Ep 190: Terry Allen ~ Discipleship, Faith & Mentoring

Transcript

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Truth and Transcendence, brought to you by being Space with Katherine Llewellyn.

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Truth and Transcendence, episode 190, with special guest Terry Allen.

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Now Terry's come on here today to talk about discipleship.

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Terry's the founder of Mentor4Me, connecting younger men with older mentors, and you can find out all about that at A-Mentor4Me.

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And the four is the digit four, so it's a mentor digit for mecom.

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And Terry's background is in public policy as congressional staffer, think tank president and political campaign advisor.

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So this is a very interesting combination of interests that Terry has.

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Terry, thank you so much for coming on the show.

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Thank you, good to be with you.

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Excellent.

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So, Terry, let's kick off from the beginning.

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Would you share with us your earliest memory of being interested in and engaging with this notion of discipleship?

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That's a great question.

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I don't think I've ever been asked that about specifically discipleship, because discipleship is a part of the Christian faith, it is a part of the life of a believer and so I think it was sometime in, probably in grade school, when I was oh, probably, I don't know 10, 11, 12, that I realized and heard and was taught that and began to read in the Bible that there's more than just believing, giving mental assent, putting your trust and faith in, initially in Christ and in his finished work for my and in his finished work for my restoration into my relationship with God, that there was actually an ongoing effort that is required to cooperate with what God is doing in my life.

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It wasn't explained exactly in that way.

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I wish it had been because I think that's a lot more accurate.

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But the theme of discipleship.

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Jesus said whoever wants to follow me must be my disciple, which means a learner.

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That was pretty early on in my faith.

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I became a Christian when I was seven.

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I was young, so it was probably three, four, five years in that I started understanding that.

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Wow, that's extraordinary.

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The reason I say that's extraordinary is because a lot of people who even people who identify as Christians don't seem to have got hold of this notion of discipleship in the way that you describe it.

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A lot of people talk more as if God is the authority and you do what you're told and then you're a good person.

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You know nothing about being responsible for learning and work.

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You know.

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Yeah, I think we get a lot of that in the evangelical church.

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I think among Reformed and evangelical churches there's a lot of emphasis on discipleship but, yeah, not a lot.

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Particularly in the Roman church and in some of the mainline denominations there's not a lot of emphasis on that, unfortunately, sadly.

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Now that's a generalization, but yeah, that's something that is left out of the modern message of the church.

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One of the things that really bothers me is that I think the church in the West has adopted a very secular form of marketing strategy to the gospel, to the good news of the gospel of Jesus, and too many leaders have boiled the gospel down into what is essentially like a cheap infomercial for fire insurance and they've said if you'll just believe and say these seven words and raise your hand and acknowledge that you're praying with me now, you can go to heaven when you die.

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Well, there's an element of truth in that to a degree, but that is not the gospel.

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That's a kind of a bastardization of the gospel and that is not what Jesus taught.

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There was a young man, who's referred to as the rich young ruler, who was a very wealthy young man and came to Jesus and said what must I do to inherit eternal life.

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And Jesus told him.

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He said go and sell everything you have and follow me.

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And the Bible says he went away, sad because he had many possessions, and Jesus didn't try to chase after him, he didn't try to cut him a deal and say well, I'll tell you what.

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We'll make a deal.

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He just let him go because he knew his heart wasn't ready.

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And so the point is that Jesus is not desperate.

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Jesus loves us and he came and sacrificed and died to rescue us.

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But that doesn't mean he's going to bend the rules to allow us to be our own boss and do our own thing and save us anyway.

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It's an all or nothing proposition.

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It's all in, and so many churches have made the decision to follow Christ the most important thing.

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And that's not what Jesus taught.

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Jesus said if you want to follow me, it is a very difficult thing to do because you're giving me your life, you're writing me a blank check.

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Jesus says I'm the boss and I'm the controller of your future.

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I'm the determiner of your future and if you're going to follow me, you're going to have to get with my program and learn to live life the way that it really is, which is how I created it, and cooperate with me and what I want to do in your life.

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And that message is not an easy sell, and so the church doesn't emphasize that.

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And so you have a whole generation of people who've come to faith in Christ who are not told that the expectation is that, okay, your life is not your own anymore.

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You have to relearn how to think, you have to relearn how to behave.

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You have to relearn from the ground up.

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God's priority in our life, god's priority in our life is he doesn't save us in order to leave us the way that we are.

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He saves us in order to change us.

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He changes us into his image.

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So that's a very powerful idea.

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People really understand that.

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It changes everything.

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You're not on the throne anymore, you're not in control.

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You write him a blank check and say, okay, here it is, here's my life, take it, make it what you will.

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That's discipleship yeah, great.

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Well, to me that is, um, that sort of parallels, um, when people talk about being on the path in relationship to quite a few different philosophies and spiritual ways of looking at things, that idea of being in service to the highest principles or whatever it is that you're following, and that's a lifelong journey rather than just a.

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I've memorized this now and I'm done.

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I've memorized this now and I'm done, and that can be a daunting idea.

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I think you're absolutely right.

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That can be a daunting idea, but to me it's more interesting.

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I think the way you describe it is more interesting to me than the way it was presented to me when I was at school.

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Let's say I was at school.

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Let's say when I was at school it was presented as and this was Church of England.

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I suppose it must have been that we were being taught at school it was.

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You have to show up to the classes, you have to go to church, you have to say the words and you have to say that you believe in God, and then you'll be fine.

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Oh really, words, and you have to say that you believe in god, and then you'll be fine.

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And oh really.

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And I thought that sounds like nonsense to me.

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I mean, that just sounds like, um, a lazy, a lazy way of virtue signaling.

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That's what it sounds right, that's exactly what it sounds like.

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Doesn't sound very authentic no, it wasn't, it wasn't.

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I found it very, very unappealing and it put me off organized religion very strongly I can understand why.

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I can see why but you're.

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But what you're also saying now is that the modern, a lot of the modern ways that christianity is kind of marketed, is done in a way where it doesn't emphasize this discipleship, because they think that would be more popular to do it.

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That way.

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Well, because it's not as easy to score points, it's not easy to gain adherence.

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See the way that the Western church is structured.

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Every Western church has a budget.

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You have the pastor.

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You have to support a full-time staff.

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You have property and overhead.

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You have all this overhead and you got to make your bills.

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You got to pay your bills and so it's all about attendance.

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It's about budgets, it's about money.

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It's a business.

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That is not what the Lord came and lived and died to create a business.

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There is a real kingdom of his authority that exists, that is going to ultimately rule eventually, and it has started.

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It is both now and not yet.

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Jesus referred to it as the kingdom of God.

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It is both now and not yet, and it is a set of principles that rule the created order in the universe.

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And Jesus says I have restored you, I have given you the opportunity the Bible says as many as received him to them gave he the power and right to become the children of God.

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And I ransomed you and I bought you back from the domain of darkness to become who you were created to be, which was children in right standing with me and if you will accept my forgiveness and my sacrifice and, in exchange, give me your life and live for me and devote yourself to me, then you are now my adopted child and you can live in the realm of the kingdom of God rather than in the realm of the kingdom of darkness.

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You've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light and you now live according to a set of principles, and that those principles may or may not have anything to do with your catechism or your church membership or your church participation.

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If your church is structured correctly and governed correctly, it will be consistent with his kingdom and it will point you in the right direction and help you become transformed into the image of Christ.

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But if your church is structured wrong, it may not look anything like that.

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It may not look anything like the image of Christ, but if your church is structured wrong, it may not look anything like that.

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It may not look anything like the kingdom of God.

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So, yeah, so if you're pastoring a modern day church, your temptation is to adopt your message to fit your needs of the immediate needs of the hour, which is what's our attendance running?

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What's our budget?

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Are we meeting our bills?

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Are we paying our bills?

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Are we getting everything done we need to do, because we're building a program here, and that's really not healthy.

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That is not healthy.

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Are there churches that are healthy, that have all that?

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Yes, there are.

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But my point is that the inherent structure of the way the church is designed and functioning and built today, especially in the West, is really problematic and we're seeing some major problems because of it.

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And so what happens is the message of discipleship gets lost.

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So the pastor's number one priority is to make disciples.

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That's what Jesus told him to do and that's what the pastor will have to give an account to God for.

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Did you make disciples?

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Did you do what I told you to do in the Great Commission?

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He's not going to say did you make your budget, did you pay your bills, did you get all your programs successful?

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Did you get your Christmas pageant done and did you get all these other things?

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He's going to say did you make disciples?

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So there's a gap, unfortunately, and that's a major crisis.

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We call it the crisis of discipleship in the church.

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Wow, well, fascinating hearing.

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I mean, this is not a world that I kind of normally swim in, so it's fascinating hearing you talking about it.

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And I also love the way when you talk about it, that you do it in a way that is non-divisive.

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You know, it's like you're inviting me into something that you understand very well.

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And I also notice quite often, when people are very strongly connected in with a modality or religion or spiritual way of being, spiritual way of being, that they don't always communicate about it in such an inclusive way or kind of welcoming way as you're doing.

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Well, if we spoke long enough, we probably would find areas where we have major, major disagreements, because, you know, unfortunately I mean unfortunately, but the reality is there is truth, we believe there is truth, christians believe there is ultimate, absolute truth, and the truth divides, you know, the truth does.

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It's just the nature of truth divides, and so there are.

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If you hang out here long enough, you will come across issues that are extremely divisive, and so does that mean that and according to Orthodox Christian doctrine, we're not Christians, are not given the option of choosing to cherry pick which doctrines we will follow or which truths of Scripture we will adhere to and which we will forsake.

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It's an all-inclusive take it or leave it all-in worldview, and so are there divisive issues.

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Yes, does the truth divide?

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Yes, but the most important thing to understand and remember, I believe, is that everything that we're in the search for truth from the Judeo-Christian perspective is centered around God's love for people, and the reason that God deems something either harmful or off-limits is because it hurts people, or off-limits is because it hurts people.

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And so if you keep the focus on what God focuses on, which is His incredible love for people, his incredible passion for people, it helps to keep it all in perspective, because people can disagree about social issues and cultural issues and political issues, but if someone is operating out of anger and not love, that can become evident and that I'm not responsible for someone who disagrees with me on an issue.

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But I'm responsible for me and we are responsible for ourselves as believers in jesus.

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And um jesus, everything underlying every issue, every action is his love and compassion for people.

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So as long as we keep that in perspective, um, it helps, because jesus loves us.

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He created us in his image.

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The bible teaches that he created us.

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He's the agent of creation.

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According to colossians, he, he is the, actually the agent of creation.

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He did it, um, and uh, he created us.

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Uh, in his image.

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He created us amazing, amazingly complicated and complex and in design.

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And uh, he loves us and he loves people, he loves everyone and so, and so he despises those things which hurt us.

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And so you say God hates something.

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Well, the actual rendering in the original language is that God hates those things that hurt the things that he loves.

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He's against those things that hurt his beloved.

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So got to keep the main thing.

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The main thing right Is that there's a time to draw the line and to take a stand on something, but understanding motivation is that as God's compassion and his love for others.

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Yeah, lovely, lovely.

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Thank you, Really great.

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So would you like to share with us a bit about what it's been like for you?

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Because I know we're talking about discipleship and you reminded us that is only a part of the faith and also we just have this one piece of time to talk, so we're not going to talk about everything about you and everything about your faith.

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So what was it like for you being 10, 12 years old, getting hold of this idea of discipleship and then traveling through life from that point with your awareness of that and your kind of growing understanding and experience in relationship to that?

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What was that like for you?

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How did it affect your relationships?

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How did it affect the way you traveled through your life?

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Well, I grew up in, I think, a very positive environment.

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I had a very good childhood, had a very secure home, had great parents loved me, and so I didn't really have a lot of trauma.

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I didn't have to deal with some of the trauma that's so prevalent in our society, which I'm very fortunate.

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So the notion of discipleship was very prevalent and very front of mind as I was a teenager, into my teenage years, when I got to be about 17 and I got opportunities to start driving and I got opportunities to kind of make my own way in the world and make my own decisions about what kind of life I wanted to live.

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It became really top of mind, front of mind, and I decided, I made a conscious decision that I was going to.

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It was interesting, catherine, I would read about these characters in scripture King David of ancient Israel or Joseph, the patriarch Joseph, or even Moses or others and I had just a very inherent sense that I was going to have one life and I got one opportunity to make it count and I wanted.

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I think the core motivation for me was I knew I had an old, beat up car and we worked on that car every weekend.

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My first car.

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I bought it with cash, my own money.

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I had to work for it when I was growing up, and that we bought it and we spent every weekend working on it.

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And I remember thinking one time that if I could just get the guy who designed this car and this engine and this carburetor, he could show us why this carburetor keeps messing up.

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But I thought that's it.

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If the one who made me, if I could tap into him, he will show me the way forward.

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And so what that meant was is I really applied the idea that if I can tap into the one who created my desires, who knows what I need and want before even I do, why wouldn't I do that?

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That makes ultimate sense.

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That is, I've got one life to live.

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I want to make it count.

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I want to go for the brass ring in a sense, but not just from a financial or goal standpoint.

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I want to make my life count.

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I want to be like those men that I read about in the Bible, especially King David, when God calls him a man after his own heart.

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I thought I want to be your man, god.

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I want to be your man.

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I want to be somebody that you are proud of and that you love and that you're pleased with and that will cooperate with you to mold my life what you want it to be.

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So from an early, really early on, from when I started driving and started dating girls and choosing where I wanted to go to college and what I wanted to major in and what I wanted to study in my career, who I wanted to marry, I really made those decisions in prayer, with starting out with prayers.

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That is the key center of that and I've done that really through my life and that's been the guiding principle in my life.

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It really has ever since I was young wow so it's a major factor fantastic.

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So is it fair to say that you have been within yourself, practicing discipleship, practicing being a disciple yes, for right at about 50 years now.

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Because I was, I was saved, I was became a christian 53 years ago and there, from about three or four years in, yeah, I've been really focused on doing that and memorizing Scripture and what's referred to in Scripture as dying to yourself daily and surrendering your will to God's will.

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So yeah, about 50 years been a practicing believer and a disciple of Jesus, Wow.

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Well, no wonder it's, no wonder it comes across so grounded in you when you talk about it.

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And I just want to say I really admire that, that uh dedication and that practice you know, because I know I, I practice certain things and being consistent in the practice of something really is a big deal and there's so many opportunities to get distracted from it or for the ego to come in and say are you sure this is a good idea?

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and all of that and not just distractions but but difficulties.

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I mean, life is hard.

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Life is so stressful, it is so hard to to make it today to be a parent, you know, parent, to make ends meet and do all the responsibilities.

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I don't know how people who are not grounded in something do it, because the fears and the uncertainty of life are just.

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They can be paralyzing.

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I mean, it's no wonder to me that there's such dysfunction in families and in people's lives and that people make such bad decisions, because it gets cloudy In our faith.

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It teaches that we have an adversary who hates us, who is trying to thwart the will of God in every instance, in every moment, and that hates us dearly and would love nothing better than to derail God's plans for our lives.

00:22:50.190 --> 00:22:58.185
So we have to fight that as well, not just the uncertainty and the questions, but what we would refer to as spiritual warfare, spiritual attacks.

00:22:58.185 --> 00:23:04.840
And so I feel it, I see it, I've experienced it and I don't know how people do it.

00:23:04.840 --> 00:23:06.624
Because life is hard.

00:23:06.624 --> 00:23:11.034
It is tough If you're not grounded in something that you're holding onto.

00:23:11.034 --> 00:23:15.566
It's essential.

00:23:15.566 --> 00:23:19.833
I have a friend who used to say you'll hit the hard wall of life eventually.

00:23:19.833 --> 00:23:20.994
Life's just that hard.

00:23:20.994 --> 00:23:35.449
If you're trusting in something that doesn't work, life will prove it either true or false, because you'll hit that wall and what you're depending upon will be tested and it will either prove true or it will prove not true.

00:23:35.449 --> 00:23:38.046
I believe that because life is hard.

00:23:38.868 --> 00:23:45.368
Yeah, absolutely, and I do, yeah, I certainly recognize that that life actually responds with the feedback.

00:23:45.368 --> 00:23:47.446
You get the feedback, don't you?

00:23:47.446 --> 00:23:50.047
You know, am I on the path?

00:23:50.047 --> 00:23:51.445
Am I on my right path?

00:23:51.445 --> 00:23:53.205
And am I really following it?

00:23:53.205 --> 00:24:00.193
So you are now putting this discipleship into practice with a mentor for me.

00:24:00.193 --> 00:24:04.530
I'd love if you would share about that with the listeners.

00:24:05.460 --> 00:24:06.201
You bet, you bet.

00:24:06.201 --> 00:24:22.805
I was sitting in church one day and I looked to my right and our church kind of skews, older and affluent, and I realized there were probably we probably run you know 800 people on a Sunday morning and I saw probably 60 or 70 men to my right who were sitting with their wives.

00:24:22.805 --> 00:24:38.213
They were well-groomed, they were gray-haired and they were successful and just I could tell you know they'd served faithfully in their job and in their family and I just I thought, thought we have a lot of spiritual equity in this church.

00:24:38.213 --> 00:24:44.057
This is just amazing, Um the uh, the people that attend here.

00:24:44.057 --> 00:24:45.604
So much to offer.

00:24:45.663 --> 00:24:57.988
And then I thought about immediately, the, the numbers of men who've grown up without fathers and with absent fathers or or distant fathers, and I thought there's gotta be a way to connect the two together.

00:24:57.988 --> 00:25:11.625
And so I got this idea and this was this was 13, 14 years ago and for about 12 years, this, just this, this idea just kind of germinated and I thought surely somebody will figure this out and put together some kind of online platform.

00:25:11.625 --> 00:25:13.108
Nothing ever happened.

00:25:13.108 --> 00:25:18.848
And so I was having dinner with a friend about two years ago, told him about this idea and he said if you'll build that website, I'll help you.

00:25:18.848 --> 00:25:23.570
So he committed to me to help him and I said let me write you a memo and what it will take.

00:25:23.570 --> 00:25:26.221
And as I wrote the memo, I realized this is very doable.

00:25:26.221 --> 00:25:26.903
We got to do this.

00:25:26.903 --> 00:25:37.619
This is a problem that can be fixed and so launched the site about two years ago, about a year and a half ago, about a year and a half ago, About a year and a half ago, and I've learned a lot.

00:25:37.619 --> 00:25:57.865
And something I've learned is that I thought that the reason that the discipleship crisis exists in America is because of a lack of attention and effort that most pastors are just not attempting to address, that they're doing other things.

00:25:57.865 --> 00:26:12.974
They're focusing on attendance and budgets and fundraising and other activities, and part of that's true, but there is a lot of attention and effort going into discipleship in the West, particularly in America.

00:26:13.760 --> 00:26:24.280
But I found something else out that there's even greater problem that prevents discipleship in America, in the church, and it's a problem that is prevalent and most pastors are not aware of it.

00:26:24.280 --> 00:26:28.648
And that problem is a problem of isolation.

00:26:28.648 --> 00:26:37.771
It is a prevalent problem that's pervasive, it's everywhere and, again, most pastors aren't aware that it's there, but it is.

00:26:37.771 --> 00:26:38.794
Think about it.

00:26:38.794 --> 00:26:49.984
You can get today your meal ready to eat or your groceries either one or both, you can deliver to your front door without ever talking to a human being.

00:26:49.984 --> 00:26:53.252
You get your news, you get your entertainment.

00:26:53.252 --> 00:27:02.490
If you're a Christian, you get your worship, you can get your sermons Everything you want you can get without talking to another human being.

00:27:03.420 --> 00:27:09.472
So the culture just pushes us toward isolation, right?

00:27:09.472 --> 00:27:17.531
So if you just lift your feet from where you stand and you're in a river, the current of that river will just push you toward isolation.

00:27:17.531 --> 00:27:24.361
It's just drifting.

00:27:24.361 --> 00:27:24.801
It never ends, right?

00:27:24.801 --> 00:27:25.442
That's the drift of the culture.

00:27:25.442 --> 00:27:37.643
And then you throw on top of that that most men in the church who are intentional about their life and are trying to do things according to their convictions and consistently within their convictions, most men have one thing in common what is it?

00:27:37.643 --> 00:27:38.845
They're busy.

00:27:38.845 --> 00:28:16.285
So you lay on top of that the busyness on top of the drift of the culture, and what happens is very well-intentioned men who want to follow Jesus and who want to be what God wants them to be and who God wants them to be, find themselves alone in their thoughts, in their actions, and they realize I don't have many friends, I can't confide in a lot of people and men generally don't like to confide a lot anyway, and so this culture of isolation is just festering and it's terrible and it's really bad and it's prevalent, it's everywhere and it's even in the church, and it's especially in the church because pastors are the worst.

00:28:16.886 --> 00:28:17.910
Pastors are isolated.

00:28:17.910 --> 00:28:28.895
They don't have anybody in their church they can confide in, because if they can confide in somebody in their church, it's a risk for them, because you can't confide someone in what you're struggling with.

00:28:28.895 --> 00:28:32.369
That's a recipe for losing your job, right?

00:28:32.369 --> 00:28:33.625
So it's a crisis.

00:28:33.625 --> 00:28:34.961
It's a crisis of isolation.

00:28:34.961 --> 00:28:35.381
It's called.

00:28:35.381 --> 00:28:41.645
A friend of mine has termed this relational poverty, that we are living in relational poverty.

00:28:41.645 --> 00:28:44.248
And now why does that matter?

00:28:44.248 --> 00:28:54.316
Well, because if you look at the Gospels and what Jesus taught right before Jesus was going to be arrested, to be tried, you know what he prayed for.

00:28:54.316 --> 00:28:59.964
He prayed for one thing he prayed that his disciples would be unified, that they would all be unified.

00:28:59.964 --> 00:29:01.728
Why did he pray that?

00:29:01.728 --> 00:29:06.563
Because there is power in unity and the church needs to be unified.

00:29:06.563 --> 00:29:11.393
So Jesus wants unity, which is within community.

00:29:11.393 --> 00:29:13.363
So isolation is over here.

00:29:13.363 --> 00:29:16.388
Unity and community are over here.

00:29:16.388 --> 00:29:18.874
It's diametrically opposed to what Jesus wants.

00:29:19.840 --> 00:29:25.423
So if I'm a pastor and I'm expecting my guys to get discipled, the first thing I have to do is understand that they're isolated.

00:29:25.423 --> 00:29:28.411
They don't have the opportunity to get discipled.

00:29:28.411 --> 00:29:29.339
You got to get them together.

00:29:29.339 --> 00:29:37.970
You got to address the core issues that they're dealing with in a forum that men can function in.

00:29:37.970 --> 00:30:16.613
And so what we do is, as we train mentors, we get them into small groups of six to eight men and we take them through a curriculum called Fast Forward, and what Fast Forward refers to is basically being able to develop close relationships with other guys quickly and get to know each other and deal with the core issues that all men face, and in the process of doing that, it pulls them out of their isolation, helps them get to know other men, it helps them to know others and to be known, to become known, because deep down, we all have a need to be known.

00:30:17.480 --> 00:30:20.625
And so you develop that safe atmosphere for guys and they just come alive.

00:30:20.625 --> 00:30:22.731
They just start revealing things about themselves.

00:30:22.731 --> 00:30:26.148
Hey, I'm struggling with this, I'm concerned about that, I'm afraid about that.

00:30:26.148 --> 00:30:30.406
I'm victorious here, I'm having a great experience here, but I'm really struggling here.

00:30:30.406 --> 00:30:36.608
And they get bonded and they realize, wow, this is some of the most powerful things I've ever experienced.

00:30:36.608 --> 00:30:38.413
And we show them.

00:30:38.413 --> 00:30:42.431
We don't just give them a tip sheet and say here's the five things that mentors need to do.

00:30:42.431 --> 00:31:00.051
We walk with them through that experience so that by the end of our 15-week Zoom sessions, they have seen a real-life model of how to mentor other guys in a peer mentoring situation and say okay, now you want to lead one of these groups, you can, or, if you be available to meet younger guys who want to reach out to you.

00:31:00.051 --> 00:31:01.233
So that's our mentor training.

00:31:01.233 --> 00:31:03.367
So we've learned that there's a.

00:31:03.367 --> 00:31:12.444
To answer your question, Catherine, there's basically a deeper problem in the church that is causing part of the crisis of discipleship, and that is isolation, and we have to address it.

00:31:13.859 --> 00:31:20.467
Well, I must say that that issue of isolation is relevant in many, many, many areas.

00:31:20.467 --> 00:31:33.182
We have it over here in the UK as well, where people are spending too much time on their own, basically, and the people who suffer yeah, people are right, it's a way of life.

00:31:33.201 --> 00:31:33.843
It's a way of life.

00:31:34.943 --> 00:31:49.714
And men suffer from it particularly, I think, because I think in general you know we've generalized, but in general I think women are better at, you know, finding a gang of people to talk to without too much difficulty.

00:31:49.714 --> 00:31:57.780
But funnily enough, I was talking to my cousin, who's a man.

00:31:57.780 --> 00:32:10.843
He's in his early 70s and he's now got this mission going on whereby he finds elderly men who are just sitting at home the whole time watching TV because their wife has died or they retired or whatever.

00:32:10.843 --> 00:32:14.451
He just goes around and sees them and drags them out of the house.

00:32:14.451 --> 00:32:19.811
He says you got to get them out, that's his whole motto what he's doing, and it doesn't matter.

00:32:19.960 --> 00:32:23.790
He says I might take them into my garage and get them to do some woodwork with me.

00:32:23.790 --> 00:32:25.946
I might get them to go for a walk down the river.

00:32:25.946 --> 00:32:27.224
I might take them to the pub.

00:32:27.224 --> 00:32:33.792
His whole thing is walk into someone's house, grab them and drag them out of the house.

00:32:36.304 --> 00:32:37.990
Well, the truth there is that there is.

00:32:37.990 --> 00:32:41.069
There's equity in retired men.

00:32:41.069 --> 00:32:49.910
You know, they've got experience in their careers, they've got life experience as husbands and fathers and, in the case of Christian men, they've got life experience with the Lord.

00:32:49.910 --> 00:32:50.751
That's invaluable.

00:32:50.751 --> 00:33:01.692
And what we find in our mentor training is that men will open up if given the opportunity, and they have just as great of a need to be known and be appreciated as women do.

00:33:01.692 --> 00:33:06.930
They're just not given the opportunity most of the time, so when they are, they will do that.

00:33:08.253 --> 00:33:11.241
You know, one of the dynamics that we run into right now is we.

00:33:11.241 --> 00:33:13.988
It is a challenge, you know.

00:33:13.988 --> 00:33:15.210
You ask how it's going.

00:33:15.210 --> 00:33:19.973
The one thing we've, the big thing we've learned, is that the isolation is real and it needs to be addressed.

00:33:19.973 --> 00:33:28.820
One of the other things we've learned is that it's it's a challenge for for younger guys to understand that they they really do need mentors.

00:33:28.820 --> 00:33:31.344
It you know.

00:33:31.403 --> 00:33:43.044
You look at anybody who's ever done anything, who's ever been successful in any endeavor, in any field in sports, medicine, entertainment, politics, business.

00:33:43.044 --> 00:33:47.172
They all had someone who showed them how to do it.

00:33:47.172 --> 00:33:48.922
No one figured it out on their own.

00:33:48.922 --> 00:33:50.144
They all had mentors.

00:33:50.144 --> 00:33:59.384
And we can go through and I've documented dozens and dozens of people who've been some of the most famous and successful people, who all had mentors, and you can trace them.

00:33:59.384 --> 00:34:06.887
And that's one of our pitches to younger guys is guys, why do you have to experience the potholes?

00:34:06.887 --> 00:34:10.202
There's no reason you have to experience the difficulties.

00:34:10.202 --> 00:34:13.528
You can learn and glean invaluable experience.

00:34:13.528 --> 00:34:15.673
I had one guy told us.

00:34:15.673 --> 00:34:24.264
He said I could have saved 10 years on my career if I would have just listened to older guys and learned and understood that they really did want to give back into me.

00:34:24.264 --> 00:34:25.547
But I didn't think they wanted to.

00:34:25.547 --> 00:34:26.952
I didn't think they cared.

00:34:27.559 --> 00:34:59.782
So what we want to do is we're providing a forum for younger guys can go and they can hit the website and they can see a list of mentors and they can read their bios and they can see their pictures and they can say, oh, here's a guy who has a career interest like mine, or here's a guy who has been through an experience like me, or he was raised like I was and maybe I want to reach out and have a cup of coffee or have a zoom call and just hear him and get to know him and maybe there's something there I can glean from him.

00:34:59.802 --> 00:35:02.871
That's what we've set up and it's completely free, it's completely open, there's no charge, there's no condition, and it's available for everyone.

00:35:02.871 --> 00:35:12.181
So that's what we've tried to put together and give an opportunity for people to become discipled, for people who want to be discipled in the Lord.

00:35:12.181 --> 00:35:18.108
So if you're not a born-again Christian, if that's not you and that's not your cup of tea, then you may not be interested.

00:35:18.108 --> 00:35:26.894
But if that is you and that's where you're headed and that's what you believe in, then, yeah, you might find this will be impactful for you.

00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:29.889
Well, there are plenty of people in that particular demographic.

00:35:29.889 --> 00:35:33.389
You're not going to run out of people in that demographic, are you?

00:35:33.389 --> 00:35:38.802
When people are doing these projects sometimes, oh my God, how are we going to find all the right people?

00:35:38.802 --> 00:35:41.306
How many people can you cope with, I mean?

00:35:41.327 --> 00:35:45.561
you can only do what you can do, can't you?

00:35:45.561 --> 00:35:56.349
And, honestly, the way you talk about it, terry, I almost wish I was a younger man, who was a Christian, who would be able to come along and receive these benefits.

00:35:56.349 --> 00:36:08.989
You know, because it just sounds so welcoming and appealing what you were describing and so powerful, and I personally have got a bit of a bias at the moment about it.

00:36:08.989 --> 00:36:10.155
Might be a bias, I don't know.

00:36:10.155 --> 00:36:11.780
You tell me if it's a bias, it's a.

00:36:11.780 --> 00:36:19.873
I've got this idea that you know, in the world that we're in, men need the help, whatever help they need.

00:36:19.873 --> 00:36:33.543
They need help with their growth and with what they're trying to do, but it's very hard for them to get the right kind of help and for a lot of men, what they really need is help from other men.

00:36:33.543 --> 00:36:36.813
You go online and you're looking for help.

00:36:36.813 --> 00:36:41.617
It's all women offering all these programs and spiritual programs.

00:36:43.206 --> 00:36:46.356
I think there's a lot that men need that can only come from other men.

00:36:47.465 --> 00:36:50.195
You're exactly right and I agree with you 100%.

00:36:50.195 --> 00:36:54.472
One of the most, in fact.

00:36:54.472 --> 00:36:58.278
I'm going to say something and you're going to be surprised by this.

00:36:58.278 --> 00:37:00.527
I'm going to say something and you're going to be surprised by this.

00:37:00.527 --> 00:37:12.458
Some of the most unhappiest people that I know are men who are truly surrendered and follow the Lord and who have refused to continue to grow in their faith.

00:37:12.458 --> 00:37:16.442
They have kind of shut down and in isolation.

00:37:16.442 --> 00:37:23.231
They've isolated themselves and they have stopped that sanctification process.

00:37:23.251 --> 00:37:26.422
I talked earlier that Jesus doesn't save us in order to just leave us like we are.

00:37:26.422 --> 00:37:28.108
He saves us in order to change us.

00:37:28.108 --> 00:37:30.393
He changes us into his image.

00:37:30.393 --> 00:37:38.586
It's called being transformed by the renewing of your mind, being transformed into the image of Christ, and that's God's role in our life.

00:37:38.586 --> 00:37:41.007
It's called sanctification, making you more like Jesus.

00:37:41.007 --> 00:37:44.556
Well, we can cooperate with that or we can stop cooperating with that.

00:37:44.556 --> 00:37:56.257
And if we stop cooperating with that, we're miserable because we know the truth in our mind but we're not putting ourselves in the right ecosystem where we can be changed.

00:37:56.257 --> 00:37:57.219
And God?

00:37:57.219 --> 00:38:00.635
The reason unity is so important is because God uses other people to change us.

00:38:00.635 --> 00:38:04.632
Change only happens in the context of community.

00:38:04.632 --> 00:38:09.313
That's why Jesus prayed for unity among his followers before he was arrested.

00:38:09.313 --> 00:38:10.597
He prayed for unity for them.

00:38:10.597 --> 00:38:12.369
It's in John 17.

00:38:12.369 --> 00:38:13.693
It's called the High Priestly Prayer.

00:38:13.693 --> 00:38:14.856
You can read about it.

00:38:15.065 --> 00:38:21.346
I do actually yeah, that important, that is so powerful can read about it.

00:38:21.365 --> 00:38:21.507
I do so.

00:38:21.507 --> 00:38:22.610
Yeah, that that important, that that is so powerful.

00:38:22.610 --> 00:38:28.407
But no one told me why it was important when I was told it in a in a class at school, but I remember it registering and thinking that's interesting.

00:38:28.849 --> 00:38:32.376
I don't know why yeah, and you think, why would he pray that?

00:38:32.376 --> 00:38:37.673
Well, the reason is because if we isolate ourselves, we cut ourselves off from the ecosystem.

00:38:37.673 --> 00:38:44.996
That will accomplish what God wants, because true life change only happens in the context of other people.

00:38:44.996 --> 00:38:47.132
You need other people to inconvenience you.

00:38:47.132 --> 00:38:49.373
You need other people to rub you like sandpaper.

00:38:49.373 --> 00:38:53.594
You need other people to bless you and help you and encourage you, but annoy you as well.

00:38:53.594 --> 00:38:54.476
That's how it happens.

00:38:54.476 --> 00:38:55.610
That's how life change occurs.

00:38:55.610 --> 00:39:13.746
That's how life change occurs.

00:39:13.846 --> 00:39:15.507
And so, um the most, some of those miserable people I know are men who, who they?

00:39:15.507 --> 00:39:18.291
They have firm convictions, but they isolate themselves and they wake up one day and they're 60 or 50 or 55.

00:39:18.291 --> 00:39:28.771
Their kids are growing, they're out of the house and and they're angry at how the world is shifting out from under them and they don't understand why the younger generation are so whacked out and how the world is going to hell in a handbag and they're just angry at everything and they're not cooperating with what God wants.

00:39:28.771 --> 00:39:31.666
And God wants to channel that frustration in a way.

00:39:31.666 --> 00:39:36.416
That is good, but they're so cut off from everybody that they've stopped changing.

00:39:36.416 --> 00:39:39.695
And so when you get isolated, anything can happen.

00:39:39.695 --> 00:39:45.905
You can go down some very strange paths if you're isolated, and God never wants us to be isolated.

00:39:50.190 --> 00:40:03.414
So I know a lot of believers in Jesus who are authentic, true Christians, sincere Christians, but they're not cooperating with God in this sanctification process and they're not changing and they're stuck.

00:40:03.414 --> 00:40:16.030
And that's a pretty unpleasant place to be for both them and for their spouse and for those close to them, because they're just not fun to be around a lot.

00:40:16.030 --> 00:40:19.317
And Jesus wants us to be just the opposite.

00:40:19.317 --> 00:40:22.751
He wants us to be teachable, he wants us to be open-minded, moldable.

00:40:22.751 --> 00:40:25.277
He wants to continue to change us every day.

00:40:25.985 --> 00:40:30.375
And so the attitude of the disciple is Lord, what do I need to learn today?

00:40:30.375 --> 00:40:34.630
How can I surrender to you and love others and become more like you, become more like Jesus?

00:40:34.630 --> 00:40:37.614
I want to say something real quick that might blow you away.

00:40:37.614 --> 00:40:51.534
Did you know that the most valuable thing that Jesus offered, that God offers you as a Christian, is not eternity with Him, is not eternal life and escape the fires of hell?

00:40:51.534 --> 00:40:54.407
That's not the most valuable thing that Jesus offers you.

00:40:54.407 --> 00:40:57.856
How many times have you heard that from a church?

00:40:57.856 --> 00:41:02.489
Because the motivation to follow Jesus is to escape the fires of hell.

00:41:02.489 --> 00:41:02.809
Right?

00:41:03.192 --> 00:41:04.114
I have heard that yes.

00:41:04.764 --> 00:41:04.985
Okay.

00:41:04.985 --> 00:41:05.909
So that's not.

00:41:05.909 --> 00:41:09.965
The most valuable thing that Jesus offers Now is eternal life and an escape.

00:41:09.965 --> 00:41:11.728
The fires of hell important, absolutely?

00:41:11.728 --> 00:41:13.273
Is it credibly valuable?

00:41:13.273 --> 00:41:26.320
Yes, it's important, but the most important thing and the most valuable thing that Jesus God offers us through reconciliation, through Jesus, is the opportunity to become like him.

00:41:26.320 --> 00:41:31.295
That will blow your mind if you think about that long enough.

00:41:31.704 --> 00:41:35.215
Jesus God says I created you in my image.

00:41:35.215 --> 00:41:39.215
Sin, the fall warped everything.

00:41:39.215 --> 00:41:42.827
I've ransomed you back.

00:41:42.827 --> 00:41:48.938
I've given you the opportunity now to become my child again and you can become like me, becoming like God.

00:41:48.978 --> 00:41:50.829
Now I'm not saying we're going to be God, no, no.

00:41:50.829 --> 00:41:52.956
I'm not saying that, no, that's heretical.

00:41:52.956 --> 00:42:05.681
But the opportunity to be transformed into the image of Christ, to become like your Father, to be transformed into the image of Christ, to become like your Father, that is the most incredible opportunity that the church is underselling.

00:42:05.681 --> 00:42:07.065

Ep 190: Terry Allen ~ Discipleship, Faith & Mentoring

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