September 1, 2025 • 35 mins
Let’s be honest: much of the Church today operates with what could be called a “functional Great Commission.” It sounds more like, “Go into all the world and make worship attenders, baptizing them in the name of small groups, and teaching them to volunteer twice a month.”
This week on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we talk with our friend Will Mancini—author and in-demand church consultant—about why real church growth only happens through intentional disciple-making. Programs and strategies have their place, but they aren’t a substitute for living out Jesus’ original commission.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
Get started here... From this episode: “The dirty little secret among so many pastors is that we are really good at faking disciples rather than making disciples. The quantity and quality of our programs—and our sheer busyness keeping it all going—distract us from the truth.”Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
- Why many churches are living out a “functional” version of the Great Commission
- How your language and phrasing reveal your real priorities as a church
- What 3 types of church models we’ll see most over the next 20 years
- Why people—not programs—are what attract and grow the Church
Get started here... From this episode: “The dirty little secret among so many pastors is that we are really good at faking disciples rather than making disciples. The quantity and quality of our programs—and our sheer busyness keeping it all going—distract us from the truth.”
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!
Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Join us on Facebook and take part in the discussion! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of this page or right below. Also, please leave an honest review for The Everyday Disciple Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Coaching and Mentorship in Missional Living by Caesar and his wife Tina Resources for missional living and group training - Missio Publishing Get Caesar’s latest book: Bigger Gospel for FREE… Click here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Caesar Kalinowski (00:01):
If real church growth is what we're all after, then I think that would be a baseline for, I don't think anybody's looking for church decline.
So, uh, then the church is people, and so there's a huge indicator there, right?
Little, hey, little flag, like real church growth would be developing people, making disciples, developing them, helping people reach their potential for all that God had for them.
(00:22):
And he does, right?
We, I mean, the mind-blowing thing is before the whole story started, our father knew the good works he had intended for all of us to do.
And we get to, we still get to, and so, I mean, I love the simplicity, but I love the profundity of real church growth.
Church people.
Disciple making has to become our greater and greater focus and not just an add-on.
Will Mancini (00:43):
One of the, one of the ways I love to capture that idea of what you're highlighting right here is that we just say it.
Programs don't attract people.
People attract people.
Programs don't grow people.
People grow people.
Let's just go back to those basics and highlight that elemental truth.
Heath Hollensbe (01:10):
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.
In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
This is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
And now here's your host, Caesar Kalinowski.
Caesar Kalinowski (01:29):
Hey, listen, Heath, we have a pretty awesome guest on the show today.
Will Mancini's a bit of a rockstar and he's a friend of mine who blends some pretty cool life experiences leading up to his pastoral and consulting work.
That's what he does these days.
Sure.
He worked in engineering, so kind of a detail guy communications as an ad agency exec, and he pastored for years before he started bleeding.
(01:50):
An organization helps local churches articulate.
Their own unique Disciple making mission and model.
So not like a one size fits all.
Yeah.
But they're all about Disciple making.
And we'll talk with 'em a little about all that, but, uh, let's get started.
Yeah.
Will.
It's so good to have you on the show, man.
Will Mancini (02:04):
Hey, it's great to be with you guys.
Caesar Kalinowski (02:05):
It's been way too long since we've gotten together and so I'd just like to just chat and catch up on life and your kids for the next 30 minutes.
But we have a show to get to.
Yeah.
I don't know if the, if the folks would all be like, Hey, great.
You guys catch, can we see your vacation photos too?
Will we're,
Will Mancini (02:21):
exactly.
Well, hey, at least, at least you gotta know, you know, I've got, I've got grown kids and I just put, you know, a baby a. Back in the game here, we, I laid an egg in an empty nest.
So, we'll, we'll just summarize it that I've got a good one.
19 now.
I have a 19 month old, so.
Wow.
Man, that's a little insane.
That's another, that's another session, right?
That's like a oopsie, that's a oops.
Yeah.
Another Oopsie, uh, uh, teaching.
(02:43):
Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe (02:43):
How do you guys know each other?
Where do you guys go back to.
Caesar Kalinowski (02:46):
I mean, I've obviously known of Will from afar and his magnificence and wisdom.
But yeah, it was one of the Will.
I remember first time we talked, I was like, will, you're one of these guys who I know everybody.
We know everybody the same, and you and I have never talked.
And so finally we found someone to broker that
Heath Hollensbe (02:59):
adds up.
Well, those who don't know Will is like a content producer and there's so much good information.
We could have taken this podcast 50 billion different ways, but as Caesar and I were trying to figure out where we wanted to go with this, you'd actually gotten, uh.
A blog post from him and said, man, this is something that we need to really on.
Yeah.
'Caesar Kalinowski: cause yeah, we're, you know, obviously we focus a lot on life school about, uh, real life and the gospel, touching all of life and making disciples in everyday life.
(03:23):
And what is the church's real mission?
So when I get this post from you Will, and it's about real church growth, I'm like, yes, I'm opening and I'm reading and I'm all about it.
And in there right off the get go, you start talking about.
The functional, like quote unquote great commission of churches in North America.
And man, that really grabbed me right away.
Like, why don't you explain what you think the functional great commission is and, and maybe why it's not serving the church very well these days.
Will Mancini (03:48):
You know, being in this clarity space and you know, it's, you get kind of even start by defining what do you, what do you mean by clarity?
And so by articulating a functional great commission, what we're saying is, you know, it's easy to head nod to biblical language or.
These ideas that get talked about in Evangelicalism where there's, there's a, there's an illusion of fluency.
(04:09):
You know, you can talk about it, but it does that really mean you're doing it?
Yeah, and I would say that it's pretty straightforward.
If you were to look, you know, just visit churches, listen to church conversation, church team meetings, after church team meetings, you could, I think, make a pretty compelling case that the functional great commission.
Is what is actually operating in our minds and hearts.
(04:31):
Each week, week in, week out is an idea of something like this.
You know, go into all the world and make worship attenders, baptizing them in the name of small groups and teaching them to volunteer a few times a month.
Ouch.
You know, it's, it sounds, come on.
What's wrong with that?
I think nothing wrong with that died for something much bigger than that and want something from all of us.
(04:51):
Much bigger than that, right?
Heath Hollensbe (04:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You mentioned in there that, uh, you say, you say that for all kinds of reasons, the words church and growth have become embarrassing when put side by side, right?
Because, because of the church growth movement has departed from our lips, it doesn't mean that it's actually impacting our hearts.
Why don't you dive into that a little bit of about what you're getting at when you mention that?
Yeah.
Will Mancini (05:09):
Well, it, it's, um, uh, in, in 2007 I worked on this, this book entitled Church Unique, and I was looking at just how, you know, how we're using our words in the church.
It's interesting how, if you were to look at church growth, I mean, it was, you know, if you were producing a book or creating content or if you knew anything about, you know, church, you know, effectiveness, health growth, whatever.
(05:34):
You just, you talked about it as church growth through the seventies, through the eighties.
We could call it the popular church growth movement and all the disciplines from.
Management to marketing, you know, what have you.
You know, we just, we, they were all operating under the banner of church growth.
It's not until the nineties that we literally see this pendulum swing.
(05:55):
And we're almost completely apologetic from a church leadership perspective of using those two words together.
So this is a pretty, you know, old idea that in the nineties, so even on the cover, you know, Rick Warren's, you know, purpose-driven church.
He makes a comment about church health, not church growth.
And, you know, you, I I I call it the parenthesis of effectiveness.
(06:15):
'cause we were, we didn't know what to say.
So we started just using effective, effective, effective.
It was kind of the, the, the thing we went to.
So, you know, Andy Stanley's writing books about effectiveness, you know, and I, I literally list there's, you know,there's, you could list 2030 church leadership, very popular books that all use the word effectiveness in it in the nineties.
So we didn't know what to do, but we weren't.
(06:38):
Talking about growth and then we've had, you know, now at least 15 years, not 20 years of this Missional reorientation.
And so, you know, we may or may not have been talking about growth.
So it's, it's almost like, you know, I want to kind of talk about real church growth.
Let's get back to growth, but in the most authentic, biblical real kind of way.
(06:59):
But we've just not been saying church growth for a long time.
'cause many remember the negative.
You know, impact of the quote church growth movement.
Caesar Kalinowski (07:07):
And it's interesting 'cause it's, it's still very defended church growth and, you know, the seeker movement and all that.
And for those of us that have been old enough to live kind of through when it started, and like wherever we, you know, people want to gauge where it's at today by all measurements.
It's.
You know, we went from America, you know, and I know we have listeners from all over the world, but you know, in North America here, we went from, when, when this thing started and the churchmovement started, we were maybe at 70, 75, 80% of of the country would identify as Christian and pretty high percentage had some affiliation with a church or faith community and all that.
(07:43):
And now we're down in the thirties, probably best guess.
I'm like, how, how is that growth?
And yet it's so sort of still being defended.
And that's, that's surprising to me.
And I was just wondering like, were we ever measuring the right things?
'cause if the needle's going down and not up and we're stoked about it, like, wait a minute.
What, what was it we were measuring?
Will Mancini (08:02):
One distinction I like to make is, if you look at the creation story of the ideas, you know, Donald McGovern, he, I mean he was just a great thinker, great researcher.
And you know, here he is studying the impact of the gospel.
You know, overseas, he, he was in India some places.
All he was really doing is saying why, you know, originally this is like, you know, way back before the popularization of it in America, but he was originally just saying, why does the gospel flow differently in some places than others?
(08:30):
I mean, what are some of the, you know, the, the secrets behind the, you know, why, why contextualization works the way it does, and what are the principles and practices in there?
So I think it's important to recognize that the creation story had a great guise trying to solve some great problems.
It got very Americanized and popularized.
And I would say that actually within that whole thing, there's really only one real enemy that I think it's helpful to name and I just call it church growth idolatry.
(08:57):
I mean, I think the problem of the church growth movement is not the, the, the content, you know, or assumptions.
'cause if you go back and look at the assumptions they were dealing with, I mean they were just wrestling through some good.
Challenges back then.
I think the real problem, yeah, I know the problem in my heart as a pastor is the sense of, um, my, you know, I'm not reallyokay with myself if there's not numerical growth, you know, next year, you know, year over year at this thing I'm leading.
(09:23):
So I think what happens is, again, it goes back to that functional mission statement.
I just, you know, do I have more people in worship next month?
If not, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna struggle with my identity, which is obviously, you know, unhealthy kinds of stuff that, you know, many of us have to deal with.
Again, I know I have, you know, in, in, in many different seasons of my life with how I define success and, and how I, you know, whether I'm getting my identity in Christ in some, some other, uh, basic and healthy ways.
(09:49):
But any, anyhow, that's just, I, I just, I feel like it's helpful to say, Hey, some of the key thinking behind church growth movement was actually just very solid and helpful at the time.
But our church growth, idolatry kind of gets kind What, what, what, what bites us here down the road.
And that's the,
Caesar Kalinowski (10:05):
yeah, we talk about the thing behind the thing a lot on the show, and it's clearly the, the thing behind the thing started to shift.
And I know, you know, I know from years of working at big churches, it's like, uh, yeah, that's, that's where it starts to get every meeting, every budget meeting, every planning, meeting, every, everything.
You're planning out like the next event.
And, and it's all about the numbers.
And then clearly our, our human hearts we go to like, and I feel more approved, valuable, and loved when those numbers are up.
(10:31):
Versus down and yeah.
So what do you think is better sense of what, what would be some good measurements?
You know, we, we talk about, unfortunately the church through the growth, sort of church growth movement measured the three Bs.
We talk about budgets, butts, and seats and buildings, you know, size and probably butts and seats first.
And you've given.
(10:51):
Uh, you've given different sets of measurements coming from the people side, which really blew me away.
Place personality program, and people like friendships and community and all that.
Uh, what do you think though, really?
Like, I, I, I'm big on like if you, if you want to keep building the same thing, measure the same ways if you want something new, let's start to follow and quantify and measure different things.
What do you think some of the things we should be paying attention?
(11:13):
Keep our eye on the ball right now as the church capital C. Yeah.
Well,
Will Mancini (11:16):
the part.
It's hard for me to answer that without going back to really what, what my primary role over the last 17 years has been, you know, working as a, you know, coach, consultant, facilitator with local church teams.
And so when I think about taking the mission, uh, you know, the, the, the real mission, the church, Jesus gave the church seriously.
You know, we, we build this little tool called a vision frame.
(11:39):
And so we, we come in and help churches really.
Understand their, their strengths.
We have a tool called the Kingdom concept where you go in and just, you really name what can your church do better than 10,000 other churches?
And we get through that.
We, we begin to think, uh, about a, you know, what is a compelling and contextual articulation of, of the mission of the church will look like for, for you guys.
(12:02):
Again, speaking of a particular church leadership team.
And then we will walk through this vision frame where we frame up, well, you know, why, why do we do what we do?
How do we do what we do?
When are we successful at what we do and what's blown me away?
You think it would be kind of, you know, obvious.
Uh, most churches don't actually have a basic definition of a Disciple that they share as a leadership community, and then from which they design ministry environments and do, do their, their day-to-day work in the church.
(12:33):
So it's tricky to kinda understand why.
I mean it, you know, most.
Pastors could give a good quick definition of what does it mean to follow Christ.
And certainly almost every pastor I've met is a visionary.
I mean, they're, they're in this game, you know, they're sacrificing and, you know, loving on people and, and the messy work of ministry 'cause they're called and passionate about it.
(12:55):
So it's like, how do you explain this?
And probably the easiest way would be to say, you know, you are a visionary, but you need more than a general sense of what you're about.
If you're gonna maximize what God's called you to do, if you're gonna get even close to being effective with, you know, your, your special assignment on earth.
(13:15):
And so I, I would just go back and start with those teams and say, you know, to answer your question, first and foremost is usually there's no shared vocabulary or codified definition of, Hey, what is it actually that we're trying to do?
And, and I would take a team through that process first, and then, and then we can actually talk about.
How, how, uh, you know, you would measure that.
(13:36):
And just to quickly illustrate that, I mean, for years, um, at, at, at the church that I came to be part of in Houston, uh, again, from which Ilaunched my, my consulting ministry, we had a basic seven point definition of, of, uh, of what it means to be a follower of Jesus in our context.
And, you know, one of those for us was being people who go, you know.
(13:58):
Two letters go and, and, and you, and you are.
So that was codified in our community, but then we would measure it.
We've measured over the years with a, with a little thing, we just call your top five.
You know, who are the, who are the top five people, uh, who are far from God that you pray for on a regular basis.
And you, you know, the power of having a community.
(14:22):
That has a constant thing that we can talk about, testify to model together, practice, evaluate, see accountability in just a normal, natural, positive way.
And over the years, you know, you, you grow a group of people who are all praying for five people.
It's not rocket science, it's just simple clarity.
But how many times did you go to church and just hear, you know, Bible stories and sermons?
(14:45):
This or that, but you, you never create a sense of expectation or, or, or growth really.
What, what am I becoming together?
What are we becoming together as followers of Jesus?
So that would just be a simple, um, you know, illustration of, of codifying an outcome of a Disciple and having a simple way to measure it.
Caesar Kalinowski (15:02):
And I'm right there with you because I, it seems unfortunately rare, the, the church or the church leaders, or I'll just say Christians, that have a pretty clear articulated.
Vision for like, what is it we're, who are we, our identity and what are we trying to be and do together and reproduce and, and I would hopethey'd fill in the life, well, the life of Christ as sure God's eternal plan is to fill the world with his glory and it just doesn't come up.
(15:29):
And discipleship, I know, is it's like, it's kind of like the new buzzword, and yet I still think we're stuck in a bit of a, you know, it's somewhat siloed into events and it's really more about Christian education.
Of worldview then the making of disciples.
And there again, that word, and I think it's kinda what you're saying there will, is making disciples go and make disciples, go make, uh, that implies process, that implies some codification of what is going on, what is being done.
Will Mancini (15:58):
It's, it's a nice way to start the conversation of are you, are you doing organized Disciple making or are you doing this, you know, Christian programming approach.
It's not like Christian programming is bad in and of itself.
It's just, it may not actually be the church at the end of the day when you add everything up.
It may be better to be a 5 0 1 C3 and just call yourself a Christian education ministry, um, because you know, you can do a lot of stuff in thename of church and not be actually, you know, growing disciples in an organized way to maybe highlight how prevalent that is and several weeks ago.
(16:35):
I was, uh, I was in, uh, Atlanta in the morning and I was in Dallas in the afternoon, and I, I was literally talking to two people who were kind of driving me to the airport in both cases.
And I was with a, a gentleman in his sixties, he is a Presbyterian senior pastor, and he said to me, will, I'm tired of being a rotary club with a choir.
And to feel the discontent coming from his generation and from his faith tribe articulated that way.
(17:02):
Was significant.
Uh, a young guy, uh, 36 years old, you know, a Baptist pastor, just new pastor, six months in a new, relatively, again, I wanna be, we consider oneof our effective churches out there, and he's just driving in the car and I'm asking him, what are, you know, what are you attending to these days?
It's your first, you know, you're in your first 90 days.
He said, well, I'm just, I'm just trying to get the, get my leaders to understand this is not about having, you know, hooks, throwing hooks out there in the community and having a show on Sunday.
(17:29):
Hmm.
You know, and it's, it was just such a different way of saying the same thing, and it's this.
Holy discontent around this Christian programming paradigm, right?
It's, it's thick.
That's just, you just see it everywhere.
It's thick.
Caesar Kalinowski (17:42):
Can you, can you help me and our listeners will, if you, if you've got some wisdom here, I gotta throw something on you.
That's, it's an anathema that, uh, we drag out so often, but it, it really is, is, and I think it might be some of what's at the core of our issue and our problem as, as the church, and I count myself as, as that.
Obviously.
So it's, it's, um, there's no pointing fingers here other than backing myself.
(18:02):
So I think so often we think that the mission was to get people saved, make converts versus, versus make disciples.
And it feels like until that flips for a person, for a leader, for a pastor, for a church staff, for the church, capital C, we're, we're a bit stuck because we're, we're still gonna keep chasing and maybe.
Tweaking stuff in the wrong direction.
(18:24):
It's the whole thing of like, you know, which wall is your ladder leaning on?
You know, help us, how can you help us out with that?
Or do you even agree with that?
Like, we've, we've gotta get to what is the, like, what's the win, right?
Will Mancini (18:35):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, well, I, and I, I do agree with that.
I think, you know, I think in different faith tribes there's a different, um, uh, focus on the, the moment of conversion.
So you can see different, you know, different leaders have to different degrees have that, have that preoccupation with.
Getting across the line of faith or getting that salvation rather than the, the growth.
(18:56):
But I, I think, you know what, what I've come to believe, and it's, you know, when my own holy discontent roars up sometimes, you know, you can, I don't wanna come across, you know, mean to, to the men and women who I've called to serve.
And so I've gotta dial back.
And so when I, when I go back and try to empathize a little bit and go, okay, what, how have we gotten into this predicament?
(19:17):
Which I try to look and, and see, okay, how have we begun to do sometimes the, you know, the, the wrong things, but for the right reason.
So it's how, how do these things happen over time?
And so I'll share a few thoughts along those lines.
You know, one, one of them, one big idea to kind of walk through when we talk about this functional, great commission or, you know, idea that we chase conver, you know, con conversions or decisions, not disciples.
(19:42):
Uh, it was, it's been said that we, we miss our goal.
Not because of obstacles, but because of a clearer path to a lesser goal.
Mm. So I, I think it's helpful to understand that, you know, um, clarity is so attractive that once, once I'm on a path and once I begin to see some waythat I can begin just to work within, you know, if, if, you know, we can call it maybe a paradigm stuckness, but it just, it, it feels like what works.
(20:13):
It's a clearer path to a lesser goal.
So, you know, Christian programming is a lesser goal.
I mean, you really can win at Christian programming.
You can, you can build some great buildings, have some great events that people come to.
You can really celebrate the name of Jesus and teach great stuff out of his word.
I mean, there's a lot of great stuff you can do there.
And so I think it's, you know, we just wanna acknowledge, sometimes we just, you know, we, we have a lesser goal.
(20:38):
We would say, you know, you've heard it said where there is no vision.
The people perish.
And now I say to you, well, there is no vision.
The people cherish something.
They, they grab onto something.
There is some lesser goal that people, I mean, people wanna be effective.
People wanna be good and, and we're gonna measure something.
We're gonna get something done.
(20:58):
And so it literally, I believe we, we, we just begin to, you know.
Hunt down the, you know, the, the, not the bad thing, but the less than ideal thing, it's,
Caesar Kalinowski (21:07):
well, I think what we start to cherish is the path of least for assistance.
There you go.
Will Mancini (21:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And it certainly helps when we're celebrate, when there's, you can find plenty of people to celebrate with you.
Those, you know, lesser goals.
Uh, IE we're, you know.
Sometime this year you'll see a top, you know, a hundred fastest, you know, growing or largest church.
You're probably not gonna see anytime soon.
(21:32):
The top a hundred most prayerful congregations, or the top a hundred most sending congregations, right?
We just, we're not gonna see that.
Well, like
Caesar Kalinowski (21:40):
let's work together to come up with how do we measure disciples being made who now know how to make Disciple.
Right, and that probably goes back to, you said something a little bit earlier, like, do we even have a clear definition of what a Disciple is for, for our own organizations, our own family, our own church?
What, you know, whatever.
Because if we don't, then how do we know if we're replicating that?
Will Mancini (22:00):
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, it's, it's so fundamental to what we learn in third grade.
You know, Mrs. Huskins, English teacher, you know, class i I lit. Literally, you gotta put the story in your own words to show that you understand it, that you have comprehension.
And so.
You know, you've heard me say Caesar before, you know, words create worlds.
What are we saying?
How are we talking?
(22:20):
And your, your language is gonna reveal what's most important to you.
And if we don't have a language around what a Disciple is, we're, we're, we're probably actually not day by day, week after week.
Meaningfully moving toward Disciple making.
Agreed.
Caesar Kalinowski (22:36):
Well, so we've kinda started this talk out today or this, our talk today with, uh, talking about real church growth and that's what kind of caught my eye when I got an email from you last week.
But, uh, uh, let's, let's kind of start to wrap up with, let's put that back on the back end too.
So, real church growth equals what then will.
(22:58):
If it's not the, what we've kind of been looking at for the last two or three decades,
Will Mancini (23:01):
and I would suggest that standing at this point as we get, you know, you know, we're a year out from, from 2020 in terms of our calendar year, and I think we can be looking at the next 20 years of church life through this lens.
I think it's gonna be a helpful lens.
I would say there are three kinds of churches.
So let me, let me, uh, approach that question.
Uh, with this, I think there are gonna, there there are men and women who have given up on organized church and they're doing.
(23:26):
Beautiful things.
It's just not as organized of, of a look and feel.
That is, it would be the unorganized Disciple making or the organic Disciple making.
That would be a house, church, that would be a simple church or maybe some Missional Community models that, you know, there's not the, there's not the, uh, features of, you know, church building.
There's not budgets, there's not staff.
(23:47):
Those kinds of things.
And that's beautiful.
And I think that can and should happen and can and should grow.
I would celebrate any of that, what I'll call quote unorganized, Disciple making, not sliding it, just saying it doesn't have the features of the American, the traditional features of an American church.
Then you're gonna have the second kind of churches.
The churches that don't get through this paradigm, and they're truly not making disciples.
(24:08):
They're faking disciples, which was the point of that email real church tro is when you're actually making disciples.
Yeah.
So what's gonna happen is there's gonna continue to be churches.
Um, they may say the word Disciple, but they're really doing Christian programming and it really is operating off of functional, great commission that's different than what Jesus offered.
I think the middle way, I think what we're gonna see the most wrestling through, and I think it's the, the, you know, the, the beautiful kind of middle way here of what most churches are gonna be doing in the next 20 years.
(24:37):
Trying to figure out this organized Disciple making.
They're not gonna throw out their church building, stop their church budget, stop their elders and deacons meeting, whatever that looks like.
But we're just gonna fight the good fight and we're gonna, we're gonna continue to repurpose and refound all the organizational stuff of church around the mission of Jesus.
And we're just gonna be, you know, work, working to keep the main thing, the main thing I think, can vary again.
(25:00):
You know, messy but glorious ways.
So, uh, real church growth is that commitment.
And one way to make it, to polarize the conversation is to say, you know, real church growth for the church in the next 20 yearsis, is gonna be defined by people coming into the community relationally through, you know, one-on-one evangelism and discipleship.
(25:20):
Way more than it has happened in the last, you know, 20, 40, 60 years through just, you know, coming in through organi, you know, organized Christian programming.
We just want to, which is one way to think about all the ways we need to continue to shift this paradigm of organized Disciple making.
We gotta readjust our expectations.
We gotta be able to, you know, figure out how to do the both end of, uh, of, of doing great worship services, of, of, you know,funding the buildings that we've been, we've made, uh, you know, to, to glorify God and, and accomplish what he's accomplished to do.
(25:52):
But we're I just real church growth is.
Using everything at your disposal in the organized church and pointing it back to doing organized Disciple making again,and, and readjusting everything in your team's life and your emotional life to, to be excited about that opportunity really.
And if, and if,
Caesar Kalinowski (26:11):
if real church growth is what we're all after.
I think that would be a baseline for, I don't think anybody's looking for church decline.
So, uh, then the church is people, and so there's a huge indicator there, right?
Little, hey, little flag, like real church growth would be.
Developing people, making disciples, developing them, helping people reach their potential for all that God had for them.
(26:33):
And he does, right?
We, I mean, the mind blowing thing is before, the whole story started, our father knew the good works he had intended for all of us to do.
And we get to, we still get to, exactly.
And so, I mean, I love the simplicity, but I love the profundity of real church growth.
Church people.
Let organized Disciple making , has to become our greater and greater focus and not just an add-on.
Will Mancini (26:55):
One of the, one of the ways I love to capture that idea of what you're highlighting right here is that we just say it, uh, programs don't attract people.
People attract people.
Programs don't grow people, people grow people.
Let's just go back to those basics and, and highlight.
Highlight that elemental truth.
Heath Hollensbe (27:13):
I love that.
Will, I mean, as we're closing up, just, you know, I'm, I'm a bit younger than, than Caesar and, and yourself and, and havingthat feel of having been through, when I first started in ministry, it was in the midst of the purpose driven everything.
Uh, and it got super attractional and, and it just started to feel really gimmicky.
And I love what you're, you're saying is like these programs don't really attract people and it feels phony after year and year of stepping up and rep punting the ball, trying to.
(27:38):
Trying to believe that these programs will attract people.
It's never gonna be the program that does it, or it might initially, but if it, if there's not people investment, it's not gonna last long term at all.
Jesus
Caesar Kalinowski (27:48):
is a person.
Holy spirit's a person.
Heath Hollensbe (27:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So,
Caesar Kalinowski (27:52):
yeah.
Will, as we, as we wrap this up, tell, tell, tell us and our listeners here a little bit about unique.
Because Unique is
Will Mancini (27:59):
unique.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, the.
We've, we've started an organization formally Life Unique.
We, we, the nickname is unique with A YOU.
So playing off of, hey, you know, you're a one of a kind, Disciple, Disciple saint, and that, you know, reflecting on this idea of doing organizedDisciple making, what we, what we believe that one of the greatest challenges that the church is trying to bring value through being a teaching center.
(28:25):
And we believe Jesus made it to be a training center.
So as I've worked with churches organizationally, I realized we need, we need tools and pathways to work our way back to becoming a training center Again.
What does it look like to be living?
And again, I know that's the heartbeat of, you know, life school.
The, so as we, as we, as we've done that, a, a group of people have come together to, to take the, the life work of creating breakthrough at an organizational level and apply that to creating breakthrough at an individual.
(28:55):
Personal level.
So we call it gospel centered life design because there's an ocean of intentionality, you know, intentionality writing and books and products and events.
And we're saying, Hey, what does ultimate intentionality look like through the lens of Jesus and the good news?
And, uh, if the, the gospel's at the center of your life, what does it mean to design an in intentional life?
(29:15):
To have a life plan?
What does it mean to understand your vocational calling and to get, you know, the maximum punch out of that in your lifetime?
So, uh, that life unique process takes people through a very robust journey.
It's a training, it's a coached experience, and our heartbeat at Unique is to see that deliver through the local church.
(29:38):
So we're trying to create a best practice toolbox and then certify individual church leaders, lay leaders so that they can deliver great life planning, life design, uh, tools and processes at the front line of ministry.
In a way, what we.
We're anticipating the continued trend that your most committed people are attending church less and less.
(30:00):
That's a simple value proposition that's continuing to be downgraded in the local church in our culture.
And we think great training will, uh, will, uh, add value.
And we want the church through again in culture, so to speak, through, uh, through great offerings like, like this.
So this, in a way, it's our program that has nothing to do with being a program.
(30:20):
It's a multipliable.
Training coach process that any church can, can bring to its people.
Uh, ultimately what we're looking for is that people know their life call.
That is their special assignment from God.
I think everyone has one.
I think it can be known and it can be named, it can be unleashed in a powerful way.
In someone's life.
So that's what we want to unleash through the church.
Caesar Kalinowski (30:42):
Alright, well we're gonna put in the show notes how people can get ahold of you.
Yep.
And, and check out unique at a little bit of a deeper level.
And I know you guys offer webinars from time to time and also, we'll, we're gonna put all that information in the show notes.
Hey, will, thanks so much for the time today.
I, I'd like to keep going.
Maybe we're gonna get you back on like, you know, like we, we were talking maybe offline before we got started.
You're, you're a tough guy to kneel down.
(31:02):
I mean, you are the busiest man in.
Church rock and roll.
But I, we we're gonna get you back on, 'cause this is just, there's too much good stuff here to fit into an episode, but thanks so much man.
It's great having you.
It's great talking to you.
Love being with you.
Appreciate,
Heath Hollensbe (31:14):
uh, the time to connect and look forward to next time.
I love the pastoral side of it.
You know, you get some guys that are such visionaries, but he actually has been in the trenches.
He's got a pastoral prophet.
He is, is this, he's like calling us back.
Right.
Probably never gotten in a fist fight.
Like just a cool beard.
Yeah.
He's like gonna write in and go like I totally have gotten in fist.
Okay.
So lots to pull from this episode, Caesar, but let's get to the big three, which is the big three takeaways that we want people even with right now.
(31:38):
And you get those for free by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
Caesar, what would you say the big three are for this week?
Caesar Kalinowski (31:46):
So much to pull out.
I had to really think about this, but buckle up.
Here they are.
Okay.
Alright.
The first of the big three is like if, if nothing don't miss this.
In the next 20 years, we'll most commonly see three types of Christian Church experiences.
Okay.
And this is how Will broke 'em out.
He said that those types of.
People, Christians and churches that have given up on organized church and they're content with experiencing organic Disciple making.
Heath Hollensbe (32:09):
Okay?
Caesar Kalinowski (32:09):
And, and those, those folks, uh, might be part of a house, church, or a simple church model.
So there'll also be those that will continue to be part of organized churches with leaders that are not actually making disciples.
They're faking disciples.
They're getting people into the Sunday service as their priority, and they may use the word Disciple, but they're really doing Christian programming and they operate off a functional, great commission.
(32:32):
It's not what Jesus offered and modeled.
And then he said there's a third, uh, middle way that most churches and more and more churches are starting to go after.
And that's organized Disciple making.
They're not throwing out the church services in buildings, but they've truly prioritized.
Organized and intentional Disciple making and they take the great commission from Jesus.
Seriously.
(32:53):
That's job one for them.
Yeah.
So the question there is on this first of the big three is which will you participate in
Heath Hollensbe (32:59):
only one?
Sounds good to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (33:02):
Well I think there's gonna be a lot.
Yeah.
In that other one there, where're like kind of fake it, you know?
'cause we got the, this is what we've always done.
Anyway.
Second to dig three words, create worlds.
Your language will reveal what's most important to you as a person, as a leader, and as a church.
And if we don't have language around and a standard for what we believe discipleship is, we're probably not day by day, week by week, meaningfully moving toward Disciple making.
(33:27):
Hmm.
Yeah, that's
Heath Hollensbe (33:28):
a good word.
It's gotta be
Caesar Kalinowski (33:28):
defined, like what exactly are we building?
What are we making?
Language creates culture, right?
Yeah, quite a bit.
Exactly.
So third is, uh, the third of big three is the church is and has always been people surprise, right?
So if the church is people, then real church growth is using everything at your disposal in the church and repurposing and pointing it back to organized Disciple making programs don't attract people.
(33:52):
People attract people and real church growth is about growing and maturing people.
Heath Hollensbe (33:57):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (33:57):
Disciples that make more disciples.
And that's something that's worth giving our lives and our hopes and dreams to.
It is.
It is, man.
Heath Hollensbe (34:04):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (34:05):
So I'm really excited about that.
The things that Will gave us today and talked to us and reminded us of and caution us on, man, it's really stirred me up.
Yeah.
Download the big three, so it's super concise.
You know, that's a lot to take notes on this week.
Heath Hollensbe (34:17):
Hey, you can also join our Facebook group if you haven't yet.
Again, it's a growing community on Facebook.
Go up to the search bar, type an Everyday Disciple Podcast.
We'll get you approved right away.
Kaboom, and if you haven't left us a review yet on iTunes, super helpful.
Five stars, say something nice and won't quote it on the air.
How's that?
Yeah, and if you don't wanna leave five stars, don't, right?
Yeah.
But, but please do.
(34:37):
And we'll know who you are.
Okay, thanks for joining us today.
For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com.
And remember, you really can live with a spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.
If real church growth is what we're all after, then I think that would be a baseline for, I don't think anybody's looking for church decline.
So, uh, then the church is people, and so there's a huge indicator there, right?
Little, hey, little flag, like real church growth would be developing people, making disciples, developing them, helping people reach their potential for all that God had for them.
(00:22):
And he does, right?
We, I mean, the mind-blowing thing is before the whole story started, our father knew the good works he had intended for all of us to do.
And we get to, we still get to, and so, I mean, I love the simplicity, but I love the profundity of real church growth.
Church people.
Disciple making has to become our greater and greater focus and not just an add-on.
Will Mancini (00:43):
One of the, one of the ways I love to capture that idea of what you're highlighting right here is that we just say it.
Programs don't attract people.
People attract people.
Programs don't grow people.
People grow people.
Let's just go back to those basics and highlight that elemental truth.
Heath Hollensbe (01:10):
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.
In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
This is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
And now here's your host, Caesar Kalinowski.
Caesar Kalinowski (01:29):
Hey, listen, Heath, we have a pretty awesome guest on the show today.
Will Mancini's a bit of a rockstar and he's a friend of mine who blends some pretty cool life experiences leading up to his pastoral and consulting work.
That's what he does these days.
Sure.
He worked in engineering, so kind of a detail guy communications as an ad agency exec, and he pastored for years before he started bleeding.
(01:50):
An organization helps local churches articulate.
Their own unique Disciple making mission and model.
So not like a one size fits all.
Yeah.
But they're all about Disciple making.
And we'll talk with 'em a little about all that, but, uh, let's get started.
Yeah.
Will.
It's so good to have you on the show, man.
Will Mancini (02:04):
Hey, it's great to be with you guys.
Caesar Kalinowski (02:05):
It's been way too long since we've gotten together and so I'd just like to just chat and catch up on life and your kids for the next 30 minutes.
But we have a show to get to.
Yeah.
I don't know if the, if the folks would all be like, Hey, great.
You guys catch, can we see your vacation photos too?
Will we're,
Will Mancini (02:21):
exactly.
Well, hey, at least, at least you gotta know, you know, I've got, I've got grown kids and I just put, you know, a baby a. Back in the game here, we, I laid an egg in an empty nest.
So, we'll, we'll just summarize it that I've got a good one.
19 now.
I have a 19 month old, so.
Wow.
Man, that's a little insane.
That's another, that's another session, right?
That's like a oopsie, that's a oops.
Yeah.
Another Oopsie, uh, uh, teaching.
(02:43):
Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe (02:43):
How do you guys know each other?
Where do you guys go back to.
Caesar Kalinowski (02:46):
I mean, I've obviously known of Will from afar and his magnificence and wisdom.
But yeah, it was one of the Will.
I remember first time we talked, I was like, will, you're one of these guys who I know everybody.
We know everybody the same, and you and I have never talked.
And so finally we found someone to broker that
Heath Hollensbe (02:59):
adds up.
Well, those who don't know Will is like a content producer and there's so much good information.
We could have taken this podcast 50 billion different ways, but as Caesar and I were trying to figure out where we wanted to go with this, you'd actually gotten, uh.
A blog post from him and said, man, this is something that we need to really on.
Yeah.
'Caesar Kalinowski: cause yeah, we're, you know, obviously we focus a lot on life school about, uh, real life and the gospel, touching all of life and making disciples in everyday life.
(03:23):
And what is the church's real mission?
So when I get this post from you Will, and it's about real church growth, I'm like, yes, I'm opening and I'm reading and I'm all about it.
And in there right off the get go, you start talking about.
The functional, like quote unquote great commission of churches in North America.
And man, that really grabbed me right away.
Like, why don't you explain what you think the functional great commission is and, and maybe why it's not serving the church very well these days.
Will Mancini (03:48):
You know, being in this clarity space and you know, it's, you get kind of even start by defining what do you, what do you mean by clarity?
And so by articulating a functional great commission, what we're saying is, you know, it's easy to head nod to biblical language or.
These ideas that get talked about in Evangelicalism where there's, there's a, there's an illusion of fluency.
(04:09):
You know, you can talk about it, but it does that really mean you're doing it?
Yeah, and I would say that it's pretty straightforward.
If you were to look, you know, just visit churches, listen to church conversation, church team meetings, after church team meetings, you could, I think, make a pretty compelling case that the functional great commission.
Is what is actually operating in our minds and hearts.
(04:31):
Each week, week in, week out is an idea of something like this.
You know, go into all the world and make worship attenders, baptizing them in the name of small groups and teaching them to volunteer a few times a month.
Ouch.
You know, it's, it sounds, come on.
What's wrong with that?
I think nothing wrong with that died for something much bigger than that and want something from all of us.
(04:51):
Much bigger than that, right?
Heath Hollensbe (04:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You mentioned in there that, uh, you say, you say that for all kinds of reasons, the words church and growth have become embarrassing when put side by side, right?
Because, because of the church growth movement has departed from our lips, it doesn't mean that it's actually impacting our hearts.
Why don't you dive into that a little bit of about what you're getting at when you mention that?
Yeah.
Will Mancini (05:09):
Well, it, it's, um, uh, in, in 2007 I worked on this, this book entitled Church Unique, and I was looking at just how, you know, how we're using our words in the church.
It's interesting how, if you were to look at church growth, I mean, it was, you know, if you were producing a book or creating content or if you knew anything about, you know, church, you know, effectiveness, health growth, whatever.
(05:34):
You just, you talked about it as church growth through the seventies, through the eighties.
We could call it the popular church growth movement and all the disciplines from.
Management to marketing, you know, what have you.
You know, we just, we, they were all operating under the banner of church growth.
It's not until the nineties that we literally see this pendulum swing.
(05:55):
And we're almost completely apologetic from a church leadership perspective of using those two words together.
So this is a pretty, you know, old idea that in the nineties, so even on the cover, you know, Rick Warren's, you know, purpose-driven church.
He makes a comment about church health, not church growth.
And, you know, you, I I I call it the parenthesis of effectiveness.
(06:15):
'cause we were, we didn't know what to say.
So we started just using effective, effective, effective.
It was kind of the, the, the thing we went to.
So, you know, Andy Stanley's writing books about effectiveness, you know, and I, I literally list there's, you know,there's, you could list 2030 church leadership, very popular books that all use the word effectiveness in it in the nineties.
So we didn't know what to do, but we weren't.
(06:38):
Talking about growth and then we've had, you know, now at least 15 years, not 20 years of this Missional reorientation.
And so, you know, we may or may not have been talking about growth.
So it's, it's almost like, you know, I want to kind of talk about real church growth.
Let's get back to growth, but in the most authentic, biblical real kind of way.
(06:59):
But we've just not been saying church growth for a long time.
'cause many remember the negative.
You know, impact of the quote church growth movement.
Caesar Kalinowski (07:07):
And it's interesting 'cause it's, it's still very defended church growth and, you know, the seeker movement and all that.
And for those of us that have been old enough to live kind of through when it started, and like wherever we, you know, people want to gauge where it's at today by all measurements.
It's.
You know, we went from America, you know, and I know we have listeners from all over the world, but you know, in North America here, we went from, when, when this thing started and the churchmovement started, we were maybe at 70, 75, 80% of of the country would identify as Christian and pretty high percentage had some affiliation with a church or faith community and all that.
(07:43):
And now we're down in the thirties, probably best guess.
I'm like, how, how is that growth?
And yet it's so sort of still being defended.
And that's, that's surprising to me.
And I was just wondering like, were we ever measuring the right things?
'cause if the needle's going down and not up and we're stoked about it, like, wait a minute.
What, what was it we were measuring?
Will Mancini (08:02):
One distinction I like to make is, if you look at the creation story of the ideas, you know, Donald McGovern, he, I mean he was just a great thinker, great researcher.
And you know, here he is studying the impact of the gospel.
You know, overseas, he, he was in India some places.
All he was really doing is saying why, you know, originally this is like, you know, way back before the popularization of it in America, but he was originally just saying, why does the gospel flow differently in some places than others?
(08:30):
I mean, what are some of the, you know, the, the secrets behind the, you know, why, why contextualization works the way it does, and what are the principles and practices in there?
So I think it's important to recognize that the creation story had a great guise trying to solve some great problems.
It got very Americanized and popularized.
And I would say that actually within that whole thing, there's really only one real enemy that I think it's helpful to name and I just call it church growth idolatry.
(08:57):
I mean, I think the problem of the church growth movement is not the, the, the content, you know, or assumptions.
'cause if you go back and look at the assumptions they were dealing with, I mean they were just wrestling through some good.
Challenges back then.
I think the real problem, yeah, I know the problem in my heart as a pastor is the sense of, um, my, you know, I'm not reallyokay with myself if there's not numerical growth, you know, next year, you know, year over year at this thing I'm leading.
(09:23):
So I think what happens is, again, it goes back to that functional mission statement.
I just, you know, do I have more people in worship next month?
If not, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna struggle with my identity, which is obviously, you know, unhealthy kinds of stuff that, you know, many of us have to deal with.
Again, I know I have, you know, in, in, in many different seasons of my life with how I define success and, and how I, you know, whether I'm getting my identity in Christ in some, some other, uh, basic and healthy ways.
(09:49):
But any, anyhow, that's just, I, I just, I feel like it's helpful to say, Hey, some of the key thinking behind church growth movement was actually just very solid and helpful at the time.
But our church growth, idolatry kind of gets kind What, what, what, what bites us here down the road.
And that's the,
Caesar Kalinowski (10:05):
yeah, we talk about the thing behind the thing a lot on the show, and it's clearly the, the thing behind the thing started to shift.
And I know, you know, I know from years of working at big churches, it's like, uh, yeah, that's, that's where it starts to get every meeting, every budget meeting, every planning, meeting, every, everything.
You're planning out like the next event.
And, and it's all about the numbers.
And then clearly our, our human hearts we go to like, and I feel more approved, valuable, and loved when those numbers are up.
(10:31):
Versus down and yeah.
So what do you think is better sense of what, what would be some good measurements?
You know, we, we talk about, unfortunately the church through the growth, sort of church growth movement measured the three Bs.
We talk about budgets, butts, and seats and buildings, you know, size and probably butts and seats first.
And you've given.
(10:51):
Uh, you've given different sets of measurements coming from the people side, which really blew me away.
Place personality program, and people like friendships and community and all that.
Uh, what do you think though, really?
Like, I, I, I'm big on like if you, if you want to keep building the same thing, measure the same ways if you want something new, let's start to follow and quantify and measure different things.
What do you think some of the things we should be paying attention?
(11:13):
Keep our eye on the ball right now as the church capital C. Yeah.
Well,
Will Mancini (11:16):
the part.
It's hard for me to answer that without going back to really what, what my primary role over the last 17 years has been, you know, working as a, you know, coach, consultant, facilitator with local church teams.
And so when I think about taking the mission, uh, you know, the, the, the real mission, the church, Jesus gave the church seriously.
You know, we, we build this little tool called a vision frame.
(11:39):
And so we, we come in and help churches really.
Understand their, their strengths.
We have a tool called the Kingdom concept where you go in and just, you really name what can your church do better than 10,000 other churches?
And we get through that.
We, we begin to think, uh, about a, you know, what is a compelling and contextual articulation of, of the mission of the church will look like for, for you guys.
(12:02):
Again, speaking of a particular church leadership team.
And then we will walk through this vision frame where we frame up, well, you know, why, why do we do what we do?
How do we do what we do?
When are we successful at what we do and what's blown me away?
You think it would be kind of, you know, obvious.
Uh, most churches don't actually have a basic definition of a Disciple that they share as a leadership community, and then from which they design ministry environments and do, do their, their day-to-day work in the church.
(12:33):
So it's tricky to kinda understand why.
I mean it, you know, most.
Pastors could give a good quick definition of what does it mean to follow Christ.
And certainly almost every pastor I've met is a visionary.
I mean, they're, they're in this game, you know, they're sacrificing and, you know, loving on people and, and the messy work of ministry 'cause they're called and passionate about it.
(12:55):
So it's like, how do you explain this?
And probably the easiest way would be to say, you know, you are a visionary, but you need more than a general sense of what you're about.
If you're gonna maximize what God's called you to do, if you're gonna get even close to being effective with, you know, your, your special assignment on earth.
(13:15):
And so I, I would just go back and start with those teams and say, you know, to answer your question, first and foremost is usually there's no shared vocabulary or codified definition of, Hey, what is it actually that we're trying to do?
And, and I would take a team through that process first, and then, and then we can actually talk about.
How, how, uh, you know, you would measure that.
(13:36):
And just to quickly illustrate that, I mean, for years, um, at, at, at the church that I came to be part of in Houston, uh, again, from which Ilaunched my, my consulting ministry, we had a basic seven point definition of, of, uh, of what it means to be a follower of Jesus in our context.
And, you know, one of those for us was being people who go, you know.
(13:58):
Two letters go and, and, and you, and you are.
So that was codified in our community, but then we would measure it.
We've measured over the years with a, with a little thing, we just call your top five.
You know, who are the, who are the top five people, uh, who are far from God that you pray for on a regular basis.
And you, you know, the power of having a community.
(14:22):
That has a constant thing that we can talk about, testify to model together, practice, evaluate, see accountability in just a normal, natural, positive way.
And over the years, you know, you, you grow a group of people who are all praying for five people.
It's not rocket science, it's just simple clarity.
But how many times did you go to church and just hear, you know, Bible stories and sermons?
(14:45):
This or that, but you, you never create a sense of expectation or, or, or growth really.
What, what am I becoming together?
What are we becoming together as followers of Jesus?
So that would just be a simple, um, you know, illustration of, of codifying an outcome of a Disciple and having a simple way to measure it.
Caesar Kalinowski (15:02):
And I'm right there with you because I, it seems unfortunately rare, the, the church or the church leaders, or I'll just say Christians, that have a pretty clear articulated.
Vision for like, what is it we're, who are we, our identity and what are we trying to be and do together and reproduce and, and I would hopethey'd fill in the life, well, the life of Christ as sure God's eternal plan is to fill the world with his glory and it just doesn't come up.
(15:29):
And discipleship, I know, is it's like, it's kind of like the new buzzword, and yet I still think we're stuck in a bit of a, you know, it's somewhat siloed into events and it's really more about Christian education.
Of worldview then the making of disciples.
And there again, that word, and I think it's kinda what you're saying there will, is making disciples go and make disciples, go make, uh, that implies process, that implies some codification of what is going on, what is being done.
Will Mancini (15:58):
It's, it's a nice way to start the conversation of are you, are you doing organized Disciple making or are you doing this, you know, Christian programming approach.
It's not like Christian programming is bad in and of itself.
It's just, it may not actually be the church at the end of the day when you add everything up.
It may be better to be a 5 0 1 C3 and just call yourself a Christian education ministry, um, because you know, you can do a lot of stuff in thename of church and not be actually, you know, growing disciples in an organized way to maybe highlight how prevalent that is and several weeks ago.
(16:35):
I was, uh, I was in, uh, Atlanta in the morning and I was in Dallas in the afternoon, and I, I was literally talking to two people who were kind of driving me to the airport in both cases.
And I was with a, a gentleman in his sixties, he is a Presbyterian senior pastor, and he said to me, will, I'm tired of being a rotary club with a choir.
And to feel the discontent coming from his generation and from his faith tribe articulated that way.
(17:02):
Was significant.
Uh, a young guy, uh, 36 years old, you know, a Baptist pastor, just new pastor, six months in a new, relatively, again, I wanna be, we consider oneof our effective churches out there, and he's just driving in the car and I'm asking him, what are, you know, what are you attending to these days?
It's your first, you know, you're in your first 90 days.
He said, well, I'm just, I'm just trying to get the, get my leaders to understand this is not about having, you know, hooks, throwing hooks out there in the community and having a show on Sunday.
(17:29):
Hmm.
You know, and it's, it was just such a different way of saying the same thing, and it's this.
Holy discontent around this Christian programming paradigm, right?
It's, it's thick.
That's just, you just see it everywhere.
It's thick.
Caesar Kalinowski (17:42):
Can you, can you help me and our listeners will, if you, if you've got some wisdom here, I gotta throw something on you.
That's, it's an anathema that, uh, we drag out so often, but it, it really is, is, and I think it might be some of what's at the core of our issue and our problem as, as the church, and I count myself as, as that.
Obviously.
So it's, it's, um, there's no pointing fingers here other than backing myself.
(18:02):
So I think so often we think that the mission was to get people saved, make converts versus, versus make disciples.
And it feels like until that flips for a person, for a leader, for a pastor, for a church staff, for the church, capital C, we're, we're a bit stuck because we're, we're still gonna keep chasing and maybe.
Tweaking stuff in the wrong direction.
(18:24):
It's the whole thing of like, you know, which wall is your ladder leaning on?
You know, help us, how can you help us out with that?
Or do you even agree with that?
Like, we've, we've gotta get to what is the, like, what's the win, right?
Will Mancini (18:35):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, well, I, and I, I do agree with that.
I think, you know, I think in different faith tribes there's a different, um, uh, focus on the, the moment of conversion.
So you can see different, you know, different leaders have to different degrees have that, have that preoccupation with.
Getting across the line of faith or getting that salvation rather than the, the growth.
(18:56):
But I, I think, you know what, what I've come to believe, and it's, you know, when my own holy discontent roars up sometimes, you know, you can, I don't wanna come across, you know, mean to, to the men and women who I've called to serve.
And so I've gotta dial back.
And so when I, when I go back and try to empathize a little bit and go, okay, what, how have we gotten into this predicament?
(19:17):
Which I try to look and, and see, okay, how have we begun to do sometimes the, you know, the, the wrong things, but for the right reason.
So it's how, how do these things happen over time?
And so I'll share a few thoughts along those lines.
You know, one, one of them, one big idea to kind of walk through when we talk about this functional, great commission or, you know, idea that we chase conver, you know, con conversions or decisions, not disciples.
(19:42):
Uh, it was, it's been said that we, we miss our goal.
Not because of obstacles, but because of a clearer path to a lesser goal.
Mm. So I, I think it's helpful to understand that, you know, um, clarity is so attractive that once, once I'm on a path and once I begin to see some waythat I can begin just to work within, you know, if, if, you know, we can call it maybe a paradigm stuckness, but it just, it, it feels like what works.
(20:13):
It's a clearer path to a lesser goal.
So, you know, Christian programming is a lesser goal.
I mean, you really can win at Christian programming.
You can, you can build some great buildings, have some great events that people come to.
You can really celebrate the name of Jesus and teach great stuff out of his word.
I mean, there's a lot of great stuff you can do there.
And so I think it's, you know, we just wanna acknowledge, sometimes we just, you know, we, we have a lesser goal.
(20:38):
We would say, you know, you've heard it said where there is no vision.
The people perish.
And now I say to you, well, there is no vision.
The people cherish something.
They, they grab onto something.
There is some lesser goal that people, I mean, people wanna be effective.
People wanna be good and, and we're gonna measure something.
We're gonna get something done.
(20:58):
And so it literally, I believe we, we, we just begin to, you know.
Hunt down the, you know, the, the, not the bad thing, but the less than ideal thing, it's,
Caesar Kalinowski (21:07):
well, I think what we start to cherish is the path of least for assistance.
There you go.
Will Mancini (21:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And it certainly helps when we're celebrate, when there's, you can find plenty of people to celebrate with you.
Those, you know, lesser goals.
Uh, IE we're, you know.
Sometime this year you'll see a top, you know, a hundred fastest, you know, growing or largest church.
You're probably not gonna see anytime soon.
(21:32):
The top a hundred most prayerful congregations, or the top a hundred most sending congregations, right?
We just, we're not gonna see that.
Well, like
Caesar Kalinowski (21:40):
let's work together to come up with how do we measure disciples being made who now know how to make Disciple.
Right, and that probably goes back to, you said something a little bit earlier, like, do we even have a clear definition of what a Disciple is for, for our own organizations, our own family, our own church?
What, you know, whatever.
Because if we don't, then how do we know if we're replicating that?
Will Mancini (22:00):
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, it's, it's so fundamental to what we learn in third grade.
You know, Mrs. Huskins, English teacher, you know, class i I lit. Literally, you gotta put the story in your own words to show that you understand it, that you have comprehension.
And so.
You know, you've heard me say Caesar before, you know, words create worlds.
What are we saying?
How are we talking?
(22:20):
And your, your language is gonna reveal what's most important to you.
And if we don't have a language around what a Disciple is, we're, we're, we're probably actually not day by day, week after week.
Meaningfully moving toward Disciple making.
Agreed.
Caesar Kalinowski (22:36):
Well, so we've kinda started this talk out today or this, our talk today with, uh, talking about real church growth and that's what kind of caught my eye when I got an email from you last week.
But, uh, uh, let's, let's kind of start to wrap up with, let's put that back on the back end too.
So, real church growth equals what then will.
(22:58):
If it's not the, what we've kind of been looking at for the last two or three decades,
Will Mancini (23:01):
and I would suggest that standing at this point as we get, you know, you know, we're a year out from, from 2020 in terms of our calendar year, and I think we can be looking at the next 20 years of church life through this lens.
I think it's gonna be a helpful lens.
I would say there are three kinds of churches.
So let me, let me, uh, approach that question.
Uh, with this, I think there are gonna, there there are men and women who have given up on organized church and they're doing.
(23:26):
Beautiful things.
It's just not as organized of, of a look and feel.
That is, it would be the unorganized Disciple making or the organic Disciple making.
That would be a house, church, that would be a simple church or maybe some Missional Community models that, you know, there's not the, there's not the, uh, features of, you know, church building.
There's not budgets, there's not staff.
(23:47):
Those kinds of things.
And that's beautiful.
And I think that can and should happen and can and should grow.
I would celebrate any of that, what I'll call quote unorganized, Disciple making, not sliding it, just saying it doesn't have the features of the American, the traditional features of an American church.
Then you're gonna have the second kind of churches.
The churches that don't get through this paradigm, and they're truly not making disciples.
(24:08):
They're faking disciples, which was the point of that email real church tro is when you're actually making disciples.
Yeah.
So what's gonna happen is there's gonna continue to be churches.
Um, they may say the word Disciple, but they're really doing Christian programming and it really is operating off of functional, great commission that's different than what Jesus offered.
I think the middle way, I think what we're gonna see the most wrestling through, and I think it's the, the, you know, the, the beautiful kind of middle way here of what most churches are gonna be doing in the next 20 years.
(24:37):
Trying to figure out this organized Disciple making.
They're not gonna throw out their church building, stop their church budget, stop their elders and deacons meeting, whatever that looks like.
But we're just gonna fight the good fight and we're gonna, we're gonna continue to repurpose and refound all the organizational stuff of church around the mission of Jesus.
And we're just gonna be, you know, work, working to keep the main thing, the main thing I think, can vary again.
(25:00):
You know, messy but glorious ways.
So, uh, real church growth is that commitment.
And one way to make it, to polarize the conversation is to say, you know, real church growth for the church in the next 20 yearsis, is gonna be defined by people coming into the community relationally through, you know, one-on-one evangelism and discipleship.
(25:20):
Way more than it has happened in the last, you know, 20, 40, 60 years through just, you know, coming in through organi, you know, organized Christian programming.
We just want to, which is one way to think about all the ways we need to continue to shift this paradigm of organized Disciple making.
We gotta readjust our expectations.
We gotta be able to, you know, figure out how to do the both end of, uh, of, of doing great worship services, of, of, you know,funding the buildings that we've been, we've made, uh, you know, to, to glorify God and, and accomplish what he's accomplished to do.
(25:52):
But we're I just real church growth is.
Using everything at your disposal in the organized church and pointing it back to doing organized Disciple making again,and, and readjusting everything in your team's life and your emotional life to, to be excited about that opportunity really.
And if, and if,
Caesar Kalinowski (26:11):
if real church growth is what we're all after.
I think that would be a baseline for, I don't think anybody's looking for church decline.
So, uh, then the church is people, and so there's a huge indicator there, right?
Little, hey, little flag, like real church growth would be.
Developing people, making disciples, developing them, helping people reach their potential for all that God had for them.
(26:33):
And he does, right?
We, I mean, the mind blowing thing is before, the whole story started, our father knew the good works he had intended for all of us to do.
And we get to, we still get to, exactly.
And so, I mean, I love the simplicity, but I love the profundity of real church growth.
Church people.
Let organized Disciple making , has to become our greater and greater focus and not just an add-on.
Will Mancini (26:55):
One of the, one of the ways I love to capture that idea of what you're highlighting right here is that we just say it, uh, programs don't attract people.
People attract people.
Programs don't grow people, people grow people.
Let's just go back to those basics and, and highlight.
Highlight that elemental truth.
Heath Hollensbe (27:13):
I love that.
Will, I mean, as we're closing up, just, you know, I'm, I'm a bit younger than, than Caesar and, and yourself and, and havingthat feel of having been through, when I first started in ministry, it was in the midst of the purpose driven everything.
Uh, and it got super attractional and, and it just started to feel really gimmicky.
And I love what you're, you're saying is like these programs don't really attract people and it feels phony after year and year of stepping up and rep punting the ball, trying to.
(27:38):
Trying to believe that these programs will attract people.
It's never gonna be the program that does it, or it might initially, but if it, if there's not people investment, it's not gonna last long term at all.
Jesus
Caesar Kalinowski (27:48):
is a person.
Holy spirit's a person.
Heath Hollensbe (27:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So,
Caesar Kalinowski (27:52):
yeah.
Will, as we, as we wrap this up, tell, tell, tell us and our listeners here a little bit about unique.
Because Unique is
Will Mancini (27:59):
unique.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, the.
We've, we've started an organization formally Life Unique.
We, we, the nickname is unique with A YOU.
So playing off of, hey, you know, you're a one of a kind, Disciple, Disciple saint, and that, you know, reflecting on this idea of doing organizedDisciple making, what we, what we believe that one of the greatest challenges that the church is trying to bring value through being a teaching center.
(28:25):
And we believe Jesus made it to be a training center.
So as I've worked with churches organizationally, I realized we need, we need tools and pathways to work our way back to becoming a training center Again.
What does it look like to be living?
And again, I know that's the heartbeat of, you know, life school.
The, so as we, as we, as we've done that, a, a group of people have come together to, to take the, the life work of creating breakthrough at an organizational level and apply that to creating breakthrough at an individual.
(28:55):
Personal level.
So we call it gospel centered life design because there's an ocean of intentionality, you know, intentionality writing and books and products and events.
And we're saying, Hey, what does ultimate intentionality look like through the lens of Jesus and the good news?
And, uh, if the, the gospel's at the center of your life, what does it mean to design an in intentional life?
(29:15):
To have a life plan?
What does it mean to understand your vocational calling and to get, you know, the maximum punch out of that in your lifetime?
So, uh, that life unique process takes people through a very robust journey.
It's a training, it's a coached experience, and our heartbeat at Unique is to see that deliver through the local church.
(29:38):
So we're trying to create a best practice toolbox and then certify individual church leaders, lay leaders so that they can deliver great life planning, life design, uh, tools and processes at the front line of ministry.
In a way, what we.
We're anticipating the continued trend that your most committed people are attending church less and less.
(30:00):
That's a simple value proposition that's continuing to be downgraded in the local church in our culture.
And we think great training will, uh, will, uh, add value.
And we want the church through again in culture, so to speak, through, uh, through great offerings like, like this.
So this, in a way, it's our program that has nothing to do with being a program.
(30:20):
It's a multipliable.
Training coach process that any church can, can bring to its people.
Uh, ultimately what we're looking for is that people know their life call.
That is their special assignment from God.
I think everyone has one.
I think it can be known and it can be named, it can be unleashed in a powerful way.
In someone's life.
So that's what we want to unleash through the church.
Caesar Kalinowski (30:42):
Alright, well we're gonna put in the show notes how people can get ahold of you.
Yep.
And, and check out unique at a little bit of a deeper level.
And I know you guys offer webinars from time to time and also, we'll, we're gonna put all that information in the show notes.
Hey, will, thanks so much for the time today.
I, I'd like to keep going.
Maybe we're gonna get you back on like, you know, like we, we were talking maybe offline before we got started.
You're, you're a tough guy to kneel down.
(31:02):
I mean, you are the busiest man in.
Church rock and roll.
But I, we we're gonna get you back on, 'cause this is just, there's too much good stuff here to fit into an episode, but thanks so much man.
It's great having you.
It's great talking to you.
Love being with you.
Appreciate,
Heath Hollensbe (31:14):
uh, the time to connect and look forward to next time.
I love the pastoral side of it.
You know, you get some guys that are such visionaries, but he actually has been in the trenches.
He's got a pastoral prophet.
He is, is this, he's like calling us back.
Right.
Probably never gotten in a fist fight.
Like just a cool beard.
Yeah.
He's like gonna write in and go like I totally have gotten in fist.
Okay.
So lots to pull from this episode, Caesar, but let's get to the big three, which is the big three takeaways that we want people even with right now.
(31:38):
And you get those for free by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
Caesar, what would you say the big three are for this week?
Caesar Kalinowski (31:46):
So much to pull out.
I had to really think about this, but buckle up.
Here they are.
Okay.
Alright.
The first of the big three is like if, if nothing don't miss this.
In the next 20 years, we'll most commonly see three types of Christian Church experiences.
Okay.
And this is how Will broke 'em out.
He said that those types of.
People, Christians and churches that have given up on organized church and they're content with experiencing organic Disciple making.
Heath Hollensbe (32:09):
Okay?
Caesar Kalinowski (32:09):
And, and those, those folks, uh, might be part of a house, church, or a simple church model.
So there'll also be those that will continue to be part of organized churches with leaders that are not actually making disciples.
They're faking disciples.
They're getting people into the Sunday service as their priority, and they may use the word Disciple, but they're really doing Christian programming and they operate off a functional, great commission.
(32:32):
It's not what Jesus offered and modeled.
And then he said there's a third, uh, middle way that most churches and more and more churches are starting to go after.
And that's organized Disciple making.
They're not throwing out the church services in buildings, but they've truly prioritized.
Organized and intentional Disciple making and they take the great commission from Jesus.
Seriously.
(32:53):
That's job one for them.
Yeah.
So the question there is on this first of the big three is which will you participate in
Heath Hollensbe (32:59):
only one?
Sounds good to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (33:02):
Well I think there's gonna be a lot.
Yeah.
In that other one there, where're like kind of fake it, you know?
'cause we got the, this is what we've always done.
Anyway.
Second to dig three words, create worlds.
Your language will reveal what's most important to you as a person, as a leader, and as a church.
And if we don't have language around and a standard for what we believe discipleship is, we're probably not day by day, week by week, meaningfully moving toward Disciple making.
(33:27):
Hmm.
Yeah, that's
Heath Hollensbe (33:28):
a good word.
It's gotta be
Caesar Kalinowski (33:28):
defined, like what exactly are we building?
What are we making?
Language creates culture, right?
Yeah, quite a bit.
Exactly.
So third is, uh, the third of big three is the church is and has always been people surprise, right?
So if the church is people, then real church growth is using everything at your disposal in the church and repurposing and pointing it back to organized Disciple making programs don't attract people.
(33:52):
People attract people and real church growth is about growing and maturing people.
Heath Hollensbe (33:57):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (33:57):
Disciples that make more disciples.
And that's something that's worth giving our lives and our hopes and dreams to.
It is.
It is, man.
Heath Hollensbe (34:04):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (34:05):
So I'm really excited about that.
The things that Will gave us today and talked to us and reminded us of and caution us on, man, it's really stirred me up.
Yeah.
Download the big three, so it's super concise.
You know, that's a lot to take notes on this week.
Heath Hollensbe (34:17):
Hey, you can also join our Facebook group if you haven't yet.
Again, it's a growing community on Facebook.
Go up to the search bar, type an Everyday Disciple Podcast.
We'll get you approved right away.
Kaboom, and if you haven't left us a review yet on iTunes, super helpful.
Five stars, say something nice and won't quote it on the air.
How's that?
Yeah, and if you don't wanna leave five stars, don't, right?
Yeah.
But, but please do.
(34:37):
And we'll know who you are.
Okay, thanks for joining us today.
For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com.
And remember, you really can live with a spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.
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