that were constantly said, you can't really treat that elder over there that way because
he's a different background, upbringing and even gifting than you. You need to learn how to work well with your brother, quit attacking them and saying they don't have faith because they're not sharing the gospel three to five times a day like you are.
Yeah, that really helped. But it also just crushed me because there was really some times where I felt like Moses and I got so angry at the people and all struck the rock a few more times. And he said, I be in the palace.
And I remember God just saying, you've got to develop a heart for my people as well as the loss. Wow. And I just I just remember about 25 or 26 years old coming out of it out of the Baptist business meeting thinking, I can't do this.
I hate this and I hate those people. And God saying. Those are not people overall. Yeah. You know, you're supposed to be of those people. So you've got to figure out how to disagree with them and and love them at the same time and to work with them and to enforce them.
Those were key things to help me be more effective at bringing people along. Yeah, that's just a few examples. I could give you a list of all kinds of failures in service, and maybe I'm really raw and then learned that I got to love people.
And that's super important. To be able to disagree with me are different than me. And even hearing the voice of God in criticisms and attacks. Yeah. Yep. D, do you think there's a tendency of people who start intentional multiplying or to have a ton of zeal?
Maybe it's a little sharp and then we need to grow in in some patients? I never I think sometimes we abuse the word patients the mean like slow down. But I mean, patients with one another said, no, there's a forming that's going to take place.
And it's like, Have you seen that with others now that you've coached into? Yes. Yeah, for sure. And I think that I think my mistakes are helping younger leaders get better. So I say, Look, this is where we are.
This is where we want to be. It is not. Do you any good to expect everybody to be where we want to be? You're not even where we want it. And so we've got to understand there are many.
And if you've heard me on podcast, many may many, you many in our steps between the current reality and where we need to go. And so I think I think patients certainly ingenuity in dealing with people's good. But I think also understanding this is a process.
It's going to take a lot of little steps to help us get people there. And if we can view people and process even in our evangelism, that would be far more effective because sometimes we try to close the deal and it's going to take six months of walking through discovery studies and maybe a year with some of
these guys. And sometimes we blow them off. And that could be key people that we leave to Christ if we would just walk with them and help them unravel, particularly people from huge religious backgrounds. They're not just going to go boom.
Yeah, just forget everything that they've learned. I mean, God miraculously could do that. He could, you know, the mask is rolled up, but often it's a problem. It doesn't seem like it's not all. It does happen. But so we need to be willing to walk with the spirit in the process.
And so that's what I noticed in my myself, too is realizing the Lord brought me on a journey in them. Was I willing to go meet people when they had a journey to walk in? Or was I expecting them to be right where I was at right now, without the patience of the journey that even I myself
walk through like to learn some things, since those have been refining things, even even in the. I guess one last question or even just give you a little bit of space, this is off the cuff again, but I'm.
If you felt like you had something that was burning in your heart or like a word for the bride throughout the United States, I mean, I've been thinking about this a lot. I almost don't need a whole lot of time to think at least what I'm.
I haven't gotten to the end, you know, yet in this process, but I keep thinking about how we need to view our cities like almost like kingdom ecosystems. And so we need all various models of churches working together for one purpose of seeing the transformation of our cities through the saturation of the gospel.
Also, the practical, you know, encountering people where their needs are. But that we all need to work together. And we've been saying, you know, the Johnson Connect, communicate, collaborate, honoring each other and moving towards the same mission. You know, and the same vision in a sense of if we want to see our cities transform.
And I just believe that the world is moving more and more urban and we're seeing movements mostly among village rural for the most part. And so what's it going to take for us to reach our urban cities? And I keep saying his Kingdom Kingdom eco systems of working to gather every passion, every people, every place to sing
the gospel in every sphere domain segment so that we see the transformation in our cities. That's kind of the big picture. And that's part of it. Yeah, monograph. But I really believe that that's what needs to happen instead of a legacy in the micro churches or cults or the non-profits.
Well, I don't want to undermine healthy biblical accuracy in healthy biblical church, but there's also an extension of the church. And so we've been saying there's apostolic team at functions and church, there's a local church expression than their city church.
And so and that's the way the church is going to be visibly expressed throughout the city. And we've got to get back to that because we're way too segmented and siloed in order to do that. Yeah. Rather thanks.
I honestly, just because you've labored faithfully for many years, I think there's a lot of things we can sit and talk about and actually learn from that. Just to praise the Lord for this strength, I. I having a having a shorter glimpse of laboring in this regard, knowing you've endured a lot over the years of trying to
be faithful, having those frustrations have in those times you've wanted to quit. Just to say Praise the Lord that we have. I know there's probably a ton of fruit out there that, quite frankly, a lot of people would never know that you've had your hand in of being like, Man, you did something a couple of generations earlier
, you know what I mean? But just praise the Lord that by you receiving Jesus and being generous with him, I think there's a very beautiful thing not only in Houston, but obviously many other places. So just want to praise for that.
Thank you, man, and I'm grateful for you and appreciate you honoring me and and feel like you know that we're 18 years apart, I think. And I just feel like that. My heart for the younger generation, God's going to use you.
Just as I've stood on the shoulders of others, we stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before us, and hopefully we're handing off our mistakes, so there will be better for it. And so I appreciate you going hard and trusting Christ and always your example.
I appreciate you. Hey, would you just close our time frame for sure? Yeah. Lord Jesus Christ to you and in recognize that we can't do any of this on our own that apart from you, we can do nothing.
And so we choose to trust you that you are the divine and we are the branches. And through us, you bear great fruit. And so, Lord, will you pop up little trees of life in cities all across America in May that overflow into the rural and may you send some from rural back to city, city out to
rural however you want to work at? I'm not in control. You are. And so we come together and say, Lord, will you use us? Will you raise up new laborers and new places and new fields, new artists and lord, we cry out, will you give us donations as an inheritance?
And so we just thank you, Lord, for all of your promises. All your goodness. Jesus, we love you and any of those that are watching. This may be encouraged and inspired to look to you, Lord, and to trust you and obey you in everything they do in Jesus name.
Thank you for listening to the L1A podcast. If you're interested in learning more about this topic or getting connected with the other disciple makers in your area, visit loved one another. Life again, that's loved one another. Short life.