8: FISH: On Mission (Part 2)

[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 will help you stay on the trail to a deeper walk with God.

Welcome to episode eight. In the second part of our new FISH series, we’re applying the heart focused discipleship model to mission. We affectionately call this Go FISH.

Hello, my father.

[00:34] Marcus: Hello.

[00:34] Stephanie: It’s fun to actually be recording this in person with you.

[00:37] Marcus: I know. I think last time we were in different rooms in the same house, and sometimes you’re in a different state. It’s really nice that we could actually see each other and look into each other’s eyes.

[00:47] Stephanie: Indeed.

[00:48] Marcus: It’s very nice.

[00:48] Stephanie: The twinkle.

[00:49] Marcus: The twinkle.

[00:51] Stephanie: Well, I’ve been reviewing your new book, just released A Deeper Walk. It is beautiful. And I just have to say I appreciate the sense of humor that you bring even as you delve into hard topics. In your chapter on mission for instance, I have “Lol”, scribbled in several places in the margins.

The two that come to mind are when you recount your childhood attempts at evangelism. And at one point you say, “Clearly we had two astute theologians locked in deep debate.” The other one, you’re like, “My friend had come to have fun and spend time together, not get a sales pitch anchored in the reality of demons.” And I just felt that on a “I am a Warner child” level.

[01:41] Marcus: Yeah, we have different kinds of conversations don’t we? It reminds me of the time we were out at some friend’s house out in the Seattle area, and you and Ben were debating on something about Assyrian kings and libraries.

[01:56] Stephanie: Yes. At that point he was still in school, and I was actually teaching at that school at the time. I was teaching 7th grade ancient history, and we were talking about Ashurbanipal and Ashurnasirpal, and the libraries. And debating, “Which one was the one with the library?”

[02:13] Marcus: Yeah, and I think our host looked at us and said, “You guys do realize this is not normal, right?” So, yeah, there is some of that which comes from being in this family.

[02:26] Stephanie:  Well, I appreciate it. Thank you Lord, I like being in this family. So you follow up these illustrations by saying, ”My approach to evangelism came from a fear bond with God, rather than the overflow of joy I experienced, in my relationship with him.” And I think this is a sadly relatable sentiment. And I just wondered if you could push into that a little bit more.

[02:54] Marcus: Well, you know, my walk with God essentially started because I didn’t want to go to hell, right. So for me I could relate to an evangelism that said, “I don’t want anybody to go to hell. We need to tell everybody you know how to not go to hell.” Well, that’ll get you so far, right, that will get you started. But there’s a decidedly scary foundation to all of that. And then secondarily, the way that it was sometimes preached was that you’re not a good Christian, if you are not out there doing this on a regular basis.

And when you’re a little kid in church you hear that your friend is going to go to hell if you don’t save them.  So now I have a fear-basis for wanting to share with my friend. It’s like, “Hey, you know, you’re going to go to hell if you don’t get this.”  “And I’m your only hope, so here I am, and Tada, I am here to rescue you.” And realizing I didn’t know what I was doing, and they didn’t fully appreciate what I was doing.

By the time I got into high school in my own journey, I was trying to figure out why do I believe what I believe? Am I just inheriting my parents faith? It had a lot to do with, well, I had seen demons submit to the authority of Christ, and that was part of the foundation of my faith. So when I started to explain why I believed to my friend, I found myself talking about the authority of Christ over demons, and realizing this is probably not connecting.

Those early days were not good. It wasn’t honestly, until I was a pastor sitting down in a counseling context and being able to share Christ as good news. For the problems that they were bringing to me, I actually was able to lead someone to Christ for the first time. And I think in a seven year period, there were probably 25 to 30 people that I was able to walk through that doorway, into a saving relationship with Jesus. And each time it was because they were looking for answers, and I was able to provide them the answers they were looking for.

And so that’s a big reason why I’m excited about this model and its application to the evangelistic process. I found that in the way that I explained Christianity to these people, that I was relying heavily on the principles in this model. I didn’t have the whole model built out then, but the principles were already beginning to form.

[05:28] Stephanie: So you said in the last episode, how a lot of people know you for your emotional healing side of discipleship. So you wanted to start with mission, which is so important. I would love for you to unpack how the FISH heart focused discipleship model applies to mission, and we could start with Freedom.

[05:57] Marcus: All right, so when I think about freedom, you think about how many people in the world today are broken, and are looking for answers for their own issues. They’re stuck in addiction, they’re stuck in anger, they’re stuck with their eating disorders. They’re stuck with all kinds of things, and they’re looking for answers, and they are  looking for hope. And too often they come to the church, and what they get is, “Well, that’s a sin, stop it.” Right. Or they get, “Well, just change the way you’re thinking about this”. Or they get solutions that are offered that don’t actually help them.

And so they feel like there’s no place for me here. Or more and more what we’re seeing, are churches who just welcome everybody in, with no solution to help them change. It’s like, come on in and be part of us, we’ll accept you here. Well, that’s better than the first one, but that’s not what Christianity is supposed to be about. Christianity is supposed to be about transformation.

When it comes to freedom and evangelism, I’ve seen many churches that have had tremendous “success”, if you will, in reaching the lost through their recovery programs. Through the things that they do, to meet people in their brokenness and their woundedness. And I think that’s part of it, right? We can reach out to people who are in need, if we as a church are already well practiced in helping people who have these kinds of needs.

So that’s the simplest, most straightforward way I could think of, that freedom connects to evangelism and helps us do that work. The other part of it is, what I’ve seen a lot of people do, including myself as a little kid and high schooler, was that I was trying to do evangelism, but I wasn’t free. And not only was I not trained, I had my own baggage that was keeping me from doing what I needed to do.

In fact, I think I remember one pastor who was well known for evangelism, who said, “He was so discouraged in his own walk with God. That he found himself sharing the gospel with somebody, but in his mind he’s thinking, you don’t really want to do this, do you?” Which I think a lot of us can relate to because we’re struggling so much inside. Freedom is an important part of this, both in what we are offering to people, and also that we have to be growing in this area in our own lives.

[08:16] Stephanie: How about Identity?

[08:20] Marcus: So, similar thing. One is we have people who are looking for an identity and we have a very identity oriented culture. A lot of people are having an identity pushed on them at younger and younger ages. And in our churches, we are not always as good at giving people a sense that we have an identity that comes from the kingdom of God. That we have this huge identity.

A lot of us have more of a sense of identity for being an American, right? Or more sense of identity from which political party we are a part of. We have smaller and smaller groups that we get our identity from. But what we’re trying to do is help people think of themselves as, I am a stranger and an alien here. My home is in heaven. I am a child of the king, and my whole identity is flowing from this kingdom source.

And so a huge part of discipleship is making sure that people are really well trained and well grounded, in the identity that helps them to be salt and light in the world. And if you think about it, if I’m a citizen of the kingdom then I am automatically an ambassador here. And so my identity, my kingdom identity is automatically going to direct me towards ministry. It’s automatically going to direct me towards mission and towards reaching people with the good news of the kingdom, right. That there is something out here.

So my identity motivates my mission. It’s also a part of what I am offering to people. The opportunity to have an identity that is eternal, an identity that matters for eternity, an identity that sets them apart, and calls out what is truly special about them. And what is truly special about them is what God has called them to be in Christ.

[10:15] Stephanie: So we’re doing mission out of our true identity.

[10:18] Marcus: We are doing mission out of our true identity.

[10:19] Stephanie: Calling people to their true identity. I love it. How about Spirit?

[10:27] Marcus: So again, I’ve heard multiple stories about how learning to listen to the voice of God led directly to evangelism. I know one person who was pumping gas and the thought just came to them, you should tell this person about Christ. And they’re like, I don’t know this person this will be a super awkward conversation. But he couldn’t get away from the idea that the Holy Spirit really wanted him to engage.

And so reluctantly he kind of opened that door a little bit, tiptoed in, and to their surprise the person responded. And before they left the gas station that person had prayed to receive Christ. And they were actually thinking about it when they pulled up at the gas pump, like “I need Christ in my life, but I don’t know of anyone who can lead me to him.”

[11:20] Marcus: I sometimes think of the Holy Spirit as like a traffic controller or a logistics person. We’ve got to get this package to that location; we need somebody who can take it from here to here, and I choose You. And so a lot of times the Holy Spirit doesn’t tell us why he wants us to do stuff.

But as we are walking in the Spirit, as we’re learning to pay attention to those promptings, it’s amazing how often he wants to put us in a position to touch somebody’s life. A life that we weren’t even looking to touch. And that only happens if we are discipled and trained on how to walk in the spirit instead of the flesh. And the whole idea that there are thoughts in my head that aren’t coming from me, that might be coming from God.

[12:02] Stephanie: It reminds me of friends that we’ve had in closed countries where it’s dangerous to evangelize. Who rely very, very much on listening to the voice of God, because you can’t just walk up to anyone and say, “Hey, Jesus.”

[12:17] Marcus: Yeah, our pastor told a story about somebody in a closed country and he asked them, “So what percentage of people that you share Christ with say yes?” And this person said 100%. He’s like, let me rephrase, “If you share Christ with ten people, how many of them say yes?” He goes, “I understood the question, but evangelism here is not like evangelism in the United States. You don’t just stand on the street corner and pass out tracks, you can get arrested for that.” He said, ”We only share Christ with the people the Holy Spirit tells us to share Christ with. So if I go to share Christ with them I know that it’s because this is a Holy Spirit appointment, and this is somebody who needs what I am offering.”

And so I’m like, what a really different way of looking at evangelism. If I share with 100 people, percentages say 20 of them will say yes, so this is more of God what do you want me to do? What is the leading of the Spirit in this? And so it’s just a very different lens through which to look at the task of evangelism. Now it still calls for a lot of courage because he doesn’t always ask us to do easy things. He doesn’t ask us to do things that look sensible sometimes, but that’s a big part of it.

And then the other side of it in terms of what we are offering to people, is this idea that there is a source of wisdom and power, and relationship with God. Like, how do we experience our relationship with God? Well, our relationship is confirmed in the covenant, but the experience of that relationship is primarily by the Holy Spirit. And so letting people know that a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit is possible, is one of the offers of evangelism.

[14:09] Stephanie: Well, and we could go off. But on the flip side of wisdom is also the power that you mentioned. I know there are a lot of stories of the Holy Spirit’s power in evangelistic settings. that the miracle is what helps bring people to Christ.

[14:25] Marcus: Yeah, no, there’s no question about that. There’s such a thing as power evangelism. Right. My dad used to teach a course, (your grandfather) at Trinity, on power-encounter in the mission field. So he had a whole course just on this idea, that most people who are following foreign gods, are following those gods because they have seen acts of power done in the name of that god. They know there’s power there.

What they’re not sure of is whether or not there’s actually power in Christ or whether there’s just talk. Because they know missionaries can talk, but what they don’t know is do you have any power? And so a lot of times there are these contests of power that take place. So part of being led by the spirit is also knowing when to step into these, and then having the confidence that when you do step into them, it’s because you know God’s going to show up here and do something.

[15:14] Stephanie: Yeah. All right apply the FISH model to heart-focused community and mission.

[15:20] Marcus: Yeah, and mission. So we’re gonna take the heart-focus community part of mission. Think about it this way. Churches have realized for a long time that it’s very difficult to invite someone to church if you don’t even like the church. And I think we’ve all been there at different times where it’s like, I’m not sure I’d invite anybody here. I go because I’ve got a commitment and loyalty, but this doesn’t really feel like the sort of place I’d want to invite somebody to. So there’s that element of it.

There’s also this idea though, do I have a group of people that collectively I would be happy helping people get connected to? Because I know that if they could meet my friends it would help them on their journey. That’s huge if I know that I’m not in the evangelistic task alone. Because this is not about me coming up with the right argument or the right formula, or the right strategy to get this person to Christ. But I actually have friends I can invite them to meet and there’s more going on here.

And also the idea that  if I am in a community like this, I am more apt to do evangelism. I am more apt to actually share my faith with other people when I know I am not alone. And so it works both ways as well. And I would say that most of the people who have had a high level of success in their evangelism, are in a small group of people. People who are also highly committed to freedom, identity, spirit, and reaching the loss through those methods.

[16:54] Stephanie: So I want to shift us now to looking at joy and joy’s role in mission and all of that. Yes, we’ve talked a bit about joy in our previous podcasts.

[17:07] Marcus: Yeah, we have. So joy is one of the elements that  Jim Wilder and Michael Hendrick mention in their book The Other Half of Church, as one of the four components of healthy soil and healthy community that need to be there. And so we take this to the next step, in that the opposite of a fear based approach to evangelism would be a joy based approach to evangelism. So the question becomes “What would that look like and how might we do that?” Not only where I am sharing and doing evangelism out of my own joy, but what if what I’m offering to people is joy?

And so I was thinking and I actually talked to a pastor about this. He told me that he was taking the three books, but right now there’s two that Chris Coursey and I have written. The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages, The Four Habits of Raising Joy-Filled Kids, and we just turned in the manuscript for another one called The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Living. So he’s already told us his plan is to actually offer courses and outreach into his community, using these books because they are not Bible forward, they’re brain science forward.

And so he’s planning to use these for evangelism; that is, here you folks in the community if you want more joy in your marriage, the church has something to offer. If you want to raise more joyful kids, the church has something to offer. If you yourself would just like to be a more joyful person, the church has something to offer. And I’ve often thought, how would it change if every church in America could become a Joy Center? Right? That is, what if every church in America could become a place, where everyone in the community knew that they knew how to live with joy. They knew the church could train other people how to live with joy.

I’m thinking if I connect to a group and I have joy in that group, then I am suddenly way more open to everything else they have to share. And if I feel a joyful connection with these people and they’re helping me live with more joy. So I do think that part of what Chris and I did in writing these books is, and I’m not sure we even fully grasped it when we first wrote them. But we knew there was an evangelistic use for them, but hadn’t fully thought that through till this pastor said, “Well, that’s how I’m using them.” And I’m like, “That is so brilliant.” You know I really think we’re onto something here, if we could get churches, really around the world doing something like this.

[19:38] Stephanie: And it ties right into the heart-focused community aspect of FISH. And that it’s not just about growing together in community, but it’s also about reaching out in community. Reaching out with joy and not toxicity or shame, or you know whatever negative things we’re carrying. But if we can get our healing and our joy, and build “joy strength” together, then share it with others.

[20:05] Marcus: Yeah, you know joy is a much easier sell than fear. And I think too, joy keeps the motivation for what we’re doing high. Like Dr. Wilder has often said, “…that joy is the number one motivator in the world. When we can’t get it, we’ll settle for fear.” But there’s too many of us who our whole lives are being run on fear. And so, let’s face it. We are going to have more podcasts on joy coming up I’m sure, in the future. But in the context of evangelism, this is where it fits.

[20:41] Stephanie: Awesome. Well in our next episode, we’re going to be talking more about Hesed community, heart-focused community. But is there anything that you would like to say to close out this episode?

[20:53] Marcus: Well, you know Christ, I think he taught what I call Four Kingdom Values. I remember doing a sermon series a long time ago on the Sermon on the Mount and said, “This is his kingdom theology.” And out of this kingdom theology comes four core values of kingdom people. And the first one was salvation. And the idea was there is nothing more important than making sure you get into the kingdom. That’s core value number one of the kingdom. We’ve got to let people know the good news that they can have eternal life in Christ, that they could be citizens of the kingdom of God, and that this whole kingdom reality is out there and can be theirs.

The second is stewardship. And this is the idea that God has entrusted me with certain gifts and talents, and I want to use those for kingdom purposes, and to reach people with good things from the kingdom. The third was spirituality. And this is kind of like the vine in branches. The idea that as the life of Christ flows through me then it enables me to be a better steward. I’m not doing it in the flesh, I’m doing it in the spirit now. It also allows me to do evangelism through the power of the spirit and so they work together really well. That this spirituality of life in the spirit flows into my stewardship, and flows into my outreach to people for the kingdom.

And then the last core value is servant love. And servant love is the idea that we love even our enemies according to Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount. So what is that all about? Because that’s what kingdom people do. That’s who we are, that’s how we live. And so this is why it’s so crucial and why discipleship always leads us to loving our neighbors. And if we love our neighbors we want them to know about the kingdom, right? So it all fits together and I’ll close with those four core values.

[22:50] Stephanie: Awesome. We just got a sermon in like two minutes. I want you to spend more time on that sometime. Anyway, that was lovely. Thank you. So yes, thank you everybody 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.