16: FISH: Series Wrap-up (Part 10)

[00:07] Stephanie: Welcome to Deeper Walk’s On the Trail podcast. You are on the trail with father-daughter duo, Marcus and Stephanie Warner. I’m Stephanie and I’ll be talking with my father, Dr. Marcus Warner, as we discuss topics that help you stay on the trail to a deeper walk with God. Episode 16 in the final part of our FISH series, we’re wrapping up our thoughts and then announcing the next series.

Salutations, my Father.

[00:32] Marcus: Hi, Steph, good to talk to you again. We’re not in the same room this time so I can’t talk about any eye shadow.

[00:46] Stephanie: No. And I have a cat in the room with me so hopefully things will go well, but it’s all right. It’s good to hear your voice. This has been a long series full of topics we will definitely continue to explore. I thought it would be worth laying out the five gospel foundations of FISH, all in one place again. What is FISH? How does each part relate to discipleship? I’m just thinking like a sentence each.

[01:12] Marcus: Yeah, no problem. So the FISH model is anchored in five elements of the gospel. That is the gospel is not just a pass into heaven, it’s actually the foundation for the way we live. So the first is that we die with Christ so that we could be set free from what enslaves us. And the idea is that we can’t expect to move forward in our Christian journey if we’re stuck. So dealing with freedom issues is going to be part of our journey for our entire life here on earth.

The second is that we are raised with Christ and we are raised with him into a new identity. And that new identity is encapsulated in the new covenant, and all of the things that are covenantally true about us in Christ. Also, the idea that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and that he puts some things that are like himself into our hearts. And so that’s also part of our identity, learning to understand how he uniquely wired us.

The third element is to be born of the Spirit. So we die with Christ, we’re raised with Christ, and we’re born of the Spirit so that we can learn to walk in the Spirit. So again the Christian life without the Spirit is living in the flesh, and that just doesn’t work. So we have to learn how to do that.

Then “H” stands for heart-focused community. And one of the reasons that we put “heart-focused” in front of it, is that almost every church says we do community. But what is the difference between just doing community, making sure people are in small groups, and actually doing community at a heart-focused level?

And in our way of looking at that heart-focused means we’re dealing with freedom issues. We’re helping people remember who they are, grow in their sense of identity, and learn to practice walking in the Spirit. So all those are parts of it. And these things then bring us to the mission of the gospel, and that is sharing this good news with other people. And we see that FISH is definitely part of the mission in a lot of ways.

One is the message itself, “Would you like freedom, because there’s freedom in Christ?”

Would you like to really know who you are and what you’ve been put here in this world to do? Well, that’s identity. Do you want to learn how to live a more spiritual life where you’re in touch with God’s spirit directly? That’s Christianity. Do you want to live in community with a family that looks after each other? Again, that’s Christianity. So it’s what we offer. It’s the foundation of what we do and why we do it. So that was maybe longer than you wanted, but FISH is freedom, identity, Spirit, heart-focused community, and then we go into mission on the basis of that.

[03:45] Stephanie: Oh, that was perfect. Thank you so much. And feeding into that, I don’t want this series to end without us looking closer at the role of maturity and discipleship. I think this is a key factor that applies to each part of FISH and mission that we don’t want to neglect talking about. So could you give us a brief definition of maturity? I know this is a huge topic and someday we’ll probably do a whole maturity series.

[04:15] Marcus: Yeah I know it sounds a little bit daunting. So I look at it two ways, one is the spiritual way and the other is the brain science way. So the spiritual way of maturity is the fruit of the Spirit. The more loving I am, the more mature I am, the more joy I’m able to live with. You know, the more peace, the more gentleness, self control, and all those things, that is maturity. In the brain science way maturity can be described as living a whole brain life. It’s like I’m not stuck in the back of my brain, I’m not stuck in one half of my brain, I’m living a whole brain life.

So the characteristics that come out of that is what we refer to as RARE. And that is to remain relational, act like yourself, return to joy, and endure hardship well. And that you can tell how mature you are by how much hardship it takes before you stop being relational, stop acting like yourself and turn into somebody else. And also how much does it take before you just can’t bounce back? And so that’s a sign of our maturity. So maturity is directly related to our emotional capacity.

[05:21] Stephanie: Thank you. So can you talk a little bit about the five stages of maturity development according to our friends at Life Model Works?

[05:31] Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll just name them first, infant, child, adult, parent, and elder. Now there’s technically a 6th stage and that’s the in utero stage. From conception to birth there’s development going on, but we’re going to be focusing on the other five. Taking the concept of enduring hardship well, infants can’t endure hardship at all, right? So every negative emotion an infant feels the child will turn into a different person, right? They don’t remain relational, they don’t act like themselves and they completely fall apart.

And so what infants are really good at is kind of whining, fussing, complaining, crying, and letting you know that they are not happy. And so it’s our job in dealing with infants to kind of read what’s going on and take care of them, because they have no capacity to take care of themselves. When we think about infant level maturity, the idea is that if trauma keeps me stuck so that I don’t progress out of that, I can be 70 years old and still function like an emotional infant. I can’t ask for what I need and I can’t tell you what’s wrong. I just kind of fuss, whine, pout, and shout,  I get angry, I shut down, I blow up, and all these things.  I’m expecting you to do something about that and fix the problem. That’s a classic infant level maturity

So then we go up to the child level. When I get to the ages of between four to twelve, at this point I now have vocabulary and I can use my words. So one of the tasks I’ve got to do is learn how to put words with my emotions. Like, what is this feeling I’m having right now? And learning how to distinguish that. So I need help with that. I need people to help me learn how to identify what my emotions are and how I regulate those emotions. And I need a whole lot of coaching and a whole lot of help, as I am learning in the child stage to regulate my own emotions. So the infant can’t regulate them at all. They’re completely dependent. So we say they need external regulation. As children, we’re co-regulating and we need help. We need somebody to work with us and teach us how to do this.

Then we get to the adult stage. The idea is that we should be well-practiced by the time we become adults in regulating our own emotions. We should have had a lot of help and thus be able to feel a lot of different emotions, but not get overwhelmed by them. We can feel these emotions and still be relational when they happen,still act like ourselves when they happen, and not turn into a different person. So just pausing here for a moment. What keeps that stuff from happening is not usually that people make a choice that I don’t want to become a child, “I’m going to stay an infant.” Right? That’s not what’s happening; it’s that there is trauma in their life that has kept them from progressing.

And we can talk a little bit more about that, but anything that keeps me from developing maturity is traumatizing. Whether it is something bad that happens to me or just something good that I miss out on. (And so I just wanted to point that out here.) One of the reasons we’re taking such a deep dive into this FISH model, is that the purpose of discipleship is to help people move from infant level Christianity, to child level Christianity, and to adult level Christianity.

And then we want to move to parent level. And at parent level, we are at a point where we’ve been living a relatively successful christian life for a while ourselves, and we’re ready to pass this on to somebody else. We are ready to be a mentor to someone else. That’s parent level. Because I have parent level maturity I am now ready to be sacrificial in passing these things on to other people.

And then at elder level maturity, what we’re looking at is people who are actually carrying the weight of the community, not just helping an individual person carry the weight of their life. We are collectively helping the community navigate all the hard things that go on in this life. There’s people there with the emotional capacity and wisdom to deal with it and help everybody do that. So you can see why churches really need a lot of elder level people and parent level people. It’s the parents and the elders who are really passing on Christianity to the next generation.

[10:11] Stephanie: Yeah. We need that multi-generational community not only in year ages, but also in emotional maturity ages. That’s huge. So can you expand more on why it’s important to understand these five stages of maturity when considering discipleship? I don’t know if you want to take it from each level?

[10:32] Marcus: So I find that most churches have kind of a flat discipleship agenda. They’re really just targeting one of these developmental areas, and they don’t realize it because they don’t have the model in front of them. So some churches are really good at helping infants, right? They’re really good at helping people cross that line into salvation and then helping these infants get started.

And then there are other churches that are really good with child level discipleship. Right? Child level discipleship is, “Let me show you how to do this; let me explain the facts to you, learn the content, and learn some skills.” So that’s like child level discipleship.

And then there’s other churches that are more adult level. That is, let’s teach you how to take care of yourself and let’s teach you how to live an adult level life. And so what tends to happen is that a lot of people will leave churches because they don’t feel like they’re getting fed. Right? They don’t feel like there’s anything here for me. And when they say that sometimes it’s because they’re adults, and they’re in a church that’s targeting infants and children. And sometimes it’s because they are infants and children and they’re in a church that’s targeting adults.

And so it’s hard. That’s why the discipleship process needs to kind of have these five levels in mind. Because the way that we mentor somebody at the infant level maturity, is going to be different, than the way we mentor someone who’s at adult level maturity. And when it comes to parents they need each other, and we are a support group for one another as we go through this.

And with elders you need people who’ve been there, done that, so you can run things by them and say, “What’s your experience been?” “Can you help me with this and give me some perspective?” So you don’t necessarily have a discipleship program for parents and elders, they’re the ones doing the discipleship.  But they need each other and they need greater equipping so they can do an even better job. And they need the community of support so they don’t feel alone in it.

[12:34] Stephanie: Yeah. Let’s continue this conversation by talking about your dreams for FISH when applied to a ministry model, like cast a vision. What does this look like practically and hw would you love to see people apply it?

[12:49] Marcus: So one of the dreams is that I could visit any church in America, (let’s start there, and then eventually it’s worldwide.) and know that this church is going to have some processes in place to help me on my freedom journey. They’re going to have prayer ministers who can pray with me about emotional healing stuff. They’re going to have people who understand spiritual warfare, who can help me with some of the battles I’m facing.

There’s going to be people there who can get at root level issues. And I would love to see that just be the norm for every church in America. Same thing, that every church you walk into everybody knows their identity in Christ, it’s not something we have to teach constantly as a new amazing thing. This is the foundation on which every church is building.

Same thing with walking in the Spirit. Teaching conversational prayer, teaching people what the difference is between walking in the Spirit and walking in the flesh. How to learn to recognize the Spirit’s leading in our lives and practicing those things, that’s the normal.

I grew up in a church where that was not normal. I was in my thirties before I had any kind of concept in my mind about the difference between walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit.

The way I was raised was basically that obedience equaled walking in the Spirit, which you could be a legalist and do that. So it wasn’t very helpful. So that’s part of the dream with what we’re talking about. That this is so routine, so normal, that everybody does it, and that it’s hard to imagine walking into a church that doesn’t do these things.

Same with heart-focused community, that I can come there and I’m going to find my people and I’m going to be able to connect. You’ve had this experience and I have too. Even going overseas and feeling like you found your people and that you could connect to this church from day one. You feel like you’re a part of what’s going on because we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ.

But I’ve also been to churches where it was like banging your head against the wall to try to make a connection. And so we really need that as well. I believe that mission will have to flourish with all of these things taking place, and mission is going to be the natural outgrowth of all of these things. So I could always talk more about mission, joy and that sort of thing.

[15:21] Stephanie: I would love for you to do that. I was also just thinking we’ve had people before that want you to start like, “A Deeper Walk Church”, you know, or things like that. And while that idea has merit, I think your dream is something much bigger than having “A Deeper Walk” church or a denominational church. Your dream is that everyone would adopt this and they don’t have to say the words “Deeper Walk.”

[15:51] Marcus: They don’t have to call themselves “A Deeper Walk Church” and they don’t have to use the word “FISH”, right? The point is that these concepts are present and they’re normative. We want it to become the norm in churches everywhere. Again, part of the challenge of that is so often people are like, “I can’t find a church like this.” “I can’t find a church where I can get help on my freedom journey, and I can’t find a church that’s got this kind of community.”

So there’s a lot of people frustrated and that’s why people are saying, “Why don’t you start one?” First of all, I’m not sure I’m the perfect pastor who could create this, there’s no one pastor who can create this. This is all about community. It’s about people working together and growing. What we’re trying to do is just give people a model and kind of a path to go on. You know, that’s why we call it “staying on the trail”, right, stay on the trail.

[16:48] Stephanie: So give the individual some hope here. We’re talking about finding a church, but how about an individual’s path navigating all this?

[17:01] Marcus: Part of this is to help individuals assess where they’re at and try to figure out if I’m feeling stuck in my journey, and why. And usually it’s because one or more of these issues are not being addressed. Either I am not dealing with freedom issues or there’s root issues that I am not dealing with. Or I don’t know my identity in Christ so I’m living like somebody who’s got to earn love from God. Or I’m living like somebody who is unlovable.

So identity in Christ is often a big reason why we feel stuck. Maybe I’m trying to do Christianity in the flesh and not in the spirit, and that could be a reason that I’m stuck. So what we’re trying to do is give people a grid, like, am I all alone in here? Am I trying to do it through self effort? Am I just trying to be more disciplined? Or am I with people I enjoy being with and we’re on this journey together, and we help each other grow. Even mission, a lot of times that once we get involved in mission, and get outside of ourselves by helping other people, it helps our Christianity go to another level.

[18:07] Stephanie: I just think back to our discussion about maturity. With every area people have different scalable skills of where they’re at in their walk with the spirit within our community, and our belonging, or in our joy. Part of an individual’s transformation, plan or agenda is figuring out what skills am I missing, or what skills do I have but could be improved? What people do I want to have in my life and where can I find them?

[18:48] Marcus: One of the questions some asked me one time was, “Name three people you need in your life this year if you want to be the best version of yourself?” Like, can you find three people and say, ”Here’s three people that I know. If these people were in my life I think I could be the best version of myself this year.” Start there. A lot of my community is in my home church, but a lot of my community is also spread out all over the world. You can connect with people just like we’re doing right now. And it helps to know that there’s people who you could talk to and you can connect with. So we need both.

[19:29] Stephanie: Yeah. So next episode we’re going to be launching our new series, we’re going to be talking about worldview. What is a Biblical worldview? How does worldview relate to culture and more? I’m so excited, I love this topic. But for now, I want to first give a quick conference promo for our conference that is coming in mid October. Do you want to tell people real quick what to expect from that? And then if people are listening to it after the fact they can still go listen to recordings.

[20:03] Marcus: Absolutely. We’ll have recordings available. So this is like a “name your own price” event which means we have a posted price, but if it’s too much for you, just pay what you can. And this is called A Deeper Walk Conference. I’m going to be teaching from the book that just came out, and I’m also going to be teaching with Judy Dunagan, who is on our board. Her father was the founder of this ministry and she has a new book called The Loudest Roar. And Judy has some wonderful principles in there from scripture, talking about prayer, and talking about living out of the victory that is ours in Christ. And so this is going to be a hybrid conference.

You can come in person, it’s going to be at LifePointe Church in Westfield, Indiana but it’s also available online. That’s why it’s a hybrid event. So if you want to sign up to take it online, you can even sign up and watch it after the fact. But if you want to come in person, it’s a great opportunity to be in the Deeper Walk culture and see people who are on a common journey with you, and connect. And it’s always fun to be there in person. So this is A Deeper Walk Conference with Judy Dunagan and myself.

[21:20] Stephanie: Huzzah. I’m so excited for it. So for this episode but also for this series, do you have any final thoughts? Any closing thoughts that you want to leave us with about FISH and heart focused discipleship?

[21:33] Marcus: My goal was, just like there was a diagram for the gospel, like the bridge diagram, that you could explain how to become a Christian to somebody. I wanted a model that you could write out simply and explain concisely and simply, that this is what discipleship is all about. This is what has to be happening, you know, if we’re going to go deeper in our walk with God.

And so I hope that people will understand that this is also meant to be a lifelong process. Right? I’m constantly working on freedom. I’m constantly growing my capacity to live out of my identity. I’m growing in my walk of the spirit and my understanding of scripture. All these things are lifelong processes. They’re foundations on which we build. So hopefully, this has been helpful and hopefully it’s been a model that makes sense, that you can get excited about.

[22:23] Stephanie: I’m excited. Thank you, Father. And thank you all for joining us on the trail today. If you want to keep going deeper with us on your walk with God, please subscribe to the Deeper Walk podcast and share with your friends. You can find more at our website, deeperwalk.com.

Thanks again. We’ll see you back next week.