Why Jesus Wants Us to Stop Going to Church
Jesus never told his disciples (us Christians) to go to church. He never commanded us to put on big worship services and lots of programs. Instead, he called us to believe our true identity and be the church.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, Caesar and Heath discuss how language creates culture, and how bad language leads to bad theology and bad practice.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why it’s impossible to actually “go to church”.
- How our American dream world and schedule make it really hard to live the life Jesus wants for us.
- How many non-Christian friends we have shows us whether we are living like Jesus.
- Why life lived in community with others is the only way discipleship truly happens.
From this episode:
“Understanding who God says we are, and what is now true of us, will set you free from performance-based Christianity. The pressure is off! It really is possible to move toward living in a close community of friends (believers and not-yet believers) who are on a spiritual adventure and becoming more like Jesus. This is what true discipleship looks like.“
Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
Download today’s BIG 3 right now. Read and think over them again later. You might even want to share them with others…
Thanks for Listening!
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Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Free Download of the Big 3 and Be The Church eBook.
Discipleship as a Lifestyle Virtual Workshop
Coaching with Caesar and Tina in discipleship and missional living.
Missio Publishing – More Missional Books and Resources
Transcript
99 percent of the listeners would interpret you saying that you don't like the music, the worship, in that particular building.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I know even as we talk about this, we're not like shattering anybody's glass ceilings here.
Caesar Kalinowski:People are like going, I've never heard a thought like this, these guys are anathema, you know.
Caesar Kalinowski:I know this has been discussed, and yet, I still hear it every week.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hear it all the time.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you hear it at work?
Caesar Kalinowski:All the time, yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:I, I'm coaching people all over the world.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hear it all the time.
Caesar Kalinowski:Even people that are like well down the missional trail and they're really starting to live like missionaries in all of life, that bad language still creeps in and certainly I could forgive it.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know what I mean?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like that's just, that's just habit.
Caesar Kalinowski:Except for, like you said, it leaks into other areas.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's just like, wait a minute, you're destroying worship.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you make it a certain segment of a certain event at a wrongly stated place, you know, now what about, what about the rest of life?
Caesar Kalinowski:Is all of life not meant to be?
Caesar Kalinowski:Does it not get to be worship?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, not unless you're not singing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like no one would say that, but we say it.
Heath Hollensbe:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast, where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Heath Hollensbe:In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
Heath Hollensbe:This is the stuff your parents, pastors, and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
Heath Hollensbe:And now, here's your host, Caesar Kalinowski.
Caesar Kalinowski:Hey, hey, guess what?
Caesar Kalinowski:This episode is a pretty big deal.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know why?
Caesar Kalinowski:We have just passed the seven year mark on the Everyday Disciple Podcast.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, amazing!
Caesar Kalinowski:An episode every week on Monday for seven years.
Caesar Kalinowski:What a journey we've all been on.
Caesar Kalinowski:And if you've been with us from the beginning, Thank you.
Caesar Kalinowski:Keep listening, keep sharing the podcast with others.
Caesar Kalinowski:And if you're a newer listener, well, welcome dive in, dig deep.
Caesar Kalinowski:There are hundreds of episodes covering the widest range of topics and how the gospel speaks into all of them.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's all a part of life in the kingdom now, and in particular, living a lifestyle of discipleship.
Caesar Kalinowski:Awesome.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, speaking of that, did you get registered yet for the upcoming Discipleship as a Lifestyle live virtual workshop?
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm going deep, going heavy into a whole lot of stuff and I want you to be able to join us.
Caesar Kalinowski:Let me just quickly tell you a little bit about what's going on and I know you're going to want to be a part of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm going to be teaching some of the most powerful and popular trainings that we do with the folks that we coach in Everyday Disciplemakers.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I want to set that foundation to get you on the road to a lifestyle of discipleship right away.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so what we're going to do is we've broken it up into three major pieces.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'll be teaching through each of them with loads of Q& A in between.
Caesar Kalinowski:The first one is Discipleship Starts at Hello Training.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, and you'll learn a practical working understanding of discipleship that's going to change how you see all of it, how you see evangelism, how you see what discipleship is really all about.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it's going to take a ton of the pressure off and give you some actionable handles right away.
Caesar Kalinowski:Then we'll do a bunch of Q& A, and then I'm going to get into building relational trust training.
Caesar Kalinowski:And you'll learn how Jesus moved his disciples from being sort of onlookers and kind of curious and what's up with that to active disciples who went on to make more disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:How do you build that level of trust that people will start to change their lives and their patterns?
Caesar Kalinowski:That that's what we're going to get into.
Caesar Kalinowski:And again, you're going to have some immediate actionable stuff to do either during the workshop or immediately right after.
Caesar Kalinowski:I promise you, you really will.
Caesar Kalinowski:People we coach, they flip out on this training.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then third, We'll look at discipleship that fits every day, everyday life.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we talk about that a lot in different ways here on the show.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm going to give you sort of my premier level training on how to move discipleship out of the classroom and into the rhythms of life that you already live with your family, friends, friends from church, and all of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now there's going to be worksheets and there's a bunch of bonus videos that I'm going to send you as well as the replay.
Caesar Kalinowski:So the whole thing is a pretty cranking, amazing thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's only 37, but I even still will say, Hey, I'm going to put a guarantee on it.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you do the training, you go like, man, that's nothing new or man, that didn't help me or whatever.
Caesar Kalinowski:Just drop me an email and I'll take care of you.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right.
Caesar Kalinowski:Not a big deal.
Caesar Kalinowski:I don't want anybody not getting involved because they think that, Oh man, I get ripped off.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I hope you'll join me for that.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's going to be amazing.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm very, very excited about it.
Caesar Kalinowski:You can get registered right away by going to everydaydisciple.
Caesar Kalinowski:com forward slash.
Caesar Kalinowski:Lifestyle.
Caesar Kalinowski:Take good care of ya.
Caesar Kalinowski:So, okay, now, today, we're going a bit rogue with the episode's title, Why Jesus Wants Us to Stop Going to Church.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, before you get freaked out, or you think we're getting on a soapbox, just keep listening.
Caesar Kalinowski:Why don't we unpack it for a few minutes where we're headed.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're gonna convince you to stop going to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:Wouldn't that just be great?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like everyone will just line up, pick it, well, you can go to our site, download like templates for signs.
Caesar Kalinowski:Stop going to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:God hates church.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's like the Westboro Baptist Center.
Caesar Kalinowski:like our version of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:No.
Caesar Kalinowski:What we want to talk today about is to stop just going to church, like, because that's such bad theology.
Caesar Kalinowski:You don't get to go to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:We are the church.
Caesar Kalinowski:I know that's not brand new for a lot of people.
Caesar Kalinowski:They're like, eh, I know, I know.
Caesar Kalinowski:I've heard you say before.
Caesar Kalinowski:I've heard other people say it.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, you are the church, even little kids will say it, but, but we're going to talk about that today because that's an identity issue and that's huge.
Caesar Kalinowski:We can't really just go to church because we are the church.
Caesar Kalinowski:But unfortunately, uh, for a whole lot of Christians, they just go to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yep.
Caesar Kalinowski:Absolutely.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it kind of ends there, they kind of check the box, and some of them will do a midweek thing, small group or something, and some of them will even like set up chairs, or hand out flyers, and they're, they're rock stars.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe:Well, I hear, I hear it quite a bit, like, hey, see you next week, right?
Heath Hollensbe:Like, the, the rhythm of church is,
Caesar Kalinowski:We're your family, for an hour and fifteen minutes, and how do you like the back of my head?
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, like, exactly, yeah.
Heath Hollensbe:Well, let's make a distinction from the very beginning of this podcast, because, This is, for a lot of people, a bit of a touchy subject.
Heath Hollensbe:I want to be clear, we're not bashing the traditional church by any means.
Heath Hollensbe:However, we do want to talk about the church in the sense that the church is the people of faith.
Heath Hollensbe:It's a people more than it is a building you go to.
Heath Hollensbe:Can you give some clarity into those distinctions?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, well, exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:Exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's people.
Caesar Kalinowski:The church is people.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's always been people.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I, I don't know, I've sent out even tweets trying to ask people when they thought this started, but when did all of a sudden a people group start being identified as a building we go to, or a network of buildings we go to, you know, i.
Caesar Kalinowski:e.
Caesar Kalinowski:a nom.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so now we're identified as that.
Caesar Kalinowski:We don't do that within family.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:You don't do that within your job or any other relationship of friends.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, you don't call your bowling team the bowling alley.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know what I mean?
Caesar Kalinowski:Exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's like, I'm going to go be with our team, you know, we're like the blue devils or whatever, you know, like, you know, we just don't do it.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's weird.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's bad semantics.
Caesar Kalinowski:But in our case, as the church, it's, it's, I think it's a hurtful theology in a sense, because we reinforce it thinking like, ah, it's semantics, it means nothing.
Caesar Kalinowski:But then guess what?
Caesar Kalinowski:Our neighbors think what it means to be.
Caesar Kalinowski:with Christ or be a Christian means you go to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:So it's reinforcing do to be.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then our kids, like, well, you're better if you go to church than if you don't, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:You're more loved by God.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're a better Christian if you go to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:Bad theology on top of bad, you know, doctrine, bad gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I think it really is a distinction worth kind of hammering.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like if you're listening to this and you're a pastor, you're a preacher, please don't, Hey, we're glad you came to church today.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, or we want to, tell you how to, you know, we invite you to church, or like, please, like, lose that.
Caesar Kalinowski:That is, that is core bad theology.
Caesar Kalinowski:And unfortunately, it reinforces like one of the biggest lies of the enemy, and that's that what we do equals who we are.
Caesar Kalinowski:So go to church makes you the church?
Caesar Kalinowski:Come on, no one would agree to that, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:No one would say, oh, you go to church, you're a Christian, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Who would say that?
Caesar Kalinowski:know, I have a friend of mine, he said his grandfather, Went to church for 30 years, super involved in everything, made every picnic, set up chairs every week, anytime there was a volunteer, you know, drive needed, whatever, hand in the air, never once accepted Christ, submitted to his lordship, fell in love with God, received his forgiveness.
Caesar Kalinowski:30 years.
Caesar Kalinowski:Everybody assumed he's going to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, he's always here, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:True story, you know.
Caesar Kalinowski:It is a bad
Heath Hollensbe:semantic, but it is a very important semantic because it does define so much, you know, in the
Caesar Kalinowski:church that I serve.
Caesar Kalinowski:Did you grow up going to church?
Caesar Kalinowski:Oh, absolutely.
Heath Hollensbe:Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe:Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe:It's time to go to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's time to go to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:And now we've replaced it with, go to missional community.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're like, oh God, bad theology, new, new language.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:But it does affect everything.
Heath Hollensbe:As we said, even in the last podcast, I serve at a local church.
Heath Hollensbe:here in the Tacoma area and it's a great church, part of a great Presbyterian denomination.
Heath Hollensbe:I even get into debates with semantics of, of the, the way we language our services.
Heath Hollensbe:It's the call to worship.
Heath Hollensbe:And some of the semantics are important because it's like, the call to worship is, or the order of worship is, Now you're actually stepping into worship and you're like, no, isn't all of life worship?
Heath Hollensbe:So some of these semantics are actually
Caesar Kalinowski:really important.
Caesar Kalinowski:They leak into others.
Caesar Kalinowski:They do like so we now we call this worship And we call that sanctified and like, oh, I can't believe you said that in the church Yeah Should I say it out in the parking lot or if we go to Walmart, can I curse?
Caesar Kalinowski:So like call you a knucklehead or what, you know, dividing up your life.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's sacred, what's not, it all leaks into it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I think, I think a lot of it started with calling the building, the church, not people and starting to unpack our identity, our birthright, our privilege.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so now that just leaks into everything else.
Caesar Kalinowski:So now.
Caesar Kalinowski:Oh yeah, well, I don't like the worship at that church.
Caesar Kalinowski:These could be the most worshipful people on the whole planet.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't have good voices.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, I don't, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:I don't know.
Caesar Kalinowski:But isn't it funny, like the
Heath Hollensbe:context is, even in you saying that sentence, 99 percent of the listeners would interpret you saying that you don't like the music, the worship
Caesar Kalinowski:in that particular building.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I know, even as we talk about this, we're not like shattering anybody's glass ceilings here.
Caesar Kalinowski:People are like going, I've never heard a thought like this.
Caesar Kalinowski:These guys are anathema.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:I know this has been discussed.
Caesar Kalinowski:And yet, I still hear it every freaking week.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hear it all the time.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you hear it at work?
Caesar Kalinowski:All the time, yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:I, I'm coaching people all over the world.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hear it all the time.
Caesar Kalinowski:Even people that are like well down the missional trail and they're really starting to live like missionaries and all of life, that bad language still creeps in.
Caesar Kalinowski:Certainly I could forgive it.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know what I mean?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's just, that's just habit, you know?
Caesar Kalinowski:Except for, like you said, it leaks into other areas.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's just like, wait a minute, you're destroying worship if you make it a certain segment of a certain event at a wrongly stated place, you know?
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, what about the rest of life?
Caesar Kalinowski:Is all of life not meant to be?
Caesar Kalinowski:Does it not get to be worship?
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, not unless you're not singing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, no one would say that, but we say it, you
Heath Hollensbe:know?
Heath Hollensbe:It's a slow fade how the language changes everything.
Heath Hollensbe:And over time, me and my wife go back and forth because she's like, Oh, you're harping on the same thing over and
Caesar Kalinowski:over.
Caesar Kalinowski:So leaders, please unite.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, starting this week, tell people.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you came here this week, we're glad you're hanging out with the family.
Caesar Kalinowski:You'd never get to go to church again.
Caesar Kalinowski:You never get to.
Caesar Kalinowski:Stop it, you know.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, so this reminds
Heath Hollensbe:me of a story that you and I have had offline talking about your work in a large church in Illinois.
Heath Hollensbe:And one of the things that started to mess with your mind was a concept of a few chosen people in ministry that would do the whole work of the ministry while the congregation just kind of sat there passively or just watching and waiting for the leadership to dictate what they're supposed to do.
Heath Hollensbe:Was this God's hopes for growth and maturity of these
Caesar Kalinowski:people?
Caesar Kalinowski:Was that God's hope?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, I think when Jesus was hanging on the cross, you know, he's like, Father, please forgive them for they don't know what they do.
Caesar Kalinowski:And he was looking forward to a group of people that would sit in rows, where just a very few quote unquote Christians did everything and everybody else kind of made it into a show.
Caesar Kalinowski:He's like, Father, forgive them.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't know what they're doing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, I don't think that's necessarily what he was.
Caesar Kalinowski:He was probably talking about sin and forgiveness, but could it have been the whole thing?
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, like, could he have been saying, Father, forgive them for where this might go?
Caesar Kalinowski:Great concept.
Caesar Kalinowski:I never thought of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:I just thought of it now.
Caesar Kalinowski:But here's the thing, when I was fortunate to be a part of a large church, you know, like a lot of great people, a lot of great uh, teams and, and abilities and talents and giftings, man, and resource, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Generous people, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:I was very gifted and blessed to be at that church.
Caesar Kalinowski:And yet, yes, um, unfortunately, which I know it's not uncommon, a handful of quote, paid staff were sort of employed to do most of the ministry, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Even though lots of people were invited in to be volunteers, there's a very, there was a very clear, you know, and it is, it's out there, there was a very clear distinction of kind of who's in charge and whose job stuff is.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then, problem with the volunteers?
Caesar Kalinowski:I feel like it.
Caesar Kalinowski:I don't feel like it.
Caesar Kalinowski:I guess I will.
Caesar Kalinowski:I don't think I want to.
Caesar Kalinowski:And what are you gonna say?
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, he's just, she's, she's volunteering her time.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:So as long as you see someone's volunteer, then you also can't hold any kind of standard of quality or expectation or a yes being a yes.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, they're just volunteers.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:But she's always late.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's bad.
Caesar Kalinowski:Let your yes be a yes.
Caesar Kalinowski:No, the truth is she's the church.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is her church.
Caesar Kalinowski:family, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Absolutely.
Caesar Kalinowski:And any ministry going on, that's why when people say like, you know what I don't like about this church?
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm like, wait a minute, you're pointing at yourself.
Caesar Kalinowski:Just whatever comes out of your mouth next.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right?
Caesar Kalinowski:And I don't think that God's design and plan, and you can just read the book of Acts once, even cursory, you know, just like burn through it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Um, his plan was never As evidenced by the Church in Acts and beyond, uh, was never that there'd be a few people that were kind of doing quote ministry while the rest of the people observed and tried to get their friends to come observe that and call that bringing them to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:I just, there's no way.
Caesar Kalinowski:, no one believes that.
Caesar Kalinowski:, and I don't think anybody listening to this podcast would go like, wrong, that was God's design, we'd get everybody to church.
Caesar Kalinowski:No, it's not.
Caesar Kalinowski:No one, I don't think anybody listening would, disagree with that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:And yet, so many of our listeners will probably.
Caesar Kalinowski:Spend most of this week, if they're on staff somewhere, at a church, working out the program for the weekend, and they'll do exactly that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I want to call them to boldness.
Caesar Kalinowski:I want to call them to change.
Caesar Kalinowski:I want to call them to begin to be the church, by how they live in their homes, and in their family life, and their language, because language builds culture.
Caesar Kalinowski:Absolutely.
Caesar Kalinowski:Differently, like, tomorrow, today, just decide to, just like, you know what, I always called that a hammer, turns out that's pliers.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, like, I'm not gonna call it, you know, a hammer anymore, cause now I know it's pliers.
Caesar Kalinowski:Please don't call your church building church, don't call your weekend service going to church, putting on church, doing church, no, it's not.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's the family of God.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're part of that family.
Caesar Kalinowski:Start to use familial language.
Caesar Kalinowski:It will make a big difference.
Caesar Kalinowski:That'll be a huge shift.
Heath Hollensbe:You know, it's fascinating too, because even when you talk about volunteers, I'm fortunate to work in the church I'm at, and it's very different than anything I've ever been part of, and it's actually purified a lot of
Caesar Kalinowski:Is that the Church of What's Happening Now?
Caesar Kalinowski:No.
Caesar Kalinowski:Tacoma, Washington?
Caesar Kalinowski:Tacoma, Washington.
Caesar Kalinowski:No.
Caesar Kalinowski:No, but it's, it's
Heath Hollensbe:interesting to be able to step in and go, I had a very lone ranger approach to ministry and it was like, this is the, this is my direction and I want to get people to buy in.
Heath Hollensbe:And I noticed, man, the volunteers aren't buying in.
Heath Hollensbe:And so I spent most of my time trying to energize the volunteers.
Heath Hollensbe:And they weren't, they'll
Caesar Kalinowski:be excited for a month.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you see them as volunteers, though, you're doomed already.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, exactly.
Heath Hollensbe:Yeah, part of the struggle in my life, and I'm sure this is the case for some listeners, is that you talk about a lot what it would be like to intentionally disciple one another into greater faith in Jesus and this living in community together and Not going to church, but being the church, and you even referenced like the missional community kind of model.
Heath Hollensbe:Isn't that a bit optimistic for Americans right now?
Heath Hollensbe:It's hard to make time
Caesar Kalinowski:for anything.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well there again, see with bad theology and language, when we see the church as a building or a program, so it's something you go to, well then sometimes I don't have time to go to it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:But if you see it as something like, like I'll use the analogy like, I know you have kids, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:So are you a father?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, absolutely.
Caesar Kalinowski:Part of your identity.
Caesar Kalinowski:Are you a father only when you feel like it?
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, now sometimes you might not feel like parenting, or as efficiently, you know what I mean?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right?
Caesar Kalinowski:We all sometimes, you know, fall down on that job aspect, but, but fundamentally, are you always a father?
Caesar Kalinowski:Always.
Caesar Kalinowski:If I said to you like, well, how many hours a week do you put into being a father?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:You'd say all of them.
Caesar Kalinowski:Every single one.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, it just is, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and so, there again, that breakdown of like, go to church, another reason why it's important is, is, is when that breaks down, then people vote on and off.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like well, I don't want to go to church, or I don't like what they're doing this week, I don't like who's speaking.
Caesar Kalinowski:Or like, well, we're doing a special series, or, you know, I didn't sign up to help, you know, with my small group for the next month, so I'm just going to take a month off because there's nothing for me to do, i.
Caesar Kalinowski:e., what am I getting out of it?
Caesar Kalinowski:And so, is it too optimistic?
Caesar Kalinowski:There again, I think, and I will talk a lot about this in every episode, is I think we are, the mission of the Church is to make disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's the only mission Jesus gave His Church.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so therefore, that's the only reason the Church and I'm talking the church's people, exist.
Caesar Kalinowski:We exist to fulfill that commission, to go and make disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:And Jesus modeled and commanded it to be done a certain way, and that's in community.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so I don't think it's a bridge too far.
Caesar Kalinowski:I know it feels that way, but there again, a lot of that stems from bad theology, bad language, bad culture, bad ethos around church as an event, church as something you opt in and out of programmatically.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yup.
Caesar Kalinowski:And if you see yourself though as a family of missionary servants, and maybe a future episode will really unpack our identity in Christ, if you see yourself as God's family of missionaries, like sent out to make disciples to make disciples as we serve others and we both proclaim the gospel with words and deeds, well that's not, then that's who you are.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's identity.
Caesar Kalinowski:The church is our identity.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's part of that, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:We are God's family.
Heath Hollensbe:One of the things that's interesting is how, even as we're talking about how language matters and some of these nuances.
Heath Hollensbe:It seems like the church of today, in 2016, about to be 2017,
Caesar Kalinowski:um.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, that's right, we're recording this just before the holiday.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, exactly, yeah, right before.
Caesar Kalinowski:I guess we can admit that.
Heath Hollensbe:So it'll be 2017 by the time this comes out.
Heath Hollensbe:Even the concept of the methodology of evangelism is now go out and get your friends to come to this church where the pastor will deliver a message
Caesar Kalinowski:so he can How's that working?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, kind of see the deal, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:How's that working
Heath Hollensbe:out?
Heath Hollensbe:Yeah, and so one of the things that is interesting is that modeling the life of Jesus if we're actually doing it we should actually have A load of friends that are far from God, but on some sort of journey of faith, and what I found was, I was in a church for so long that I was disgusted when I, when somebody actually questioned me about, like, man, you kind of don't love people really well, and I found out all of my friends were church people.
Heath Hollensbe:If we're actually doing mission well, we would, we would have friends on all different levels of this faith
Caesar Kalinowski:journey.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, absolutely.
Caesar Kalinowski:If we're doing mission well, And the mission is to make disciples, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:So we're filling the world with God's glory, like copies of Jesus, that's what, that's the mission, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:Make disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:Then, yeah, we would, we would as the church, as Christians, we would be out and about.
Caesar Kalinowski:We would be living a missionary lifestyle, trying to find all those who are far from dead.
Caesar Kalinowski:who, who aren't, you know, they need a place at the table.
Caesar Kalinowski:They're not part of the family.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't trust dad.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't necessarily trust his kids.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, they've re they've gotten some bad press, maybe some of it true, some of it not true.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so, but if we're serious as the church about the mission to make disciples fill the world with God's glory, then we would be out and about.
Caesar Kalinowski:We would, we'd have to be because the, you know, Jesus said, I didn't come for the healthy.
Caesar Kalinowski:I came for the sick.
Caesar Kalinowski:Another way of saying that is I didn't come for those inside the family, I came for those outside the family, you know, in that sense.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I can remember just like you, I can remember being at that, you know, large church on staff and all of a sudden it dawning on me like, Hey, I don't have a, I don't have a single friend who's not a believer.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like all my friends.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now I can think back to, like, oh, like, when I was in high school, I knew this one guy.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm talking about friends, you know?
Caesar Kalinowski:People you do life with and hang out with.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, I go to the game, you know.
Caesar Kalinowski:I go out and catch beer, like, watch a movie.
Caesar Kalinowski:We go movies with our wives, or vacation.
Caesar Kalinowski:I didn't have a single friend.
Caesar Kalinowski:who was a not yet believer, uh, Christian, you know?
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and guess what?
Caesar Kalinowski:None of the staff did either.
Caesar Kalinowski:There was a lot of staff.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it dawned on me, like, wait a second, if, if the Church exists to make disciples of the not yet, and we're blessed to get to lead this family as older brothers and sisters, like, be staff or even just leadership, doesn't matter if you're paid or not, um, wouldn't we then have loads of not yet believers in our life?
Caesar Kalinowski:Like we, we should just be rockstar disciple makers.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, so as young families are coming to faith or coming to become a part of the church family that we're a part of, um, they'd go like, well, you want to learn how to live your life?
Caesar Kalinowski:You just hang out with Heath and his family, like, and you're gonna, you're gonna see what it looks like to love Jesus and love people really, really well.
Caesar Kalinowski:And the gospels can become real to you in your marriage and in your finances and you know, everything.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And you're going to have one life integrated instead of like, well, when I go to church, I feel good, but then I don't like going to church because the church kind of, you know, whatever.
Caesar Kalinowski:No, you hang out with Heath and a lot of his other friends around this journey and you're going to learn, you're going to learn a lot about who God is in Jesus and you're going to fall in love with him too.
Caesar Kalinowski:I guarantee it.
Caesar Kalinowski:But instead we don't have that.
Caesar Kalinowski:We've got a few professionals who perform the services, the goods and services on Sunday or midweek or whatever.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then largely because they're so stinking busy with it, they hardly have any not yet believing friends who are richly a part of their life that they're moving along the faith journey from unbelief to belief.
Caesar Kalinowski:And our listeners are going to hear me say that a lot, because discipleship is the process of moving from unbelief to belief in absolutely every area of life.
Caesar Kalinowski:So if we're the leadership of these families, these churches, then we should just have loads of not yet believing people on their faith journey joining us on ours.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, I love what
Heath Hollensbe:she said there, because she You know, Jesus was always teaching.
Heath Hollensbe:I think you had mentioned a while back, like his method was not, I'm going to teach and then invite you into my life.
Heath Hollensbe:It was come watch how I
Caesar Kalinowski:live.
Caesar Kalinowski:Come hang out.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, we're going to do normal things together.
Caesar Kalinowski:Come follow me, right?
Heath Hollensbe:Yeah, but I had found most of my schedule doesn't allow for me to even have, I mean, there's things six nights a week and rather than going and actually hanging out with somebody who's on a faith journey, I've, yeah, I have something that's a Christian alternative that is not interesting to them at all.
Caesar Kalinowski:The equivalent of that would have been, um, Jesus insisting that he be at the temple 24 7 when he was awake.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, he just, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yup.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, um, or at a synagogue or something on Capernaum.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then anybody he ran into that didn't have faith, well, that's where you'd have to hang with me.
Caesar Kalinowski:Instead of like, well, hey, but I, I could really use some eyesight here.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, I can, I can heal you at the second service, you know, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, or like I'm freaking starving, you know, and we're really hungry.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's thousands of us.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, show up at our Easter service, because we're planning on, you know, some baskets, you know.
Caesar Kalinowski:Most of his
Heath Hollensbe:miracles were on the way to
Caesar Kalinowski:somewhere else.
Caesar Kalinowski:In fact, there are many people that would make that case, Heath, as you know, and I'm sure our listeners have heard some of this, is that the go and make disciples passage in Matthew 28 is actually as you go.
Caesar Kalinowski:Make Disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:And the process, that, that, that term make disciples implies a process, a lifestyle, a reproducible way of doing that, that we get to have instead of the serendipitous, I'll fit it in when I can.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and, and see now I'm getting, now I'm getting on my soapbox a little because, because we don't believe we're the church and we've got a weird identity around that, and church becomes a program or a place, well then we'd also don't understand the mission and so therefore we don't understand discipleship and therefore we turn it into a program and so now discipleship is reduced to like a series of classes, a set of events, and something that I choose to participate in or not versus no, that's my identity, I'm a disciple, and guess what?
Caesar Kalinowski:Disciples make disciples, and so see how it just keeps dripping?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you, if you go to church and you think that's what you're supposed to do and you don't get your identity, it starts to leak all the way down through worship, through the mission, through discipleship.
Caesar Kalinowski:And now we vote in and out and we turn discipleship into a program we turn on and off instead of a lifestyle.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yep.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and I think it's, it's unfortunate and it's why we're seeing some of the results we are of the, you know, the church emptying out, uh, even those who kind of are regular attenders as they would be called.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:Most of them are not discipled.
Caesar Kalinowski:They would, they would.
Heath Hollensbe:And so in turn, they don't know how to disciple.
Heath Hollensbe:That's been my push with pastors lately is like, The end result is not just that you've communicated a biblical passage and cleared that up for your listeners, but that you're actually training them how to make disciples in all of life.
Heath Hollensbe:But most of the people in our congregations
Caesar Kalinowski:don't know how to make disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:They're not teaching that at seminary.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:And most churches aren't teaching it, but then I'm gonna put the pressure on you as a pastor, get that done.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'll take that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, I'm busy with the program, so.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, that's
Heath Hollensbe:good.
Heath Hollensbe:Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe:Hey, as always, uh, we'd like to close with what we call the Big Three, and these are either three pieces of advice or action steps or some things we can get to right away.
Heath Hollensbe:And so, Caesar, I'm gonna ask you what the Big Three are for this week.
Heath Hollensbe:And, uh, I should just preface it that you don't need to sit and stop what you're doing and take notes.
Heath Hollensbe:We've actually gotten them all written out for you.
Heath Hollensbe:And you can get a free download of the Big Three for this week by going to everydaydisciple.
Heath Hollensbe:com forward slash Big Three.
Heath Hollensbe:You'll get the notes for the Big Three this week, and we're actually going to send a copy of Caesar's free ebook, Be the Church.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, let me tell you a little bit about that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, please do.
Caesar Kalinowski:So, a little while back, my friend Seth McBee and I, we created an ebook called Be the Church, and it's ten conversations around ten key identity things that we need to learn.
Caesar Kalinowski:And Seth has this knack for drawing really simple Uh, diagrams, drawings that are sometimes a bit funny, but they really crystallize like a lot of content, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:And so what we did is we took those 10 sort of like discipleship for dummies sort of topics.
Caesar Kalinowski:He drew, drew up something that crystallizes that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then we created a conversation around it where like two people might be engaged in to help articulate.
Caesar Kalinowski:sort of the core essence and why that's so important in a real normative, like, a conversation.
Caesar Kalinowski:So, uh, the Be The Church ebook's free.
Caesar Kalinowski:Oh my gosh, man, tens of thousands of these have been downloaded.
Caesar Kalinowski:People love it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And people can get not only the ebook, but they can get all the drawings and download.
Caesar Kalinowski:We'll send everybody that if they'll go ahead and go to everydaydisciple.
Caesar Kalinowski:com forward slash big three.
Caesar Kalinowski:So they'll love it.
Caesar Kalinowski:We'll give you the, we'll give you the big three notes.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we'll give you that e book, we'd be happy to.
Caesar Kalinowski:Alright, on that topic, Caesar, what are the big three for this week?
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, yeah, so here's the big three.
Caesar Kalinowski:First, number one, Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we might start going to church once in a while on Sundays.
Caesar Kalinowski:We gotta believe that.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's not his goal.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, he did not, this whole thing of God sending his only son, to love us and die in our places so that our sins would be forgiven, we could have a life with God was not so that we could start to go to church, you know, once a week or something.
Caesar Kalinowski:And by the way, it wasn't so that we would avoid hell either.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's a byproduct of being in Christ.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:Another episode.
Caesar Kalinowski:Second.
Caesar Kalinowski:So you gotta believe that.
Caesar Kalinowski:You gotta just settle that in your heart.
Caesar Kalinowski:Secondly, Jesus command was not invite people to your church or it wasn't, or plant great churches and have great worship services.
Caesar Kalinowski:It was to make disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so, if you're, if you're a Christian, you're a disciple.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, we might not be doing great at it.
Caesar Kalinowski:We might suck at discipleship.
Caesar Kalinowski:We may have never engaged it.
Caesar Kalinowski:We may have never been discipled.
Caesar Kalinowski:But it's part of your true identity.
Caesar Kalinowski:And God loves us the same.
Caesar Kalinowski:He knows we're right where we're at.
Caesar Kalinowski:But, that's my second of the big three is, the command was to make disciples and, and, You, you gotta have some intentionality for that to be a reality.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then third is if you're a Christian, you are the church.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's an identity thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:So that's kind of the overarching umbrella of the whole episode.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you're a Christian, you are the church, you are a disciple.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's an identity thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's true of you and it is your mission to make disciples.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so that little simple thing, the takeaway is stop going to church, stop calling it going to church, stop telling your kids we got to go to church, break that language and start to embrace the identity of family.
Caesar Kalinowski:Helpful, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Our gospel identity leads to how we live, not the other way around.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that's the most natural and free way to be.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hope today's episode helps you with that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, don't forget to join me for our upcoming Discipleship as a Lifestyle live virtual workshop.
Caesar Kalinowski:Be sure to register right away.
Caesar Kalinowski:Go to everydaydisciple.
Caesar Kalinowski:com forward slash lifestyle.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we'll save you a seat.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, thanks for being here today.
Caesar Kalinowski:Next week, we're going to talk about how to beat the fear of rejection immediately.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's something that all of us have dealt with and maybe continue to deal with in life.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hear about it so, so much from people in community with us and that we're discipling and coaching and all that, but were we meant to deal with all of that alone?
Caesar Kalinowski:We're going to be looking at some simple tips that you can put into place to allow you to start conquering your fears.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hope you'll join us for that.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'll talk to you soon.
Heath Hollensbe:Thanks for joining us today.
Heath Hollensbe:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit EverydayDisciple.com.
Heath Hollensbe:And remember, you really can live with the spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.