I'm just sitting there and I look up and I like John's had an accident.

Just like that.

We didn't have cell phones.

We didn't, I mean, none of that stuff was around.

I'm just telling you, I was like certain there'd been something seriously happened to him.

Come to find out he was on the I-94 and there was a semi stopped in the left-hand lane of

traffic, not on the side, in the left-hand lane.

He's going about 70 in a stream of cars.

and Scott around the guy and he went right in the back of that truck.

Last thing he remembers is nose on the back of that truck.

This is the made to advance podcast.

I'm your host, Brian.

All right.

We're here to inspire and equip you for your best future.

Well, Hey, welcome everybody.

It's so good to be with you today.

I'm excited for the conversation we have for you, but before we get started,

As I ask every single episode,

please rate and review Made to Advance.

If you have benefited and been encouraged by our podcast,

that is a massive encouragement to our team,

and it also helps us get the word out to more people.

So rate and review us, and also I wanna mention to you,

we're gonna have an upcoming show

where we just respond to questions that you have submitted.

And so if you'd like to see us wrestle

with some of your incredible questions,

then you can email us at madetoadvance@engeddychurch.com.

that is made to advance at andgettychurch.com.

Well, today I have with me John Bars

and I've been excited about this conversation for a while.

John is an attorney in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

He is an Indiana University graduate,

so you know he is something special.

That's just the way it goes with the Hoosiers.

He's the co-founder of NeighborLink,

which is a web platform designed to help people

belonging to churches show the love of Christ

to their neighbors in need.

John is also an awesome dad and husband

faithful church member. So I wanted to say, John, welcome to the show. Thank you.

Good to have you. My pleasure to be here. Yeah, and I know you've told me this before, but you know,

I was reviewing my notes for this conversation, and I was realizing not just undergrad, but also,

I knew law school was IU, but I don't know if I remembered undergrad was IU. You're super Hoosier.

That's right. Law school was also an IU, and it's very hard to leave even then,

after only seven years, right? Yeah, so this is, we had a great football season.

- It's hard to believe.

I mean, it really is hard to believe in scale,

but yeah, I'm watching the sport we were really good at

was basketball, wishing we had gotten in the tournament.

- Oh my gosh, it's painful.

What's the atmosphere in Indiana like

around when it was football season still?

I mean, 'cause we're up here in Michigan,

so it's not exactly like everybody's jumping for joy.

- Yeah, all of Indiana is Purdue and IU countries,

so it was pretty depressing for them,

obviously, with the football season,

but for the Hoosiers, you had a lot of activity.

Obviously in Fort Wayne, we had a lot of Hoosiers up there,

but people who, you know,

you would never go down to watch a game.

And now you got people who won't miss a game.

Or do I know somebody who can get me a ticket to a game?

'Cause they were just sold out.

So it was very, very cool.

- It would have been fun to be in person.

We went to a game right at the beginning

of Cignetti's coaching career.

So I mean, I still like to periodically take credit

for basically all that's happened,

'cause we helped them get off on as good a foot.

They show those pictures of when the stadium

was like half empty, we were there.

But it's funny because at the end of the season,

I said to my family,

"Man, it'd be really cool to go to a game."

Well, you know, it turns out the prices of tickets

have shifted considerably since the old days.

So I'll take it, but oh my goodness.

Have you been to a game since Cignetti's been gone?

- No, I have not.

I have not been down there.

I've got a nephew who's been down there,

who's actually in his undergrad,

and he's been to a couple, but not me.

- Yeah, well, we'll have to do that sometime.

That'd be fun.

My Ohio State buddy is saying he would be willing

to go with me next year to see the two of them play,

and they're at Blum, they're at Blum playing at Blumton,

so we'll see what happens.

But anyway, well, it's good to have you here,

and I have to always talk about Indiana,

'cause I gotta drive everybody crazy that are Michigan fans

or state fans that might be listening

in the state of Michigan.

got listeners from all over the country, but I'd love to just hear a little bit

of your story as we start, and you have a really cool story of how you came to

know Jesus, and so maybe a little bit of background just on your family and

their spiritual history, and then how you ended up coming to know

Christ. Yeah, so I was raised Roman Catholic, went to parochial school, did

six years of that, went to a high school that was public, but did CCD, Christian

catechism type classes one night a week, and did that all the way through my

senior year. And then you get down to IU and I started doing that, there's two

different Catholic churches, so I went to the South one, St. Charles, and

started attending there, but I was starting to sleep in a little more on

Sunday mornings. I didn't have my mom's faithful, you know, beration to get into

the church. And she did her part. She would call me and say, "Hey, why are you

taking this call at 930 on a Sunday morning?" But yeah, so I had

stopped attending regularly, and then stopped altogether. And I had a very good

friend that we were actually both altar boys back when we were, you know, in

parochial school. And he went to Purdue, right? And I went to IU, of course. And

We are getting together periodically,

either I'm going up to his place

or he's coming down to IU for a weekend

for drinking and carrying on.

And so we were great party buddies

as we were in high school.

And then sometime during his freshman year,

his brother, who was a staff member

for Campus Crusade for Christ, now CRU,

begins to share Christ with him,

talks about life transformation,

and this guy, his name's Alan,

says yes, surrenders his life to Christ,

and then I meet him literally

between my freshman and sophomore summer,

just between the school years, just home for the summer,

and he was such a faithful witness,

but he made sure we always got together again.

He had this blue Ford Fairmont that he would pick up.

I had no car, so he was the wheels.

And we would go to and from work,

'cause he would drop me off

and come back and pick me up later on.

And he started giving me those NIV memory script reverses

just to start memorizing.

It's a Navigator memory card system.

And so here I am, he's sharing me about what happened to him

and what it's been like, and I'm kind of listening,

interested, but I'm not really that interested

in what he's saying.

But he has nonetheless--

- Did it feel awkward at all, or was it just not awkward,

but just you're kind of tuned out?

- He was way more comfortable than I was.

- Okay, gotcha.

- So he was like, having gone through this transformation,

I mean, we would still go out,

he would go to the same part as I would,

he would not drink.

- Okay.

- But he was fine with me drinking,

and would say, "Hey, don't, I'm not here to tell you

"not to drink, that's not what this is about."

And we would go to a movie,

and of course I'd carry in a couple beers,

I mean, Brian, I'm sorry, I used to drink a little bit.

But I'd offer him, "No, no thanks, he's fine."

And it was weird for me that here's a guy

that we have partied for years, had a great time,

his speech has cleaned up,

And he, but he doesn't correct me.

He's not drinking at all.

And it's like, that to me is shocking

because that was kind of the thing

we would go to places and do.

And, but he had no issue with me doing that.

- Besides him being more, so his,

you could see clear evidence of his lifestyle change.

And obviously he's talking a little bit about his faith.

Did you see him change in any other ways

as far as how he treated you, other people,

or was it mostly just kind of a sort of a cleaned up

on some of these moral issues maybe, but that was it?

- We would talk about, one of the things that he did

is he began to attend a different church,

a church town for students at Purdue.

And it was a Christian church, a Protestant church

that all the students went to on campus.

And so it was really unusual because where we grew up,

Catholic was kind of a family deal.

It was like your family is a Catholic family

and they're not or they are.

And within the Catholic church,

it was, you know, there's some sensitivity.

And, you know, my mom was not that excited,

you know, if we play this forward,

what happened with me?

'Cause I left that to find a church

that was like the one he was talking about

at Purdue down at IU.

But anyway, so he was talking about the churches,

the things they did there,

the reading of the Bible, the studying of scripture,

And then, you know, this, "Hey, memorize this.

"We'll test each other tonight on the way home from work."

And it would be, the verses he was picking

just happened to be verses that dealt with

being made a new creation in Christ.

(laughing)

Galatians 3.20, 2 Corinthians 5.17.

I mean, I still have those in here from those car rides.

And I wasn't even, I didn't even know Christ yet.

But that was one of the things he did,

like, why wouldn't you--this is a good thing for you. This is a good thing for

you. I love how bold he is too, I mean this is again, part of what I'm gonna be

trying to do as we talk is highlight for listeners when we're talking about how

you influence or build into somebody else, and in this case somebody who's not

really walking with Jesus in any meaningful sense, how do you do that? And

your friend is bold, candid, authentic, natural, I mean we're not gonna say

pushy, but boy, intentional. I mean he's sharing his heart, he's sharing

verses, he's challenged you to memorize verses. So it's cool to see those

examples, and clearly he has got some real confidence in the Word of God,

where he's picking some verses, even without preaching them to you, that he

just feels like, "I'm gonna plant these seeds, and something's gonna happen."

Absolutely, that's all true. The one thing--and we knew each other, we played

on sports teams together, obviously we've been together since

parochial school, I love this guy, he loved me, we didn't say stuff like that,

but I knew he was out for me. He loved me. I mean it was all

for my good, and I knew he would never do anything different than that.

Yeah, you're not feeling like you're a project. You know, this man cares

about me, and that's why he's sharing what he's sharing.

Yeah, and I can be very...at that stage of my life, I'm arguing about everything.

And I, you know, he would talk about Scripture, and I would argue from a

Scripture, I did not understand, just to argue with you. You picked the right profession, John.

Oh yeah, it's true. They won't even let me litigate it, okay? It has to stay in the business department. But in any

event, he would dialogue and talk through, and actually he had a habit

of always going to what--actually open up his Bible and take me to a passage and

say, "Here's what it actually says." What do you see there? What do you see there?

I mean, it's not him.

It's like, what do you get out of that?

Same passage.

- I love that.

- This is what it says.

I appreciated the transparency

and him being one to slow down, hear me out,

but also answer the question literally to the dot.

And then there were some things I would ask him

and it was hard questions

that I figured nobody has an answer to this.

And if, and he would say, I actually don't know,

but I'll go look it up for you.

- Oh, that's good.

- I'll go, I got time, I'll go look it up for you.

Next morning, he'd be like,

"Hey, I think I found something here."

And I found a couple places.

It says, you know, but I was like, seriously?

- That's so good.

I think people sometimes get really, really hung up on

what if I don't know the answer?

What am I gonna do?

And will I make Jesus look bad?

Will I look stupid?

Whatever, will I blow the whole conversation up?

It's real simple.

Hey, I don't know, let me circle back on that

I'll see what I can find out." Did you ever stump him stump him, or he's like,

"Man, I just got nothing for you on that." No. Not that I can remember anyway.

Yeah, and that's the thing, when you dig deeper on Christian teaching, apologetics,

so the study of arguments for the faith and the common objections, not that you

can answer every question in a way that--I mean, I don't know if anybody is

going to explain away perfectly the problem of evil exactly and give you a

It's a tough problem, but man, there's a lot of resources

to wrestle with it and many other questions.

So he's wrestling with your questions.

He's giving you space to speak in.

How's it keep going on?

- So that went all summer.

- Okay.

- So, and we had a great summer and played a lot of golf.

He and I were on the golf team, so we played tons of golf.

He actually worked at the golf course.

So he, you know, he ate, drank and slept golf.

And, but over the course of summer, you know,

he was beginning to ask me,

is this something that you could see yourself

actually surrounding your life with Christ,

actually doing this?

And I viewed, even though I was, you know,

I had terrible language, I drank a lot,

I viewed myself, believe it or not, pretty religious.

Right?

I mean, if I was home, I was going to church again

'cause I'm living in my mom and dad's house.

And, but he was just like,

no, there's actually more out here.

So I began to ask him questions, okay,

like when you say there's more out here,

he says, and literally he says,

there's things that you and I were taught

that are absolutely true.

There's no question, but there's more.

And the more was, you've never entered a relationship

with Jesus Christ.

The difference is, you can know all this stuff

and you can go through all the motions.

You can do the mass, you can do all these things,

and they're good things.

In fact, the people who wrote the Mass,

I look at them now, I'm like, wow,

they were super, super Christ-centric people

who were trying to put something down

for everyone to have that experience.

But he's like, it's a personal relationship.

Like, he is my friend.

I love him.

He has died for me.

He did something for me that it blows away

any other expression of love

anybody could ever hope to have.

and he began to get my mind around my own condition,

which I assumed I was pretty good,

'cause I was better than most guys, right?

- Which is kinda what we all think, I mean.

- I was no Billy Graham, right?

No Mother Teresa, but I'm better than Hitler.

Okay, we got a little room in there.

But seriously, he basically helped me face,

hey, we will all have to give an account to God,

and you don't wanna do that without Christ,

because you'll be accountable for what your story was,

and he doesn't miss anything.

And that really began to weigh on me

over the course of the summer.

And by the end of the summer, I didn't tell him,

but I was seriously considering doing that.

Because I was running out of answers

in my limited knowledge, and I'm in the scriptures

that are pretty clear that he's dead on on some of this.

And I'm like, boy, I've got some decisions to make,

but I usually keep putting those off.

That's just true.

And he was like,

this is something you need to do sooner than later.

And his thing is you're all,

and I'm assuming we're all gonna be here long enough

to kick that down the can,

kick that can down the road longer.

And maybe that's true, maybe it's not,

but why would you wait, right?

And I always heard that as a sin forgiveness deal,

But he was saying, no, there's actually,

it's that for sure, but it's a life deal.

There's something, he's gonna come

and actually reside in your being

and he is going to give you the life

that he promised, an abundant, full life with his presence.

And he'll be doing things with you

that you couldn't do without him, right?

And so it was, we got to deal with the sin issue,

but you're out there like me chasing all kinds of stuff

that aren't really life,

like a lot of them are destroying us.

My drinking was destroying me,

my language was destroying me,

some of my relationships were destroying me.

And he's scoring with me that

there's way more out here for you relationally,

particularly with Christ and him being in us,

living through us,

and actually revealing more and more of his kingdom to us.

So I started getting a pretty good conviction

about August 1st that year, so we're getting back

into back to school, going back down to Bloomington.

He's gonna be heading back down to Purdue.

And he asked me one night, actually it was the night

before I went back, he said, "Are you ready

"to show your life to Christ?"

I said, "I'm ready."

Prayed.

Sorry, bro.

prayed right in the front seat of the Ford Fairmont,

right in front of my parents' house,

and literally left, went to bed, got up,

packed up and went to Bloomington the next day.

Yeah, so.

- Did you think about, as you're driving to Bloomington,

this is a whole different entry to college life

now that I'm following Jesus

after what I just prayed the night before.

Was that on your mind much as you're driving back to IU?

- What am I gonna do?

I'm serious because my context in Bloomington

was a bunch of guys like me.

And I was joining an RA staff,

I was taking a job working for the university

in a residence hall,

and I'm gonna have like 30 students,

30 young men for a year and be their resident assistant.

So that's a new job and I'm around a bunch of other people,

but my friends, the guys that I grew up with,

we're all in other halls and we already have a party planned

to get back together that predates this surrender

of my life before you see what's coming.

But it's an important part of the story.

I went to this party, I got drunk,

and I went to bed and it was up in Indianapolis

'cause I'd driven up to Indianapolis for this party

and I woke up and I was convicted at a level

I had never experienced before.

Like, I really just upset somebody,

but that somebody is not me.

And I drove the hour back down to Bloomington

just thinking, I don't know if I want this.

I wonder if I can take it back.

Right, I'm just thinking this.

And the whole week was just more of the same.

I ran into old friends who were coming back to campus,

and again, our context is when are we gonna go out,

when we go down to the bars, whatever.

And I was like, I don't know, I'm busy, which I wasn't.

And there was a ton of RA training.

So we had orientation that whole week.

And I got done with the end of that week.

We had had a retreat.

I come back from the retreat and I'm like,

I can't do this job.

I'm like, I'm just, I'm not doing this.

I start, I get my suitcase out.

No kidding.

The first week after I get there, pack my bag.

And I just said to God, if you're here,

you're gonna have to do something about this.

And I hear on my door.

(knocking)

And I'm not kidding.

I'm like, yo, who's that?

And I go there and there's this another RA

who's a year ahead of me.

So I'm a junior, she's a senior.

And it's Kathy Usher.

I said, hey, what's up?

And she's looking at the suitcase and looking at me

like, what are you doing?

I said, "I can't do this. I'm gonna pack up, and I can't be an RA."

And she says, "Are you a brand-new believer?"

I said, "How could you possibly know that?"

And she said, "I have prayed for you a year."

So that obviously led...well, Kathy was the

president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at IU.

Oh, is that right?

Yeah.

and was also an RA, a senior on the same staff.

And I said, "There's nobody else like me here."

And I just did this, I went through the whole story

of the prior summer and surrendering my life to Christ

the night before I came back down here,

has been drinking, I'm drunk,

and really convicted about all that.

And she's like, "You've got to have some other people

who are living this way than your old guys."

And she says, "We meet every Friday in the Union Building."

I said, "Where?"

"In the main hall, there's 200 of us.

"And we do a Bible study, we sing some songs,

"we hang out, and then we break up

"and actually go back to the door."

I was like, "How long have you guys been doing this?

"I've been down here for two years, I never saw anybody."

She says, "We do it every Friday night,

"we always have, it's an awesome time to meet people."

- I don't think you were in the Union on Friday nights,

John, at that point in your life.

- No, that's a good point.

- But you had a few other--

- Hyper, yes, maybe next.

You know what's so cool is for all the people who are listening right

now who are praying for someone and feeling like I am not seeing any fruit

or it's taking--one, she's persevering in prayer, just like the Scriptures talk

about. Jesus, you know, talks about, "Man, keep going after it, keep going

after it, be faithful and persistent," and that's what she was. But also, God is

always tag-teaming us. I love that, you know, she's on the one hand over here

praying, your friend on the other hand who's got that built, trusted

relationship is over here sharing, encouraging, being bold, I mean really

calling the question there at the end of the summer, not just

"I'm gonna be a nice guy," or "I'm gonna just let John know that I'm a Christian

now," but really pressing you to say, "Where are you at with Jesus?" And meanwhile, he

doesn't know it, he's got this prayer force coming here, this girl that's

been praying for you for a year, and all this is coming together, what a cool

thing. So she gets you plugged in then, and you start getting a community

that can really help you grow and spiritually mature.

- It's crazy.

I didn't have a, I had Bibles,

but I never had a Bible that I actually read.

And so I remember getting this Bible and taking it.

The first time you're going,

'cause you're opening up in what book, where is it?

I mean, I didn't know a thing about where things were.

There's 66 books in there, old and new.

I mean, I kinda knew that's on the right side of the book.

That's on the left side of the book.

But it was great.

She actually taught a lot of that,

and it rotated amongst some different folks

on their leadership team.

And then all those guys went to a church,

actually on Third Street down there,

close to the mall, Evangelical Community Church, or ECC.

- ECC. - Yep.

And there was a pastor named David Ferris,

who was teaching at the time, I don't know who it is now,

but he loved to teach the word of God.

And I mean, I just soaked like a sponge.

Like, it was crazy.

I was reading Scripture during the week,

and then going back and getting fed some more,

and then the Friday night thing.

So it was really, talk about in a year's time,

looking at what I used to do those same days,

and then what I was doing, you know, my junior year

those days.

So it was an amazing time, I feel like,

and I had very good friends.

I was finding in all that, so.

- Incredible.

What's the story, and hopefully this won't drag our arc

too much, but the story of when you're visiting, I think it was Blackhawk in

Fort Wayne, but the pastor had been forewarned about you by--and so I don't

know when that hits and all that, but it's kind of a fun story. It's the same

year. Okay, same year. It's the same year. So I become aware on my RA staff that

there's another RA that was also raised Catholic, is really kind of

struggling in his own spiritual journey, we're becoming very close friends, and I

said I'm gonna start sharing the same story that I was told last summer with

this guy, and really try to help him understand that there's a relationship

with God. There's more out there than what you know and hear. And let me just

stop right there, because I love just that example of, you know, we got so

many Christians who aren't sharing their faith. You're a Christian like less

than a year or whatever, you're already sharing your faith, saying, "You know what?

I mean, you're not--I'm sure you wouldn't have said, 'I get it, I understand it

all now,' but you knew enough to know what it meant to become a follower of

Jesus, and you said, 'All I'm gonna do is take what I've learned so far and try to

pass it along to someone else.'" It's that simple, and you're already influencing

spiritually. That's incredible. Yeah. Well, so this guy's name is John also,

And he's from Michigan, actually, the GR.

And he is at IU and--

- Smart Michigander, yeah.

- He is a smart Michigander.

(laughing)

And he's just a great guy, great athlete.

We played a lot of the same sports.

We loved to play basketball.

We played basketball and tennis and foot,

I mean, he was just, we had so much fun.

And he was also on the RA staff,

but he was also a senior and graduating.

And so I started to witness to him in the winter months.

So like December, January, February,

and I pretty much brought him to this place

of this is a decision that only you can make.

I'm not a guy that likes pressure.

I never liked it applied to me,

and I'm not putting any on you, but this is the truth.

And as I understand it, and my life is so different.

I mean, my life is so different than it was a year ago.

It's crazy to me.

And so I was inviting him to receive Christ,

surrender his life to Christ.

And we both left for spring break.

My boss in the residence hall didn't have a ride.

She had night blindness.

And she wanted me to drive her out to Pennsylvania

so she could stay with her parents.

I had a term paper to write

that was gonna take the entire time.

So I just packed up all my stuff and drove her out there.

And then I pretty much stayed in the house and worked.

And John went up to Chicago to go to Michigan.

I think it was Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock.

I'm just sitting there and I look up

and I'm like, John's had an accident, just like that.

And I was so sure of it,

I called this lady's name Donna.

Donna, Donna, and she's like, what, what?

I said, John Maley has just had this accident.

And she's like, what are you talking about?

'Cause we didn't have cell phones.

I mean, none of that stuff is around.

I'm just telling you, I was like certain

there'd been something seriously happened to him.

Come to find out, he was on the I-94

and there was a semi stopped

in the left-hand lane of traffic,

not on the side, in the left-hand lane.

He's going about 70 in a stream of cars.

Everybody else got around the guy

and he went right into the back of that truck.

Last thing he remembers is his nose

on the back of that truck.

That's the last thing he remembers, okay?

And he walks away from it.

He ends up underneath the tire well,

the place, the thing just explodes

and the top of his seat is sheared off, right?

So he is a miracle, right?

He's out of school for an extra week,

but I'm hearing this now when I get back to campus.

And of course, my boss is like, that's weird.

(laughing)

I'm like, oh yeah.

'Cause I've been witnessing to her also.

And that's just weird.

And I remember telling John when he came back

And he's like, "You."

I said, "You don't have nine lives, my friend."

I mean, I'm just telling you, I love you.

I hated this happened to you.

He walked out with a gash on his finger

and he's, you know how broken glass

was just kind of embedded in anything.

Well, he had a lot of little marks from that,

but otherwise it didn't injure him.

And I was like, man.

So anyway, we continued to meet, hang out and all that.

And then he actually surrendered his life to Christ

at the IU golf course parking lot.

Right, the day he graduated. Yeah, so that guy spends two years at a

accounting firm in Chicago, meets his wife, gets married, and then he moves to

LA, right next to a guy named Russell Moore, who works with John

MacArthur Ministries out there, and is his understudy, and for the next couple

years, he's living there and ends up getting discipled by this Russ Moore,

right? And about during those two years, I'm now in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I'm

working a law firm up there, I'm not from there, and I'm not walking with God that

good. I'm going to a different church that doesn't really preach the word, but

it's attendance, and I've just wandered off. And I tell you what I didn't realize

as an undergrad with all that fellowship how important being surrounded by people

who are actually in the Word of God encouraging you you're doing activities

with but then that all went away and I didn't I did not I failed to pursue that

in law school it was there I just didn't do it and I thought I'd be fine I was

not fine by the time I got three years removed from that I'm up in I'm up in

Fort Wayne really struggling, and this John Mailey starts calling me. He's like,

"Hey, you got to go to this church. This church, the guy that's been living next

door to me, he's been actually discipling me, and you got to go to the church. He's

gonna be the senior pastor there. Oh my gosh, can you believe it?" I'm supposed to

be excited about this. And he doesn't know you're floundering spiritually at

this point? No, he doesn't. He has no idea. So I'm like, "Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll go, I'll go."

and then didn't.

And this went on for several months

where we got in the same pattern,

kind of like my mom when I was a freshman.

He would call on Sunday and say, "Did you go?

"Did you go?

"I told him you were coming, did you go?"

And I'm like, "No, I'm sorry, I didn't.

"I had stuff to do and I didn't go."

And he's like, "Okay, just,

"I'm gonna tell him next Sunday.

"Okay, tell him next Sunday."

Well, this is embarrassing as I sit here

and tell you this story.

I was super unfaithful to him and just didn't go.

But I finally decided I'm just gonna go.

And I made him promise, if I do this,

you'll never bring this up again ever, right?

Like I'm just, let's get this over with.

Well, he's starting to figure out

that I'm not doing so hot.

But I go out there, I sit at Black Hawk Ministries,

I'm in the back row, and there's this pole

that supports the balcony.

I'm behind the pole listening to this guy preach.

I was bawling my eyes out because I have not heard

the Word of God preached like that since Dave Farris

did at ECC several years earlier,

and I realized, I miss this.

And of course, it's a sermon where you're going,

I cannot believe John Maley told Russell

to preach this sermon because he knew I'd be here.

I felt like it was literally manufactured for me.

And of course it wasn't, but I'm telling you.

- That's the power of the Holy Spirit though,

when he takes the message and man,

just makes it laser in on each person

in the way they most need to hear it.

That's really, really cool.

- So I'm like, wow.

But the promise was, I will be there,

I will go down front and I'll meet this guy,

shake his hand, and never bug me again, John Bailey.

(laughing)

So I go down there and they're doing

kind of the people walking by,

and I go down there and meet him, John Barrs,

and shake his hand, and he doesn't let go.

And he's like, he said, "What'd you say your name was?"

"John Bars."

"John Bars, the John Bars that knows John Maynard

"in California who hasn't been coming to church

"for the last six months because he's been promising

"to come and doesn't, that John Bars?"

(laughing)

I'm like, oh my gosh.

He says, "You're coming to my house today."

I said, "No, I'm not."

He says, "Yes, you are."

He's still got my hand.

And see those four girls over there?

Those are my daughters, and we're gonna go grill out burgers

and you're gonna be with us,

and we're gonna have lunch today."

And I'm like, "John Maley, you dog."

- He set you up.

(laughing)

He brought out some Jesus jiu-jitsu on you,

and you ended up, and then Pastor Russ ended up

discipling you there in Fort Wayne, right?

- Absolutely, so Russ took me on, literally,

as for two years, weekly, get together,

bring your Bible, and just start reading through a book.

nothing complicated, no study age, just what does this say to you? And then he

would kind of say, "Well, what about this over here?" and he'd bring another passage up.

"Okay, what about this? Okay, okay." So I don't, it doesn't really say that. It's like,

"No, this has got to be consistent." There's a way to read this and

actually apply it to other passages. You're actually getting, you want the

whole, the whole counsel of God. You need to understand the whole counsel of God

to interpret a passage, other tools like that. And again, over a two-year period,

you know, I was, I got baptized up there and I remember witnessing to some

co-workers. I mean, they're, and he was curious, "How are you doing in this and

are you serving anywhere?" And we happen to have a college-age ministry. There's a

guy who's been leading it, but he's going to seminary. You would be really good, it

good for you, why don't you take a shot at that?" So I started leading this

college age group, about 30 folks. - He took a little bit of a risk there, it

seems like. I mean, you were sort of wandering, you know, when he met you. - Right.

- And you're talking about, was it after two years or was it within those two

years? - It was after two years. - Yeah, so he's been building into you, so he sees

the fruit, he sees the growth and all that, but still putting a guy

that's two years really walking solid in a place of leadership was him

pulling to Jesus, asking the disciples, "Hey, come follow me," which is cool.

The nature of this relationship was everything on the table at all times.

And I told him, I said, "If I'm gonna walk this, I want, if you see

anything out of line, I'll share at a very transparent level, because I'm

just tired, I can't believe I wandered away from this. It just makes me so mad

that I did that. That was all on me because I had people around me, I just

didn't follow through, right? But I don't want that, I want as much life

that Jesus has to offer, I want that, I'm a part of his kingdom expression, I want

to be all part of that. So it was open season, I mean, it was, he's like, "Give me

your list," because I was single, "your list for a future wife."

I'm like, "Well, I don't know if that'd be appropriate." He's like, "I want

I want to know what's on that list,

'cause I want to know what you're looking for in a woman.

Right, and if she can support you

in what you just said you were trying to do,

I need to see your list.

I'm like, okay.

And I was very honest, Brian, and put it all down there.

And I remember giving that to him the next week,

and he says, "You missed the most important ingredient."

I'm like, well, all right, what is it?

It's like, you don't even know

she's a Christian or not, John.

(laughing)

I mean, don't you think that might be the first thing

you wanna get off your chest is where you at with God

and be together on this?

Something so important that will be either an aid

or an hindrance to your entire marriage.

And I was like, wow.

I mean, I couldn't believe I had left that off.

It's like one of those moments,

like this is why I'm getting discipled right now.

- That's it.

- But yeah, it was everything all in.

- That's so cool.

it's, you know, even his approach of just, "Hey, we're just gonna read

some Bible, and then talk about it." Do you remember, by the way, how much would

you read, like a chapter of the Bible for each meeting, or something like that, or longer?

We'd do a chapter, we'd never get done with it. He was literally

trained by MacArthur, so it's literally what's going on in here in the context

of the book, and expositionally where does it sit in a passage, and

that was really good for me, I really needed to hear that. I've read a lot of

at that point a lot of legal and

Getting the opportunity to read the scriptures

Expositionally it was super powerful time, but he would have me read the same chapter

No, I'm sorry five chapters

Five days in a row. Okay, five chapters five days in a row. Gotcha

Yep, and then we come back and talk about it and again, we'd never get through the whole thing, right?

But he's in the next week. I take the next five chapters read them every morning. Just read the same thing

take that long, just do it." And he proved that you could read the same

passage multiple days in a row and think, "Okay, I got it." There'd be something new the

fourth day. I just--all the time. I remember Tim Keller once was talking

about an exercise he did--or he had a professor that had his class do, where

they had to make 100 observations about a short text. And he gets the

text, and after about 15 he's like, "I'm tapped out. I don't know where--" and then

works a little harder and gets to 20, and he's thinking there is no way a person

can think about or notice a hundred things about this text. But then, and I

don't remember exactly how he describes that breakthrough point, but then he

starts really internalizing it at a deep level, asking how all the pieces of

the text work together, why is that word significant, how does that word

relate to the one next to it, and comes up with more than a hundred and just

realizes this is the power of meditation on the Scriptures, and this is the power

even of as Russ was having you read repeatedly, how you just all of a

sudden--I mean, I read a passage yesterday. The first time I--there was

where Jesus is going out on a boat, and it says, "And there

were other boats with him." And I thought, I've never noticed that. Now in that

particular time I didn't have the time to sit with it and meditate on it, but

for some reason the author said it's not just Jesus--I always think of Jesus going

out on boats with his disciples, sometimes alone, but this says, "And

boats with him. Why is that there?" But again, multiple readings. Now, somebody might think,

after what you've said about Russ, I mean, this guy is educated and knows so much about the Bible,

so surely he can be a good discipler, but you really don't need to be someone who's gone

through seminary and has pastored to be a good discipler, and what I love about your journey is

you've seen the power of being discipled, and you've really made it a commitment in your life

to be a discipler, so I guess tell me about what that looks like for you. What have you learned

about discipling others? I think it stands to reason, you know, for any of us, I mean,

it's just saying the obvious thing here, if someone comes to know Jesus, life-changing commitment.

That being said, without discipleship, your experience of floundering is not uncommon,

where, and my wife had the same thing, came to know Christ, and really, because she didn't

didn't change her friends, she didn't have clear discipleship, was kind of

wandering around, still up to things that really were not God's best for her, until

really a year after she became a Christian. So that's what happens

without discipleship, and you have regrets, and you think, "Ah," and you kick

yourself. But you've continued to disciple, guys. Tell me what your approach

looks like. What have you seen work when it comes to building into

folks who are newer in faith? Yep, great question. So the Great Commission, which

we all know and try to do, but it's about making disciples, not converts, right?

Because they have to believe everything that Jesus did and obey everything Jesus.

So it's not just the knowledge, it's actually, they have to learn it in a

way that they're practicing and actually bringing their life into alignment with

what the will is, will of God is. And I was experiencing life like I had never

had before. I mean this shameless, I was experiencing times where there wasn't

shame or conviction or guilt or feeling bad about this or that. I was not having

that. I was actually having life. And so I had this proof proofing happen while

I'm being discipled and laying some stuff aside. There's some stuff I had to

I just not do.

And so I was a real believer on,

I have a responsibility to be discipled,

not just to stay as a convert.

But I also know I'm not calling anybody else

to stay a convert.

I'm asking them to actually move forward in their life

'cause the life of God is out there if they want it.

I mean, and if you don't get into that,

if you don't become a disciple of Jesus,

you can't attain the life of God

that he's standing in this, you know,

standing and saying, "Hear me, you know,

"if you're thirsty, come get the living water,"

or, "I've come that I may have life

"and have it to the full."

I mean, there's this abundant life

that he's talking about, and I'm like,

that is what undiscipled leads to.

It doesn't let you get the life of God.

And so I'm a real believer on that,

and so practices that I've done are,

We did this, it started with the college age ministry.

And that grew to like 50 or 60 college age kids.

And we were breaking the guys down separate from the gals.

I had about half a dozen guy leaders,

half a dozen gal leaders,

and they became small group leaders.

And we were just trying to get people down

into settings where you could have conversations

that were meaningful.

And I was meeting with the six guys

to set them up for their meetings

with the rest of the folks.

And it was, are you struggling with purity?

Okay, and like, what is it?

And could you ask me next week at this time

whether I have lived well this week,

if I actually obeyed the will of God on this week?

- Get right into it.

- Just invited them right into the same kind of struggles

journeys I'm having, but I need their help to become who I need to be.

And so it was obviously very, these are very transparent. They happened, I mean,

for like three years like that. And we saw a lot of people come to Christ in

that community and in their friends. It was really cool because it was so real

that people were actually drawn to the realness of it. And another thing I did

was I started having older gentlemen,

wiser gentlemen, elders, I was meeting some of them.

And I was like, I started thinking about this guy

I was dating, this beautiful gal named Katie.

(laughing)

And 'cause we started dating during that same period.

And I'm like, I'm totally unequipped.

I mean, my time with Russell showed me

I had chased the wrong stuff

and I wasn't really pursuing the right things

and let alone what my role would be in relation to her

in a marriage.

So my prayer was during this time,

God, there's two guys I see in this church

that actually they treasure their wife.

I mean, they love their wives so well and so thoroughly.

Which one should I ask?

So I actually went and had coffee with both of those

and said, what I'm up to is this.

I've watched how you treat your wife.

It is unbelievable.

is so impressive how well you treat your wife.

And I asked this guy named Steve, Steve Lombrecht,

who at the time was the administrator

of the Christian school at Black Hawk,

and I love this guy, and he was like,

"I would love to do that."

- Do what though, explain that,

just so I want people to hear this for us,

both how they grow and how they build into others.

What were you asking him practically,

just that we could hang out periodically?

What are you talking about?

- I'm thinking about someday marrying Katie, right?

I am not who I need to be to do that.

I'm watching you with Renee.

And it's beautiful,

but I know that didn't happen overnight.

You're 20 years into something

that I wanna learn how you got there.

And so it was really,

he would bring me to his house Wednesday nights

and just live in front of me.

- That's it.

- And one time he gets into this big argument with Renee.

And I'm like, I hope he's not doing this

just 'cause it's staging it for me.

I mean, I hope he's not doing it,

But they're going at it pretty good.

And when we're done, I'm like, he said,

"So what do you think?"

I said, "I am confused.

"Help me understand the dynamic of what just happened there

"and what were you aiming to do?"

And just being able to ask those kind of questions

right in the, he was completely transparent about this.

He says, "Well, you probably saw

"I didn't handle this very well."

I said, "That's why I asked for forgiveness

"when I was done."

And I didn't say, "I'm sorry."

I said, "Will you forgive me for this?"

It's up to her to forgive me.

And all these lessons in a marriage, it was so good, right?

And then--

- And so not rocket science,

in the sense that the discipleship process, what he's doing,

because you were wise enough to see,

there's a guy who's got a healthy, God-honoring marriage,

but all you needed to do was get in proximity

of them together on a regular basis.

He wasn't, he hadn't written any,

this guy hadn't written any books, you weren't going to marriage

conferences or classes or whatever, you were just watching Him be Him,

them be them, and it was happening naturally. And I guess I just draw that

out to say that sometimes I think when people think of discipleship, they make

it so hard. Well, what curriculum am I supposed to do? And again, not that those

things are bad. What plan am I supposed to do? What this, what that? And it really, I

mean, Jesus hung out with the disciples. Questions come up, you have

conversations, you're real, and good things come out of that, and it's just

getting around people that are walking, you know, running after Jesus

and have been doing so longer than you, ideally, and you breathe there, they

breathe, and something changes. That's really, really cool.

So it varies on what we're doing, but if it's like, there's a younger guy, I

remember running into a guy at my church in Fort Wayne, and it's one of those

you can read times, you turn around, you got 30 seconds or a minute there to say

hi and how long you've been coming here and all that. And I, for some reason, the Lord's like,

"Who's discipling you?" He's about 28 year old. He goes, "Nobody." I'm like, "Okay, you should do

something about that." I was 28 once and it's just, I mean, it's a whole different

lifestyle when you're actually discipling with somebody and not. And so

He gave me one of those kind of looks like who?

Okay, whatever. Yeah, I said after church if you're ever interested in doing that I do that all day long

I love to do that. So if you're ever that I'd be happy to do that with you. So give me call sometime two years later

Two years passed Wow. Yep. He calls me to say we serious about that

like I

Can't believe it's been two years. But yeah

Yeah, sure. What you got in mind? I don't know, why don't we just meet for a cup of coffee?"

And I said, "Okay." So I kind of met, just say, "What is it that you're looking for?"

Yeah. Because here's what I'm willing to kind of do. And I was interested in

are you reading the Scripture? Are you serving in church? Are you in any kind of leadership? If so,

what's going on there?

And then who are you discipling? Right?

And lots of questions.

These are what I really need help with.

Anything from personal purity to how do you navigate

the situation at work, the difficult boss.

I mean, that is the world he's living in.

And it's like, how would Christ have us

in a way that honors him do the things you're asking about?

I mean, we gotta, like he's watching, he's aware,

and you're actually his ears, nose, mouth,

hands and feet in that context with maybe a difficult boss.

Okay, let's talk about that.

And so it's pretty contextual to whatever he's bringing,

but also hey, let's pick the book of John,

and he picked the book of John, so we--

- You always pick the book of John

'cause you're like, it's a good name.

It's a good name. - It's a good name, right.

It's a good book to actually do discipleship out of

'cause it provokes so many questions.

let me backtrack, when you said to him, "Are you reading your Bible, or serving

the Church, and/or in leadership roles," are you looking for him to be in

those before you're willing to disciple him, or what's the purpose of that

question? Just to understand where he's at? Where are you, how involved? Because

like, if you weren't serving, my question is like, why not? And what does

belonging to the Body of Christ actually--it's not a building, it's a

community of saints that are all working together, and you and I talked in the

pass it. He's got gifts. Those gifts are idle. They start idle, and

then they get engaged in something that they're uniquely qualified to do. They

may not even know what those are. So I want to kind of know, are you serving and

are you serving with your gifts? What are your gifts? It's that whole tranche of

information about, "Hey man, we probably need to come back and look at a couple

lists in Scripture that talk about the different ways God has gifted folks in

the church and just see which one aligns or which one is like, this comes easy to

you. Yeah, yeah. Well that's good, and what I think is cool about that too is when it

comes to--sometimes I think when we think of discipleship, at times people feel

like it's just learning the right information about Jesus, about the Bible,

etc. Well of course we know that's important, it's foundational to know

what's in the Bible and what you believe, why you believe it, but there

is a real hands-and-feet side of it, too, and you're pressing Him on, "Okay, while

we're talking about situations at work, while we're talking about Scripture,

let's talk about what does it mean to actually follow Jesus, be part of a local

church for real, take those action steps." That's really, really, really cool. So

we've been talking about discipleship and what it means to help people not

just discover Jesus, but then actually come to know and follow Him, and at this

time of your life, you're out doing door-to-door evangelism, you're going to

people's houses, knock knock knock, and looking for an opportunity to share

Jesus with them, but you had this realization that culture was shifting in

such a way that people weren't so responsive to the nice young guy coming

up to their door trying to, you know, share the gospel with them, so you kind

of took a shift in your approach, and tell me about that, because it's led to

something really cool. Yeah, so yeah, we were doing door-to-door, this is the

early 90s, just to put some space on this and time.

And we were welcomed at that time to come into a home.

The people felt really honored that you actually took time

to come and talk, that they'd engage with you

on some pretty serious spiritual topics.

But over like the next five years,

we were running into more of,

you move from being welcomed to be a trespasser.

I mean, it really felt like that.

Lights were off.

They wouldn't come to the door.

They didn't trust who was out there.

And we realized culture's shifting.

That's in a way that's not helpful to how

to approach people with something

so important as the gospel.

So we began looking at some other churches

and what they were doing to deal with this question.

And there was a guy named C. Shogren down in Cincinnati,

Ohio at a vineyard church that was doing servant evangelism,

SE.

And we made a trip down there and spent a weekend with them.

But it was-- you go out on Saturday morning.

So you just imagine 600 people in your church

show up on Saturday mornings and you grab newspapers,

today's newspaper, bottles of water, cleaning buckets,

right, and you load up in your cars

and you go all over Cincinnati, I mean everywhere,

ball diamonds, soccer stadiums,

street corners with high volumes of traffic,

and you give away free stuff.

And it has a little card that says,

hey, we're with the New Community Church,

come visit us tomorrow morning at the service,

here's our dates and times and all that.

And it was just giving away and showing the free gift of God

and no strings attached and invitation to the church.

So pretty simple like that, it was very,

there was no pressure with it,

we didn't feel like we were being caught

in a trespass or all that.

So we actually worked with that for about a year and a half

at Black Hawk, the church we were attending at the time.

And we were taking teams, families out to all these places

and giving away free light bulbs, even free toilet paper.

Brian, you could actually get a free roll of toilet paper

with a connection card in it.

And it was really interesting to see that

'cause people were like, "Oh, thank you for that.

"Thank you for that."

That church, Syncy Vineyard had done

two million individual acts of kindness

over a couple year period down there

just 'cause it was such a thing they were doing.

But they became known as the church with the free stuff.

and that's just they had a reputation locally in that.

And one of the things that I had happened,

I went to this guy who was giving away free light bulbs.

I was in the lowest parking lot on Coliseum,

you probably know.

- Oh yeah.

- And he won't take my light bulb.

And I'm like, why not?

It's a free light bulb, we'd love for you to have it.

You're gonna go in and buy one.

And he's like, if I take that light bulb,

you're gonna give me some kind of a sermon

or there's gonna be some kind of a hook.

And I'm like, no.

I mean, actually, you just take it, not at all.

I mean, that's not it at all.

But it made me pause and come back,

and it was like, we trained this guy.

This guy's been witnessing so much,

it's at the point where it's in his face

and he doesn't want it.

And I wasn't able to kind of dispel that

in a way that was reasonable.

It made me really come back and say,

we gotta get back in the Gospels

and hit how approachable Jesus was and is

and what are the barriers that we got to overcome.

And we came back to, at a minimum,

we at least have to go to folks that have felt needs

and approach them and love them well and see what happens.

I'm certainly trained to, you know, share gospel.

I'm also trained to love and affirm and challenge

and all that kind of stuff, but if I'm not in proximity

to somebody who's saying help me,

it's a whole different thing.

And so the internet was new in 1998.

So I just lost half your audience, maybe more.

But the internet is new and people are starting

to do these things called websites.

And the talk was that if you did a website,

you could actually market and sell things through those,

which we thought was the most laughable idea ever, right?

But we thought, I thought, wouldn't it be cool

if there was a website that actually connected

the churches in Fort Wayne and people in the church

looking to love their neighbor with people who were saying,

my hand is up, I used to do this,

but I can't do it anymore, I need help.

Or I'm medically impaired,

or I am facing accessibility issues,

I can't do what I used to do

'cause I can't get around my house anymore.

I wanna stay in my house, can somebody come help me?

So a place to put a spotlight on folks in need

Spotlight on people who are willing to serve and let them get online together. So we're talking flat organization

Yeah, because there's no administration. They actually grab the projects call the homeowner schedule time

Take a few of their buddies and go mow their grass or whatever. And so that was neighbor link org

Now it's been out there for 22 years

and

We've done

surrounding area. It's just a thing like, "Really?" But there's some really

cool things that have happened through all that. And if you're around the

church and you're like, "Well, I've got the gift that helps." There's actually a

gift that helps. And you're the guy that's putting away chairs and tables

and all the stuff that has to happen to function right when people say, "Well, we

need to set this up for this." Well, somebody's got to put it away after the

wedding is over and whatever. And they're the ones that they always show up and do

that and they're happy to do it and they do the thing and nobody thanks them and

they--and it's like there's this group in the body of Christ that can do way more

stuff in the neighborhood, probably their own neighborhood, if they knew what the

needs were. And so there's a retired group of 40 guys in Fort Wayne, they call

themselves the Carpenters Sons. And they're Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, all

denominations but they're all retired and they they get together for breakfast

on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings actually two days a week to bring all

their tools their tool belts and they have been hawking that website for about

15 years they do about 600 projects and not the lawn mowing things it's my

plumbing is busted my electricity went out. More complex stuff. The stuff that I would never want people to know.

- You had me at lawn mowing, that sounded good,

but anything more than that.

- 600 of those a year.

- That's amazing.

- So about half of those dots on the city of Fort Wayne

that were the 17,000 projects, they're theirs.

And they did it in 15 years, but they would never count

because they just are so focused on the blessing

they're being and also the change that they're experiencing

as they love people looking eye to eye

with their neighbors in need.

So, pretty cool. - Man, I love it.

I love that, and you know, it's cool,

'cause they're using their gifts to serve in places of need,

and I also, I think I read on NeighborLink's website,

you've had more than 3,400 in volunteers,

so it's like you've got these diehard dudes,

but you got a lot of other people beyond that.

But what's cool from a gifting standpoint

is to get this thing up and running,

you saw a need, again, birthed out of a desire

to see people come to know Jesus and to love people well.

you saw this need, you were an early innovator,

early adopter of technology, you used the resources you had,

the people you knew, you put it all together,

got this thing off the ground,

and not everybody could pull that part off,

and that's how God used your gifts for that time,

and I know you continue to serve with NeighborLink,

so that's not like it's in the rear view,

but God used your gifts to get this thing going,

and that's really paved the way for so many,

literally thousands of people to make a difference,

and 17,000 plus people to have needs met.

So I just, man, John, I just appreciate your heart so much.

I love being able to hear you talk and share stories.

It's so cool 'cause it just feels like,

it feels like when we read the pages of Scripture,

and we see what Jesus did,

and we see what the disciples did.

Hanging out with people,

including people who are far from Christ.

I think of Matthew parties, you know,

where he brings all his sinner friends over,

and Jesus just hanging out and saying,

"We don't have a plan, we'll just see what God does

"with this," but I just feel like, you know,

your intentional, the burden of hell and heaven

and lost people matters to you, you care about people,

you live out of that place, and you just are sitting there

figuring out every which way that you can help

heaven be a more crowded place, and you're humble about it,

and you're relational, and you're authentic,

and it's just really cool to see your legacy.

I'm excited for this next season.

know your professional days at your current place of employment are sort

of on the backside now, and so you're in a place of just figuring out what God

has for you next, but what's cool is I know no matter what that is, whether it

has a proper title or not, based on your long story of evangelism and

discipleship, I just know God's gonna continue trusting you with major

influence in people's lives, and so thanks for being a great example for me,

and thanks for coming on the show. - You're welcome, and Jesus gives to glory.

and I'm just a work in progress, but I thank you, and it's been my pleasure to be here, really.

Amen. Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with my friend John, and a

couple of takeaways I just want to highlight. One is just the overall

importance of evangelism and how sharing your faith, sharing Jesus with others,

doesn't have to be as hard or as intimidating as we make it. I mean, what I

really heard from John, both as his friends were sharing their faith with

him and then as he was doing the same in many cases, was just being your authentic

self around people who don't yet know Jesus. And that really, that's

evangelism. And if you're being your authentic self, you're not censoring

the part of you that loves and follows Jesus. You're being transparent with that

part of you just like the rest of your life. And so I thought that was a really

good takeaway. And then also just the overall commitment that John has to

discipleship. I love that and I so respect that. It's been a long-standing

commitment over his whole life, and again, I just think the whole conversation

demystifies discipleship. It's such a crucial thing. Man, if we just make a

convert and then somebody isn't built into, the chances that that person will

go on to produce fruit and really flourish in Christ are quite low, but if

we're willing to disciple them, then everything changes. And as the

parable of the soils talks about, as Jesus says, that person can produce 30, 60, 100

times what was sown. How do we disciple someone? Does it need to be a huge

program. No, it does not. It means intentional time where they get to spend

time with you as someone who's spent a little bit more time following Jesus.

Again, even John's example, he was put into positions, sometimes he put himself

into positions, where he was influencing others even though he wasn't honestly

that far ahead of them. But you know what? It didn't matter. All you have to do is

just a little further ahead of them. Honestly, I believe you can sometimes

Disciple people, you're not even that much different than them, but you're calling that

question of, "Hey, let's get together and let's read God's Word, let's talk about it." And in the

process, you both end up growing. So, great, great, great encouragement and I think a quipping

kind of conversation on being someone who helps people discover Jesus and grow in their faith.

And if you did enjoy this conversation, if you've benefited from it, please do go online and rate

and review us, subscribe to us on YouTube. This has been a production of Engedi Church, and we've

we've got more incredible conversations on the way.

And so until next time, just know God made you the Vance.