Video Transcript: Phase 2 Culture

When it comes to building and transformational discipleship ministry, we talked  about the first phase, which was context, establishing your context for ministry  once you have done that, and you have an established ministry that is, well, that is defined. You know where you're going. You knowing how you're going to get  there. You positioned yourself as as a neighbor. You understand what your role  is as a part of the body of Christ, that you're that you're one. You're one of many  missionaries, Christian leaders around the globe that are serving God at this  time, at this place, this is your kingdom moment, where God is using you in the  advancement of his kingdom. So you're playing a very important role, but so  you've established that context, but now, once you've done that, now you need  to create a culture, and there are two things that are critical to a transformational discipleship culture. One is thinking and the other is apprenticing. Let's take a  look at this. If you look at Jesus's ministry, there were two activities that were  instrumental in his ministry, but we tend not to talk about them very much. And  the first one was he apprenticed. I mean, he called his disciples to follow him.  He didn't put them in he didn't put them in a classroom. Instead, he gave them a job, he gave them a task to do, and that task was to go and preach that the  kingdom of heaven is near, repent and repent and receive the gospel. So they  were given a task, and they were involved in on the spot training. As they  walked along, he taught them. He He answered their questions, he helped them  understand, understand that when the disciples were walking with him, he was  not taking them through a catechism class. They had already grown up in the  synagogue. They had already they already knew the basic teachings. They  understood. They had heard the Torah. They knew all those things. Jesus is now involved with apprenticing them as they are given a task. He is training them  about that task, about life, answering their questions and moving them towards  the role that they will play in the church. But he did it through apprenticing. Then  secondly, thinking he fielded questions all the time. He was constantly  responding to the questions and the concerns of the people around him. He was constantly engaging people with giving them answers to their questions. So he  was involved in getting people to think and apprenticing them. Well, there are  two activities that are instrumental in transformational discipleship as well. One  of them is thinking. This is what happens during the pre adolescent or middle  school age. You want to begin to get your youth comfortable with dialog, honest  answers to honest questions, and you want that talk to be real. You want that  talking to be genuine. Many times in a Christian organization, if you're Christian  and you're working with youth from the community, they know you're a Christian, maybe they attend or are forced to attend church, but they really are not.  They're not into Christianity, but they know how to talk to the Sunday School  teacher so that the Sunday School teacher feels good about them. They know  what the pat answers are. They know the God talk when you have your youth  program and you're asking them to think you must be careful to reject any kind 

of talk that is superficial or phony, you want to establish a place where there can  be real honesty. That kid who goes to church every Sunday but really has a lot  of questions or really is upset about something when they come into your group, they should be able to talk freely, but you have to establish that. You have to  demonstrate that that really is what you want. And so that's why you have to  reject the God talk. That's when you have to continue to ask probing questions.  What do you mean by that? Is this really what you think? And you have to  welcome them when they're being honest, because when you do that, now  they're free to think. They're free to think. And so thinking is a part of youth  discipleship. You want them thinking. Jesus said you'll know the truth. The truth  will make you free. Will set you free. Well, we need to allow for the truth to  penetrate young people's lives, but we can only do that if we allow them to think, so that they can understand, they can hear, they can grasp for themselves,  what, what truth really, really is. So thinking has to be a part of it. And Middle  School is a great time, okay, that's the early adolescent period. They are there.  They're squirrely, they're they're crazy. But if you give honest answers to honest  questions, if you create a safe space where they can be honest in their in their in their sharing and in their dialog, then you have established something for them  that is very precious for them, and they will utilize that time outside, outside of  your club program, in school or at home. They may need to play. They may feel  they need to play games with people. They need to fool people. Need to tell  people what they want to hear. But when they come to you in your group, they  should be able to have meaningful exchange, meaningful dialog, dialog. And  they are. They are learning through thinking, through asking questions and by  listening, they can do that you want to establish that with your group. So thinking is very important. And then the second part is apprenticing. That's when as  young, and ideally, this is ideal when your middle schoolers, as they move into  the high school age, that's when you want to invite them into your Emerging  Leaders Initiative. Now I say invite, because being involved as an emerging  leader, it involves teaching others. It will involve developing a program for  elementary age kids. It will involve what you do with them a couple hours a  week in teaching or leading a small group study, you will have to do hours in a  week during the summer when you do it could be an extended vacation Bible  school, or you can actually do an extended tutoring program or or a date  summer day camp for for elementary age kids. But they need to commit to doing that. So in doing so, when they commit to that, then they are. They position  themselves to where they can learn while doing as they're working with kids and they're they're in a setting where they're teaching each that that's when their  divine imprint begins to show up. One young person might say, you know, I, I, I  like studying how all this stuff fits together. Why are we doing all this? Another  person will say, will just say, well, I, I just like, I seem to gravitate towards  helping, putting things together. I'm kind of a helper. Another person might do. 

Something else I like. I like being the person up front and talking and engaging  another person might say, I'm more of a thoughtful person those things. They  won't say that, but it will come out in their behaviors and in their actions. And so  they're being apprenticed while they are doing they are revealing who they are,  and so that becomes an exciting time of this. It's a part of discovering who they  are in Christ. Well, what does God say about this? What does God say about  that? The Apprentice thing, the teaching and what they learn through the  experiential, experiential teaching and learning is just invaluable to them. So  these two, these two activities, are instrumental, thinking and apprenticing. But  how do you do that? There are tools for building a culture tools. One of them is  what I call decoding. You've heard of the code of the streets, the unwritten rules. Well, if you've got this code, you've got this code of the streets, that is, that has  penetrated young people's minds with thinking a certain way about how to  survive in in my setting, in my culture, then you must become skilled at decoding that. And then on the other side, if, if young people have they've been to church,  they've heard gospel messages, but those messages are not really clear about  what God is saying, and you want them to really hear what God is saying, then  you've got some decoding to do on the Bible side. You have to explain, You  have to explain the gospel in bite sized pieces. You must deal with  misconceptions of the Christian faith, and you must decode false ideas young  people have about the Bible, about Christianity, about the church. So you're  doing decoding, you're discerning ideas, and then you're coming up with biblical  ideas to challenge the ideas that have been formed because of the code of the  street. So there's decoding, then there is modeling. We talked a little bit about  this before we'll talk about it some more, because this is about living close  enough to be studied that your life is you're living a life that is worth imitating.  Young people can spot a phony just like that. They're at that age where they can see very clearly through people. And so you want to have you want to live a life  that is congruent between what you believe in your and your behavior, and that  has integrity. And so modeling becomes very important. And then the last one is  Harambe. And I use the word Harambe to describe the youth club meeting.  Harambe is a Swahili word. It means, let's get together and push or let's pull  together. It it is, it is a word that it's a rallying cry for unity. I believe it was the  rallying cry for Kenya as they moved towards independence. But the Harambe  moment is the Youth Club program, when that moment when you're meeting  with the kids, and that's the time when you're getting those honest answers to  honest questions, you're building that that thinking kind of culture, and there are  ways to approach Harambe, so we're going to talk about that as well. So  decoding, modeling, Harambe, let's get together and push these are the tools for building a transformational discipleship culture, and that's what we're going to  get into next.