The Discipleship Advice I'd Give Myself (Spoiler: You've Already Started)

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Welcome to Equipped for Purpose. I'm your host, Vincent Ream, and this is the podcast

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where discipleship meets impactful leadership. Whether you're new to faith or a seasoned follower

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of Christ, this podcast is designed to help you deepen your relationship with Jesus, grow as a

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leader, and make a difference in every area of your life. Together, we'll explore practical tools,

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biblical insights, and real-life strategies to equip you for the purpose God has called you to.

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Let's dive in.

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There's a verse that has haunted more Christian leaders than any other.

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19, go and make disciples.

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I'm sure you've heard it a hundred times.

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Sermons, conferences, mission statements.

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You may stare at it on the wall of your church.

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Some of you might have it even in your email signature.

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And every time you hear it, there's a quiet weight that settles on your chest.

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It's not panic.

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You're not in crisis.

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You're just stuck.

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Faithful, but flat.

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Here's something that might surprise you.

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Barna Research recently found that only about a quarter of Christians are both being discipled and discipling someone else.

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And when they asked the rest of those surveyed why they weren't involved in discipling in some way, the number one answer wasn't, I don't care.

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It was, I don't feel qualified.

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So if you've never made disciples the way you were told to through a program, a workbook, or a curriculum, you're not the exception.

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You're actually in the majority.

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Here's what I want to say to you.

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You're already making disciples.

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You just don't call it that.

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And once you see it, the guilt lifts and the real work begins.

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Most people who want to make disciples start in the same place.

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looking for a program or a curriculum or a workbook, maybe a video series with discussion questions,

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a coffee meeting with a name like dGroups or life on life, one-to-one discipleship.

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And to be fair, those things aren't nothing. Structured programs hold real value.

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They give consistency. They give a starting place when you don't know where else to start.

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If your church runs one and it's bearing fruit, I'm not telling you to quit.

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But here's what happens.

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You buy the book.

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You schedule the coffee.

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You find someone who says yes.

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You meet for six weeks, maybe eight if you're ambitious.

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You go through the material.

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You ask the questions.

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You check the box.

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And something about it feels empty.

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The conversation stays in the workbook.

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It doesn't follow anyone into their marriage, their workplace, or an actual Tuesday.

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And when the book is finished, the relationship quietly fades because the program was holding it together, not genuine connection.

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And that's not always discipleship.

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Sometimes it's a book club with Jesus branding on it.

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And the worst part, it leaves you feeling like you failed.

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You did what the church told you to do, but it didn't stick.

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So you assume the problem is you, that you are not spiritual enough, not qualified enough, not good enough at this point.

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The problem isn't you.

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The problem is thinking the program is the mechanism.

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Jesus didn't write a curriculum. He didn't schedule coffee meetings. He didn't hand out

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workbooks. And yet he produced 12 men who turned the world upside down. Here's the thing,

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and nobody's connecting for you. The way he did it isn't just a nice Bible story. It's the same

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thread that runs from your time alone in prayer to your team meeting. One life, not two.

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And that thread is what this whole video is about.

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What did Jesus do differently?

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14 gives us the sentence that exposes the problem.

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And he appointed 12 so they might be with him and he might send them out to preach.

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That they might be with him.

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That's the method.

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Not that might attend his lectures.

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Not that might complete his eight-week course.

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that they might be with him. Jesus made disciples by doing life with them. They walked roads

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together. They ate meals together. They watched him handle critics, comfort the broken,

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confront the hypocrites. They saw what he did when he was tired. They heard how he prayed when nobody

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else was listening. The curriculum was his life. The classroom was the road. And here's the part

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we miss. Jesus didn't pause his ministry to make disciples. Disciple making was his ministry.

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He wasn't running two tracks, a mission track and a discipleship track. They were the same track.

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Every miracle, every confrontation, every teaching moment was simultaneously the mission and the

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training. The 12 learn to heal by watching him heal. They learn to confront by watching him

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overturn tables. They learn to serve by watching him wash feet. And this isn't just a spiritual

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insight. It's how human beings are actually wired to learn. Modern leadership research supports this.

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People primarily absorb complex behaviors by watching someone else do it, not by being lectured,

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there's actually a name for this in psychology albert bandura's social learning theory it's

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his research that found we learn best by watching someone else do the thing then trying it out

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ourselves attention then retention then trying it themselves Jesus knew that 2,000 years before

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anyone gave it a name. Now contrast that with how we usually do it. We separate discipleship from

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life. We pull a person out of their week for an hour on Thursday morning, talk about spiritual

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things, and send them back into the same life unchanged. The program is separate from the work.

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The discipleship is separate from the leadership. And then we wonder why it doesn't hold.

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The program model assumes discipleship happens when you extract someone from their real life

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and talk about principles.

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The Jesus model assumes discipleship happens when you invite someone into your real life

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and let them watch.

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One produces consumers of content.

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The other produces leaders.

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Here's the shift I want you to make.

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And it costs you nothing but your attention.

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stop asking how do I start a discipleship ministry start asking who is already around me

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that I can be more intentional with because you're already positioned you just don't see it

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you lead a team at work there are people on that team who watch how you handle pressure

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how you make decisions how you treat people when it's inconvenient they're learning from you

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whether you intended it to happen or not.

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And that's discipleship.

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You just haven't been calling it that.

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You have kids.

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They see how you treat your spouse,

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how you spend your money,

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what you do when you're angry.

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They're absorbing your faith

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or your lack of it in real time.

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I've watched it with my own kids.

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I'm watching it happen again with my grandkids.

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That's discipleship.

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You just haven't been calling it that.

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You have friends, neighbors, volunteers, younger folks who look up to you without you fully realizing it.

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The question isn't whether you're making disciples.

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The question is whether you're being intentional about it or letting it happen by accident.

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Paul understood this.

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Look at what he says in 1 Corinthians 11:1.

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Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

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Now notice the shape of that sentence carefully because it matters.

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Paul isn't saying, follow me, period.

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He's saying, follow me to the extent that I follow Christ.

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He's not putting himself on a pedestal.

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He's saying, watch me chase Jesus and let that chase be visible enough that you can chase him too.

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That's not arrogant.

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That's the humility of being willing to be watched.

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And notice what Paul doesn't say.

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He doesn't say, read my book.

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He doesn't say, attend my seminar.

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He says, watch me imitate my life as far as it actually imitates Christ.

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And not instead of these things, just not only these things.

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Paul made disciples by being visible, by letting people see his faith in action,

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not just hear it explained.

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And that's available to you right now without a program,

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without a workbook, without a coffee meeting.

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The one leading their family is making disciples at the dinner table.

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The manager handling a crisis with integrity is making disciples in the conference room.

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The volunteer showing up consistently week after week is making disciples in the hallway.

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You don't need a title.

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You don't need permission.

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You don't need a curriculum.

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You need to wake up to the reality that your life is already a discipleship curriculum.

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People are already reading it.

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The only question is whether you're going to be intentional about what they see.

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This isn't about adding something to your already full plate.

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It's about recognizing that what you're already doing, leading, parenting, working, serving,

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is the raw material of discipleship.

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The transformation happens when you stop treating those things as interruptions to your spiritual life and start treating them as the place where spiritual life actually happens.

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So here's the practice.

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Not a program, a posture.

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The with me model.

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Pick one person, just one, someone you're already leading, parenting or doing life with.

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It could be a team member.

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It could be your son.

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It could be a younger guy at church who already looks up to you.

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Now stop trying to create a separate discipleship relationship with them.

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Instead, get more intentional in the relationship you already have.

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You can do that with three simple shifts.

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And shift one is narrate your decisions.

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Picture this.

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You've got a tough call to make it work.

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Maybe you have to let someone go or push back on a decision above your pay grade.

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Instead of just announcing the outcome, you pull your person aside afterward and say,

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here's what I decided, here's why, and here's the part I actually prayed about because

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I wasn't sure I was right.

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Now, you're not lecturing.

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You're narrating.

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You're making your inner world visible so that person can see how faith actually shapes a real decision, not a hypothetical one.

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Okay, shift two is bring them along.

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Jesus didn't send his disciples off to do ministry while he stayed behind.

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He brought them with him.

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Next time you're walking into a hard conversation, a significant meeting, a moment that matters, bring your person along if you can.

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And not necessarily to participate, but to watch, to see how a follower of Jesus actually handles pressure, conflict, or a decision with no clear answer.

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Now, shift three is ask, don't just tell.

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Most discipleship is one directional.

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The one discipling dispenses wisdom, the disciple receives it.

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Flip it.

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Flip that around. After the shared experience, ask, what did you notice? What would you have done differently? Where did you see God in that? Now it's a conversation and not a lecture. Now that person is learning to discern, not just to imitate.

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One honest note here is that this works best with a little bit of rhythm to it.

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Not a curriculum, but maybe a standing 30 minutes every couple of weeks where you actually talk about what's being noticed by the one you are discipling.

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You don't need a program.

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You do need some consistency because the best relationship drifts.

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So that's one person, three shifts, a little rhythm, no workbook required.

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And do that for six months and you'll have done more real discipleship than a lifetime of coffee meetings.

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Here's what it looks like.

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It's a Tuesday afternoon.

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You're in a conference room and an employee just missed a deadline.

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And that's going to cost you with a client.

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The old you handles it by getting quietly cold or venting to your spouse that night.

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The equipped you pulls the employee aside, says what needs to be said honestly, without

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contempt but with love, and later tells your guy, the one you're being intentional with.

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Here's what I said, here's what I almost said, and here's why I didn't.

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That 30-second conversation is worth more than six weeks of workbook questions because he just

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watched integrity happen instead of hearing it defined. That's it. That's the whole of this video.

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In the first episode of this series, I told you something. You're not a bad Christian.

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You're an under-equipped one.

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And here's where the equipping meets the mission.

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You don't need a discipleship program because you are the program.

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Your life lived visibly before the people God has already placed around you.

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That's the curriculum.

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Where you pray alone and where you lead people are the same room.

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Your hardest conversations are your best discipleship opportunities.

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Jesus didn't write a book.

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He lived a life.

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And he said, follow me.

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So here's your one move this week.

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Not 10 things, one thing.

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Pick your one person and try shift one.

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Narrate a real decision out loud to them before the week is over.

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Go do that.

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And if this series changed how you see discipleship, drop the word equipped in the comments.

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If you're listening to the podcast, email me the word equipped.

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I truly want to hear from you.

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And then send this to someone who needs to hear it.

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One step.

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That's it.

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Go be equipped.

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Thank you for tuning in to Equipped for Purpose.

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I hope today's episode gave you tools and inspiration to deepen your discipleship

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and strengthen your leadership.

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Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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And if you found value in today's content, share it with someone who could benefit.

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Let's connect on social media and through my website.

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and remember you are being equipped for a purpose.

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Go make an impact.

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