340. Why Small Groups Do The Deep Work Of Discipleship with Mark Croston

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Welcome to the Group Answers Podcast.
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I'm your host, Brian Daniel.
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This is the weekly show designed specifically for pastors, disciple makers, group pastors, and small group leaders.
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Truly, we are created to help anyone with bottom line responsibilities for discipleship.
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Our goal is simple to resource, train, and encourage you in the vital work of discipleship.
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This is the Group Answers Podcast.
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Let's do it.
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Welcome back to the Group Answers Show.
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And as always, I'm Brian Daniel.
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We are here with special guest Mark Croston.
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And Mark, I I am just so remiss that it's taken us so long to get together.
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I think we've tried and it's just been hard to schedule it.
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So it is really good to see you, and thanks for making time.
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Thanks for making time today.
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All right.
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Thank you.
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Great to be here.
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And as we are recording this, we are in our pre-Southern Baptist Convention envelope, if you will.
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So I assume you're getting ready to travel as well.
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You'll be leaving out, I'm I'm guessing tomorrow morning and heading to that great, what, city, happiest place in the world, Orlando, Orlando, Florida.
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Yes.
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Even though they say it's cheaper to go to Japan and go to Disney World in Japan than it is to go to Orlando.
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So Mark, I was just talking with a Disney fan just this week, and I asked him if he was going to try and make it over there.
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And he said, man, we just can't afford it.
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It's cheaper for us to go to Shanghai than Orlando.
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All right.
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So I I just want to start with asking you just to talk us through, well, not so much talk us through, but how do you define discipleship?
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I know this, you know, the Bible scripture doesn't change.
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We do to some extent.
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And certainly our context and environments are kind of malleable.
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And so it's in that tension that we have to find ourselves from time to time just returning and saying, all right, so what does discipleship mean today in this context?
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So I would just ask you, how do you process that?
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Uh well, you know, the word disciple means follower or learner.
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And so I just stick with that.
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Um, how do we learn how to be like Jesus and how to follow his commands and to live the Christ life in this time and place where we are today?
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Yeah, that's simple enough.
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I mean, it is possible to overcomplicate it, but at its essence, that's really what we've got.
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Um, I know you you and I have had conversations in the past about what in Christ means and how that translates.
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And I think you can get nuanced, but when it comes right down, it's about Christ-likeness.
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So let me ask you this as a follow-up.
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Um thinking in terms of today's, let's just call it today's local church uh current state, what do we some where do we sometimes get off this track?
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What do we what do we miss?
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Where do we sometimes get it wrong?
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Um Well, I I think where we get it wrong sometimes is where discipleship takes place.
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Um, you know, back in the early, I don't know how to say this, 2010, right?
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I'm talking about 2010, 2011, 2012.
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In the early 201s, remember at Lifeway, we had the big groups matter push.
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And I think that that was an important uh element for the whole essence of discipleship.
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Uh since that time, I've been asking crowds of pastors and other church leaders a simple question.
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Who discipled you?
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And invariably, no matter how large the crowd is, no matter what their region or education, uh, invariably the vast majority of them are going to say somebody in their family or some leader in the church, but rarely will they say it was their pastor.
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And so what I my follow-up question is, well, what does that mean to you?
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And and as we kind of break that down, we come to uh help them to come to the realization that discipleship really doesn't happen from the pulpit.
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And I think that that's part of our problem that uh we have we have put a lot of energy, finances, and all kinds of stuff into what happens in the worship and then happens in the pulpit.
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And that's all good.
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We we need all of that, that's all important for the life of the church.
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But the one thing it doesn't do according to our research and according to these anecdotal experiences is push people deeper in discipleship.
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We need small groups for that.
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Discipleship doesn't happen from the pulpit, but I guess we would say that it's minimally supported, exhorted, uh maybe even initiated there, right?
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Because the pulpit does have a role in this, but you're right, I think we we can, it is possible to overstate its impact.
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And I think where that's important is to group leaders that are out there that might take more of a passive approach in this regard and say, well, that's for I've said it before, I don't know if you and I have talked about it before, but I was in a men's group one time and we were talking about this topic.
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And I remember one of the guys, and these these are men that have been in church for a long time, he said, you know, I've never really thought of myself as a disciple maker, as a leader.
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I've always thought of people like you, and he pointed to me, you know, church staff types, vocational leaders is that.
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And I remember just being, I don't think it's overstated to say, shocked by the fact that this friend of mine had never thought of himself as a leader in this way before.
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So I think that's a really good thing to point out.
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Because maybe we use the wrong words for stuff, right?
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Maybe instead of calling deacons deacons, we ought to call them servants, since that's what the word means.
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And maybe instead of calling our Sunday school persons over our Sunday school classes and our small groups teachers, maybe we should call them disciple makers.
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And so, you know, sometimes we take on the characteristics of the title that we are called by.
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And so maybe we should call them discipleship makers or discipleship leaders.
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Yeah, words matter, right?
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So, all right, let me ask you this.
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Just uh just moving on into this conversation.
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If I asked you to describe the current state of discipleship, how would you answer that question?
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Well, good.
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I don't even have to think about that because Life Way Research did all the work for me.
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And according to Life Wave Research and the current state of discipleship, we get a D.
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And the D does not stand for discipleship.
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It's like A, B, C, D.
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Right?
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Nobody likes to get a D in uh class or on a paper on an assignment.
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And so that really says to me that we have a lot of room for improvement.
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So if you're looking at that scorecard as like a dashboard, and and let's just say there are several different uh ways that we can approach this question, and we're gonna give each one of those an A, B, C, or D.
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The composite score appears to be a D.
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Are we getting A's and B's anywhere, you think?
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Uh I'm looking at it right now.
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And so C is the top score according to that particular diagram.
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So what's across the board is what we're talking about.
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Well, where are those areas of correction?
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I mean, now that we've got listenership and we're talking about discipleship, I mean, from your perspective, and I guess I would add to this um I is it a I I'm not gonna be so bold as to say, all right, is there a quick fix?
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But is this a longer term, like very long-term corrective, or are there some things that from your perspective that we can put into place rather quickly if we're talking to local church leaders and group leaders, it could be done relatively quickly to correct this score?
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Well, I I think that part of it is um our emphasis and part of it is our pattern.
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Let me say that part of what I kind of feel from my interaction with pastors and leaders across the country is that consistently they are working hard.
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They're passionate, they're working hard.
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It's not like they're sloughing off or anything, um, but very often they're working hard to do uh to kind of create the church they grew up in.
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And so what what happened in the church I grew up in, and I want to make that happen like just like that again.
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And so what happened in the church you grew up in and the environment that it took place in is very different than where we are today.
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And so what could have worked in that environment may not work the same today.
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Like when when uh when I was young, uh I grew up in the city of Philadelphia, we had what we call the Philadelphia Blue Laws.
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I don't know what they called them in other places, but basically it meant that just about the only place open on Sunday was the church.
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And so like people didn't have any choice about what they were gonna do on Sunday morning.
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Uh they had three stations on three stations on the television, right?
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And church.
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And so uh and and I think that out of partly out of the fact that there was a lack of choice, many people chose church.
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And so you could get them for hours on a Sunday, right?
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So you could get them for to come early and uh for Sunday school, and then uh then you they'd stay for worship, and then they'd come back in the evening again for a second worship service, or for oh, oh, oh, for uh uh I don't know what what they call it, BTU or BYPU or discipleship training or church training, depending on what era you're in, and then worship again.
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So what was that?
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That was like four hours every Sunday that a lot of people, and sometimes more, that people were given to the church.
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And that's uh that's a big chunk of time.
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And so, but but it was the only thing happening, right?
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There weren't a lot of sports on Sunday, the the malls weren't open on Sunday, you couldn't go to the movie theater on Sunday, there weren't kids' sports on Sunday, it was like church, and then maybe a few restaurants were open, and that and that was it.
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So now we're in competition with everything.
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Everything's going on, everybody's open.
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Uh, and so one, you got to be on your A game in order to earn the time, and two, uh you've got to use the smaller segments of time that people will afford us even more wisely.
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And and then we also have the challenge today of the fact that we are not the only disciplers.
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So recent studies said that the average American is being discipled, particularly Gen Z by by the internet forty-nine hours a week for older adults around 18, 20 hours a week.
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Hours.
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And so it is hard to disciple somebody in forty-five minutes to an hour in church when when they have been discipled 49 hours all across the week through social media.
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Have you seen, like, just for those of you that are out there listening, Mark is uh on the road uh uh a lot of the days of the year and in other churches and in other conversations with leaders, like a lot of uh uh life way leaders in in Mark in a role similar to Mark's.
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But Mark, I would ask you so this idea of the competitive environment for discipleship, which is relatively new.
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I mean, it's been around for a few decades now.
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Internet was what late 90s, early 2000s, and it became portable 2008, 2010.
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So we're kind of new in this world, even though it it it does not feel like it.
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It feels like there was never a time.
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But have you seen any leaders or any churches that are in that space?
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Because what I hear you're saying is there's an optimal, and there I what I would maybe even the way I would put it is weight to any disciple-making interaction or discipleship interaction or opportunity for spiritual wisdom, for godly understanding to be imparted from mentor to mentee.
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Whereas, like you said, 25 years ago, 20 years ago, you had four hours on a Sunday or in the week.
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Now that's going to be 90 minutes, you know, no more than two hours in any given seven days.
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So it's cut in half minimally.
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So it makes those times when you do interact, you've got to really use that well.
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But then there's this also this also, if the internet is discipling us.
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I'm I'm getting to the question.
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If the internet is discipling us, have you seen anybody that is using that channel in like creative, new, fresh ways from your perspective?
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Let me add one more into that previous conversation.
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Uh it's not just the difference between four hours and 90 minutes, but also the average person only comes to church about 1.9 times a month.
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So the number of times we come to church is also decreased.
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I'm gonna say the pandemic has been a blessing from God.
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Right.
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So many of our churches have been resistant to the whole idea.
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There were been there were a few churches that were pushing out into social media and all of that environment, but that was really less than 25% of our churches.
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And the pandemic uh has kind of forced uh many of our churches to adopt new technology and to get in the game.
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So, so hopefully we're gonna see some gains from this.
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We're only now, let's say, five years into many of our churches actually being in this environment, and uh the devil's got it like a 10 or 12-year head start on us.
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And so uh so our churches are.
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I think a lot of them are still kind of feeling it out.
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A lot of them still don't trust it.
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Uh, a lot of them are still trying to figure out how you do this the best way you can and make these meaningful experiences.
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Uh, but slowly but surely uh I see our churches pushing out into this space, pushing out into this environment, and and and and waiting for organizations like ours to give them some ideas and best practices and tools to make this work.
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I remember just to your point, um when we were mid-pandemic, coming out of pandemic, you know, there was there was a little bit of a bell curve in that season of our or that period of history.
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And I was talking with some of the uh CIN North America leaders, uh, particularly out west.
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And they were, I remember uh them sharing that a lot of the church planners were taking the time that was going into sermon prep and putting those into more relationships coming out.
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Just to your point about it being uh there's a a blessing, there's a blessing thread in that, just as well as there was the opposite of that, you know, because it was really hard in a lot of ways as well.
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But there was this realization that God in the end is in the people business, and that makes us in the people business.
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So it's interesting that you would point that out.
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So let me ask you this, uh, just as a follow-up.
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What are you in your leadership and in your ministry, and when you are in like uh consulting and mentor uh relationships, uh, how are you addressing these this phenomenon and the D in discipleship and on the scorecard?
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What measures are you putting into place just from your from your role at Lifeway?
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So we take a three-prong approach.
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Um one are what we we offer what we call essential programs.
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And so our essential conferences are three-day intensives for pastors and church leaders where they get to look at the latest research, the latest strategy, and the latest tools that churches are using to be effective.
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You know, often uh our church leaders and pastors are so busy trying to do the day-to-day work and keep things going and all the stuff that they already know to do, they don't get time to just kind of step back off of the treadmill, relax for a second, and think about what's going on and what needs to happen next.
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And so our central conference is give them that opportunity.
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Hey, stop, stop running for a second, and we try to put these in places where they might even want to go for a couple extra days of R because uh the stress level seems like it is really high right now.
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And so uh step off the treadmill, take a breath, and then let somebody pour into you.
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Uh, here's what we're seeing in terms of the latest research and strategies that churches are using today to be effective.
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And and I would say that pastors and church leaders that have participated in our essential conferences have found them to be invaluable.
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Uh, they have uh really kind of been able to think about what they're doing and go back and change, and and many have testified that they have been the best conference experiences they have ever attended.
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So, the second part is that even though I get a lot of information at a conference event, you notice that sometimes it feels like you're drinking from a fire hose.
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There's just so much information, and so I don't know what to do with all of it because I want to do something with all of it, but I I gotta pick something out of all of this, and then you get home, you get back busy again, and so you you forget some of the key elements of some of the things that you wanted to kind of do and talk about.
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And so we offer uh kind of a follow-up to that, our big results conference.
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So the big results conference uh takes the same kind and level of teaching that you have gotten personally at the essential conference and brings that directly to your church field so that you have an easier time of discussing this with your church leaders so that you can actually uh implement these strategies uh without as much question or resistance.
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Um and so our big results conference is step number two.
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Step number three are our leadership cohorts.
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Uh and so these are small groups of pastors who will travel together, not for three days, but for an entire year, and uh get to know each other.
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Uh uh scripture says iron sharpens iron, and uh so they get to learn from one another and to learn from some uh mentors and experts in the field and get coaching from some experts in the field so that uh they have actually somebody who walks along with me over the course of a year to help in the implementation of the strategies that I believe will help my church turn the corner and move forward.
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And so these three measures I think are the the biggest things that we are doing right now to try to help churches do that.
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Those cohorts you said is a year, I assume those are monthly meetings, more or less.
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I mean, you may take December off or um you know, maybe in the summer.
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Every month on uh, you know, uh online, even though we try to schedule uh one or two will actually be in person with one another.
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Aaron Powell What makes for a successful cohort meeting?
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I mean, at the end of those meetings, how do you assess when you look back?
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I don't know if everybody's like this or not, but I always look back on the meetings and say, all right, what went well and what didn't.
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But at the end of those meetings, what are you looking at?
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How do you measure us, how do you measure success?
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Something I learned from going and doing conferences is that uh the less talking I do, the higher scores I get on my evaluation.
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So I so I think that's true for these cohorts too, that uh our job is to kind of give some ideas, stimulate the conversation, and then uh allow the pastors the time and space to kind of flesh these things out.
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Because the truth is, we learn and embody more by talking about it than we actually do simply by listening.
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Into it.
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I'm just thinking about, for instance, a discipleship pastor or uh a groups pastor that could implement a more local cohort just within the context of the local church that would do the same thing and maybe meet monthly and it's just to talk about what's going well, where are the challenges, where are you struggling?
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I'm sure there are regular meetings with uh any kind of education staff.
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I'm just wondering how each of those is approached and if a cohort mentality might be a way that they could make that that time more meaningful and more helpful to uh you know those disciple-making group leaders.
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I think we got to try it all.
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You got to keep on trying until you find what's gonna work for you.
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Again, talking to the group leader or discipleship pastor.
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Um what are the, like as you see it, this is the threats question.
00:23:23.700 --> 00:23:29.860
What are the pitfalls that you would say, all right, group leader, discipleship pastor, education type?
00:23:30.100 --> 00:23:32.420
These are the things you need to be guarded on.
00:23:32.579 --> 00:23:39.620
These are the pitfalls, these are the external or even internal threats for you to go to be ready to identify and confront.
00:23:39.940 --> 00:23:45.779
Well, I think I think again, it's that idea that we already know what to do.
00:23:46.180 --> 00:23:50.740
Because we have grown, many of us have grown up in church, we've been doing this all our lives.
00:23:50.980 --> 00:24:00.900
And so since we have seen it and experienced it, we think that all we really need to do is reapply all the same stuff that we have ever known.
00:24:01.140 --> 00:24:05.539
When the truth is we have to assess what's really going on.
00:24:05.700 --> 00:24:21.059
So even if I go to a conference, right, and I go to some national conference, I hear somebody talk about something somebody's doing somewhere, I can't necessarily always take that back just like they told it to me and implement that in my church field.
00:24:21.299 --> 00:24:22.660
It might not work.
00:24:22.900 --> 00:24:31.460
A lot of times we it's like an iceberg, we only see a little bit of the what was above the water, and we don't see all the stuff underneath.
00:24:31.620 --> 00:24:34.339
But the other thing is that our context is different.
00:24:34.500 --> 00:24:48.980
Um, the people that we serve in our local church field and the culture in our local church field might be totally different from what that person who was talking at the national conference uh had experienced in their church field.
00:24:49.059 --> 00:25:13.940
So I need to make my own personal assessment of what's happening in my church field, how I need to tweak and change and adjust this in order to fit the culture and context of my church field, and then come up with a strategy on how we're gonna adapt to make this thing work.
00:25:14.019 --> 00:25:20.500
So assess, adjust, and then adapt to whatever it is we're trying to implement.
00:25:20.819 --> 00:25:27.380
Ministry context, disciple making context is a topic that comes up a lot in the in the history of this podcast.
00:25:27.620 --> 00:25:38.980
I would just ask you, I think for group leaders, well, really more you know um ministry staff types, any tips for understanding context?
00:25:39.220 --> 00:25:41.220
It seems like Mark, there's two layers to this.
00:25:41.299 --> 00:25:46.500
There's the micro layer where I understand rural, suburban, urban kind of things.
00:25:46.579 --> 00:25:55.620
Uh, but then there's like this uh almost uh I don't know if micro is the best way to put it or not, but a next layer down where you're looking at the at more nuance.
00:25:56.019 --> 00:26:00.819
So I mean that's one that's one tip that I would say is like there's two there's two layers to this.
00:26:00.900 --> 00:26:06.420
You understand at a broad level, but then different neighborhoods may have different values.
00:26:06.579 --> 00:26:08.579
Uh there's ways of looking at that.
00:26:08.819 --> 00:26:11.940
But in your, I mean, you've been at this for a long time.
00:26:12.100 --> 00:26:16.100
What tips would you give for just understanding a specific context in that respect?
00:26:16.420 --> 00:26:19.059
Well, because we don't have time to talk about all of them.
00:26:19.140 --> 00:26:32.180
I'm just gonna say you just need to get a copy of my book, Big Results Leadership, because it walks through exactly that discussion and exactly that process for your church.
00:26:32.339 --> 00:26:51.779
And so, you know, when when they put a McDonald's in a community, they have already assessed the uh socioeconomics of the community, the marriage of family uh experience in that community, the traffic patterns in the community, all the other things that they do.
00:26:51.940 --> 00:26:57.940
And so when they put that there, they know, they already know when they put it there that it can be successful.
00:26:58.180 --> 00:26:59.380
They already know that.
00:26:59.620 --> 00:27:07.059
And so usually when we put a church somewhere, we just kind of say, here's an empty building or here's a piece of land, let's put a church here, right?
00:27:07.380 --> 00:27:13.779
But uh, and so we have to do that on the back end where they have already done this on the front end.
00:27:13.940 --> 00:27:22.500
And what I want to say is that you need to focus on what that is and then be hopeful.
00:27:22.980 --> 00:27:24.579
Because this is what I know.
00:27:24.740 --> 00:27:26.819
They sell the same thing in McDonald's.
00:27:26.900 --> 00:27:31.779
I've eaten at McDonald's around the world, and it's the same stuff everywhere you go.
00:27:33.299 --> 00:27:38.819
And what I want to say is that the gospel is the same everywhere I go to.
00:27:39.539 --> 00:27:43.299
And you don't have to change the gospel, the gospel works.
00:27:43.460 --> 00:27:50.819
The seed, remember that story about the sower who went out and sowed seed, and some of it flourished and some of it didn't.
00:27:50.980 --> 00:27:53.140
I want to say that it wasn't the seed's fault.
00:27:53.220 --> 00:27:56.660
When it seemed when it didn't flourish, it was not the seed's fault.
00:27:56.900 --> 00:27:58.420
The seed is good.
00:27:58.660 --> 00:28:08.900
And so stand in confidence that the gospel really does work, that it does have the power to transform people's lives and change people's situations.
00:28:09.059 --> 00:28:10.180
The seed is good.
00:28:10.339 --> 00:28:15.299
How we sow it, the technique for so the technique for sowing it, that may change.
00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:25.299
Uh, my my yard will tell you that I don't have the technique for sowing exactly the right way, but but the technique for sowing the gospel that changes and adjusts.
00:28:25.380 --> 00:28:27.539
We gotta we gotta figure that out sometimes.
00:28:27.700 --> 00:28:29.539
But it's not the gospel's fault.
00:28:29.700 --> 00:28:33.700
The seed of the gospel is good and it works.
00:28:33.940 --> 00:28:38.259
We got time for one more question, and I want to ask you this just real quick.
00:28:38.420 --> 00:28:44.259
What counsel would you give a new discipleship pastor or group leader?
00:28:44.579 --> 00:28:51.380
Just don't feel like you have to be the expert who already comes knowing everything.
00:28:52.180 --> 00:29:15.700
Um, and so one of the great things about people who uh are successful, and this is what I learned uh I as I watch the people who come to our events over and over again, the people who come most often and the people who are most engaged are the people who are already the most successful.
00:29:16.259 --> 00:29:21.140
And you might be saying, hold it, if you're already successful, you don't need this stuff.
00:29:21.380 --> 00:29:36.019
But what I'm seeing is that the reason they are successful is because they are so inquisitive and hungry to learn and to know so that they can go back and implement some more stuff.
00:29:36.259 --> 00:29:53.460
And so be hungry for knowledge and hungry for people to pour into you uh so that you have something that new and fresh, innovative, and that works that you'll be able to pour into the people you serve.
00:29:53.779 --> 00:29:59.940
Those last two questions, I just remind everybody echo um 1 Corinthians 2 and 1.
00:30:00.019 --> 00:30:06.420
Paul said, I come to you not with wise and persuasive words, but knowing nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
00:30:06.579 --> 00:30:10.980
That's a good word from Mark Crosston, director at Lifeway Christian Resources.
00:30:11.140 --> 00:30:13.140
Um Mark, the book again.
00:30:13.220 --> 00:30:15.299
You can get that at LifeWay.com, correct?
00:30:15.539 --> 00:30:16.180
Yes, you can.
00:30:16.339 --> 00:30:20.819
Big results leadership at uh at a store near you.
00:30:21.140 --> 00:30:24.420
That's gonna wrap it up for this episode of the Group Answers Podcast.
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Special thanks to Mark Crosston for taking time out of his day.
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Thank you for being with us, and look forward to seeing being with everyone again on down the road.
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This episode of Group Answers Podcast was brought to you by our team, executive producer Angie Elkins, producer Nikki Ogden, edited by Donnie Gordon.
00:30:46.420 --> 00:30:52.819
All episodes are recorded at my personal studio in Evergreen, Colorado with the help of Riverside FM.
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Artwork by Lauren Irvin.
00:30:55.299 --> 00:30:57.220
And I'm your host, Brian Daniel.
00:30:57.299 --> 00:31:02.100
Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time on the Group Ancers Podcast.