Disciples Pt.5 - Community | Shawn Bolz | Expression58

god I pray that even help us today just just give us your value even more for what you do in community and just encourage us about what we have and help us the strength of what we don't have yet in Jesus name so I want to talk about community and how discipleship you know happens or community is a catalyst for discipleship in our generation and in any great revival that's a real revival we see the strength of the revival and the families that carry it not by the fruit of how many people are saved not by a few changes here and there but actually are is the community changed our families change our divorce rates going down our adoption rates going up those kinds of things actually are real indicators of revival there can be a lot of activity where people get excited but I've seen those kinds of movements that are excuse me maybe a feeling of God or an outpouring of a spirit but when we actually talk about the word revival it means that things change and the best place to see it and the place that affects communities the most is when they see families that are healthy and when they see families that are expressing in for emotional spiritual and physical health which is so important and a lot of times a discipleship when we talk about discipleship we talk about in the context of mentoring a gift or mentoring a talent or mentoring a career path we don't talk about in the context of what it's really for and I'm going to read to you out of Ephesians and this is the passion translation so we don't have it up on the screen but if he's in spor in the starts in verse 3 it says be faithful to guard the sweet harmony of the Holy Spirit among you and the bonds of peace and this word for please peace I'll talk about in a minute it's actually the word Shalom and I'm gonna describe that too because it's not just a Jewish buzzword that they say to each other it's actually like a word that is deeply a part of what God intended for us in the first place being one body and one spirit as you were called into the same glorious hope of divine destiny now this word for destiny here that we're all called into is actually an invitation it's into the kingdom and then all of its privileges so when discipleship happens when we're in unity together we start to see a discipleship of the kingdom that were called into which is not this kingdom of the earth it's very easy to get excitable about this kingdom of the earth and what can happen here but it's a kingdom of heaven which invades the earth it's an opposite kingdom or different kin in the earth and all of its privileges so when you're being Siple dwell you start to get a full picture or when you being mentored by a community you start to get a full picture of the privileges and the rights that you have as a kingdom citizen as a Christian and when you're in a healthy community you start to see the rights over your family over your marriage of your kids of your finances of your resources over what's available to your community over worldwide missions you see it in a very holistic way threaded all the way through the problem is a lot of times when we when we're going after this kind of connection of mentoring or discipleship or we're going after community we go after in one dimension not the full access of all the privileges we have as a kingdom citizen and so God wants to redefine according to what Jesus talked about the whole time the keys of the kingdom that he's giving us what our authority is and what we should be focused on together which I think our church does a really good job of this also in Ephesians 4 3 when it says this word Shalom I'm gonna read this in NIV now make every effort to keep yourselves united and bound together in peace so in other words Paul's commissioning these guys and saying be committed to actually stay connected in this work for peace Shalom one of the main definitions of it is the word connection you know we've had you know before and after a moment our generation because we had brené Brown define what connection is in a new ways of psychologists I think it's very relevant to our theology I want to read a few of those definitions as she said and one of them is I define this brené Brown i defined connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen heard and valued when they can give and receive without judgment and when they drive sustenance and strength from that relationship so we being seen heard without judgment they feel connected because they draw sustenance another way to say this courage starts out with showing up and letting ourselves be seen because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic and perfect selves the world our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance so in other words there has to be a place that we accept ourselves then present ourselves in truth to the world right now we have social media so we do a lot of highlight reels so if we have a bad day we're like oh I'm being so real right now I'm vulnerable with my bad day they didn't have my dry-cleaning you know it's like we don't have a lot of real moments over social media it's not it's not that it's usually like the prettiest moments I mean I see people in real life after I've seen them on social media and I'm in shock sometimes away the angles you choose to show yourself online versus on offline are a completely different social media actually has 25% less impact this is according to Psychology Today on any given conversation point we're trying to have it no matter what it is if it's good bad ugly whatever it has 25% less impact than a face-to-face encounter or a verbal exchange so when you understand that God made that some wired us for connection he wired us to be seen known and heard and I love that when I say revival looks like family the place we have the most mentoring is in the context of family like when you have grandparents parents brothers and sisters little kids and then you know even grand great grandkids those kinds of things because we have a model at the stages of life like when you're looking at people who are really successful are you looking at the current generation who are successful in your genre right now or are you looking at the grandparents who are already successful and are living at a legacy because of it you know you look when you're looking at oh I want to have this incredible career are you looking at people who already have done the career for 30 or 40 years and now are living an incredible life because of it or are you looking at people who are just like five steps ahead of you and I believe we need both models again in the church right now we have fathers and mothers sometimes fathers always but mothers sometimes and we have sons and daughters we don't have a lot of big brothers big sisters uncles aunts we don't have all the stages of growth and so we're not getting as well-rounded and as a matter of fact most of the stuff that we create is either for the novice the new believer or it's for somebody who exists in leadership of a church there's not a lot in between there so if we're still filling in those gaps in between and if you listen to a Christian radio station which we have several here in LA but we have like K 11 other ones a lot of the songs that are put on there the majority of the songs are help me heal me deliver me I phone away from you again I'm so sorry God so as for people in their first couple years of salvation or people who don't have a very good sense of character you know long term and no offense but because that's not the argument you're in once you have a maturity you're not in this place before god of like you know the 101 so you actually are going further and Barda group did a statistical research years ago and 2011 or 12 or whatever and they took some of the biggest churches in America they said how mature can these churches make the average believer and then what happens when there's a fall-off because they found out that 50% of Christians don't go to church anymore in America so why and they found out the average Church can only mature you in your first five years of ministry or life or whatever whatever they're trying to mature you in and then that you either get involved because your kids go to school there or whatever or you leave because you're done and so we have all these people who are no longer grounded in a church community because churches are not always the best community centers there's actually better community centers to see like ala outside the church for different things if you're just going after sports or you're going after dance or you're going after you know public speaking or something like that you can find better outlets to mentor you and train you outside the church but what we're supposed to be as a church together the reason why we orbit around the church together I want to talk about that in a minute is because we are going after the keys or the privileges of the kingdom and we're deciding each other in our culture as far as how does Kingdom work in everyday life and you faith comes by hearing and as you hear each other's stories and as we're vulnerable and the more connected you get the more vulnerable you are the more discipled you get even by the culture of a community itself and so you have to think about like the fact that if I'm gonna tell you a story about Sheree and I dating right now I'm gonna tell you a fun funny public version of that story I will make you laugh and you will feel bad for me a few times you'll feel like Sheree is great but um you're not gonna you know you're gonna like all he got broken up with oh you know but you're gonna hear a very public version if I'm with a few you know maybe a home group or a few friends I've done life with a little bit I'm gonna tell you a deeper version you might actually learn something from it or it might actually give you a paradigm if you're a bunch of single people you might be like that's really interesting but if we're deep before it connected if I feel safe with you I'm gonna give you a version that my story just like your story your love story if you tell somebody and you're raw with them and you're really real with them and you could tell like you could put it on the table we're gonna really learn about who Jesus is in his nature because we have a place to be vulnerable real with each other and the problem is a lot of us don't go deep enough in our community to get that real and we don't and we don't expect that real from others because we're not giving that real to others now the other thing is a lot of us when we have expectation of a discipleship looks like we look at the weird charismatic Pentecostal thing that's happening right now which I'm not sure I totally understand it where everyone's mama this and Papa this and they have no real connection to the people who are calling on that but people are calling them that are hoping that they will one day be raised up to be like them you know somehow they they put everything into that like mama Heidi Baker I'm putting all my chips in that basket and I'm shaky and when I pull it out I'm gonna turn into you you know I don't know I know how that all works but the problem with that is that that's timing based on a real sense of relationship most of the time it's just not based on a real connection and a lot of people who would want me to mentor them it's the number one question or ministry gets we had probably 15,000 or more people request it last year alone okay that's a lot of people and so we had over and most of them are saying will you be my spiritual father it wasn't just like hey can you train me people who I have no context for to ask me to be their spiritual father and I'm like oh that's amazing but then I realized that they have a whole life that if either spiritual father because I am my kid's father I'd have to deal with them on a different level and if I even took one more person in my life right now it'd be different because what happens when you're really a father well that person is in your life in a way that they can disrupt everything anytime they want to heart Brent Hartley in the middle of the night last night twice hardly at a poop she's four years old she's up another time pooping we're up with her it's not like someone else is gonna come to our house unless you have a night nanny and you're lucky but sound like someone else that's a know anything I'm like wow where do you get those how do they come and live with you can I have one but we'll pay for those pseudo it's not like we we have a night nanny who's gonna come in and help hardly poop it's gonna be mom or dad you know it's like she was up the night before crying you know what she was crying about she thought we didn't give her a dessert for dinner I had to remind her then she started crying that we think of Harper dessert for dinner and I don't remind her we gave it we literally went to a dance party and you guys had like tons of ice cream too much ice cream oh yeah okay I forgive you I'm like no there's no forgiveness like I did nothing wrong this is your weird four-year-old night thing that happened you know but with my kids I'm planning and resources for the rest of their lives with my kids I'm thinking of the colleges that they're gonna go to if I adopt it somebody else and I'm not saying natural option but just picture this if in the natural family if I pull somebody else in their life I will have to either downgrade their college experience or make more money to upgrade their college experience for everyone I give a resource that belongs to my immediately family - I actually downgrade my immediate family's expert or experience unless I adapt and change for that experience but it's hard to adapt and change their experience well spiritual family when we have a real spiritual family we actually slow down for each other we stop for each other at times you're not just a cog in a system if you're a leader here we're actually looking at like how does your life work how do we how do we love you as you're loving us how do we love this community together the whole thing and so it means that if you're not part of the community and you're like I have entitlement I demand this you're a church you should give me money right now I'm living in my car and we're like we've never had a conversation before that's a lot to ask there's a university mission who deals with this kind of issue a lot better than we do there's a lot of other people who deal with us but you you have to have a commitment in your heart to go on a journey with us as a community cuz we're paying a price to be here we're actually suffering in some areas in our family by having things in common that we wouldn't have had if it wasn't for a commitment to Christ our commitment to each other and if you want just to dobbed yourself into that just based on me that's not gonna work in the name of Jesus so I'm gonna work and I love this I was reading this again the swee I've read this like three times but this week I read it again Dietrich Bonhoeffer he made this statement in life together he says the person who loves their dream of community will destroy community but the person who loves those around them will create community and that is the the literally root system of what's evil in the church right now it's people have a vision of what they think community is mama high name Papa Bill why aren't they spending time with me I call them papa five times and usually what we want them to spend time with us on isn't real life it's an imaginary scenario I'm gonna change the wrong to do justice I'm gonna do the thing and I so I need this person my life because it gives me significance in my dream that is not discipleship or mentoring this zero decipher mentoring happens in those moments what discipleship and mentoring is is that person may help you to understand something inside of you like Paul did with Timothy where he said I'm gonna impart something to you but I cannot keep it fan into flame I can't want it more than you want it for yourself you I love your heart for me I've such a passion for you as a spiritual son but you my friend have to fan this thing into flame in your own heart that's a good butt kicking and discipleship right there you know in community but he I loved what he said that Timothy because he said Timothy it was in 2nd Timothy 1:5 he says I know that you have what for me your spiritual father and your tears are dear to me I love that that's the kind of connection they had I wasn't like Timothy just had a church that he plants out of Paul's dream he literally was a man that Paul had a best into raising up and he loved Paul like someone like for real for real and he was weeping that Paul was stuck in prison umbrella wasn't fair Pollitz and physical conditions he didn't want him to be there and and so Paul's acknowledging you went for me but I'm telling you your your your life of legacy and lineage from your grandmother to your mother - now me laying hands on you fan that and to flame do something with that now let me say it this way community you start to get excited about your potential and the potential of what can happen in the group with you if you're only excited about your potential you're not in the community that's just truth but if you're excited about what God can do through the group of people in your community with if you've loved their lives if you love the relationships if you're proud of who they are that's when you know you're onto something you're in something for real you're in something that actually you'll pay a price for you're in for something that when somebody says something bad against it you just smile you don't defend it like oh you just come you don't know why people you know I have several websites against me in videos against me and I can tell the people who don't know me very well because they want to defend me and they're like he's not a cult leader he's not a Google property he doesn't do all that stuff but the people who are my friends just laugh at it just go whatever you know it's like that has 300 views it's not a big deal who cares I bet of people who are like trying to defend me and think that they're connected because they're being my defenders and they're helping me those types of people aren't the people who eat free those are the kinds of people that are trying to defend something cuz I feel afraid for you the people who really know you aren't they know when to be afraid for you you know they know when to be nervous for you and when you're a community you're in community because your heart isn't community and you care about the welfare of others as much as you care about your own welfare if you love others as you love yourself and that's when you're in community and that's when discipleship can start to really happen because discipleship the way you think you need it isn't what you need most the time now your first foundation as a Christian if you're brand new Christian you do need some mentoring and how to read the Bible how to pray how to have those those those permissions to do things in the kingdom that are just so beautiful that we have the rights to but once you once you kind of get past that period after a while you start to need to know from other people the mature things like what do you do when your kids are 11 and they're going through puberty they're going through the challenges that if they're in school they're going through identity stuff like how do you deal with that kid and you need someone to remind you of how powerful you are as a parent in God and that doesn't happen by even necessary your spiritual fathers because a lot of time with spiritual fathers are there either way older than you or outside of your you know like most people go to church where that lead pastors are five years ahead of them in life or in the spirit that's just been proven over and over that's what people do well for me and Sri you know like we were we were laughing cuz we had some issues come up just as far as even how to plant our own organization and stuff and we went to some organizational masters who have incredible organizations and they couldn't help us because they were too far along they that what they said to us is oh we have confidence have faith in your dream this is great that you'll get it all so we had to go to people who are like four or five years ahead of us and go this is gonna work what we're doing though and they're like laughing going oh my gosh you're in it this is what you got to do here's the accounting thing here's the and they're in it and straight and I even made a marriage eCos at the end of last year it's so pretty new and we did it for people in the first 10 years of marriage although anybody can watch it we did it because our CEO said hey 80% of people who follow us on Facebook and on social media are young married couples are typically married in the first 15 years of marriage I think we should do an eCourse because when we had babies and we were around most of my family who all had grown-up children no one had new babies they got what toddlers were like and so they were like are you gonna let her throw a fit like that I'm like you want to just thought about it you go ahead we're gonna wait this one out you know go to your room or we're having fun in here have fun in here go to put all the love and logic stuff Danny soaked stuff let me kids on purpose and we're doing but our parents and our friends forgot how hard it was to have toddlers and so if we asked them questions they literally had zero good input and they love you mom and dad if you're watching but my mom my mom and dad her and Lisa you know my mother-in-law they're like why don't you just stop that in other words shut it down you know tell them to stop it it's basically the control that our parents generation lived in which is like stop it and you overpower them to tell them they're wrong as opposed to giving them choices to be powerful and it looked totally different than their parenting styles and methods but we needed to talk to some people who had eight and nine year olds that this worked with because we didn't need people who had grown up kids because they probably never used the same Kingdom tools that we're trying to use and so we went to people and we're like tell us we're gonna be okay and we're gonna be alive please tell us my my my oldest isn't gonna be a tiny dictator for the rest of her life and you know won't plan out my whole existence for me and they were amazing and they would tell there was just a few years ahead of us they were amazing and I needed the grandparents for other questions I needed them for lots of other things and they need me my stage of life rather with other things but I needed the community around us that had kid just a little older than us are so you know it's like hone and Jennifer who you know they have perfect children they were perfect to talk to because they know they know what having strong-willed children is like because their kids are very they're leaders they're called the leadership so having friends who have kids just a little older is way different than kids who are they now have grandkids and they forgot what that was like because now they don't have to actually take care of the grandkids typically they just get to play with them and they forget what it's like after you have a lot of sugar what they turn into in community spiritual community the differences we have the emphasis of growing in Jesus and when you're on a journey of growing with Jesus you need the mature stories you need the mature answering devices you need people who are ahead of you in a lot of areas so that when you ask the big questions you don't get a religious answer you don't get just a rulebook answer but you get a lifestyle answer of somebody who actually walked and paid a price for something and when they answer you you feel I bled over this one I bled a little bit over my oldest I mean so when I give that answer to close friends I'm like let's talk about this formula because I had to die a lot of deaths and I didn't know how to die Dane's came up in my old man that I thought had been so long dead that when they came back up I'm like I hate that part of myself I didn't like myself as a new dad I at all like there's parts me I'm like on what is that who is this person that I I never met before until I had a child who was stronger than me I needed those friends so if Shalom has connection and we're supposed to go after that place of connectivity the Shalom and a community and then in the place of community we can grow the deepest and the fastest that we have more accelaration through community to grow although in community you slow down and you're not trying to hit the same benchmarks because if we're a loner we're growing just in whatever we want to grow in a lot of times we're just trying to develop that we have a lane that we're trying to develop this skill set this accomplishment and this performance and you can grow really fast in those areas without having a complete holistic life and you can run over a lot of people to do it and that happens all the time so right here in LA and we have to come to a place where we're not just trying to grow in our lane but we're actually trying to grow in our life and we're trying to grow in the world we're trying to grow the world and the thing that looks like kingdom not just our own personal Grace on our own career or whatever but there's something about learning that once you start to need conversations like when I was single I didn't need a lot of conversations I didn't need conversations about sex I didn't need conversations I mean I was trying to avoid that subject you know so I'm not a lot of conversations about certain amount of finances until I got married that we had we start creating more finances after I was married because I had a business partner she's an amazing partner yeah why didn't eat a lot of conversations about a lot of things and some of you come there's certain conversations you haven't needed but when you're in a community the beautiful thing is as you grow into different phases of yourself the people around you actually they are part of God's system to grow the kingdom inside of you and grow your perspective and one of the greatest things that we can do for each other is provide Kingdom godly perspective perspective in itself can disciple you which is so beautiful and I found myself orbiting around friends and family members and community not just when it was hard but also when it was good you know how many of you moved here from somewhere else most of you so that means and all of you here watching that's the interesting thing so we have like in LA I think it's something like 60% transplants in our generation and the Los Angeles right it's like some huge number I'm gonna I'm making up a number but it's a huge number the hard thing with that is that you don't have a plumber to call you never know who to call let alone when you're having a life breakdown are you having some some anxiety issues you're having something that's going on that you don't know how to overcome on your own you don't know who to reach out to so you're coming here and everything's new from mowing your lawn if you have one all the way to you know where to get your car cleaned all the way to my child has a speech impediment know what to do with her all the way you know everything's new when you come to a new city and so you need the resource well kingdom wise when you get saved God has planned out a beautiful design through local community for you that will actually nurture you as you nurture it as you're vulnerable and connected to yourself and as you give that away to your community around you you become part of God's scenario as you orbit around whatever he's called you to then it actually feeds you just like is the Sun right now or we're orbiting around the Sun the Sun is actually feeding us right now it's giving us nutrition I found I had vitamin D deficiency and I live in LA I don't know what to do with that so I'm gonna go over just five areas real Fastenal and and these are the five areas of discipleship we should be looking for and practicing you should always be making disciples and when you make disciples in our generation it's not always finding somebody who will follow you and will just be your puppy dog they're your project and that's how a lot of the church looks at discipleship is I'm gonna go find a project and we get a homeless person saved I'm gonna do something in their life and they'll be my project and discipleship the beautiful thing about discipleship is Jesus shared himself with the people he discipled as if they were deer near friends who could relate to everything he was saying he basically pretended like they were more mature than they were have you ever been into a family scenario where some of the older people are talking maybe about something serious like one of the wars they lived through or about the depression or something and all of a sudden even the little kids are listening in and it's way too mature for them maybe the little kids but they're maybe like the eight year old nine year olds listening and actually getting something out of conversation because what the church has done is we've lowered the common denominator to the lowest common denominator to where sometimes you feel like it's the preschool or kindergarten teacher it doesn't know how to talk outside of a kindergarten talk have you been around her beforehand before okay here's one for getting it to and you're like I will kill you you know instead of going for a higher common denominator to show mature life to show what it looks like to make mature decisions even a lot of it like I said our music or movies or TV shows a lot of those things have always been the basics which are needed because we need to harvest a whole generation but then what do we do once we harvest them I am convinced the church isn't ready for harvest on the level that God wants to bring it because we don't know how to have those mature conversations even sometimes with each other we're learning those conversations with each other we're learning so the number one way that we we actually mentor is having mentoring conversations which means I share my journey of faith where I'm at right now I'm not just salvation story but maybe it's the faith to get to LA maybe it's the faith to get into housing maybe it's a faith I think about Chris and Julie and how they brought their kids who are senior pastors from Oklahoma come out here on a God faith journey and you've lived in how many houses since you've been here 20 houses but you're in the one you're living in you have a lease yes so 20 houses and there's lots of reasons why none of them are self-imposed torture and uh but they were in 20 houses before with all their kids before they got into the house sir now what's releasing and they were coming over and sharing their story and she had cancer or she she was fighting cancer right now at the same time and they're sharing this incredible journey store where they can go home and have it a little easier with more support but they're standing with God out here knowing that he wants to do something for their children and for them as a couple they left a really comfortable life and job to come out here on a faith journey and they're telling us a story and in the conversations because they're being vulnerable it's mentoring our family it's something in their story causes me to become more like Christ something in us listening helps son become more like Christ because we're not listening with judgment we're not listening with criticism we're not listening with you should just go back you know we're not listening with opinion we do have opinions because we're humans but at the same time we're looking at you know I didn't have a good but I but we do have opinions when we're listening but it even part of how you know you having an opinion and your friends you know kind of going back and forth I love that scripture in Proverbs says wounds from a friend can be trusted that scripture oh I'm doing the one when iron sharpens iron I think it's proverbs 27:17 iron sharpens iron and it says so one man sharpens another what that means is that in an argument with someone you love or someone who's part of your culture God's giving you know actually sharpen you it will actually make you more you don't have to like go too deep forgiveness of bitterness when it's somebody you love because you can have those conversations a little punchy or challenging because it's actually part of what sharpens you to become better and so in committed community there could be hard conversations on the table at some times even about things you're going after in faith even if the person totally doesn't get you but they have access to the Spirit of God about you and they can begin to see what he sees even if they don't see it a lot of people don't consciously do that they don't go on looking for the vision of who you were in the father's heart the beginning of eternity they're not thinking that way they're just listening your story and all of a sudden the wisdom and counsel of God comes out of their mouth towards you and sometimes it's even contradicting what they're thinking have you ever had that happen to you I didn't know if I agreed with this person but this came out of my mouth I guess God does and he wants to use me right now and that's happened several times you know and we know the second way was just getting involved if you're a new Christian to take classes and you know normal mentoring process is going to a life group those are all important but then there's a the mentoring or coaching conversations and looking for people and I borrow people for this all the time and you can't - which is we're in a stage of growth their life usually it's with family or it's with something about boundaries or something hundreds is a huge thing the more mature you get the more you need them it's great because you're saying no to a thousand things now to keep your yes to one thing and so you know like going to somebody who's a little ahead of me and saying how do I keep my nose no how do i how do I why do I keep saying yes to things that takes my family's time away and then I end up spending their time instead of just my time they help me out help me to keep my boundaries and they're like Shawn let me give you a vision of boundaries and you having these mentoring conversations they're not your spiritual father necessarily but they're fatherly and going up to somebody and saying in a community you can go up and borrow them for a second and say like you know Chris and Julie are pastors now so you can go up and say I can I have one pastor discussion with you sorry for saying this to you consider like no please don't but can I have one can I just borrow your you know like maybe you're you've been around them or whatever in their social groups you know can I have it could I just have like a fifteen minute conversation here's what we're thinking here's what we're going through like have a mentoring conversation sometimes people just need to be heard more than they even need an answer like I don't know if you're married or not but you if you're married you know that someone's your wife talks for a few hours and she doesn't want answers she figured out her whole thing by herself and she just needed you to smile go mm-hmm mm-hmm and then she said are you looking at your iPad are you watching a video I'm talking to you know never happened I promise then the next way is to be an intentional relationship with two or three people that are ahead of you like beginning to let your life orbit around people who it might be the stage of life sir and it doesn't mean that they're spiritually like there's people in my life that I'm more prophetic than they are in this sense if I hear God more but it does not make me more mature than they are at all zero and so I'm not looking for people who are in my gift set more ahead of me I'm not looking I'm looking at people who are killing it life or I've been through stuff to where now they're making great choices and I can look in their life and go I like you as a matter of fact most of people you want to be kind of ahead of you in life are not the people you see from stages whether it's entertainment or Hollywood or ministry or whatever those people are not the people you who even have time or capacity for you it's better to find the people like we have a doctor in our life that I really appreciate him and his family and and and so I ask him questions there's other people who are like business people don't understand the ego who I just love how they've killed in life so I asked them questions but I'm not looking for and built we do have bill and Benny Johnson which has been a blessing or life and they've been so amazing and the times that we need to press that relationship and beautiful but there's people who have more time and capacity and they and they have an assignment because they're part of our everyday community not just our yearly community so we have to look for people that could be part of our weekly and monthly community not just our oh I'm gonna see them at Thanksgiving I can't wait to talk to them community and that means that sometimes you you sacrifice when you're in a community like this and you you don't lower standards at all but you actually allow people in who you don't necessarily have general upfront chemistry with but you go you know what I'm investing this community I'm gonna open my heart to some people and I'm gonna allow myself to go on a journey here with people and find out who God's placed here that's part of how you learn how amazing the community is like there's some times that Janet hunter will come off of a buzz after meeting with a bunch of people and telling me in Sheree all the people are in this community and they're just so excited I like I can't believe we have these people in our community and we're like listing their stories going are you kidding me this is amazing like how do we how did this get attracted here that's cuz you guys are so beautiful it's you know it's but looking to build an intentional relationships with two or three people in your actual spiritual community that you call your spiritual family and then trusting God that means you're gonna set deliberate times if you look at 12 months you're gonna try and spend time with them four to seven times a year and you're gonna make an intentional so it's not you're tired of synergy we're like oh about your house think on your cooking but you're actually like what's going on with you spiritually here's what's going on with me spirit so you're having those talks we call it spiritual tracking we call it sharing our spiritual journey or prophetic journey like why are you here what what's the news story what's God doing in your life right now if you don't have anyone who's asking what's God doing your life right now you're not being mentored by your community and you're not mentoring your community because you're probably not asking that because when you start to ask that you get that back what's God showing you what's God doing what's your life like we're usually showing up where your highs and your lows what are your breakdowns and breakthroughs when you have people that you're talking to about those things it's totally different than the people you talk to you about oh my manager at work Volvo blah blah blah we're not talking about the people who you're just having lunch break words we're talking about people you're saying I'm looking to access the way that the kingdom works in all of its privileges in my life so I'm putting it out there like here's what's going on in my kingdom life thank you for giving me now feedback naturally the last thing is Paul and Timothy there is times when God brings a mentoring or a discipleship and irfan and it looks more like family than organization because Timothy wasn't loyal to Paul because he traveled together or they had ministry together whatever he was loyal because Paul helped unlocked the kingdom inside of him and he was forever indebted because Paul became like a father to his heart and this happens this is this should be happening more and more and multiplying in churches around the world but they can't be the senior pastor is that for all of you remember we had a group that migrated here many years ago ten years ago from pastor Jack Hayford Church and I love pastor Jack I mean he's like I love the Foursquare denomination on the pastor Jack had anybody ever go to church on the way because it isn't like he the best he's one of the best pastors so so he's you know more semi-retired now more retired now but I remember when this group came over from that church and I remember they came in and they said well you know pastor Jack stands at the back and he shakes everyone's hands on the as well pastor Jack doesn't get stopped by every other person for the deepest importations prophetic in their life because when I say in a line they all want prayer and breakthrough when he stands in line they just won't say hi and we love your message I'm like whoa we think you should stand at the door more so that we're activating a prophet or a pastoral community we're activating more people so that we we organically get family in the midst of this we're doing groups we're doing all these things but I don't want to be the figurehead of what it looks like to be fathering here but I love that Jack does them you know if pastor Jack and I were in an airport and people came up to have us sign books they would look at him and go thank you for your message in the blood of Christ forever and they look at me and go should I get divorced or not there's a different poll because of different gifts and so when you're when you're in a community of people like you're gonna find fathers and mothers in life groups not just the big person at the front of the stage but you're gonna find the people in the community and in this community we're finding life and strength where God's transplanted from all kinds of places around the world just like 80 percent of you raise your hand that this isn't your hometown you came from somewhere in your equity we want to transfer it here and that means that you have the ability to impact our world around us in our community and you're bringing strengths of talents skills gifts but really relationally some things you learned and have to unlearn to be a part of this we're unlearning things so that we can learn some things right now you know we both of those two happen and so I want to encourage you you can't make Paul and Timothy relationships happen except for by investing and saying I value I mean you can't go up to the biggest spiritual figurehead you see and say be my father because they're gonna be like yeah you scare me you know how many people if they came up to Jim Krista and said mentor us and the whole entertainment industry you'd need somebody who has a level of their own activity going on otherwise you have to stop what you're doing to mentor them and then that's not mentoring that's nothing that's like that's like let me put my life on hold to pick up your life and live it with you or for you for a little while until you can live it and that never works it's like being a part of Alcoholics Anonymous and saying I'm an alcoholic who's gonna stop my alcoholism for me come live with me hold my hand go to every place I go to and I won't be an alcohol can be boring and nobody would do it but that's how we look at Christian discipleship sometimes where's Christian fathering or spiritual fathering your mothering and the reality is is that you the people that I get to nurture in a real discipleship way already have their whole own thing going on and they don't need me because of all their crisises and now I get a step into the crisis at times and that happens but they don't they're not looking at to me as a source and that's where God and as I in this God himself where Paul says not many of you or you won't have many fathers but you'll have many teachers or you have many teachers but not many fathers the reason why I said that it wasn't like a wish the world had more spiritual fathers and mothers we just don't get it there's quite maybe add a little bit of that but here you know he also understood what John said and first John to where it says you don't don't need any men to teach you because God gave you an anointing inside of you to teach you all things now this anointing is defined as the Holy Spirit who searches the depths of the Father's heart concerning you in the world around you in other words the same way Jesus was fathered by the father in heaven he's giving that relationship to you so ultimately when you're asking for mentoring and discipleship you can't substitute that very real relationship that God that Jesus paid a price for on the cross for you to have so he can mentor you and use community use discipleship as tools that serve that but he's a jealous father somebody tries to get in that way he'll kick him out he'll be like Boop that's my spot just like my wife if somebody if some woman came up and was flirty with me at church and this Apple in a few times I don't ever really noticed she's like I'm gonna stand right here and kind of in front of her and be like see this ring you know my wife would have no problem fighting someone you know like she's have no problem well the father's like that for your heart he's like don't give that place away that I made for me and you but help get tools to make this more advanced and help get tools to make your you know to go on a maturing journey in your community know the sad thing is if you don't have a community around you you know or this out thing I don't mean said something the hard thing is if you don't have a community around you a lot of you feel isolated and then the problem is you won't grow if you're not in community but there's ways to get in community that God is so strategic in that that Jesus had a community and and a land where fishermen and tax collectors and people that you would never expect that actually fed Jesus and actually nurtured his relationship and his capacity at the same time as he was reaching out to all kinds of people around him and so there's always a community for you there's always a place of community and if you've been burnt by organized religion or by the church or if you've had a bad discipleship journey or somebody was controlling in their discipleship or mentoring over you do not use that as an excuse to not be on a journey of discipleship because your first identity with God is his son or daughter and in that he says go and make disciples of the world go and bring other people to me this way and if you're dysfunctional in that relationship with him you're gonna bring this function to the world around you by saying well we don't need to do that have you ever found yourself saying oh I don't really like that church oh I don't really like that group people or I didn't like what happened today or whatever at a church service whenever you're anti Church is because there's something in your identity that has become more comfortable with saying that than saying looking inside and going I am actually powerful enough to change it I'm actually a father or mother myself I'm actually a reformer myself and instead of being against something I'm gonna learn how to be for it and call it higher and true disciples are looking at the world can going I'm not afraid of what's here and what's not here I see the kingdom another privilege I have whether it's a church whether it's the world whatever it is I see the kingdom and in the midst of whatever I'm involved in I can be somebody who is the son of God daughter of God who brings the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven because that was his desire for us in the first place so let's stand up that's when I read Hebrews 10 I came over exactly where so because I brought up my notes so it sits halfway down so now we must cling tightly to the hope that lives within us knowing that God always keeps his promises just now I love this because we're cleaning tightly to help knowing that God keeps his promises how many of you have promises we have personal promises how many of you have promises / like an industry or city anybody have any of those okay this is the next Scripture in Hebrews 10 discover creative ways to encourage others and motivate them towards acts of compassion doing beautiful works those expressions of love so right after he says cling to the hope and the promise one of the ways you're gonna be able to cling to this hope and actually establish this hope is by doing radical acts of compassion love and encouraging others to do it as well this is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting each other as some have formed a habit of doing because we need each other in fact we should come together even more frequently eager to encourage and urge each other on to anticipate that today is dawning so this is the writer of Hebrews who is probably maybe Paul saying hey we have a hope that's inside of us that he's establishing first promise to stay in that hope we need each other we need to encourage each other to towards radical acts of compassion kindness and don't neglect me with each other cuz the moment you do how many of you ever ever neglected like I'm not gonna go to church for like a couple months and then you're all soon going I'm out of sync somewhere inside of me like I'm not gonna really you know worship times on the important I'll get there after my coffee time and you're like and then you gotta worship after three weeks of not going you're like oh my gosh my heart's alive what did i do why did I do that what's going on and the problem is a lot of us expect 52 life-changing messages and a year and we get disappointed when it's just normal if you had literally walked out all 52 messages your life wouldn't be normal you wouldn't mind one or two that aren't as good cuz we're not supposed to be disciple you from the platform every week we're supposed to be coming here as a community saying we're on a journey together and this is this one of the things we do one and worship thank God we have worship like this but they are not really your worship leaders you are and the more you're already in your spirit worshiping God and connected to God all week long is the higher we can go can you imagine Wednesday night if we get here and we come to a live recording and we've already been in worship four days before we get here and we get in this atmosphere we're like oh god I don't even need them but I love them what's gonna come out of that kind of worship recording but there's this place inside of us that we have to start being balanced in how we're looking at our participation in a community how do we get to be us how do we get to receive others and their vulnerability of being them and how do we go on a journey that's not just the black and white oh that doesn't fit me I'm not attracted to that I don't want to do that but actually say I know there's a lot of things in family I don't wanna get up in the night to clean up poop there's a lot of things you do when you're in a community that you don't say oh it's someone else's responsibility who's gonna hardly is calling who's gonna do it who's gonna do it there's only two parents in the house when your community you might look at a piece of trash on the floor and go that's not okay and this is my house I'm gonna clean it up or they need more children's workers and you go you know what I don't like to in children's ministry anymore I did it for five years I've burned out in another Church I did too much but first season I know my capacity I can do it because that's part of how I love and then I'm gonna do things in a community and as I'm in a discipleship season that aren't necessarily my best friend but then there's other things you do that you get a brought into because of your community that she would have never seen without them like the worship we've just experienced this morning we got brought into something because of Michelle and Dan Lots leading our worship community that we're experiencing as a small church what a church like Bethel would experience on the Broadway host ten thousand members we're experiencing as a small church the grace of something because of some of the people that chose us to be their family and I look at I'm go thank you Jesus that we got to be a part of something like this during worship times thank you because we were here a couple of times wasn't as good in worship back in the day when there was like two instruments and there was people who couldn't sing on key sometimes I mean like we've been through the gamut so like we're we know because we've been here a long time we're like oh we've always had decent worship but I mean this is like and we've sometimes even had awesome worship but this is consistently people who are way out matched and they're skilled for a church the size except for they're part of a community it's the reason why Bill Gates didn't leave Washington to come to Silicon Valley because he wanted his community blast with jobs he decided to do it there well what are we gonna do for our community when we're present and love for our community what opportunity will we give our community because we've said yes here and then how will you be disciple back how will your family benefit when your hearts will engaged so Holy Spirit I pray over each person standing he's person is from I pray Jesus that you would help us that she'd reset our community expectation with your expectation God that he would give us Lord even that does scripture where it says the bond of peace the Shalom over our community God that we would we would strive for that connection that connectivity that you designed us for God that you would release an us new expectation of what what it looks like to be in a spiritual family that we would learn how to ask the question even more what's God doing with you what's going on in your life spiritually that our spiritual life and our spiritual questions and our curiosity for what you're doing would be bigger than our natural curiosity for industries or for entertainment or for anything else gone the Lord just break any isolation or independence off of anybody watching you never intended us to be isolated or alone even Elijah when he said I'm the only one I'm out here in the middle nowhere the Lord said no there's hundreds more and after that Elijah after that time the wilderness he went out and reinstitute it's Samuel schools of the prophets and he realized there's hundreds of prophets and he took it to a whole nother level got so many of us feel alone and it was never your intention because they're always as other people but Lord open our hearts the way that only you can holy spirit to be present and relationship help us to be teachable like we've never been teachable and help us to be grateful for what we do have let us not look for what we don't have in our community but I pray to be grateful for what we do have it any criticism I pray that you it over powerin L was a reformer that we'd say I can reform that I could be part of the solution of that and Jesus name Amen [Music]

Channel: Expression 58

Views: 2,725

Rating: 4.9459457 out of 5

Keywords: shawn bolz, bolz, cherie bolz, expression 58, expression58, e58, church, los angeles church, revival, jen toledo, jennifer toledo, jona toledo, disciples, community, discipleship, bolz ministries, prophetic

Id: YicMcAlcLCg

Length: 47min 4sec (2824 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2019