Robert: 00:00

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Mike: 00:00

Speak to truth listeners. Mike here. Wanting to take a moment before the episode to cordially invite those who have been wanting to take the level one certification, but haven't had the opportunity. Well, Truth renewed is offering a hybrid class where we will have 20 in person students and 30 online spots where you can join us virtually. Our setup will allow you to see and be seen and to hear and be heard.

Mike: 00:21

You'll be able to fully participate in class case studies and role plays as well as participate in your own group rooms when we break off into groups. For more information, please go to truth renewed.org on our certification page. Read through the process and instructions so you can start the application process. If you have any questions or need help with anything, please email us at training at truthrenewed.org, and we hope you can join us in September. Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship.

Mike: 01:07

Hello. Hello. Hello. We are back, and I am still with Robert Chong, Gospel Care Ministries. Robert, how are we doing?

Robert: 01:13

I'm doing good, man.

Mike: 01:14

Good. So this is the second part of our discussion from last episode where we were walking through Psalm 20 5. Lord, teach me your paths, and Robert went through and really honed in on verse 10. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast in faithfulness for those who keep his covenant and testimonies, focusing on all the paths. Right?

Robert: 01:36

That's right.

Mike: 01:37

That's good. So we grounded ourselves in the word individually. We had some discussion around that again, the personal ministry of the word individually and then one another. And then now, like we said, we wanna get in and branch out into the local church. And what does that mean for church staff, elders, the congregation in a local church context?

Mike: 01:57

And so along with a path, sometimes we have obstacles or gaps and that and we've gotta figure that out. And so Robert was gracious enough to share some some insight that he's had just over his years of ministry in the church as a pastor, but then working, on the nonprofit side and seeing and and and really for the sake of the local church and how do we how are we closing those gaps within the local church because there is a lot of care, and he'll get into the gaps. But just a high level for the introduction of the episode of just there's a lot of different gaps within the local church that we're all a part of. Right? There's the individual gaps.

Mike: 02:32

There's the staff, elder, pastor gaps, and there's just a lot of different things, that we need to acknowledge, become aware of so that we can abide in Christ. Going back to what does it truly mean to abide? We talk a lot about discipleship in the local church. Obviously, all of you know that our listeners are familiar with that. But the purpose of discipleship is to abide in Christ.

Mike: 02:53

And so with that, Robert has, within these gaps, has just really, been able to articulate. And, thankfully, I could see that visually. But he's been able to articulate what does it look like, how can we identify those gaps. And before we can really solve anything, we have to identify things correctly. Robert, you wanna take us away on this pathway and closing these gaps?

Robert: 03:15

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, Michael. We go back to what you said earlier about the personal ministry of the word. What happens in private in terms of our our time with the lord has public implications.

Mike: 03:26

Yeah.

Robert: 03:26

As I'm thinking about ministry, so the context of our discussion is the local church

Mike: 03:31

Yeah.

Robert: 03:31

And ministry leaders, pastors, etcetera. And so what I have found is that good gospel centered, docially correct churches, They preach the word, the gospel with conviction because they believe we believe that it has the power to save. Yeah. But somehow, there's a disconnect. There's a gap that exist that I label a a faith gap that we can lack confidence, that same level of confidence when it comes to applying and living up the gospel in a broken world.

Robert: 04:04

And and so giving the big picture that this faith gap that exist with all of us in varying degrees, it leads to various church challenges that we think that we can correct through different programming, through additional knowledge, through best practices, etcetera. But I really do believe it comes back to that private ministry of the word, the communal ministry of the words. The majority of church challenges, I believe, flow from each individual personal challenges that that exist because it comes down to what do I personally believe about Christ and how does he make a difference in my life personally because what I'm convinced there, then I am able to view and carry out ministry in a different way Mhmm. In a way that flows from my personal experience with the lord as opposed to all the books that I read and and using best practices. So the big picture to give away the solution at the very front, I I believe that the the way that we can close these discipleship gaps again, gaps is a term we defined by there's a gap between god's design and our reality.

Robert: 05:19

Yeah. That's what I mean by gap. And those gaps can be closed through discipleship. And why do I focus on discipleship is because of of the great commission. And every church knows that God has called them to focus on discipling the saints to do the work of ministry, to make disciples, to to make disciples.

Robert: 05:43

The solution to all of this is helping one another to live in God's story through abiding in Christ in community, and that starts with every member of the church, including the leaders who are sheep as well. And so that's what I would love to take time to unpack during this episode.

Mike: 05:59

That's really good. So in in the way that you've got this out, because, obviously, visually, they they don't know what we're looking at. But like you mentioned with the faith gaps, so you've got sort of the church challenges and you've got the personal challenges. And we sort of let off with the personal ministry of the word, which is the personal challenges. But how are these 2 supplemental to each other?

Mike: 06:16

How do they coincide?

Robert: 06:17

Yeah. And, Michael, I think it would be helpful for our listeners, especially if we are targeting pastors and church leaders, to start with the church challenges because that's where we dwell. Right? Yeah. There, you know, I have not met a pastor or church leader yet who does not want to serve god and serve others well.

Robert: 06:35

Yeah. And so there's earnest effort going on. However, if we if the faith gap exist, meaning I lack confidence in applying and living up the gospel for myself, but applying it to other people in in the brokenness of life Yeah. Then it's gonna impact how I do ministry. And so if I lack confidence at the basic level, then I'm going to rely on my programs and structures to accomplish discipleship, care, and community in a church.

Robert: 07:03

And more times than not, that we're gonna lack fruit. We would want God to bring about tons of fruit from our programming. If every pastor is honest with with himself, then he said, man, there's there's a lot of room to grow. Right? Yeah.

Robert: 07:18

And and that's just part of the reality living life in a broken world. So, therefore, there's always gonna be a ministry gap. God's design in our reality. But another church challenge is what I call community gap. Every pastor and church leader knows that god has created the church so that we can love and care for one another.

Robert: 07:34

But there's a there's a gap between what god has called the body of Christ to do versus what's actually happening. And, you know, we've said in the past that our church that some of our small groups are are powerful and some are pathetic. You know? And and Is there another p in there?

Mike: 07:51

Is there is there another progression of it? I guess

Robert: 07:54

Those are just the end of the spectrum. Yeah. And I found over time that what makes the difference between a powerful group and a pathetic group is how the leaders are equipped, but more importantly, what they focus on during the group time.

Mike: 08:08

Yeah.

Robert: 08:09

And as we talked about abiding, I believe that groups are life giving when individuals come to the group, let's say, 2 hours on a weekly basis, and they experience something they cannot experience anywhere else in the world.

Mike: 08:25

Thus making it powerful.

Robert: 08:26

Yep. Thus making it powerful, which is and that power comes from God. And so if we gather together and encourage one another and we seek to draw near to god in his presence to know and experience him as we discussed in the last episode, we're going to be god's gonna encourage us. He's gonna comfort us, but also hearing the testimonies of others of how the lord is working their lives is invigorating and it's encouraging. And so god wants us to close the community gaps as well.

Robert: 08:57

Yeah. But then last church challenge is the leadership gap.

Mike: 09:00

Oh. I I Oh, wow. This one hinges on the other 2.

Robert: 09:04

That's right. Well, I have not met a pastor yet who says they have too many leaders. Yeah. And so invariably, every pastor believes that they are to equip the saints for the work of ministry. There's a lot there, because what I'm thinking about my mind is that even though there's a desire to equip leaders, even churches with developed leadership pipelines often lack the outcome or the fruit of their of their leadership development pipeline.

Robert: 09:36

And so they they lack gospel ministers, because I believe that in leadership development, they can focus primarily on strategy and also leadership principles. And I believe that though important, what what needs to be the focus of leadership development is making sure that each leader knows and experiences their god and that they understand that a body in Christ, as you mentioned earlier, should be the focus of their leadership, should be the focus of ministry, the means of ministry, and the goal of ministry.

Mike: 10:13

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. And and, also, within this, there's 3 sort of progressions of this or categories within each one of these gaps, the DCC. So the DCC, is that discipleship, care, and counseling?

Mike: 10:28

No. Care and community. Care and community. Okay. Okay.

Mike: 10:32

That's sort of the dynamics within those gaps. Is that a fair articulation of that? How

Robert: 10:37

Yeah. I I think that discipleship should it cuts across all areas of ministry. Care should cut through all, aspects of ministry as well as community. All all the the ways that god has created us to love him and to love other people. But I think to summarize, knowing that the listeners do not have this diagram in front of them Yeah.

Robert: 10:55

I believe that when we struggle to have confidence that the gospel of Jesus Christ specifically has the power to actually, help us make a difference in living life in a broken world, then we're gonna do ministry. We're gonna do community. We're gonna do leadership a certain way in a way that unfortunately can rely more on methodology or more knowledge than Christ himself.

Mike: 11:24

Yeah. Going back to our last episode of just, you know, what's the purpose of that knowledge?

Robert: 11:28

Right. And so as I continue to think through this, what feeds this faith gap, because I believe that every one of us wrestle with it, it comes back down to what we call personal challenges. And, unfortunately, the church, just like anything else, has placed the areas that I'm getting ready to talk about under one ministry, which is counseling. And what I'm suggesting is that the personal challenges and the gaps associated with these challenges are actually discipleship issues and includes care. Right?

Robert: 12:02

But it's it's discipleship. And the first one is that when when, we don't understand how God's story addresses our story and when we don't deal with the hard and hurtful parts of our story and and understand and experience how God makes a difference in that, we're going to develop a story gap. And the gospel story, so to speak, is not going to ground itself in the grid of life. And so we can as which is pretty typical, we could talk about the gospel in in pretty conceptual terms as opposed to life changing experiences. But the next gap is, like, when my story is hard, I'm dealing with a lot of struggles, my heart is struggling.

Robert: 12:46

And oftentimes in in times of troubles and tribulations, when our hearts are struggling, we can draw away from God and miss his heart, namely his heart of love. Or in worst case scenarios, we can begin to accuse God of of not loving us, not caring for us. So we develop not only a story gap, but a heart gap and leads invariably to what I call a care gap. And a care gap is essentially when when my wants and my needs does not align to what god promises in the gospel. And so all of that, so to speak, when when I don't connect god's story to my life and God's heart is not bringing comfort to my heart, and I don't think that God has given me the care that I want or think I need, then it leads to what I call a love gap.

Robert: 13:37

We don't love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we don't love other people because we're so preoccupied. And so all of those gaps in the personal challenges then feed the faith gap where I'm not confident that Jesus can make a difference Yeah. In my brokenness.

Mike: 13:52

Yeah. No. That's really good. And so in in just hitting those against each other as far as the gaps where the personal challenges can I mean, in in one way be summarized as my story, my heart, my wants? Mhmm.

Mike: 14:04

That's right. And if that's and if that's my impetus of my faith and I'm submitting that faith back to god, I'm not acknowledging god's story, god's heart, or god's promises.

Robert: 14:15

Absolutely.

Mike: 14:16

And so there, you end up in that perpetual disposition of our personal challenges where it's perpetuated by fear instead of faith. Our challenges are fear driven and not faith driven. All the while, those 3 close in and really just terminate on the love gap. Mhmm. Right?

Mike: 14:32

And then, obviously, that feeds into the faith gap and then, you know, going from the bottom up as far as the local church is concerned with the authority of the local church, the oversight of the local church, and being the being the the bride of Christ that there's a there's an abiding on both parties. We're all 1, but there is a functionality that needs to happen. And that's why one can't function without the other Mhmm. Because it's one body. Mhmm.

Mike: 14:56

But there are going back to Paul's analogy with many members, we have to at the church level so if you're a pastor, lay leader, elder, staff level, focusing on these parts of programs and structures and, you know, like, okay. The body of Christ means they're good at we gotta program everything out, and and that's that's how we equip the saints. Well, that's part of it, but that's not the ultimate piece. That's not that's not how it's focused on ours. It's a lack of understanding the goal, right, of the abiding.

Robert: 15:28

Yeah. You know, just like the really good resource, Trellis and Divine Yeah. We we we need a good structure. Right? But sometimes we can rely too much on the structure than the ministry of the word itself.

Mike: 15:41

Yeah. Like overstructuring. Right. And not relying on the Lord

Robert: 15:45

to work and speak through his word. Yeah. So those are the the gaps that I believe feed, the faith gap in terms of at a personal level. But, hopefully, through this verbal communication Yeah. You can see the the implications of when I'm not confident in Jesus for the realities of my life, it's gonna impact how I do ministry.

Robert: 16:12

It's gonna impact how I do community, and it's gonna impact what I focus upon when I develop leaders.

Mike: 16:19

Yeah. Then that that's really good. But so what's the solution?

Robert: 16:23

Yeah. The solution is abiding in Christ in community. And when we abide in Christ, we're actually living primarily in god's story and not just our own. And I believe that abiding in Christ fuels life and also forms ministry. In other words, when at a personal level, again, we're speaking to pastors and church leaders.

Robert: 16:44

Whenever each pastor and ministry leader begins to reimagine their life with Jesus and Jesus is transforming how they understand and commune with their God, it can't help but shape how they view ministry, which leads to reimagining it. Yeah. That that's how it ties together. And going back to Luke 10, god's wise story about Mary and Martha. As Jesus says, Mary chose the best thing.

Robert: 17:10

Right? They can never be taken away from her. But too often, we do ministry like Martha. We don't take the time to spend at the feet of Jesus listening to his words, but we we think that ministry success is when we do a lot of things for God. And God says, no.

Robert: 17:27

The point of ministry is me. Yeah. And spending time with Jesus, but also spending time with Jesus, abiding with him actually changes the way that you do ministry.

Mike: 17:38

Yeah. No. That's good. And I think that that's a good reminder. And, obviously, Paul says that in 1st Corinthians 2, just, you know, plant watering, but god brings the growth.

Mike: 17:45

And I think we lose sight of the more we do, like like, that's what produces the fruit, and it's not. It's just a means. It's it's an instrument. It's a means that god allows to use to bring the growth, but that's not the growth itself. Yeah.

Mike: 17:59

Because you can do a lot of things going back to the ministry gap of the programs and structures. And if you just program everything and you've got you're you're overstructuring and everything and you're just be a you're trying to be a well oiled machine, and it seems it it has the production of fruit or at least superficially speaking that is producing fruit, but it's not. And you realize that when you get into their leadership gap. Mhmm. Right?

Mike: 18:25

So the the beautiful thing about the way that this has been illustrated is how in tandem each piece is. And you can't and and and I appreciate the solution in realizing the going back to the personal ministry of the word when we understand god's story and abiding in Christ in community because that's where those two things take their shape, it fuels life. And if it's fueling life, guess what it's doing? It forms ministry, thus fueling the church.

Robert: 18:51

That's right.

Mike: 18:52

And so then you have that melodious relationship of the bride of Christ, the body. You have the one mind, the one spirit. That's how that stuff is being getting to take place. And so this is a this is a great tool. And I know Gospel Care Ministries, this is sort of the structure, pun intended, of relationally when and all this will be available to the show notes for those of you who would like to reach out to Robert and and Karen and have have them come and and do some consulting with you guys that, that this is essentially at the relational level, this is what you're gonna

Robert: 19:28

Yeah. We have been given the gift of a church in Winston Salem called Salem Chapel. And we've been working with them for over 4 years, and they have actually implemented abiding in Christ as their focal point of ministry from the pulpit to the preschool. And they have shared how a singular focus has simplified ministry, but it has also allowed them to have a unified ministry approach amongst all their ministry areas, ministry leaders, but also it allows for beautiful collaboration as well. And so they they actually said that if all we do for the rest of our lives is to teach god's people how to abide in Christ and teaching them to help others to do the same.

Robert: 20:13

They will consider that ministry success. And unfortunately, we hear so often pastor struggling with the question, what is success? And I believe that God intended to be very easy. And that is to be all about him and to help people to have that intimate relationship with him, in a way that brings life and gives hope in the midst of, a broken and fallen world.

Mike: 20:41

A river flowing of living water. Yeah. It's awesome. Awesome. Well, Robert, thank you so much for the second part of this little miniseries here of just what it means to abide in Christ.

Mike: 20:54

Again, starting with Psalm 25. It's just simply one Psalm. There's many Psalms that fit in there, not to mention John 15 and and really what that looks like, but also realizing what does it look like in the church. And so, hopefully, to our listeners, this has been helpful. Hopefully, this will help you sort of reevaluate and examine how you're currently doing ministry, understanding these gaps.

Mike: 21:15

Again, the ministry gap, community gap, leadership gap, those are the church challenges. And then the personal challenges of the our story, our heart, and my wants as opposed to god's story, god's heart, and god's promises. And so this starts with the individual, but it terminates, and it's either disastrous or delightful in the body of Christ. That's the communal peace. That's the purpose.

Mike: 21:40

Going back to how we started it where if the private ministry of the word in our own hearts because, ultimately, you get you we can hide behind all of our structures and our programs that have the apparent fruit. It's not real fruit. And you can tell because you have a lot of burned out people. They're not enjoying Christ. They have no joy, but they'll show up and do ministry.

Mike: 22:05

They'll put on the smiley face. So it's gotta start with the individual of the body coming together as the body under the umbrella of the church as the body of Christ. So it's a both and. It's not an either or, and that's how we end up with bifurcated and truncated ministries. So, again, I would just encourage y'all, whatever your ministry influence is, whether it's the local church or even para church ministry and how you work with the local churches that there's gaps.

Mike: 22:35

But we don't wanna be Debbie Downers in all of this, that we have we have the solution. And, honestly, again, the solution is it's our story and God's story. Do we see ourselves in God's story? Do we understand that? Do we submit our hearts to God's heart and our our wants, God's promises?

Mike: 22:53

One of my Psalms this morning was Psalm 37, and then one of my favorite verses, Psalm 37 4, delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart. But what's the presupposition in that? If I'm delighting in the Lord, naturally, he's gonna give me the desires of my heart because my heart is formed and desired in what he wants. So why would he not give his according to his will and his purposes? And so that's really, at least at the personal level, the beautiful reality of being the body of Christ.

Mike: 23:19

Because if I understand that individually, I'm going to share that with someone else. And if our entire community of faith and our local church is doing that, we're abiding collectively because it's beginning with the individual. And then closing those gaps, leadership gaps, building, you know, ministries in the church, and and and empowering the body to be the body with the the gifts that god has given them. And I mean, as we know in reading Corinthians, that's the purpose of the gifts. So, again, I would just encourage our listeners.

Mike: 23:48

For those of you, you know who you are, consider these things. Go to the Lord in prayer. Meditate on that. What are these paths? And these paths reveal these gaps, and so I would encourage you to do that.

Mike: 23:58

Thank you for listening. Robert, thank you again for being with us.

Robert: 24:01

Thanks, man.

Mike: 24:01

We look forward to our next time, and, again, email us at topics of speak the truth dot org. See you next time.