Building a Prayer Life That Lasts with The Table 61

The Importance of Discipleship in the Christian Life

Everybody wants to be celebrated, but not everybody has somebody to listen. Hey, in this episode I sit down with my friend Jason Stumel, and we talk about discipleship and how vital it is for the Christian life and how we can be effective at engaging in discipleship through relationships with other people. We also talk about their ministry in Harrisonburg, the Table 61, and how they're making an impact in their community through prayer. I encourage you to just hang around, watch this episode; you’ll really enjoy it.

The Heart Behind Table 61

Yeah, man, I appreciate you taking the time to sit down and chat and letting us use your space here, man. This is super, very nice, super well done in here. I enjoy not just the aesthetics, but what you guys do here at the table and on your heart, really, for the community here. So it’s awesome to be able to have a conversation and sit down. Man, we’ve known each other for how long now? 15, 16 years? That’s crazy. Yeah, it just means I’m getting old. You’re both getting old. Yeah, we are. Yeah, you’re just Grandpa now, right? Yeah, we’ve got three. Yeah, is that the name? Is it Grandpa or what’s that? No, it’s definitely not. I am JJ. Okay, not Pops. No, I’m Chris to push for that. Is that a push for Pops? Yeah, she did. She pushed for that. She’s GG. Okay. And yeah, I was 38 when we became grandparents, and I’m like, I’m not ready for one of those old person’s names. Right. JJ is what I went with, and it has stuck, so we’re good. Nice. Yeah, that’s good. I think when Ashley gets to that age, I’m really pushing for Granny. Yeah, for her, 100% not for me. No, I’m not Granny.

Understanding the Mission of Table 61

Well, sweet, man. So the table—maybe just take a few minutes and just kind of tell me about what I know what the table is, but tell me a little bit about what your heart is behind the ministry here and what you guys are doing that may be a little different from what people think, right? Sometimes, you know, you hear about houses of prayer and it’s like, “What, didn’t you just start a church on a different end of the week?” You know, and it’s like, how is this different from your typical church that people would plant?

Yeah, that’s good. I’m just gonna give just a brief history of even where this kind of idea started within my wife, Crystal. About six years ago, she started meeting in my office, and it was the upper room of a schoolhouse, and she just started meeting one day a week and just praying. They would turn on IHOP, an international house of prayer, and just kind of flow with that for a few hours. And so that happened for about five, five, six years. And then through the pandemic, we had an opportunity to explore this space. And so in the meantime, Crystal was in the parking lot feeding the homeless in the parking lot of this building and roads shopping center, feeding the homeless on a weekly basis. There was a meeting with a local pastor, and he said, “Hey, what do you guys, what’s your name? What do you guys call yourselves?”

And she was meeting with another lady, and he was like, “The table,” and Crystal’s like, “Well, we haven’t, but now we are going to call ourselves that.” And so it evolved into just a prayer room, a place that we could gather and just host the presence of the Lord.

The Vision for Community Revitalization

So where did the 61 come from? So that is Isaiah 61. Okay. Yeah. Crystal’s passion even for the homeless ministry is just, you know, beauty for ashes, you know, hope to the hopeless, restoring the brokenhearted. And so, yeah, just what we do here is we gather and we lift up Jesus. And, you know, there’s a culture, I believe, that the Lord is creating, and it's a culture of prayer. You know, a lot of times in a Christian setting people are gathering in Jesus’ name, but what does it look like to really contend in prayer? A lot of times the Lord has called us to go after the things that He’s called us to in intercession and contending. And, yeah, so it’s been this place of creating this culture of prayer in the city.

I like how you said, like before, the building came about, right? You were in the parking lot feeding the homeless. Yeah. You know, and so there seems to be this balance that I think sometimes the church, Christians, all of us in general just have this ability. Sometimes we go to one extreme or another. Like it’s either all works and we don’t do any time in prayer; we’re not ministering to the Lord, or it’s either all prayer, and like we’re just always in the prayer calls and never taking action, right? Right. And so to hear that like the heart behind this is we’re just praying. But through that prayer, like compassion ministries are happening in the community. And I think that’s amazing.

You mentioned something to me, I think in a conversation we had a few weeks ago, that the Lord had given you a vision not just for this prayer, but almost to see this entire section of the town revitalized. Right. You want to talk about that a little bit and kind of how that came to be in your heart? Is it just something that God just kind of dropped with you or?

Pursuing Campus Ministry Opportunities

Yeah. When we first started talking with the owners of this building, there'd been just a stirring for what could happen in this area of town. Crystal and I went to a conference at the beginning of this year in February. At that conference, the Lord just showed me this picture of what He wanted to do in this part of town, and this part of town is kind of the part that would maybe be a little bit scary, like a little bit more rejected by the rest of Harrisonburg. I have a pretty good buddy that lives on the east side of town, and we were going to meet here, and he had to use Google Maps on how to get to the center of town. And so, yeah, putting this area of the world back on the map in a sense and just restoring the heartbeat of the city in a place that is revitalized, you know, from the way that it looks but for the way that it cares about people. I think in a city, the heart of a city, a lot of cities, like that’s where the accumulation of people—from homeless to business to the workings of the city. And, you know, right across the street from us is the administrative building. You know, it’s a key place of business on a daily basis.

Intentional Discipleship in Relationships

Yeah, that’s good. That’s awesome. And so I think part of that, like, right, you, I know about you and kind of how you wrap your relationships with people, right? You’re very intentional and think about your friendships, but then also like the discipleship piece that’s kind of mixed into that. And so, I wanted to dive into that a little bit more. I mean, I love, I love what’s happening in the table. I also love the kingdom mindset behind a lot of this, partnering with people, right? And we may not get, you know, Joe on the first go, but we may not get it. But when we’re here, when we’re just kind of putting roots down and being a part of the community, there’s an opportunity to build those relationships and disciple over the long haul. And I know from our relationship that you’re pretty passionate about that, like one-to-one discipleship, not doing so much from the stage, if you will, but really getting close to people and helping to mature and grow them in the faith. And so, I mean, how did that desire, how did that heart begin in you, like, you know, for that type of discipleship?

Um, you know, I’m going to backtrack real quick. And the gist of the part of the reason that we started the Table 61 was the essence that everybody has to see at the table. And so, you know, as the Lord speaks to everyone’s heart, it’s our job to contribute to bring that to the table. And I would say rolling into discipleship is that for me is the heart cry of where I am coming from is everybody needs to know that they hear from the Lord. There’s this loss, this lost thing that people don’t realize that they can hear from the Lord for themselves. And so as we begin to walk people into that, identity is released. And I think to answer your question specifically, the gist of it happened from a lack of discipleship in my life. Early on as I was discovering and walking through what it looks like to walk with the Lord, my parents had made me go to church as a kid. And it was like, all right, they’re going to a Presbyterian church, and I said I was going to go to the Catholic church because it was 50 minutes, and I knew exactly what to expect, and I could get out the door.

The Key to Building Discipleship Relationships

Right. I want to cut that part out. That’s fine. Yeah, no, it’s true, though, man. I think, you know, getting into that everybody has a seat at the table, right? And I see the vision in that. Because when somebody’s at your table, they’re close. Eating a meal is so intimate, you know? And I think just, you know, my personal experience coming here as a pastor, I’m a lead pastor of a church, and, you know, I think so often I go to places, and this isn’t an arrogance thing, but you think even with the leadership, like Mike’s expected to go in your hand immediately, right? And there are opportunities to be able to just go and sit and experience the presence of the Lord and continue to purge outside of my home. Obviously, it always can happen in the home, right? But in a gathering with other believers, sometimes it’s lost as a leader.

And so my personal experience showing up several times is that, you know, there’s been no expectation, right? And I appreciate that. I value that a lot. It’s like, you know, I can just come and just engage. And everybody’s just calling me Justin. Yeah. You know, not that I’m ashamed of the title, but there comes a time in all of our lives that we just have to just be us, you know? And I think that’s powerful. And so sitting at the table, like, right, I guess that would be where discipleship is almost formed, right? You know, do you have any thoughts on that side of it?

Well, I was invited to come into an evangelist committee at a church a couple of years ago. And the committee was trying to come up with ideas on how to get young people, the college students to their site or the campus. And they said, “Do you think if we offer hot dogs and we offer pizza after service, if that will attract them?” And I thought through this years ago, as I pursued discipleship and the answer is no. Like we have, if there’s a target of a type of person that we’re going to, whether it’s a young person or perhaps college campus or high school campus, the strategy is we need to go to where those people are and build relationships. It’s good. It’s not necessarily saying, “Hey, we’re throwing a pizza party,” or, “Hey, Jesus is going to be here,” it’s going to get them in the door. It’s a relationship that’s going to get them in the door.

Right. And so I think that is the key to the discipleship in general, is building relationships. Everybody is hungry for a relationship. Even in our Gen Z generation, it might be the digital relationship, but they’re still hungry for a relationship. And as we can connect those dots and connect that line, the people come to life when they’re in this one-on-one, one-on-one discipleship relationship, or even if it’s a small group, there’s a freedom to, to exactly what you said, be who you are. Yeah. And not this mantra of, all right, I got to live up to this expectation or let my reputation precede me. It’s no, I just get to be Jason.

Updated Approaches to Modern Ministry

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Yeah, I’ve talked about that a lot with folks about, and I even heard a guy, I can’t remember the name of the guy who was on kind of talking about what the Lord was showing them for this year and all that stuff. And he just kind of talking about the model, I think, of church in general at times, like we tried to replicate the old school of evangelist crusade on Sunday morning. Right. And those crusades had their place, and I still think they can be effective by the time and reaching large crowds, but like, and doing that consistently on Sunday, the whole relationship piece has kind of fizzled, right? Yeah. And I have nothing against large churches or, you know, mega churches or anything like that. I attended a much larger church and had I not moved to Verona, I may still be attending there, you know.

So I love big churches, but I think the big churches that do it well have wrapped their mind around Sunday as one piece. Right. There’s relational stuff happening all throughout the week that is helping Christians mature and grow because when that’s lacking, I mean, you just have people thinking they need to get saved every week. Right. Yeah. Now, engaging in relationship, slight. So I want to go back on like the whole Gen Z thing and the connection piece, because the college age seems to be a group that people are just struggling reaching right now. Right. They’ve considered them like the lost generation. I mean, I think that’s why Asbury was such a big deal.

You know, for a lot of people, you know, a lot of people were quick to jump in and criticize and all that stuff. And I hate that about social media age. It’s like, I heard somebody say, “Well, I’m testing the fruit.” I’m like, “The seed was just put in the ground.” But there’s no fruit yet. What are you testing? You know? Like, no, you need to give a comment on something, and criticism attracts more eyeballs than praise. Right. So, it’s really more about getting their own—yeah, whatever, I digress. But what was significant for a lot of people was seeing that move happen on a college campus. Right. Where most of the news we see about college campuses is just, it’s not positive. Right. We see them, you know, oftentimes veering very far in one direction.

A lot of the confusion, you know, the identity crisis is everything we see happening on college campuses. But like, you guys seem to be pretty connected to college students. Right. Like, the Lord’s given you influence there. Like, so if it’s not pizza and a hot dog. Right. Like, what does that look like? However, like you said, going where they are, but practically speaking. What does that look like for you guys?

On a practical matter, it looks like going and making ourselves available to meet with people. So one of the other initiatives that we’ve launched is a ministry called Coaches USA. And so the gist of it is teaching people how to use their influence. And everybody wants to be celebrated, but not everybody has somebody to listen. And so through these individual relationships, we’re able to create that place, a safe place for people, for leaders, for just random people to have somebody to walk with.

And so, you know, practically, the Lord’s laying on my heart to prayer walk all three campuses in the Harrisonburg area on a weekly basis. And so I’ll just begin walking on campus and praying with the Lord. And there’s open doors. There are opportunities to interact with people, whether it’s a smile, whether it’s a conversation, or it’s just saying, “Hey,” and it’s being intentional about those next steps. We just, I’ll just share an event that we did this last Wednesday. We had the opportunity to go onto James Madison University’s campus and do 10 hours—sorry, it ended up being 13 hours—of prayer and worship on that campus.

The Impact of Prayer on College Campuses

So we started at 8 a.m. and ended at 9 p.m. We partnered with other campus ministries and churches and came and did two-hour sets. And we had evangelism teams, we had prayer teams, and then we had worship teams. And through that, we are able to build relationships. Essentially, it was just hosting the presence of the Lord; it wasn’t necessarily the intentionality of gathering people. But through that, people noticed, “Hey, what’s going on?” And they come and they worship and they engage, and “Where does this happen? What is this thing?” So I think the intentionality of getting out and getting into the places where people mingle.

I’ve heard in the past of bar ministries, right? How are we going to minister to people at bars? Where you’ve got to go, right? Not for the sake of engaging activity, but, you know, be obedient to the Lord. Where is the Lord leading our hearts? Maybe it’s downtown of the city that we’re in, or maybe it is a nightclub, or maybe it’s even a restaurant, and being intentional to listen to what the Lord’s sharing and how to build those relationships.

What the prayer worship thing, Jim, you write, that was interesting here in that story and how it wasn’t intentional, but you guys happened to be there a day where a political event’s happening. Right. There’s a lot of controversy, especially on college campuses, around anything political. That’s right. Because you’ve got one side, and you’ve got counter-protesters. And I don’t want to get into the case in this conversation of making for one side or the other. But I think the, the on, even though I do have opinions on that, but like, but I think the providence and the direction of the Lord to lead you guys to do that prayer and worship and be an influence on the campus on that day where there’s a lot of controversy and a lot of room for potential conflict.

And if I, like, it calls an effect, right? If I think about typically when there’s a or speaking of internal college campus with one side and another side is their controversy protesting, usually violence, usually issues. And I don’t know, did any of that take place in JMU? Because there are a lot of that, or is it pretty calm? It was really calm and really strategic of the way things worked out. Where we had set up was kind of in the middle. And not intentionally. I mean, obviously, we were there all day long, but the Lord kind of put us in a place that we ended up being in the middle of both these groups of people.

And there wasn’t much interaction. So there was a large group in a building, and there was a large group out of a building. But there, you know, other than a few here and there, stragglers from each group that would interact, there wasn’t a mass gathering of the two groups. And so, yeah, it was crazy to see the intentionality of the Lord. Even how all this stuff was supposed to happen on the other side of campus and our event was supposed to be here. And then within a week of changing, they all ended up on the same spot at the same time. And it’s like, all right, Lord, stuck here like almost right in the middle to just be reconciles, mediators, if you will. I mean, you know, just like a wall, and yeah, I mean, there’s no question of the prayer influence, like what took place on the campus that day.

I believe it without a shadow of a doubt that, you know, God didn’t plan it, but God certainly did. You know, that’s pretty awesome. So the whole going on campus, prayer walking, praying, really practically speaking for folks that are in communities with colleges, like that’s one way to do it. And to clarify, like the Lord showed me two scriptures, one being John 12:32, Jesus says, “If I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men to myself.”

And so our action point in that scripture is to lift him up, you know. A lot of times we think we take that initiative, I need to gather, I need to get people here, I need to. And some people have this connecting gathering gifts, but at the same time, if we’re just lifting up Jesus, his promise is he’s going to call people unto Him. And then Joshua 13, where Yahweh says that “Where your feet tread, I have given you the land.” Not us specifically, but the kingdom of God. And that’s kind of where He’s moved my heart on these campuses is my intention is not necessarily evangelism.

My intention is not to build relationship while it can be a direct result. My intention is to claim this land for the Lord and to walk it out according to His promises and to just put my feet, you know, He’s called us to put our feet on places, you know, the Rosen Shopping Center parking lot, the campuses of our universities and high schools. Like we have the ability, I think, through the Holy Spirit to change the atmosphere by communing with the Lord.

Focusing on Leadership Discipleship

So would you say from a personal perspective or even a ministry perspective, like if you had to put a target, a priority on a group or an age group, like I know your goal is ministering to the Lord, right? But if there was a person that God’s called Jason to reach, who is that? A person would be the leader. And so for, if that makes sense, the Lord, years ago, just kind of showed me that leadership’s lonely.

And in that place of leadership, I’ll use it in the sports analogy. A head coach doesn’t necessarily have a safe place to kind of be themselves, right? They’re always the coach. So their assistant coaches, they can’t share the frustrations of life because they’re the leader of those coaches. And to their athletes, they can’t be that vulnerable. I think that translates to the business world, to the marketplace, but then also to the churches. As leaders are lonely, they find themselves like the lead pastors, the head coaches, the guys that are the CEOs or the main people of business. There’s not a lot of safe place for them.

And so that’s in part of my ministry; that’s one of the areas that the Lord has given me favor is just to build a relationship. Yeah. And to be, to make myself available, to walk with people in that way. We all need discipleship. I firmly believe that we all need to be in two types of discipleship relationships: one where we’re being poured into, and then one where we’re pouring into. And I’ve found in my life I grew the most actually from the ones where I get to pour out.

It’s because what I feel like the Lord is equipping me to do is I have to understand what He’s having me say or share before I can share it. And truthfully, I don’t have permission to speak into many things that I haven’t walked through before because I haven’t ever been there. Right. And so as we share testimonies and as we share our life, like it’s because we’ve been there.

Moving Beyond Traditional Discipleship Models

So speaking of influencing, you said God for you, you know, He’s put your heart in the leaders. And I’ve seen you model that. I mean, we meet all the time, right? And so a lot of coffee and conversation. And I feel like sometimes it’s one side of we get together and I’m rambling for 75% of the call. So I, though the time we’re together, I appreciate that. But like, but like then, so, so building those relationships out of time—what is discipleship? Like, is it a program? Right? You know, is it like, are you sitting down with somebody, putting them through a 12-week book that you are doing together? Because so often we’re like, we need to disciple people. It’s like, okay, what program can we start to do that?

So how does that work out in the context of relationship? Yeah. In my opinion, I firmly believe that that discipleship can’t look like a program or necessarily a book. Well, those can be great resources that can be included in discipleship. The discipleship in general is unique to the individuals that are walking through. And what I’ve found to be successful in how I’ve walked it out is life-on-life ministry. And what do you mean by that?

What I mean by that is essentially opening my life to others, to investigate, to be a part of, to see. And I think, open the transcript, if you will. Exactly. It’s a pretty way to say it, but it gives a good image. Yeah, specifically young people. And then, even in leadership, they want to see how I interact with my life. They want to see how I interact with my kids. And I think if we’re thinking of discipleship as a program, you need to be fixed, and this is how we’re going to do it. But if it’s really walking this out like, hey, Jesus essentially had 12 guys walk with him, that would be where his disciples. He just did life with them.

So we end up with a bunch of projects instead of like brothers and sisters in Christ. Right. Yeah. I think this interesting thing about a project is like eventually, like, if we’re committed to people in relationships and friendships versus somebody as our project, projects come to a close. Relationships are for a lifetime. That’s right. Yeah. That’s such a good—I mean, I’ve never heard that before.

The Importance of Friendships and Discipleship

What you just said about that, like we’re not called to fix people. Right. And yeah, we—my dad used to say something all the time. We were running scene challenge together. They used to irritate the snout out of me because I could never figure out how to program it. What he was saying, he would say, “Well, we’re running scene challenge. We have 50 beds. We have 50 different programs.” I’m like, “Dad, well, there’s no way to fund that! There’s no way to figure that out!” He’s like, “No, you’re missing the point.” He said, “We’ve got 50 different people that have 50 different sets of needs, 50 different personalities. And our way of ministering to each person is as you need.”

That’s good. They may still go through the same process. Yeah. But what works for this student may not work for that. Right. Yeah. And so we have to be close enough to people to know them. Right. In order to be able to adjust and give our lives to them in a way that’s going to be appropriately received. Yeah. So life on life. So let’s go a little deeper in that life. So what is that? I guess in context because you’re giving your life to people, inviting them to be a part of your life. And assuming in that there’s opportunities—that’s where the gospel is ministered, right?

Yeah. I think one of the biggest differences about one-on-one discipleship as group discipleship is I don’t know how Jesus walked essentially with 12 guys pretty closely. And there’s a breakdown in the five and the three and then the 72. But 12 of them ingest. So essentially, maybe we’re not created to disciple 100 people at a time. Maybe we’re created to walk in smaller groups of people and then create disciples. And so to fully get it, I don’t know if I was sitting with a gentleman or a woman that was mentoring or talking to 100 people at a time if I would get the gist of what their life looked like as if they were meeting with me as one person or in a smaller group of two or three.

So, yeah, I think the table of eating, breaking bread together, there’s so much power in eating together. First of all, it’s a distraction. It’s a distraction on comfortability because we all got to eat, and we’re all good at eating. We practice every day. And so as we’re able to sit at a table and eat and commune, like, it just walls are put down immediately in general. And then the aspect of like we have to build a relationship to gain trust. And the discipleship’s not necessarily this organic thing that really happens, right? It takes intentionality. It takes follow-up. It takes follow-through.

And a lot of guys that I’ve walked with in the past, like I’ve had to pursue. You know, it’s not this thing that works—oh man, this relationship is going to take off right away. There’s a pursuit in it. Obviously, the Lord is pursuing our hearts at all times. And He specifically puts certain people on all of our hearts that He’s called us to pursue through discipleship.

Concluding Thoughts on Discipleship

I think, you know, step one, if we’re going to put steps to it, it’s seeking the Lord of what that looks like. Who have you placed on my heart specifically? Unless I’m just pulling the Bible verse. And walk through. Yeah, I think, too, man, just the trust-building. I think that’s a huge part in why the relationships. That’s good. We talked about how difficult it is to build trust. And so if you, I’m assuming, right, if you’re going to disciple somebody, they’ve got to have a level of trust with you.

And so that part about breaking down those walls and whatnot. So what kind of shift, what excites you about what the Lord’s doing right now? Yeah. That’s so cool that you even bring that up. I felt like the Lord’s really put on my heart like, “What is the now story of what He’s doing?” And we’ve partnered with a couple in here that the Lord had placed on Rachel’s heart to share on Wednesday nights. Every other Wednesday night we meet at the table, and it’s called now testimony. And just to create a space for people to share the now testimony of the Lord and not to discount like how we came to Christ and what the Lord’s done in the past.

But I want to know what the Lord’s doing now, right? I want to know what the Lord’s doing now in my life. And what is my now story? And so I’m sorry, that just to practice what you’re saying, you know, the Lord really in a place now has my heart contending for these college campuses, right? Yes. This demographic of 18 to 24 that our society and culture say as this lost or this lost place or the church does, like now it’s redeemable. It’s redeemable by the grace of the Lord.

Like what does it look like to win back a generation, right? It’s going to be hard work, but if we all link arms and we’re intentional about building relationships and not trying to create a program, I’m not trying to put them into a church building or another program, but we’re able to build a relationship. And so I think that’s the place where even the body of Christ needs to step up in a place like, “Hey, I’m willing, I’m willing to go, I’m willing to invest dollars, I’m willing to invest in dollars for coffee or for lunch,” right? Not like, “Hey, throw millions of dollars at an industry,” right? But just to invest in the lives of individuals.

Like the availability piece I think is so key. Like when I was a college student, I would have loved as some random guy started to build a relationship with me and showed interest and begin to pursue me in a way of, like, I got to know Agenda. I just want to love on you.

Intentionality in Relationships

And I think about that too, like, right? I mean, college students, a lot of times they’re away from home, away from family and friends. And so they’re going to follow typically whatever the culture is, right? Of that campus. And they’re going to get into that realm because they are isolated. They are a lot. And they’ve only got the people that they’re meeting at the college. And so I think it translates down to the high school student and the middle school student. Like, man, we are, we are losing a generation to the cyber world or whatever we want to call it, you know, our phones and technology have our kids’ attention more than even parents do.

You know, I know to see with my own boys. Like, I got to—we have to intentionally put our phones upside down to have conversations because it’s so engaging. It’s so appealing. Yeah. Like, I feel like it could be a strategic piece of how the enemy could be allowing us to lose connection in relationship with each other is technology.

Absolutely. It was a tool meant to connect, but it divides, you know? Right. I’m a huge fan of social intact and all of that stuff and using it, but like, like I see it, you know? Like, I think actually, now we’re gone this weekend, and I was very intentional about like putting my phone in personal focus mode. That’s good. Do not disturb during time or weekend. So I didn’t get any notifications. Wow. And I don’t do that very often, right? Because there’s a lot to come in and to deal with, but just for her, like I know in how much she values that.

Like I didn’t make it—tried not to make it be a deal over to whatever, just kind of did it and said, “It’s on,” you know, to stir, you know, work this weekend, etc., etc. But that meant the world to her in regards to relationships that I’m willing to take this time, this pause, right? It’s just kind of shut that down and just I’m all in, I’m here with you. Right. And on, but, you know, a million people that I don’t really even know, you know, just like out there in the world.

So Gen Z, during that has very stuff. I had a friend post about that, and he said that like if the church could just stop the bleeding, if you will, like slow down the losses, right? And just bring it back to a point where we’re just not losing a time. He shared the statistics on his Facebook page. I’ll try to find the post and drop it into the comments or whatever. But like the numbers he shared about the amount of people that that would win to the Lord and see in the church would like outpace all the great awakenings that we’ve ever had combined in history.

Wow. Like the way he did the math, it was pretty fascinating. I probably just butchered it. So I’m sorry, Dennis, if you see this. But like it just caught my attention. Or, you know, it was like, wow, that’s, that’s a huge—huge opportunity for the church.

Discipleship and the Future

Yeah. So I typically, at the end of my podcast I have in my office— we’re not in my office—we’re doing this off site, but in my office on my shelf I have a Lego DeLorean. So back to the futures is one of my favorite movies of all time. And so I’ve got the Lego DeLorean with LED lights in it. It’s lit up in everything. So you built it? I did. Yeah. I think it was like it was like 8,000 pieces. I mean, not that much, but it was a lot of fun, like it. And I started building it—random side story—and this would be funny.

But like I started building it, and I let the girls, you know, being a good dad, and then getting engaged, you know. And so I let them build a few pages, and I step away and just kind of let them work on it. And my kids like to rush through things, right? And so they kind of rush through it. And they were like, yeah, we got—can we do another one? Yeah, they’re just kind of rolling through it. And then like they were in a hurry. And man, this may even apply to discipleship. They were in a hurry to get to the result.

And I hadn’t put all the pieces in secure. Yeah. And got a little further down the line, the guide brought, and I was moving something in the entire infrastructure; the car just kind of collapsed. Yeah. And I had to build it all over again. Like, I think sometimes that’s what we do with discipleship. Yeah, that’s good. Like we’re in a hurry just to get people to the next box, the next check, you know?

Have you committed to Christ? Have you gotten baptized? Are you taking the Lord’s Supper? Okay, now let’s dedicate your kids, you know? And just like let’s move them through the programs. Right. And the structure of the foundation isn’t built to secure. Yeah. And you get a little later on in life, a hard time hits, and the core just collapses. Yeah, and man—Wow. Yes. Obviously, the foundation needs to be Jesus.

But as like—man, as you’re doing life, like it’s all centered around Jesus, it’s studying the word together, it’s talking about the goodness of what He’s doing. And I think that’s where the now comes in. If we’re not seeing the Lord moving in our life on a daily basis, we need to investigate where we’re at with the Lord in a sense. You know, like I want a yesterday’s man. I was good for yesterday.

As we’re walking with the Lord, we just need—we need to cultivate this relationship in a place where I’m not living off of yesterday’s word or yesterday’s man. We were on a Monday night, we—a fire tunnel kind of erupted at prayer, and Crystal made a comment the next day. She’s like, “You know, a fire tunnel experience with the Lord might last for about two weeks, but if we’re not cultivating a relationship with Him, that two-week high is not going to carry me into the future.” You know, it’s not going to carry me into that next place that I need to be.

And so ultimately with the Lord, like we’re all called to carry our secret place with us. And so even as we do discipleship, I feel like it’s important to seek the Lord together. In the hardest thing that I learned as I walked into the back end of discipleship, like to discipleship is how to communicate what it looks like. Like, you need to get closer to the Lord. Well, yeah, we all know that. Right. But how?

Practical Strategies for Deepening One's Faith

Yeah. What does it look like? Yeah, for sure. And so one of the strategies for myself, you wonder if I go into like seek a place to talk? No, right? Yeah, absolutely. One of the strategies we talk about prayer on the show. What I’ve, I’ve—for Crystal and I, we’ve paid a lot of attention and listened to Corey Russell quite a bit over the years. And Corey teaches about how to structure your prayer time.

And so even further, Billy Humphrey, him and Corey do a podcast together called Grip. And he does, he kind of presents, breaking down that a little bit further of structuring our time with the Lord. And so I struggled in my secret place with the Lord for a long time of like aimlessly seeking the Lord. All right, I know I need to spend time with the Lord, so what do I do? Yeah. I go and I sit and I listen to worship music. Maybe I read a little bit, maybe I pray.

Yeah. But it was this like, all right, have I been here an hour yet? Oh my gosh, I’ve only been here for three minutes. What in the world? And so I’ve learned this strategy of, you know, first of all, I need to make this meeting with the Lord the most important meeting of my day and one that I never miss. Right. And so I’m a very structured guy on my calendar, and I will, in every day’s different, I can’t be the first thing every single day. Some days I have 6 a.m. prayer readings.

And so I’ve structured my week in a place where I’m meeting with the Lord, and in that, He holds a place on my calendar every single day. So I’m able to commune and spend time with Him. And then even further, breaking that down into 15-minute increments. I don’t – I’m not necessarily claiming ADD, but I would say I have a short attention span. Yeah. And so I claim it. In small increments is how I focus. And so, you know, I’ll read for 15 minutes, I’ll worship for 15 minutes, I’ll write for 15 minutes, I’ll listen for 15 minutes, and then I’ll actively pray for 15 minutes.

And by the end of this hour and 15 minutes, hour and a half, I’m like, oh, it feels like I’ve been here 10 minutes and an hour and a half has gone by. And it’s been like—there’s this sense of human accomplishment as I’m communing with the Lord. Yeah.

Encourishment to Pursue the Lord

I think breaking things down into a very practical sense, especially in terms of helping new Christians develop, like it’s just like, it’s like in being spiritual, being a good Christian, a good follower can look as simple as structuring 30 minutes of prayer time every day and being consistent and faithful with it, right? That’s good. It’s like it doesn’t have to be like I went to Teen Challenge. That was one of the things. They had 30 minutes of prayer on the schedule every day. And like I remember first going into the living room and you got a meal, you’re going to pray. And like 30 minutes was like—I learned how to sleep like on my knees, like with, you know, like so nobody could tell, you know, when I was first as brand new Christians still just trying to kick drugs. And I’m like, “Yeah, I want me to pray for 30 minutes?” And like, what the heck, man?

And eventually, though, as I started to practice it more and more, like I looked forward to that time instead of dreading that time. You know, we were talking about the DeLorean and I was going somewhere with that question. It was a great segue. But like one of the things about the DeLorean, right, they can go back to different time periods in life. And so one of the things I started asking people, especially as we—you know, if Jason could hop into DeLorean that functioned.

And let’s say you talked about earlier your season when you were praying to Christian. And there are some struggles with discipleship, right? Not feeling like you were being personally discipled, right? Like what would you, what would Jason today tell Jason then to help him through that season, right? Where he’s, I guess, feeling this out, figuring it out all on his own at that point, if you will. What would you tell Jason back then?

That’s a really good question. And I think the first thing that popped in my mind is if I were to be craving discipleship, it’s to pursue it. I think that’s the mindset of the old Jason is. I was waiting for someone to come pour into me instead of pursuing somebody to pour into me. And I think later on, you and I walked through this thing where I came to you and I said, “Yeah, the Lord’s invited me on a Jonathan journey.” You know, David had a Jonathan. Right. And, you know, the word says that their hearts were knit together. Yeah.

And essentially, yes, it’s accountability, but it’s in a deeper way. Like we’re supposed to—and maybe we’re not all supposed to have just one Jonathan; maybe it’s multiple Jonathans. Sure. Yeah. But we’re supposed to have those type of relationships where we are strong in their weakness, and they're strong in our weakness. And it’s this act of doing life together. So essentially our lives are discipling each other. Yeah.

You know, I don’t think discipleship is like a program; it never ends. Right. Like discipleship is essentially forever. We’re just at different places of discipleship. Yeah. And sometimes the Lord will release us from our discipleship relationship. Sometimes he’ll engage us even further. The key, I believe, is if it stops at the discipleer and a disciplee, that’s a problem. Right. Right. The process needs to be continually creating disciples and disciple makers. And so it doesn’t stop at that relationship. Then it’s the multiplication strategy of, hey, what the Lord just did and you could do with somebody else.

We’re not going to end our relationship. Right. This is always going to exist, but build a relationship with other people. Yeah. Show them what you learned or show them what the Lord did in your life. Yeah. That’s really good. Yeah. I think that a lot of times we find ourselves been looking for like, “I just need somebody to mentor me,” you know, sometimes. And it’s like we can get caught up in that mindset. And it’s just like we discount sometimes like the act of giving inventory to other people and being intentional about that.

And trusting in that through that, the Lord will also provide people to speak into our lives. Right. You know, but that can be a challenge, I think, sometimes coming from the leader’s perspective. Because, you know, it’s hard to find those people that you know that you can be vulnerable with like what I can’t be vulnerable with on stage. What I need to be vulnerable with alone. And finding those people that I know that I can without a shadow of a doubt share that stuff and be vulnerable and know that it’s going to be handled properly.

Navigating Difficulties in Discipleship

So speaking of influencing, you said God for you, you know, He’s put your heart in the leaders. And I’ve seen you model that. I mean, we meet all the time, right? And so a lot of coffee and conversation. And I feel like sometimes it’s one side of we get together and I’m rambling for 75% of the call. So I, though the time we’re together, I appreciate that. But let’s talk about the larger picture of discipleship.

So speaking of influencing, you said God for you, you know, He’s put your heart in the leaders. And I’ve seen you model that. I mean, we meet all the time, right? And so a lot of coffee and conversation. And I feel like sometimes it’s one side of we get together and I’m rambling for 75% of the call. So I, though the time we’re together, I appreciate that. But like, let’s go back to the whole Gen Z thing.

So on the boundaries of our safety and seeking the Lord; let’s talk about it. I wanted to shift a little. So you mentioned, you shared earlier a few things that you feel like are green lights for the younger generation, things that have been tested. So what is something that you think we’re really missing in terms of discipleship to younger generations?

Man, that's a great question. I would probably say that one of the biggest things that we’re missing is being transparent about our life experiences. And that doesn’t mean like sharing your dirty laundry in the light of it. It means, hey, I remember you, can I share with you? I went through this. I learned from it. And it was hard. I understand the hardest feeling ever to come to is that moment in which we have to share that we failed at something or we made a really dumb decision.

And the younger generation too, they’re watching from a distance, but they want the real. Yeah. And real means walking through the mud together. Right. But we’ve got to be totally. I think that oftentimes in the church world, we neglect this like, “I can’t come off as broken” mentality. And Justin, you know this better than most of us that God uses our brokenness as vessels for greatness. That's just, He touches our hearts more.

Right. And we have to be committed to walked alongside the generations of interracial families and being honest about our own experiences. Totally. And that wisdom is able to pass along to the generations, not just the things that we got right.

So you think on like what we were saying about earlier when you were talking through, yeah, the ministry you were talking about, the churches, the perspectives, I love what you’re saying about disclosing your failures as a point of relationship and point of connection. And on you mentioned that one fundamental thing of seeing another generation getting back, how does it feel to you feel like this next movement could look like in terms of revitalizing the church?

And I hope I’m not thinking through as it happens, but I think it’s—that movement is a people movement. It’s overflowing from our comfortable seats into the streets, right? And so living in an authentic way with people, you know, as we think through that kind of thing.

One of the hard things I struggled with the last few years was how the church runs a modern program of Sundays. We miss out on the relationship. I’ve said it earlier, I'm reminded that we keep—almost even for a young generation—a unable and being reluctant (with our churches) ask the Lord to send me a laborer. Or call someone from this workplace and see what it looks like to advocate someone down there?

And even to care to go in a ministry or to church that they feel isn’t going to get kicked in. And to simplify the everyday lives instead of elevated spiritual positioning; a lot of the culture makes—but that is really what evangelism looks like!

Which makes me wonder what the next movement is going to look like. And I think that testimonies will draw people in. And then the Holy Spirit will move their hearts. And then we’ll see them led in the church into the street somewhere doing what you’re called to do.

Final Thoughts

That’s awesome, man. I think just and on in general, like there's a lot of folks who've started with that in mind that the pastor's supposed to be the one that draws people in. You know I think so often that’s why churches fail. In a lot of ways, right? Yeah, that’s so good. And yet there are redemptive stories and hopes. All of it plays into the future. This conversation is so rich, and I appreciate your time in sharing it.

So yeah. I appreciate you unique. I hope we keep just chatting along this line. So we continue to tune in here. There’s a lot happening forward. If you're watching this as even at home. Maybe there's a family or student or friend you may be interested in reaching out, connecting, cultivating a ministry in your life—do it! Be intentional, pursue. And the Lord will allow our hearts to be transformed along the way, your stories will unfold, just be ready to live in the story.

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