Fire Alarm: Get out of the Shallows

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Hey, everyone, this is Kyle Worley. And this is a little bit of a different episode this time around. This is what I'm calling a fire alarm episode. You're going to hear these a little bit more frequently from us moving forward. They'll never take the place of our full length episode, but they're just an opportunity for me to share a little bit of what I'm experiencing as a burden. You know, a knowing faith. We address a lot of questions. We've been going through tricky topics and thorny questions for some time now, but. And the reality is, is there are burdens. There are some passions that are the foundation of why we do what we do. You know, like I say all the time on knowing Faith, for jt, Jen and I, the goal of Knowing Faith, the goal of the books we write, the curriculum we produce, the goal of the Deep Discipleship program is not that you will download what we think, but that you will learn to think biblically and theologically about everything. And the truth of the matter is, is we have to get out of the shallows. And I'm not just talking about us on the podcast. I'm talking about all of us. I'm really specifically talking about evangelicals in the global West. Every study, every survey has told us that dwelling in the shallows of the faith is not producing the fruit of deep discipleship. It's not. And that's what the whole thing is about. The most common word used in the New Testament for a Christian is disciple. Is disciple. And we do not think a shallow discipleship is fruitful, nor do we think it's what God has for his people. And so I really want you to understand that the reason that we do the podcast, the reason that we're writing books, the reason that we've partnered together, is because we believe there is a discipleship crisis facing the church. And we believe that not only should the church be making disciples, the church should be looking to try to make deep disciples. We believe that Bible and theology, that these aren't just kind of mere pieces of data or, you know, trivial pieces of information. We actually think that Bible and doctrine produce deep discipleship and that this deep discipleship is the goal of Christian living, that this is what it's about. That the Christian life isn't a journey of becoming my healthiest, best self. It's a journey of becoming more and more like Jesus. And in my worship, in my obedience, in my mission, in my knowledge of God. And so from the beginning, we have had a goal in mind, and that goal Is that theology and the Bible is for everyone. But what we've discovered along the way is that depth has really been, you know, the young people might say that there's been a lot of gatekeeping around how to get towards deep discipleship. You know, for the longest time, if somebody wanted to go deep in their discipleship, the answer the church provided them was, okay, great, well, go to seminary. That's kind of what we told people for generations is, oh, if you really want to go deep, then the best place you can go to is to go to seminary. Well, that's really not a viable answer, and it hasn't been for a long time. And it's not to say that seminary is not a great route for those, for the who for whom the Lord is leading them to go in that direction. But that's not a scalable answer. And the crisis of deep discipleship doesn't need to have a solution that can only be accessed by a few. It needs to be able to be accessed by everybody. That's the goal. The goal is that not just a few of us would be deep disciples. And those few deep disciples would then lead a church of shallow disciples. That's, that's not the goal. The goal is that we would all be growing into deep disciples. And so how do you take depth and how do you democratize it? How do you say, well, everybody can move towards depth. If the Bible and theology is for everyone, then everybody should have an accessible way to enter into the deep things of God. That's like the motivation for the podcast and why we write our books, and it's why we built the deep discipleship program. For years, J.T. jen and I were really skeptical to make the deep discipleship program offered more generally. And the reason was because we were concerned. We were concerned that if we broaden it out to a real general audience, that it would be diluted, that it would be something less, it would be diminished. We had been running this in local churches for a long time and we had seen it transform people. We had seen people invited into the depth of discipleship, and then it radically altered their life. We saw people for whom it had never been accessible go to go to seminary. These are stay at home parents, they're nurses, they're accountants, they're lawyers, they're engineers, they're graphic designers, they're public educators, they're in full time work, they've got a boatload of responsibilities and they can't moonlight as a seminary student. And so the kind of traditional pathway to depth was inaccessible to them. And we saw that this deep Discipleship program change their life. And it's not because the teaching was profound. It's because when you walk people through deep doctrine, across the story of the Bible, it reverberates in a really meaningful way. And so here is the call to action. You don't have to do the deep Discipleship program, but we want you to be pursuing deep discipleship. That's why we've made the deep Discipleship program. So if you can find depth, another way into the Christian story, diving deep into the Christian story, deep into the fundamentals of Christian belief, deep into the practices of Christian formation, go for it. Go for it. We are not pushing a product, but we do have a message and a mission. And that is, we believe that God is inviting you to the accessible but sacrificial pathway of deep discipleship. And that's what we've tried to make with the program, is a lot of people want to move towards deep discipleship, but they don't know where to start. You're an individual and you're going, man, my church just isn't really bought in on this. Well, great, okay, well, then, you know what? Nothing's stopping you from stepping out and going, you know what? I'm going to make the journey of deep discipleship on my own, and I'm going to invite other people to join me in that as I have time and opportunity. Or maybe you're, like, tired of doing the same small group curriculum over and over and over again and. And you're realizing we still don't know the fundamentals of the faith. You know, I've got a whole small group full of people, and they know each other's names, but they don't know who God is. Well, that's not really winning in the discipleship journey. So whether you're an individual, a small group, a Sunday school class, a midweek programming, the fall is upon us. The academic calendar is about to start, and it is the best time to say, we're going to make a concrete, intentional plan to pursue deep discipleship over the course of this next academic year. And if that, if you need direction on how to do that, if that seems like the desire you have, but you just don't know what to do with it. We want to encourage you to check out the deep Discipleship Program if you go to lifeway.com deep discipleship. We have created a resource for those who have the desire but need a little bit of help with the direction to pursue deep discipleship by themselves in A small group in and a class as a whole church. And so if you are looking for a pathway forward, it's built for you. And again, the goal isn't for us to have you get into the product. We really want you to move towards deep discipleship. But we know for a lot of people it's really tough to kind of chart their own path on how to do that. So we've done it for you. It'll go through the entire story of the Bible, the fundamentals of the faith and the core Christian practices. It is not easy, but it is accessible, it's viable, it's available, it is sacrificial. Depth takes time, but the journey of deep discipleship is a journey of moving out of the shallows into the deep things of God. And we think you can do that in a hospitable way, in an accessible way. But it is and will always be sacrificial. I don't have a version and a vision of deep discipleship that doesn't cost you a lot of, but I do have one that's accessible and that's hospitable. And so I want to invite you to do that. I want to invite you to consider. If you're looking for a direction forward, go to lifeway.com deep discipleship. Check out the deep Discipleship program. The best time to do this is a year ago. The next best time to do it is this next year. Go check out the deep Discipleship program and be a part of getting out of the shallows with us. You know what? We're going to continue on in this season. The next episode we have for you is Reaching Generation Alpha, which is with Shane Pruitt and Shelley Melia. I hope you'll join us for that. I hope you've been enjoying the discussions. I am excited that you and I are working together, not just as consumers, but as contributors and collaborators to get out of the shallows together. Let's make that journey with one another.