“Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, ‘God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.’” - Genesis 4:25

He is sleeping peacefully now.

Seth. His name means granted or appointed. The Father granted me this gift. Even though I did not deserve it. Even though I rejected His original and perfect plan for us.

I am watching the rise and fall of his tiny chest in the lamplight, and I cannot stop the tears that have been gathering behind my eyes since the moment he was placed in my arms. They are not tears from a single source. They never are, not anymore. Joy and grief have become such close companions that I am no longer able to distinguish them sometimes. They arrive together now, always together, like two rivers merging into an ocean of forward-facing hope.

I have been sitting here for what must be hours. Thinking. Remembering. I do that more than I should.

There was a morning. The morning. The only morning that truly matters in the recounting of all my days, when the world was different. When we were different. The air smelled like something I no longer have a word for. Clean is too small. Whole is closer, but still not enough. The light fell through the leaves without effort or obstruction, and the sound of His voice moving through the garden was the most natural sound we heard in the garden teeming with life.

I had everything. Everything. And I sat on that rock and looked at the one thing I had been told I could not have. As infatuating as the ideas were, I decided that I knew better. Better than to desire. Better than to fantasize. I shouldn’t have allowed my curiosity space to breathe. But I did. Far past the point of no return. I stood up, unable to retreat to safety.

I have turned that moment over in my mind ten thousand times since we were sent out of Eden. I have pressed it and examined it from every angle, trying to understand how I could have been so completely, catastrophically deceived. The serpent was convincing; that much is sure. His words had a logic to them that felt like wisdom. “You will be like God,” he said. As if I were not already made in His image. As if what I was already given was not enough.

But I cannot credit the serpent with all of it. That would be too easy. I wanted it, no, I craved it in the depths of my soul.

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That’s the part that still burns. I saw the fruit, and it pulled at me from the inside. And I took it. I made the choice with both hands open. I handed it to Adam, and he took it without argument, without hesitation, without asking a single question of the One who had given us everything we needed for wholeness and simply asked us to trust Him with this one thing.

We both knew the moment it happened. There was no dramatic announcement. No booming voice to condemn us. Just an awful, sudden awareness. The presence of ourselves, of each other, of the distance that had not been there a moment before. We scrambled for fig leaves like children caught in a lie, trying to hide the evidence of our crime.

And then He called out quietly.

“Where are you?”

He knew where we were. He has always known. That question was not for His benefit. It was for ours. It is still for ours, I think. Where are you? Where have you gone? How far have you run from the perfection I gave to you? Why are we distanced?

I have been asking myself those questions ever since.

The ground in our new home is hard and unforgiving. I know every stone of it now. My hands are not the hands I was given, they are cracked and calloused from pulling and planting and fighting for things that once required no effort. Adam labors until the sweat drips off his chin, and still the thorns come back. The earth resists us now. It was not made to resist us. That is the part that breaks my heart again and again, not that the work is hard, but that it was never meant to be this way..

I did that. We did that. Adam and I. And somehow, you too. We did this TOGETHER.

And then Cain. Oh, my firstborn. Oh, the weight of his choices in my chest.

When he was born I thought, well, I genuinely believed, that he was the promised one. The seed who would crush the serpent’s head. I held him up, and I declared it out loud. “I have brought forth a man with the help of the LORD.” I, as if any good thing could come from me. I was still believing I had something to offer more than what He had given me.

Cain. I thought he was our hope. I wanted so badly for the story to begin its redemption with him.

And then Abel.

And then the field.

And then silence, the kind of silence that has no answer, the kind a mother falls into and is never entirely the same when she climbs back out. The kind that changes you in ways you wish would never be known.

I have grieved in ways that I cannot explain to anyone who has not stood over the body of a child they held as an infant. I have screamed at the sky. I have gone days without eating. I have looked at Adam and seen in his eyes the same hollow place that lives in mine and found neither of us had words sufficient for it.

Two people who broke the world together, now sitting in the wreckage together, with nothing to offer one another but presence. And a mutual embrace of the One who can redeem our failures. Who can make all things new and begin again, although different this time.

But Seth. This boy sleeping beside me. “God has granted me another child in place of Abel.” I said. When I said those words aloud, I tasted something I had almost forgotten existed. Not Eden, I am not confused enough to think I can go back to Eden. That road is closed and guarded, and I have made my peace with that. No. It was something else. Something new.

Seth will grow up in a hard world that we, Adam and I, perpetuated. He will feel the ground resist him, and fight the grief of what this family has carried. He will know what his brother did in that field. He will know the weight of what his parents lost and what it cost every generation that will follow.

But he will also know this. That his mother sat in the lamplight and watched him breathe and chose, again, to believe that God does not abandon what He loves. That the God who came walking in the garden, who called out to two people hiding in shame, did not walk away and leave us there.

He clothed us.

He covered what we could not cover ourselves. And He spoke a promise over us before He sent us out into the hard and beautiful and grief-soaked world we had broken. I did not deserve that. I have never once, not for a single morning, deserved that.

And that is precisely the point. He chooses not to give us what we deserve! He chooses to replace it with an incalculable measure of unearned and unadulterated Grace.

Seth is stirring now, his tiny fingers stretching wide and then curling back. His eyes open for just a moment, dark and searching and new, and then closed again. I pull him close and feel the warmth of him against my chest, as pure and innocent as that gift of redemption, and I weep. Not from despair. From the staggering, reckless grace of being given again what I forfeited on that wretched morning.

You have been handed things you didn’t earn. You have stood in the wreckage of choices you cannot take back.

So here is the question Seth is asking you just by breathing:

Do you believe the story is still moving toward something good, and are you willing to live like it is?

Adapted from Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43, and Luke 8:40-56.

Jairus, Archisynagogos of Capernaum, Ruler of the Synagogue.

A man could get drunk on a title like that, and I did. Granting or denying access to the courts. Representing the congregation to outside authorities. Ordering or stopping floggings. Excommunicating. That kind of power feels invigorating to a mere man.

Until his daughter is dying.

I knew the Scriptures. I stood in the synagogue week after week, overseeing the reading of the Law, making sure everything was in order. I knew where people sat, who carried influence, who needed correction. I was respected. Deferred to.

When I spoke, people listened.

There’s a certain rhythm to that kind of life. You begin to believe you can manage things. That if you just stay faithful, stay sharp, stay disciplined, you can keep the world from unraveling.

But death doesn’t respect your position.

Her decline started small. A fever. Nothing alarming at first. We had seen it before. Children get sick, and they recover quickly. Every parent knows that and expects it. My wife tried to stay calm, but I could see it in her eyes before she said it out loud. This time it was different.

The fever lingered, and it climbed. Then it consumed until it grew out of control. All my authority, all my clout and power, all my strategically built reputation meant nothing in that small room where my daughter lay burning and fading away right before my haughty eyes.

I remember standing there, watching her chest rise and fall, uneven and shallow. I remember thinking, “I oversee the synagogue. I am one of the most powerful men in town, and I cannot help my own child breathe. I can’t command her body to do what it is supposed to do without thinking.” That’s when control started slipping through my fingers.

At first, I did what any man in my position would do. I sought out help within my circles. I have the ear of EVERYONE who can bring answers for ANY problem. The best doctors and healers. But the more I reached, the more I realized that I was grasping at air.

There’s a moment every man faces, no matter how much we try to avoid it. The moment when you realize your strength has a ceiling, that your influence has limits, and that your authority means nothing to the uncontrollable circumstances of life. I faced that moment standing beside her bed that morning.

Helpless.

Clueless.

Powerless.

And then there were whispers about Him. I had heard them before, of course. Everyone had. Stories of healings. Of authority that didn’t come from training or position. Some of us were cautious. Some skeptical. A few outright opposed. You don’t build a system of order and then easily embrace someone who disrupts it. But desperation has a way of cutting through your defense mechanisms.

When your daughter is dying, you stop debating. YOU ACT. Even if it is contrary to everything you built for yourself. I didn’t announce my decision. I didn’t gather a council. I didn’t ask permission.

I LEFT TO FIND HIM!

I remember the walk, or was it a run? I was out of my mind. It felt longer than it should have. Every step carried the weight of what I was risking. Not just my reputation, though that was certainly on the line. It was more than that. It was everything I had built my identity on. Independence. Capability. Self-reliance. The confidence of knowing I could make things right.

How would I approach Him? If I went to this wandering teacher, this disruptor of order, and begged, then I was admitting something. That I wasn’t enough. That everything I had relied on wasn’t enough now.

I found Him in the crowd. Of course, there was a crowd. There’s always a crowd when hope shows up in a place that’s been suffocating under oppression and tyranny.

As I approached Him, I didn’t even think about it, as a matter of fact, I did the unthinkable. I fell down before Him. Right in front of the crowd. Not as a leader or a man of status. Just as a desperate father trying to seek help for an unsolvable problem with his precious little girl.

“My little daughter is dying. Please come. Put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”

On my knees at His feet, I didn’t dress it up. No formal language. No theological framing. No leaning into my authority. Just raw, unadulterated desperation. And He said yes. That should have been enough. That should have settled everything in me. He was coming. But if you’ve ever walked through a crisis, you know, faith doesn’t always feel like confidence. Sometimes it feels like holding onto a thread while everything inside you is scratching for hope and finding doubt.

We started moving toward my house. His eyes turned in the direction of my daughter’s sick bed. He heard my cry! He joined my pursuit to save my little girl.

And then He stopped and turned his head to look down behind Himself.

“Wait. Please. Don’t Stop. Let’s keep moving.” My words were respectful, but my gut was wrenching and screaming to take control.

He looked back at a lady I had seen lingering outside the Synagogue walls many times. An unclean beggar is not allowed into the presence of the religious. A woman who had been an outcast for years due to her chronic pathological bleeding. She was prohibited from entering the worship and synagogue life. She was perpetually unclean, and no one would touch her in order to protect themselves.

Here she was, a socially and religiously rejected outcast. And my daughter, the daughter of the Ruler of the Synagogue, lie at home in her deathbed waiting for the Healer. And he was taking time for the vagabond! How could this be? How could this happen to a man of my stature? At the point of my greatest desperation.

On the inside, the father in me raged for control. But standing before the only hope for my daughter’s life, I was forced to silence as I watched Him divert his attention to this hopeless beggar. How could He do this to me? Didn’t He know who I was?

She had touched Him, and He turned to find her. He asked questions. He listened. He spoke to her as precious seconds passed and my daughter’s life grew more fragile and fleeting.

Didn’t He know that EVERY second mattered? Didn’t He realize that this woman had been bleeding for 12 years? It could wait one more day! Just one more day, while He hurried to save my daughter’s life! I wanted to grab Him. To say, “Please! You don’t understand! She doesn’t have years as this woman did. She has minutes!”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t risk losing Him. So, I watched.

And something strange happened in that pause. As frustrating as it was, as unbearable as it felt, I saw something in Him. He wasn’t rushed. He wasn’t anxious. He was fully present with her.

As I stood watching, I heard a commotion from behind me. The voices became more familiar as they moved closer.

“Step aside, I’m getting to the ruler of the Synagogue. Move to the side. We have an urgent message.”

“Sir, leave Him be, your daughter is dead.”

Even in the midst of the shouting crowds and the weeping woman, my world became dead silent. The kind of hush that only comes with news like that. Not the absence of sound, but the absence of hope. Everything inside me collapsed in that moment.

It was over. He was too late. My one hope for a miracle was wasted on a beggar! He turned to me. Not to the crowd. Not to the messengers. To me.

“Don’t be afraid. Just believe.” His voice was some mixture of tenderness and confidence.

“Believe what? She’s gone.” I thought. “You cold-hearted healer.”

But there was something in His voice that softened me. It wasn’t urgency. Not panic, but authority. A kind of steady certainty that didn’t match the situation, but overshadowed it.

I turned toward home and started walking. One hundred paces, and for some reason, I looked back. Maybe to say one last goodbye to my daughter’s last chance for life. And when my eyes met His, I realized He was following me. Why? It was too late. Is he mocking me?

When we arrived, the house was already filled with mourning. The wailing had begun. Professional mourners, neighbors, and family. Everyone was doing what we do when death comes. Making noise around the silence. As the mourners and the family came running to see Him, He said something that made my blood boil all over again.

“She is not dead, but asleep.”

They laughed at Him. Of course they did. We always laugh when the situation is beyond belief. We laugh to relieve the tension of being confronted with something too good to be true.

Why would He put me through the agony of insisting on going to her room to see her? Why would He make this harder? Why would he pierce me with having to see Him standing over her body when He could have treated this with more urgency when I fell at His feet two hours ago?

He asked everyone else to leave. And then it was just us. Me. My wife. A few of His closest followers and Him.

And her.

Lying there.

Silent and Still. LIFELESS!

He took her by the hand. Such a simple act. Such a gentle gesture. No performance. No ritual. Just a comforting touch.

“Talitha koum. Little girl, I say to you, get up.”

I don’t know what I was expecting to happen next. I really had no framework for seeing her breathe in life after the last breath had left her lungs. I really don’t know what I thought was coming. But what I saw was nowhere in my realm of possibility.

Her chest rose. She gasped. She heaved as she inhaled deeply. And her eyes opened!

She rose from a posture of death to sit in a posture of life. Everything I thought I knew about power, about authority, about control shattered in that moment. The most powerful man on the planet cannot command life into a dead body. This was something far from the natural system by which we rule.

Her mother screamed. Then she fell into her daughter’s arms and wailed. Tears of rejoicing began to fall from my eyes for the first time in decades. What we saw Him do was more than I could have ever asked or imagined just a few minutes earlier. Life itself bent to His voice. And somehow it didn’t just flow back into our daughter, it spilled out into the hearts of her parents in a way that I can not put into words.

As I reflect back on that day twenty years back, I feel like it was just a day ago. The life that He breathed into her still flows through my lungs. Things are different now. Power and influence have new definitions. Life and death look different. I have surrendered my existence and purpose to His glory and honor.

And through this whole experience of life and death and life again, there’s something that still grips me as I’m lying in bed at night thinking about what I saw that day.

He wasn’t in a hurry. Even with death on the line, He wasn’t rushed. Because what feels final to us isn’t final to Him. An interruption by a bleeding beggar on the road doesn’t have to wait to defer to a situation that was literally life or death. I thought I needed Him to move faster. But what I actually needed was to trust Him more deeply.

Most of us are still trying to control outcomes. Manage timelines. Protect what matters most to us with whatever authority we think we have. But sooner or later, you’ll face something that strips all that away. And in that moment, you’ll have a choice.

Cling to what you can control? Or fall at the feet of our savior and trust what you can’t? I’ve done both. I’ve tried to power my way through problems and solutions, relying on my ingenuity and skill. And I’ve failed in the face of the uncontrollable. And I’ve come to the end of my influence and power and been forced to fall before the feet of Jesus in humility, risking my reputation and relinquishing my control.

And I will tell you without reserve that, either way, you will fall hard and be forced to trust deeply. So do yourself a favor and fall into His arms as my wife fell into our daughter’s. And let your self-sufficiency and willpower drain from your head to your toes and out of your existence and lean deeply into the One, the only One who has the authority to conquer death and breathe life into a lifeless soul.

When He seems distracted by the beggar and slow to embrace the urgency of your situation, give Him the freedom to take the situation into His own hands. Grieve, but don’t lose hope. Question, but don’t doubt. Walk toward Him and not away.

Right now. This very moment. As you read this last paragraph. What is it you are holding on to? Where is your life out of control? What are you waiting on, and what seems to be distracting Him from running with you?

He knows. And He cares.

Trust Him With the Delay.

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Jesus came, died, and rose again to give us the fullness of His life!

What better weekend to release a book about the disciple-making pattern of Jesus!

🔥 The paperback edition of Hand to the Plow: The Field Guide for Everyday Disciple-Makers is now live on Amazon. If you’re the kind of person who dog-ears pages, scribbles in margins, and carries your books until the spine gives out, it’s time to get your copy!

Order Hand to the Plow Paperback Version TODAY!

Click Here to Order!

❗️Listen up before you click “Add to Cart”❗️

This is not a book for people who want to get a gentle pat on the back. It’s not another devotional to stack on the nightstand next to the other books you’ve started and not finished.

This is a FIELD GUIDE. And it is meant to get tattered with use.

It starts with a question that might already be keeping you up at night:

“Why have I gone to church week after week, year after year, and never seen anything that even remotely resembles what we read about in the book of Acts?”

That’s not a cynical question. That’s the question of a Great-Commission-loving, Jesus-following, Bible-believing disciple who is hungry for more. Not more programs, not more sermons, not a cooler Sunday morning production. More of what Jesus actually described and the early church actually practiced.

You’re going to discover that disciple-making is not a program your church runs. It’s a lifestyle you learn to live. In the places where you live, learn, work, and play. Your neighborhood. Your job. Your school. Your gym. Your coffee shop.

That’s your oikos. That’s your mission field. And it’s waiting for you.

Here’s what you’ll find inside:

📖 A clear, biblical pathway for becoming a disciple who actually makes disciples, no seminary required.

🗺️ The Prayer Map tool, one of the most practical and powerful missional tools you’ll ever use.

👥 The team-based disciple-making model, because Jesus didn’t send people out alone, and neither should you.

🌱 A multi-generational pathway, from the first conversation all the way to a multiplying simple church.

🔥 The Campfire Architecture — a simple gathering structure that changes everything about how communities of disciples meet together.

Plus a Glossary of Terms, 59 One-Anotherings from the New Testament, Disciple-Making Prayers, the iMACS Training Cycle, and the full Pathway to a Simple Church in the appendices.

This book represents twenty years of failure, small wins, rebuilding, and finding tools that help everyday disciple-makers multiply disciples in the everyday places of life.

Grab your paperback copy on Amazon today. Search Hand to the Plow: The Field Guide for Everyday Disciple-Makers by Kevin E. Beasley, or follow the link below.

Let’s do this together!

Order Hand to the Plow HERE!

🛑 Nope. It’s not an April Fool’s Joke. It is live in the webosphere! And if you already ordered your Kindle version, it will be readable in your app TODAY!

After months of writing, editing, rewriting, and praying over this project, the Kindle version launched two weeks early. That means you don’t have to wait for the paperback to start reading.

And to celebrate the early launch, the Kindle version is on sale for $4.99 for the next few days. After April 4, it will move to the normal price of $9.99.

ALSO, the paperback version releases Saturday, April 4, on Amazon, and if you order a signed copy directly from me, that will be mailed out after April 13th.

Order Signed Paperback Copy HERE.

If you’ve been planning to grab it digitally, now is the time.

Get KINDLE Version for $4.99!

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In pre-release, the book hit #1 Hottest New Release in all three of its categories.

• #1 in Christian Discipleship

• #1 in Evangelism

• #1 in Missions and Missionary Work

And it hit as high as #5 in the Bestseller List in several categories.

Launch Timeline

✔︎ Here’s how everything will roll out:

🗓️ Right Now (CLICK HERE to order)

• 💥 Kindle version is live 💥

• 🔥 Early release sale: $4.99

🗓️ Saturday, April 4

• 📚 Paperback launches on Amazon for $14.99

🗓️ Saturday, April 4

• ❗️Kindle sale ends

• Kindle price becomes $9.99

🗓️ Wednesday, April 13

• 🤯 Signed paperbacks ship in the mail - CLICK HERE to order

What’s Inside the Book

This book isn’t written for professionals or ministry experts.

It’s for everyday followers of Jesus who refuse to stay passive.

Here’s a look at the journey inside the book:

• CHAPTER 1: DISCIPLE-MAKING IS A LIFESTYLE

• CHAPTER 2: THE BEHAVIORS OF DISCIPLE-MAKING

• CHAPTER 3: WHO CAN BE AND MAKE A DISCIPLE?

• CHAPTER 4: MULTIGENERATIONAL DISCIPLING RELATIONSHIPS

• CHAPTER 5: WHAT IS A PRAYER MAP AND WHY IS IT CRITICAL?

• CHAPTER 6: DISCIPLE-MAKING AND THE “GREAT TEAM”

• CHAPTER 7: BUILDING A GREAT TEAM THAT ACTUALLY WORKS

• CHAPTER 8: A SAMPLE PATHWAY TO SIMPLE CHURCH

• CHAPTER 9: THE CAMPFIRE ARCHITECTURE OF A GATHERING

• CHAPTER 10: HEALING AND DELIVERANCE IN DISCIPLE-MAKING

• CHAPTER 11: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

I wrote this book because I’ve spent the last couple decades watching something beautiful happen when ordinary people realize they don’t have to wait for permission to live on mission with Jesus.

The Kingdom isn’t built by professionals.

It’s built by faithful people who simply say yes to Jesus where they live, work, and play.

I hope this book encourages you, challenges you, and maybe even pushes you to step into the adventure.

Thanks for being on this journey with me,
Kevin

Adapted from Genesis 22:1-18

“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’” — Genesis 22:13-14

I will never forget what the threshold of tragedy tasted like that day on the mountain as I lifted the blade high above my son’s bound body.

My mouth had gone desert-dry. A metallic, copper bitterness pooled under my tongue, the unmistakable flavor of a man at the edge of doing the unthinkable.

Adrenaline and Fear. Excruciating, bone-deep fear.

I was already an old man when it happened. I had lived a long and adventurous life. One where I had foolishly assumed that the season of impossible demands had passed, that the hardest roads were behind me. I had been through enough to believe that surely I had earned the right to enjoy what remained.

I happily obeyed when I left my homeland and walked away from everything familiar years ago. It’s not too difficult when you hear a Voice that you know to be the One True God. He told me to go. Seventy-five years is enough to learn how to discern the voice of God. I didn’t want to live the next seventy-five regretting a lack of obedience.

I had waited decades for a son. Decades. I watched Sarah’s face in the firelight every year, watching hope fight a slow losing battle against the natural seasons of life and fertility. Even after the voice, I left my homeland as an old man and waited another quarter of a century.

And then came that little baby. Hope against hope.

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Isaac.

Have you ever waited so long for something that you stopped believing it was possible? You give up, but you keep silently hoping, somewhere in the back of your mind. I waited that long and then watched it come out of nowhere. You must understand what that boy was to me. He was not just my son. He was the evidence that the Voice was real and the promises were not the delusions of a senile old man. Every time I heard that little baby cry, something in me exhaled that had been holding its breath for one hundred years.

But then something happened. One of those life events that splits time in half. Into before and after. The Voice, the same one I had heard before the baby came, whispered in the night. It always seemed to come when the darkness was deepest, and the silence made every word land like a stone dropped into still water.

Ripples. Extending into the most uncomfortable places.

“Abraham.”

“Here I am.”

There would never again be a me that did not know what it felt like to wrestle with the next words.

“Take your son. Your only son, Isaac, whom you love. Go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering.”

I want to give you the dignified version of what I felt next. The patriarch, steady as stone, rising in the night with calm resolve. The version that makes a good story and requires nothing uncomfortable from the listener. I want to ensure that the Maker would never whisper something so scandalous in the ear of one who loves Him so.

But you deserve the truth.

I lay on my mat, shaking like a leaf, for a long time in the dark.

Sarah was breathing softly beside me. I listened to the inhale and exhale like a man who knows he is about to walk off the edge of something. Isaac was asleep nearby, and I could hear him too. That boy could sleep through anything. I had watched him sleep a hundred times and thought, this is it. This is what it was all for. THIS is what gives purpose to the pain of decades of confusion, waiting, and fights with Sarah to help her hold on to some form of faith.

How long I lay there, I cannot say. I know that I made every argument a man can make. Every negotiation. Every reframing. Every attempt to soften the words into something less dangerous and excruciating. Surely He meant something else. Surely this was a metaphor. Surely there was a way to interpret it that didn’t require me to saddle a donkey and walk my son to his death.

The words wouldn’t bend. The assignment was sure. There was an earthquake in my soul that ripped me wide open like a great canyon.

I got up because I couldn’t sleep for a second. I split the wood. I saddled the donkey as night turned to morning and anticipation turned to action.

I want you to hear this clearly, because it is the truest thing I know about what happened in those three days of walking: I was wrestling with incredible double-mindedness. The two paths followed up that mountain, side by side, the whole way. Denial or obedience? My way or His? Life or death for my precious Isaac? Since the wretched day, I have heard people describe what I did as if it were easy for a man of such faith. Heresy, I say! It was not easy. It was torture. Excruciating torture every step up the mountain.

Isaac was not a child anymore. He was strong. Curious. The kind of young man who asks not to be difficult, but because he genuinely wants to understand the world. He never hesitates to ask me the hard questions. We love each other so.

Halfway up.

“Father?”

“Yes, my son?”

“The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

I have replayed that moment so many times that the memory has worn grooves in my heart. His face turned toward mine. The earnest, believing, utterly unsuspecting look of a son who has no reason to doubt that his father knows what he is doing. The assured trust of an intimate relationship and confidence that one of my greatest lots in life was to keep him safe.

I told him the only true thing I knew to say.

“God Himself will provide the lamb, my son.”

I believed it when I said it, although I couldn’t imagine how it would be given. At the same time, I did not believe the words as they rolled off my tongue. Both of those are true, and anyone who has ever stood at the precipice of something so unseen and spoken faith out loud into the dark knows exactly what I mean.

We kept walking.

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Hand to the Plow: The Field Guide for Everyday Disciple-Makers

I will not linger long on what happened at the top. Some things are too sacred for many words. I built the altar. I arranged the wood. I bound my son, my laughing, trusting, beloved boy, and I placed him on the wood. He looked at me the entire time. He didn’t fight; I knew he wouldn’t. I think that is the detail that wrecks me most, even now. He did not fight.

I reached for the knife. How could I possibly raise a hand against my boy, my precious long-awaited gift? I had to fracture in that moment. I had to split in two and ignore the part that raised the blade. It was the only way. I had to make it feel like it was someone else. So I coped as the passive half of me screamed. It was the only way.

I heard something whisper. I thought it might be an echo of my outcry, but I stopped to listen anyway. And the Voice came again. It wasn’t mine. It was so familiar. I’d heard that voice many times before, including the night just before the blade was drawn.

“Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am.”

“Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only son.”

My hand came down shaking so violently that I nearly dropped the knife. My legs buckled. I fell down on the edge of that altar and tried to remember how to breathe. Isaac was huffing, the kind that happens to children when they are so upset they can’t control it. Even though he was a young man.

Through the sound of my heavy breathing and Isaac’s sobbing, I heard something behind me. The sound of an animal struggling in the underbrush. I turned to find a ram, caught by its horns in a thicket. Not wandering nearby. Not passing through by coincidence. Caught. Held captive by an unseen hand. Waiting for a savior to rescue him from the trap. Already there. Already provided. Already present in that place before I had even taken my first step up the mountain, an hour before.

Imagine what it must be like to untie your son with hands that are still trembling and watch his feet hit the ground alive. I cannot describe what it was to look at that ram caught in that thicket and understand, not just in my mind, but in the deepest part of my soul, that the God who made the stars and the seas had placed that animal in that thicket at that exact moment for no other reason than for me to prove that He can TRUST ME.

I sacrificed the ram. I named the place. Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide. The Lord who sees in advance. The Lord who places provision in the thickets of our lives before the moment of need is even known.

I have had years now to sit with what happened on that mountain. Years to turn it over and look at it from every angle that only an old man can see through the eyes of a multi-layered life. Through the pain of the memory and the understanding of hindsight, I have come to one conclusion.

He was never asking for Isaac.

He was asking for my tight-fisted grip on my long-awaited son. He was asking whether the gift had slowly and quietly become larger to me than the Giver. Whether the miracle had imperceptibly edged out the God who performed it. Whether I could hold the most precious thing in my life with an open hand, or whether my fingers had curled so tightly around it that I couldn’t tell anymore where Isaac ended and my faith began.

That is the question that the climb up the mountain asks of every man. Every woman. Every person who has ever received something so precious that life before it seems impossible to remember.

It is not a comfortable question. I know.

But the ram was already in the thicket.

Whatever it is you have been white-knuckling at the top of your mountain, whatever it is you love so fiercely that even God asking for it feels like an unreasonable request, the provision is already placed. The ram is already caught. He has already seen your terror and made arrangements you cannot foresee.

The only question is whether you trust Him enough to open your hand before He shows you.

What mountain are you climbing? What are you clinging too tightly to with both fists? What would it mean for your faith, and for your freedom, if you finally let it go?

Let me tell you, from a man farther along and looking back on provision from a God who never fails,

It is WORTH IT.

Let go.

Breathe.

Be set free to discover the freedom of knowing that your provision is waiting.

🤯 I told my wife, Julie, it only took 8 weeks to put on paper.

That’s true.

What I didn’t say is that it took 20 years of getting my hands dirty in the field, planting, watering, failing, learning, and watching God do what only He can do, before I had anything worth writing down.

This is my 20th year in decentralized, multi-generational disciple-making. Twenty years of oikos maps and Simple Churches and kitchen tables and campfires and conversations that turned into confessions. And confessions that turned into communities. Twenty years of watching ordinary people step into the most extraordinary calling Jesus ever gave in the Great Commission.

Hand to the Plow: The Field Guide for Everyday Disciple-Makers is what I wish someone had handed me on Day One to simplify and take the mystery out of the disciple-making pathway.

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There is a woman I keep coming back to in this book. I don’t know her, but someone told me. She is 72 years old. She loves Jesus, really loves Him. She has served, given, shown up, and sung every worship song on more Sundays than most people can count. And when young disciples asked her to pour into them, she froze.

“I’ve attended church services my entire life, and I’ve never been discipled. I can’t disciple them. I don’t even know where to start.”

Seventy-two years. No idea where to start.

She is not the problem. She is the symptom of a system that has done an incredible job of producing sincere, faithful believers and a far less impressive job of producing disciple-making multipliers.

This book is for her. It’s probably for all of us.

The pathway in these pages is not new. I did not invent it. As a matter of fact, I stole most of it from other missionaries. But, it is the one Jesus walked with twelve unimpressive, unqualified men on the dusty roads of Galilee. It is the one that missionary practitioners have used to break into unreached people groups. It is ancient, reproducible, and it has never stopped working. What it requires is not a title, a seminary degree, a building, or a budget.

It is not based on programs and curriculum, but on LIFESTYLE!

No title required. No budget required. No building required. Just the Holy Spirit and the people God has already given you.

Curtis Sergeant, one of the most respected disciple-making practitioners alive and a man who has given his entire life to seeing movements multiply globally, wrote the foreword. When Curtis says something is worth your time, it is.

Here’s the deal.

The book officially releases April 15. But right now, for a limited time, you can grab the Kindle version on Amazon for just $5, half of the full price.

And if you want a personalized print copy shipped directly to you, signed, with a personal note, you can get that for $8 + $4 shipping by filling out the form at the link below. I’ll put it in your hands myself.

👉 Claim your pre-release copy → handtotheplow.base44.app

The plow is in your hands. April 15 is coming fast. Don’t look back!

Told from the perspective of the adulteress

If there was ever anyone in the history of creation who had the right to condemn me to die, it was Jesus, the Christ.

And although those men didn’t earn it with their sinlessness, as He did, those angry religious hypocrites towering over my limp body had the right by Law. I was stretched across that hard cobblestone roadway with knees bleeding from the fall. It seemed inevitable that they’d stone me to death and demand lifeblood for my sin against the Most High God.

I deserved to die, not only by the letter of the Law, but because I had spent my years slowly killing myself with my own choices. One dreadfully bad decision at a time. One compromise after another. Morning after morning, waking up in the wrong place next to the wrong person. Each time, telling myself again that this was simply who I was now. That the girl I used to be, the one who had dreams and a name people loved to love, was too far gone to find her way back.

That’s what shame does, if you let it run long enough. It stops being something you feel and starts being someone you are. It hijacks your identity before you even know you’re in danger.

I had embraced my own shame and claimed it as my unspoken name. I had worn it like a second skin for so long I couldn’t tell where it ended and I began.

The hollow place inside me had been growing since the world made clear, in the way the world does, what kind of woman it had already decided I would become. And somewhere along the way, exhausted from fighting an identity I didn’t choose, I stopped fighting.

When they came pounding on his door that morning to drag me out, I knew they had been waiting for an opportune time to execute their “justice”. It was too early in the morning to have been unplanned. They had been watching as I made my way to his quarters in the cover of darkness the night before. They knew that early in the morning, the traffic in the courtyard would be ideal for parading me through the streets as their latest show pony, playing puppet to their power.

They grabbed my arm. My tunic tore at the shoulder. I stumbled forward into the street, then into the crowd, then into the temple courts, and then that cobblestone came up fast, and my knees hit the rock. The pain shot through me like a declaration.

This is where it ends, I thought.

There is a particular tone that the voice of religious fury takes. I’ve heard it before. The hatred is dressed in the language of righteousness, but underneath it reeks of something else entirely.

Control?

Maybe.

Fear?

Maybe it’s a desperate attempt to make someone else more guilty than the mob.

“Teacher! This woman was caught in the act of adultery!”

In the act. They wanted to make sure everyone understood. They wanted the picture in every mind. They wanted my humiliation to be as complete as possible before the stones were thrust toward my brow. Their words were a much more ferocious projectiles than those jagged stones.

“The Law of Moses commands us to stone such women. What do you say?”

I pressed my palms flat against the ground. I kept my eyes down. I waited.

And then, NOTHING.

Not the nothingness of silence as a criminal awaits the judge’s verdict. Something stranger than that. A nothing that rang louder than the warning bell that sounds a prisoner’s escape. I could feel the crowd shifting. The figurative knife’s edge of the Pharisees’ certainty seemed to soften, somehow.

I looked up.

He was crouched down, writing in the dust with His finger.

Just writing.

As if the most urgent matter before Him was whatever His hand was sketching in the sandy surface of the temple floor. The Pharisees pushed again, louder, more insistent. Their voices had taken on the edge of men who expected an answer to their demands.

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He stood slowly, and His eyes shifted almost lazily toward me. And then His compassionate eyes changed as they turned toward them. And the courtyard went so quiet I could hear my own breathing.

“Let any one of you who is without sin be first to throw a stone at her.”

And then He bent back down.

And kept writing.

He started where He left off and just continued to write. Like the outcome was settled. Like He had already seen the end of this and found nothing in it worth worrying about. The calm of it was almost more startling than the words.

I watched it happen one man at a time. The oldest first, I’ve always been fascinated by that wisdom that was enough to make a man hear what the younger ones could not yet receive. They turned. Their sandals scraped against the stone.

And then the next.

And the next.

And the stones dropped, not thrown, just dropped to the ground with a small thud that sounded like the proclamation of a verdict.

The crowd peeled away. The noise thinned to a murmur and then to quiet.

Until it was only Him.

And me.

Quiet and alone, face-to-face in that courtyard that felt like a torture chamber. It should have been the den of my execution, but it became the place of my unearned favor.

He stood up again, slowly, and looked at me.

Looked at ME.

Not at the outside of me, but the heart of me. Not at the woman they’d dragged in from the street. Not at the category or the verdict or the sum total of every wretched decision that had led to that particular Tuesday afternoon drama. He looked at me like I was a person. Like I was the ONLY person in the entire nation.

I was not ready for that.

I had been prepared for condemnation. For the public proclamation of my failures. The remembrance of my identity as an outcast. For the long list of everything I had done and everything I had become. I had rehearsed my guilt on the way across the courtyard. I had made my peace, or something that passed for peace, with what was coming.

I was not prepared to be seen. I was expecting to be dismissed.

“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

I had to find my voice from somewhere far down inside me.

“No one, sir.”

He nodded. And there was this expression I have never been able to fully translate into words, though I have tried a thousand times since. It wasn’t pity. Pity looks down. This looked straight across. It wasn’t tolerance or mercy extended at arm’s length. It was something warmer and more scandalous than either of those things. Something that saw all the way through the outer shell of shame and the years of desperate hiding. Those eyes of compassion found, not what I had done, but who I REALLY was in the deep and most innocent frame of my heart.

He looked like He had already decided about me, and what He’d decided was not what they had proclaimed.

“Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

I still don’t get it.

No conditions attached. No performance required before the pardon was issued. No waiting period to earn back what He’d freely given. Just a verdict to negate the charge. A few words from the same mouth that spoke into existence galaxies from nothing. Impossible, right? And so seemed this. That He would proclaim my freedom and negate the justified claim that should have led to my bleeding out on that cold cobblestone roadway.

I got to my feet slowly. My hands ached where they’d pressed against the stone. The tear in my garment was still there. Drops of blood spilled from my knees. I was still the same woman who’d been dragged across the city. Every external fact of my situation was identical to what it had been an hour before.

But something had shifted in me.

In that hollow place, the one I had been filling with all the wrong things for so long, something shifted. Like a door opening that I had assumed was sealed forever. Like light piercing the darkness in a room that hadn’t seen light in years. Not dramatic. More like a slow, quiet exhale after holding your breath for longer than you realized.

He didn’t ask me to do anything for it. That’s the thing I keep coming back to. He didn’t ask me to justify the years or explain the choices or trace the long chain of decisions that had brought me to my bloody knees in the courtyard dust. He didn’t make me promise. He didn’t outline the conditions of my freedom. He just looked at me with that expression that saw all the way through to the truest part of me, and He said: Neither do I condemn you.

I want to tell you that I walked out of that courtyard a perfect woman and never stumbled again. I want to give you the “happily ever after” because the clean version is easier to tell.

But He didn’t say go and be perfect. He said, "Go and sin no more." And I have spent every day since learning the difference between those two things. Learning what it means to walk forward toward something rather than simply away from something. Learning that freedom isn’t the absence of struggle, but it’s having a reason to struggle that’s bigger than your shame.

Because here is what I know now that I didn’t know that morning:

Condemnation keeps you on your bloody knees. It was designed to. The men who dragged me into that courtyard didn’t want me to change; they wanted me as a visual aid. A warning. A moment of public theater that confirmed their power and their purity and their right to decide who was worth saving and who was not.

He had that same power, actually infinitely more, but He used it differently.

He used it to free me.

I think about the men who dropped their stones sometimes. I looked at their feet as they screamed condemnation at me. I don’t hate them. I spent a long time thinking I should, but I don’t. I think they were as trapped as I was. Trapped in performance and position, and the exhausting work of maintaining a righteousness that had to be proven over and over again by pointing at someone who made them feel more righteous.

We were all of us broken that morning. Every last one. The difference is that only one of us encountered the only person in that courtyard who had both the right to throw the stone and the love to put it down.

The same person.

Again, if there was ever anyone in the history of all creation who had the authority to condemn me to die, it was Him. And He looked at me. He looked at all of me. All of me. The innocent me as a little girl and the wretched me as an adulterous sinner. He looked at me, and He said:

Neither do I.

I still don’t fully know what to do with that. I’m not sure I ever will. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe grace was never meant to be fully understood. Maybe it was meant to be overwhelming, a little too large to fit inside your head, so that you lie in bed at night and consider what could have been, and celebrate the gift you didn’t earn.

The stones are still out there somewhere in the temple dust. The one that, if not for His grace, would have been destined to swallow up my wretched life that morning.

He never picked up even one of them.

And the question that has followed me out of that courtyard and into every unearned day since is a simple one.

If the only One who was truly qualified to condemn me chose instead to look me in the eyes and call me free, what could I possibly do in return for that amazing grace that set me free and broke the chains on the jagged cobblestone road where the Savior walked?

It wasn’t the trickle of my blood that covered my guilt. My blood wasn’t worthy. It was His.

And what about you? Are you holding a stone? Or are you looking at the feet of your accusers?

Either way, we have the same fate apart from His freedom. But His freedom is freely given. Will you receive it? And when you do, what will you do in return for the grace you didn’t earn and don’t deserve?

Seriously, what changes on the day that he looks you in the eye and says, “Neither do I. Now, go and sin no more?”

“So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them; and he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified.” — Mark 15:15

Twenty borrowed years.

That’s how long it has been since I was scheduled to die.

Twenty years ago today, I sat in a dark, dingy prison cell, breathing what should have been my last breaths and waiting patiently to hang lifeless on a prisoner’s death cross. It’s what I deserved. It’s what I had earned ever since the day I enlisted in the Sicarii, that most ferocious sect of zealots that carried the curved dagger concealed in our tunic, ready to take a life at any moment the opportunity presented itself.

I meant well, leading the insurrection against the Romans, trying to free my people from their oppression. As one of the most passionate of zealots, I always dreamed of climbing to the top, to have my name known among my people.

Barabbas - Aramaic for “son of the father.” What a fitting name to be carried by a great warrior. But the end never justifies the means. And rebellion, thievery, and murder were the means I chose to try to climb the ladder of fame.

It landed me in that dark cell underneath Pilate’s mansion, hopeless and future-less, awaiting my own punishment by death. “An eye for an eye,” they say. That gets costly when you’ve taken another man’s life. Death was my fate, and only hours away, until He showed up on the scene.

Jesus rode into town just a day before Passover. I knew the tradition of the “Paschal privilege” was nigh, but I would have never imagined that I’d be the prisoner released in exchange for another, much less in exchange for an innocent victim of a brutal plot against his claim to be the Messiah.

The smell of that wretched cell never leaves you.

Rot and human waste.

Dried blood baked into stone by a Jerusalem sun that showed no mercy to men like me. I had memorized every crack in that wall over the weeks I’d sat waiting. I’d counted them a thousand times. I had run my finger over each of them to feel the texture, trying desperately to quiet the deep agony of knowing I was powerless. And attempting to ignore the memories of the look on that man’s face the day I strangled life out of him with my very own hands.

I wasn’t anything close to innocent. I felt the warmth of his blood on my skin. I looked into his eyes as they went dark. I told myself it was for the cause, for the people, for the liberation of Israel from Rome’s crushing heel. I told myself that so many times that I almost believed it.

Almost.

Deep down, I knew that it was for my own glory. I knew in the depths of my heart that I wasn’t fighting for the freedom of my people, but for the glory of hearing my name shouted among them. I was addicted to glory, but not the glory of our Father or my people. I was bloodthirsty for the glory of my name.

Barabbas - “son of the father.”

I heard the crowd gathering outside before I could make sense of what was happening. The Passover feast. The governor’s custom of the Paschal privilege. I had heard the rumors that Pilate would release one prisoner to appease the people. I pressed my face between the iron bars and listened. Voices. Hundreds of them. Then thousands. The kind of sound that vibrates through stone and finds the marrow of your bones.

I heard them shouting a name. It must be the name of the one who would be freed.

Jesus.

Of course, it would be Him. I had heard His name many times. Everyone had. The Galilean. The healer. The one who turned the world upside down with His teachings and stories. Even here, behind these walls, His name had traveled. One of the other men in the block swore he had seen Him give sight to a man born blind. I told him he was a fool; blind men don’t suddenly see. I told him it was trickery. A magician looking for fame.

I’ll never forget what I heard from the crowd next. I had heard it in my dreams dozens of times, but never in my ears. I had given up on the possibility, because I’d disqualified myself a hundred times over. But, right there in the darkness of the prison cell, I heard it shouted, though not for the reason I’d always imagined.

“Give us Barabbas,” shouted one of the religious leaders of the Sanhedrin.

And then the crowd.

“Barabbas. Barabbas! BARABBAS!“

Not once. Over and over. Like a drumbeat. Like a war cry. Like the sound of something I couldn’t yet comprehend. For a split second, I thought they were honoring me. And then reality hit.

They must have been preparing to celebrate my execution. The time had come, and my end was at hand. I kneeled beside the chains that held my feet in bondage. Images of my childhood began to flood my mind. Floating in the salty Dead Sea with my siblings. Lying in my mother’s arms late at night, feeling the warmth of a mother’s acceptance. Tears began to fall upon the dry dust of the prison cell floor.

The guard’s sandals scraped the floor outside my cell. The sound of keys. The groan of the door swinging open on its rusted hinge. I stood up, pressing my back against the far wall. Condemned men learn quickly that when a door opens unexpectedly, it rarely means good news.

The guard diverted his eyes from mine when he spoke.

“You’re free.”

Two words. I laughed at him. I thought it was a cruel joke, the kind soldiers play on the men they despise. I looked up at him and waited for him to laugh at me in disdain. But he reached in and grabbed my arm. I stumbled forward into the corridor. Into the light.

“What happened?” I demanded. “What is this?”

“The crowd chose you, sleazeball.” He shoved me forward, and my face hit the ground.

The crowd chose me.

I stood in the street and squinted at the sun I hadn’t seen in weeks. My legs were weak. My lungs burned with the first breath of open air. I could hear the crowd still chanting somewhere ahead, past the Praetorium. The shouting had shifted. The tone was darker now, angrier. Like a dangerous storm rising in the west, bringing death along with it.

I wanted to run away. Instead, I walked toward it. I don’t know why. Some invisible draw I couldn’t name.

I pushed through the edges of the crowd until I could see the platform. And there stood a man, mostly naked, beaten and bloody, with some thorny crown pierced into his head.

I had expected a brutal criminal. A hardened face and piercing eyes. A man who looked like he deserved the choice over a murderer like me. Instead, I saw a man already broken. His face was a wreck of blood and bruising. He was barely standing. And he looked so… I remember my mind searching for the word even as I stood there. He looked so INNOCENT.

He wasn’t looking at the crowd. He wasn’t looking at Pilate. He was looking somewhere I couldn’t discern. Somewhere peaceful that had no business existing in the middle of all that chaos and cruelty. It appeared his body was giving up, but something else inside him, maybe His soul, was full of joyful anticipation. Whatever it was seemed to be giving him unimaginable hope in the midst of such torment.

“Crucify Him!” The crowd roared behind me, and I felt the sound rattle my chest.

Crucify Him. Crucify Him. Crucify Him.

A wave of nausea broke over me. I gripped the shoulder of the man next to me to keep from sinking to the ground. Because in that moment, I understood that I was the one who deserved to be standing in his place. This man, this innocent man, was about to experience the most brutal death Rome had to offer. And it was the death that I had earned.

I had taken a life, and somehow, in a transaction I could not explain, His life was being taken for mine.

I watched them lead Him away. I watched the cross laid upon those torn and bleeding shoulders. The crowd surged, and I stood still. I felt like a deserted island in the middle of it all. A man who should have been dead, watching a man who should have been free, marching toward a hill I should have been ascending.

I followed at a distance. I don’t know what I was looking for. Maybe I owed him my presence. Maybe I owed him that much. Maybe it would honor Him if I’d just take this journey alongside Him.

I watched Him fall. I watched them drive the nails. I watched Him lifted up against a rumbling grey sky. And I stood at the foot of that terrible hill, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to look away.

He looked down once, and I was sure His eyes met mine.

I don’t know why I feel certain He saw me, like REALLY saw me. Among all those faces, among all that screaming and sneering and weeping. That look. That same look I’d seen on the platform. I can’t begin to explain this to you, but whether I saw his lips move or not, I know in the deepest places of my heart that I FELT HIM SMILE.

And His eyes. Peace. Unbearable, inexplicable peace.

“It Is Finished.”

After the hill went silent and they took his body down, things got deafeningly quiet for me too. I cried hundreds of tears in the days that followed, sitting alone with my new freedom and the unbearable weight of what it actually cost.

Three days later, it still wasn’t quiet. The city was still turned upside down. The tomb was empty. The stories were spreading like fire among dead evergreens. I heard them all. Every one of them. As a matter of fact, I sought them out. A man who didn’t even know who I was grabbed me outside the market and told me He was alive, that He had appeared to hundreds of people.

I didn’t argue with him. How could I?

I had stood at the foot of that cross. I had looked into those eyes. Something had happened there that my words are not eloquent enough to describe, something that cracked open the hard, calloused shell I had built around myself during years of fighting and scheming and killing for causes I told myself were holy.

I am Barabbas. Insurrectionist. Murderer. A man condemned by his own choices, who stood in a cell that smelled like the beginning of death.

And now I am free. At the cost of this innocent life.

Not because I earned it. Not because I deserved it. Not because the crowd suddenly discovered I was a good man worth saving. I am free because someone else stepped into the sentence that had my name on it, and He did it without a word of protest. Without lifting a finger to defend Himself. Without blaming His past, His enemies, or the system that wrongfully took His life.

I still don’t understand it. Maybe I never will, not completely, not in this life. But I know this, I spent years trying to liberate myself and everyone around me through force. Through fire. Through blood. Through my own power. And all it bought me was a stone cell and a death sentence.

He did what I could never do. In one moment. On one hill. For me.

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AND FOR YOU!

There’s a question I can’t shake loose, and I think you might be carrying it too. I’ve been carrying it for twenty years now on borrowed time.

If you knew that someone innocent had stepped into the punishment that was meant for you, taken your sentence, carried your weight, died your death, what would you do with the borrowed years you were given in return?

How are you going to use your borrowed time? Because you, too, friend, deserve death. And you, too, received life you didn’t deserve the day you bowed before that cross and recognized He was dying for YOU.

The spiritual life you now have, you attained in the same moment I received my unmerited bonus years. The moment he died a criminal’s death. During the three days he lay in the borrowed tomb. And it was sealed the moment Life surged back into his motionless, spiritless physical body.

What will you do with your remaining earthly life, co-criminal?

How will you respond to the gift of life you didn’t earn?

It’s in your hands. Just like my response is in my hands. I choose to return to Him the gratitude and service He earned by giving me life that I didn’t deserve.

Let’s together offer all that we have back to Him in response to His gift of all that we weren’t able to provide for ourselves.

Thank You, Jesus, for my twenty borrowed years!

Connect With Our Hosts & Guest:

Kevin Beasley — Co-host, Kingdom Effect Podcast & Discipleship Network Leader
🌐 Website: kevinebeasley.com
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/kevinebeasley

Glenn “Buckshot” Buckley — Co-host & Former Law Enforcement
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/rambler113.6

Lauren Pinkston — Independent Gubernatorial Candidate, State of Tennessee
🌐 Campaign Website: pinkstonfortn.com
📞 Schedule a Call with Lauren: Available Tuesdays at pinkstonfortn.com

Kingdom Effect Podcast Community
👥 Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/472921304143638

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Show Notes

What happens when a woman who spent years on the mission field, working with trafficking survivors on three continents, begging God to make her good at baking sourdough, finally stops running from the one thing she was built for? You get one of the most unexpected political stories in Tennessee history. Lauren Pinkston isn’t your typical candidate. She’s a seventh-generation Tennessean, a faith-driven independent, a mom of four, a former missionary, and a woman who has said yes to Jesus every single time He’s asked, even when the ask made zero sense on paper.

In this episode, Kevin and Buckshot sit down with Lauren Pinkston for a conversation that starts with politics but quickly becomes something much bigger, a raw, honest discussion about obedience, identity, calling, humanizing our enemies, and what it actually looks like to let God write a story you could have never written for yourself.

🎯 What You’ll Discover:

The Woman Behind the Campaign

• Kids born on three continents, a PhD pursuit in international development, and a desk at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

• The prayer that broke her: “Lauren, it’s cute that you want a flashy ministry, but if you haven’t learned to love the people you come from, you haven’t learned to love at all”

Why an Independent? Why Governor? Why Now?

• The math that made her angry: how a potential new governor could win office with as little as 7-8% of the popular vote, and why that felt like an injustice she couldn’t ignore

• Why she tried everything else first, county office, state legislature, jobs that “made more sense,” and how every door closed except this one

• What Kevin asked her over coffee that reframed everything: “How do you define success?”

Faith, Obedience, and Running the Improbable Race

• The Abigail principle: why Lauren doesn’t have to be the best man in the room, just an obedient woman

• What the Enneagram revealed about her marriage and her ministry (and the legendary comeback her husband gave her in Laos)

• God doesn’t call us to the finish line; He calls us to the starting line.

Healing a Divided State (and Nation)

• The grassroots plan to host 510+ living room events across Tennessee before November

• Why the cul-de-sac was a tragedy for American connectedness, and what we’ve lost without our front porches

• The legislative accountability tool Lauren plans to launch from the governor’s office to make every vote public and every citizen heard

Grace, Politics, and Speaking Truth in Love

• Lauren’s response to people who say politics is too ugly for Christians to touch

• How she holds firm on her beliefs while building some of the deepest relationships of her life, including with people who disagree with her completely

• Why stripping people of dignity strips you of the authority to speak love into their lives

💡 Standout Moments:

“I tried so hard to be a quiet, meek Southern woman. I even tried to bake sourdough through COVID. God refused.” — Lauren Pinkston

“I don’t think God cares who’s governor of Tennessee. But I do think that who is better for us to serve than the image-bearers of God around us every day?” — Lauren Pinkston

“He doesn’t call us to something and show us the outcome. He calls us to the starting line.” — Glenn “Buckshot” Buckley

🔥 Key Moments in the Conversation:

Lauren described the first week she’d spend in the governor’s residence if elected, inviting every legislator in Tennessee, their spouses, their kids, and making sure every person at the table sits next to someone from across the aisle. Not a policy meeting. Not a debate. A meal. Because you cannot write legislation together if the only time you talk is inside a debate circle. You have to humanize each other first.

That one image said more about Lauren Pinkston’s vision for Tennessee than any policy platform ever could.

📚 Resources Mentioned:

• Book: The Great Good Place — Ray Oldenburg

• Book: Bowling Alone — Robert Putnam

• Campaign Website & Open Office Hours: pinkstonfortn.com

• Policy Positions (all 91 of them): pinkstonfortn.com

Want to Get Involved?

• Schedule a personal call with Lauren on Tuesdays at pinkstonfortn.com

• Host a living room event in your community

• Share this episode with someone who feels like they have no one to vote for

“I am not okay if someone doesn’t vote for me because of how I’ve used my faith among them. That’s something I have to answer to God for.” — Lauren Pinkston

Kingdom Effect Podcast — Where ordinary people say yes to extraordinary things. Available on all major podcast platforms.

Learn More About Simple Churches

You have heard the old saying – “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” That is highly relevant when discussing launching a house church, a simple church, or a discipling community. As overwhelming as it might seem to start a church in your home or other neutral location, it’s just about baby steps and significant relationships. The Disciple-Making Collective can walk alongside you on the journey with tools and pathways that will simplify your efforts.

Download the Simple Church PDF Tool

We outline five stepping stones to building a faith family from scratch with the people in the places where you live, work, and play.

• Everyday Spiritual Conversations

• Meeting with a Seeker Group

• Launching an X-Group

• Hosting a Discipling Community

• and Growing Into a Simple Church

See the Simple Church Pathway Here

Step 1: Start a Simple Church with Spiritual Conversations

WE DO NOT PROMOTE STARTING SIMPLE CHURCHES WITH PEOPLE IN SUNDAY CHURCHES! Start simple churches with those not already plugged into a Sunday church. Find them in the mission field where you live, work and play.

We embrace the Jesus pattern of disciple-making that we read about in the gospels. Jesus modeled a clear pathway to inviting people into spiritual community and shared mission. It began with conversations that led to an invitation to follow Him. And that’s how our journey to launching a simple church begins.

We often say that to make disciples, one must first be a disciple. And a disciple, by definition, embraces the philosophy, behavior, and practices of his/her teacher.

Are you having conversations in the places where you live, work, and play that move toward an invitation to grow together in faith communities?

It’s as simple as that. To take the first steps to start a simple church, you have to begin having conversations that move from casual to spiritual. Click here to read an article to help you along that practice.

Step 2: Start a Simple Church with a Seeker Group

At Our Best Story, we define a Seeker Group as an intentionally gathered group of curious Jesus seekers meeting to explore big questions of life and faith and build relationships. This is usually a group of 3 or 4 people of the same sex discussing significant life issues. It has a short life cycle, and if it goes well, it will quickly turn into the step 3 X-group.

The goal of the seeker group is to explore further how interested one’s co-workers, friends, neighbors, or acquaintances are in diving deep into knowing God and sharing in a common mission together. Once the leader recognizes that the group wants to take the next step, they invite them into a more formal and regular meeting to share scripture, prayer, and accountability.

The Seeker Group is a great intentional space where the potential disciple-maker can begin to ask more profound questions and share stories of their faith journey to see if the seeker leans in and wants to know more.

Step 3: Start a Simple Church with an X-group

The next bite of the elephant of starting a simple church is formalizing an X-group. There is intentionality in the name X-group that we will train you for, but for now, know that this is the next step of growth toward a simple church. An X-group meets intentionally and regularly, consists of 3-5 same-gender disciples, and engages in spiritual conversations and growth together.

We have several tools to utilize at this phase, including the 21-Day Challenge and the Gospel sharing icons. We will coach you on those when the time is right.

As this group begins to experience transformation together, they often desire to include their spouses and families in the journey, and this is when things get REALLY exciting. This phase of growth is when disciples usually accept Christ and get baptized. As they ask about including their family, it is time to move to the next phase.

Step 4: Start a Simple Church with a Discipling Community

Now it’s time to go co-ed and family-centric!

This process phase is when a group of disciple-making families agrees to go all-in on a co-mission together! It’s a group of families meeting intentionally and regularly to pursue a relationship with God, a relationship with one another, and a shared mission – TOGETHER!

These families begin to experience the same transformation as the X-group as they experience their faith journey together. We describe the discipling group as a transformative community. Click here to read more about what a transformative community looks like.

We coach specific tools for developing a discipling community. For a sneak peek, check out our document on facilitating a three-thirds group.

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Step 5: Start a Simple Church by Practicing the 12 Behaviors of a Biblical Church

You are almost there once you reach the discipling community stage – but not quite.

We believe the New Testament, particularly the book of Acts, lays out several characteristics that define the practices of a church. These can be added one at a time to a discipling community until they are all practiced. Once these twelve behaviors are regularly embedded into the discipling community, the group can self-identify as a church.

• Fellowship

• Passionate Prayer

• Worshiping Together

• Shared Communion

• Baptizing New Believers

• Engaging in Scripture Together

• Abundant Seed Sowing (Gospel Sharing)

• Giving and Sharing Financially with Others

• Accountable to Appointed and Identified Leaders

• Expecting and Praying for Signs and Wonders

In the model we see in the book of Acts, we do not define a church by a building, a style of meeting, a legal status, or any other characteristic other than a faith family that practices these 12 behaviors and is accountable to some form of leadership or spiritual oversight. We also believe that the abundant seed sowing that takes place in public settings with the members of this simple church will lead to the multiplication of new disciples and new simple churches. Curtis Sergeant, from metacamp.org, says it this way:

It is a blessing to know Jesus,

It is a great blessing to help someone else know Jesus,

It is a greater blessing to live in a community of people who know Jesus,

And it is the greatest blessing to help start new community of people who know Jesus.

As we begin with the end in mind, we must commit to multiplying disciples and new simple churches.

To start the journey, get in touch with us today with the button below!

Let Us Help You Start a Simple Church

This is what most of the church world in the West has missed, and it is costing us the multiplication of disciples. Both of these activities are core to becoming what Christ envisions for us. Both are critical to following Jesus❗️

For decades, maybe longer, we have used discipleship and disciple-making as if they were the same word with the same meaning. They are not. They are related. But they are not the same.

Here’s the clearest way I know to draw the line:

Discipleship is primarily inward. Disciple-making is primarily outward.

Discipleship is the process of sanctification. Disciple-making is the process of multiplication.

Discipleship is the process of growing in Christlikeness, learning His Word, surrendering your will, developing the fruit of the Spirit, renewing your mind, dealing with your sin patterns, and deepening your prayer life. It is the lifelong, never-finished, deeply personal journey of becoming more and more like Jesus. That is sacred work. Beautiful work. Absolutely essential work.

🚫 And it never stops. 🚫

The suffix, “-ship” changes the meaning of a word to reflect the “act or state of being.” So in other words, discipleship is the act or state of BEING a disciple. The act of making disciples first requires one to BE a disciple, so it is a critical part of becoming a disciple-maker.

But here is where we have made a critical error. We have taught people that once they get their discipleship right, once they have grown enough, read enough, matured enough, gotten enough of their stuff together, ➠THEN they will be ready to make disciples.

❌ That is not the Jesus model ❌

• Jesus called His disciples while they were still in process.

• Simon Peter had an anger problem.

• Thomas had a doubt problem.

• The Sons of Thunder had a pride problem.

James and John literally asked Jesus if they could call down fire from heaven on a village that rejected them (Luke 9:54). These are not polished, put-together spiritual giants. These are works in progress. Just like you. Just like me.

And Jesus sent them out to make disciples anyway. Before they had a seminary degree. Before they had it all figured out. Before they fully understood the resurrection. He sent them on mission in the middle of their own growth journey.

❓So what does that tell us❓

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Discipleship and disciple-making are not sequential. They are simultaneous. That’s a game-changer. You do not graduate from discipleship into disciple-making. You grow in both at the same time. In fact, one of the most accelerating things you can do for your own sanctification is to start investing in someone else’s spiritual journey. Nothing grows you faster than being responsible to teach what you are learning.

Paul instructed one of his young disciples, Timothy: “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2 Timothy 2:2). That is a four-generation chain of disciple-making from a man who was simultaneously working out his own sanctification, writing letters wrestling with a thorn in the flesh, with tension in relationships, with the mystery of suffering.

🏃‍➡️➠🏃‍♀️‍➡️➠🏃🏼‍♂️‍➡️➠🏃‍➡️➠

Discipleship is about working on your Christ-likeness. Disciple-making is about creating the culture and environments where others can enter and walk the disciple-making journey that Jesus modeled.

✔︎ You need both.

And you can practice both right now, wherever you are.

The person who thinks they need to be further along before they start making disciples will never start. I have watched it happen for years. Well-meaning, sincere followers of Jesus who are waiting for the green light of spiritual maturity or the permission from a spiritual authority often never really get moving. That green light is not coming, not the way they imagine it. The green light was given at the moment Jesus uttered the Great Commission.

🟢 Here’s your green light! So stop waiting. And start going. 🟢

He could have used his final few words to save Himself. He knew the time had come. He should have cried out for an angel army. But He wasted them on me!

I didn’t have the clarity of mind to even consider rejecting such a selfish desire as the iron spike tore through my wrist. I screamed until my throat burned like fire. And honestly, I don’t even know how I pulled it together to utter my final request before my deadly punishment.

In my mind’s eye, I’m staring at it now. That thick, rusted nail pinning my flesh to the wood. Blood running down my arm in rivers, dripping from my elbow to the ground below. I had tried to shift my weight, tried to find some position that didn’t send lightning bolts of agony through every nerve in my body. But there was no relief. Only the slow, agonizing rhythm of pulling myself up to breathe, then collapsing back down when my legs could no longer bear the weight.

Crucifixion. This is what it’s like!

I’d heard about it. Seen it from a distance once or twice when the Romans made their bloody examples of other rebels and thieves. But I never imagined. I never could have imagined what it actually felt like to hang there.

Naked.

Exposed.

Dying one excruciating breath at a time.

My name doesn’t matter now. Nobody will remember it. Just another criminal. Just another thief who got what he deserved. That’s what they were thinking down there, the soldiers gambling for my clothes, the priests who came to watch, the women weeping for the man in the middle.

The man in the middle.

Jesus of Nazareth. King of the Jews, the sign above His head read. They were mocking Him with that title. The religious leaders were spitting at Him, hurling insults toward his ears. “He saved others,” they shouted with judgment, baptizing every word. “Let Him save Himself if He is God’s Messiah!”

I had slowly turned my head toward Him just moments earlier. Through the blur of pain, I saw Him. Beaten beyond recognition. Blood covered His face from the thorns they’d twisted into a crown. Welts and gashes across His back from the whipping.

A black hole of my own agony was vying for my attention, but I couldn’t ignore Him. No matter how hard I tried.

There was something in His eyes. Something I couldn’t name.

Although I had never felt love before, never experienced another person’s heart being turned toward me, never felt the warmth of even my mother’s face shine upon me, I somehow knew love fully at that moment.

The man on my other side was Gestas, I think they called him. He’s been screaming at Jesus since they raised us up on that wood. “Aren’t You the Messiah? Save Yourself and us!” He spat the words between gasps for air.

Mocking.

Hardened.

Bitter.

Desperate.

I wanted to join him. I really did. Because isn’t that what we do when we need to justify ourselves? We blame everyone else to try to avoid facing the consequences of our own choices.

But, as much as I tried, I couldn’t.

I couldn’t because every time I looked at that man in the middle, I saw something that made my throat tighten with more than just the pain of suffocation. I saw innocence. I saw dignity. I saw peace. Strength I’d never witnessed in all my years of violence and theft.

Let me tell you how I got here.

I wasn’t born a thief. Nobody is. I was a boy once, running through the fields outside Jerusalem, helping my father tend sheep. Hoping for his embrace, but never receiving it. I never knew my mother. But what I do remember is still believing that goodness was attainable if I just tried hard enough.

But life has a way of beating hope out of you. My father died when I was twelve. He was crushed under a cart wheel that gave way on a mountain path. Roman taxes took our land. I was with my extended family in proximity, but far from the home I never had in the place of my heart. At 15, I sealed the deal and ran.

The streets taught me what I needed to survive. Steal or starve. Kill or be killed. Trust no one. Take what you can because nobody’s going to provide what you need. This was how life worked for a 15-year-old who lost it all before he had it to lose.

I was good at this lifestyle. It started with bread from the market. Moved up to coin purses. Eventually graduated to armed robbery on the trade routes. Gestas and I worked together. We did what we could to make it through another day.

The first time I killed a man, I vomited afterward. The second time, I cried. By the tenth, any reaction at all would have been more than I felt in my heart. I was cold. My heart was a hardened stone. All I thought about was dulling the pain of never knowing love.

I told myself they deserved it. The wealthy merchants with their loaded donkeys and their soft hands. The priests with their clean robes, their shallow prayers, and bellies full of yesterday’s sacrifices earned by more noble subjects. They’d taken everything from people like me. I was doing what any reasonable man would do. I was just taking it back.

But the truth? The truth I couldn’t escape as I lay in bed at night with my heart beating faster and adrenaline feeding my dark, empty soul.

I liked it.

I liked the power. I liked the fear in their eyes. I liked taking what wasn’t mine. I knew someday I would pay the price, but I didn’t care. It would be worth it.

But I never could have imagined this!

Not this kind of pain and agony.

They caught us three days ago.

We’d ambushed a small caravan outside Jericho. It should have been easy with four travelers and only two guards. But the guards were better trained than we expected. One of them was a retired centurion. He cut down two of our men before we even knew what hit us.

Gestas and I tried to run, but Roman patrols were already sweeping the area. We didn’t stand a chance. They beat us bloody, dragged us back to Jerusalem in chains, and sentenced us to crucifixion the next morning, anxious to see us bleed out before the start of their blessed festival.

I spent my last night in a cell, listening to the sounds of other prisoners weeping and cursing. My thoughts began to fade, and the wretched sounds grew faint as I thought about my mother.

My mother?

Why?

I never knew her. I’m sure my eyes took in her smiles when I was in my first days. But how could I remember my earliest days? How could I now feel her presence? The sadness was agony. The emptiness as dark as a covered tomb.

That memory of a moment I couldn’t have actually known triggered a torrent of emotions that flooded me like a dam breaking in a violent storm.

I thought about all the people I’d hurt. The faces I could still see when I closed my eyes. The merchant I’d beaten so badly he couldn’t walk. The old woman whose life savings I’d stolen to buy a night with a prostitute. The young man who begged for his life while I held a knife to his throat.

I’d spent so long telling myself I had no choice, that my story made me this way and there was no way out. But in that cell, with death waiting for me at dawn, I couldn’t hide from the truth anymore.

This was what I deserved.

And there we were.

Three crosses on a hill called Golgotha. The place of the skull. The hill of the dying. The home of the fate of so many wicked.

My body was shutting down. Every pull upward to breathe was harder than the last. My vision blurred and cleared in waves like a pendulum counting down my final moments.

Blood loss.

Exhaustion.

The slow shutdown of a body that couldn’t give any more. I’m dying. We were all three dying.

But somehow we were not dying the same death.

Gestas was still raging. Still cursing. Still demanding that Jesus prove Himself by coming down from the cross and taking us with Him. He couldn’t accept it, couldn’t accept that this was the end, that we brought this upon ourselves, and that we deserved our fate.

But I did accept it.

Maybe it’s because I was tired. Maybe it was because I had finally run out of excuses. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because something in me broke when I looked into the eyes of the man in the middle.

“Don’t you fear God?”

The words ripped out of my throat before I could stop them. I turned my head toward Gestas, ignoring the fresh wave of pain. “We’re getting what we deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong!”

Silence fell over this little corner of Golgotha. Even the soldiers paused their dice game to look up at me. The crowd quieted. I realized I had shouted more loudly than I had planned.

I turned toward Jesus. His eyes met mine, and I felt something crack open in my chest, something that had been locked away for so many years I’d forgotten it existed.

Hope.

Not hope that I’d escape this cross, that fate was sealed. Not hope that some miracle would spare me from death, I knew that story had already been written. But hope that maybe, just maybe, there was something more than this. Something beyond the pain and the shame and the wasted years. And just maybe there was still a way for me to walk into eternity with more than I deserved. Maybe it was in the loving gaze of the man in the middle.

“Jesus.” His name felt strange on my lips. Like more right than I could have thought possible. “Remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”

I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. I just knew that if this man really was a king, as the plague read, and if He really did have some kind of kingdom waiting on the other side of death, then maybe He had the power to remember me. Not for who I’d been. Not for what I’d done. But for who I wished I could have been.

One moment of clarity at the end of a selfish, seemingly wasted life.

He turned His head toward me. Through the blood and the pain, He smiled. He actually smiled.

“Truly I tell you.”

His voice was gentle, like He was sharing a secret just between us.

“Today you will be with Me in paradise.”

Paradise.

The word still echoes in my mind as tears fill my eyes.

Paradise.

I don’t deserve it. I haven’t earned it. I’ve lived a life of violence and theft and selfishness. I’ve hurt people. I’ve taken lives. I’ve spat in the face of every decent thing.

For a moment, I thought this was some disgusting joke, but as I glared into His eyes, I knew that couldn’t be. He meant it from the deepest places of His heart.

“Today you will be with Me in paradise.”

Not tomorrow. Not after I’ve made amends or done penance or somehow earned forgiveness. Today. Right now. In this very moment, when I have nothing left to offer except the broken pieces of a ruined life and a whispered prayer from a dying thief.

The darkness closed in. My lungs began to fail. Each breath was a battle I was losing. But, somehow, the fear was gone. Something I had never felt was transforming me from the inside out.

Grace.

The unearned, undeserved, unfathomable gift of radical, reckless, scandalous grace.

I wasn’t afraid any longer. Not of death. Not of what would come after. Because He promised. The King promised that a wretched thief would be with Him in paradise.

My eyes have closed now. The sounds of Golgotha have faded. The jeers, the weeping, the cries from children, the hammer of soldiers breaking legs to speed up death. It all feels long ago, like in a life I'd already lived or a nightmare from which I’d already awakened.

I died a free man.

Free from the chains of who I used to be. Free from the prison of my own making. All because I looked at a dying king and asked Him to remember me.

Here’s what I need you to understand.

It’s never too late. Even at the end. Even when you’ve wasted everything. Even when you have nothing left to offer but the ragged truth of who you are. I spent my whole life taking. In my final moments, I learned to receive.

So I ask you, what are you waiting for? What pride, what shame, what self-sufficiency is keeping you from turning your head toward Him and whispering, “Remember me”?

Because He will. Oh, He most certainly will.

Even if you’re dying on that rugged, splintered cross you built yourself.

He will remember.

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Five years have passed, and I lie in bed and still smell the stench of the pigsty clinging to my memories. Is it seeped into my skin and hair, or has it just settled into my very soul?

I still wonder what Abba must have been thinking when he embraced me as I stumbled down that dusty road the day I returned from my rebellion. Was it the smell of disqualification from my tribal identity? Or was it the smell of a prodigal who had returned to his original place among a forgiving and loving family?

Not only had I fed and touched the pigs, making me unclean and restricted in my proximity to Adonai, but they had fed me! My daily bread was leftovers from the very animal that my people and Adonai considered unclean. What could be worse? I had found the bottom of the pit of despair.

My pursuit of independence and success wasn’t supposed to end that way.

I can still remember the day I walked into his chamber and demanded my share. The words felt hopeful and promising coming out of my mouth: “Father, give me my portion of the inheritance.” I didn’t stutter. I didn’t flinch. I looked him straight in the eyes, assuming that I knew best. Pridefully declaring that I would make my own way. That I was destined for more than the small world of family farms and Jewish custom.

He didn’t argue.

That’s what haunted me most during that dark journey of rebellion. He didn’t rage. He didn’t lecture. He simply nodded, walked to his strongbox, head hung low, and began counting out gold and silver coins. The silence in that room was deafening. But just under the surface, if I had loved him for who he was, I would have heard his heart shatter. I was too deafened by the intoxicated promise of freedom to notice.

Freedom!

Freedom?

What a lie. I believed that the REAL story would begin as I strutted past the tree-lined border of my father’s land. I was convinced that his rules, his expectations, his watchful eye were chains that bound me to a life half-lived. Out there, beyond the limits of small vision and family ties, THAT was where adventure and unlimited potential awaited.

So I gathered everything and walked away without looking back. If I had turned around, I might have seen him standing in the doorway watching me fade into the seemingly irresistible temptation of independence. I might have seen the tears streaming down his weathered face as he had to release me in order for me to land in the pigpen to recognize that what I was leaving was all I ever really wanted. I might have recognized that his hands were shaking like a leaf as he forced himself to let go. The safety and security of my loving Abba was all I needed to fill the gaping hole in my heart, but I wanted MORE!

I didn’t turn around. I was already emotionally and mentally down the road long before my foot took the first step that led to a season of rejecting what Father provided. And chasing what I thought I could attain through my own ingenuity and strength.

The far country welcomed me with open arms. They were arms that I later learned were reaching for the wealth of my Father’s labor, not the desire of what I had to offer. The wine flowed freely. The so-called friends raised their cups to my generosity night after night. “To the young master! May his fortune never run dry!” I thought those voices were far sweeter than the sweetest wine flowing from the deepest well. They seemed to warm my soul as I silenced the voice that warned that these accolades were rewards for an honor I did not deserve and the result of a lie I would not expose.

But fortunes always run dry. Especially fortunes spent on things that evaporate with the late-night hedonism and early morning hangovers of rebellion.

The hopeless destitution came like a swift current of a raging river, revealing the false identity I was proclaiming with lies of my rebellion. Like a smoke of Father’s pipe wafting into nothingness into the thin air on a cool evening, the inheritance was gone!

I knocked on door after door, begging for any work. I was desperate enough to do ANYTHING. Shopkeepers laughed in my face. The very friends who had drunk my wine suddenly couldn’t remember my name. Those who promised to return the favor turned their backs on my desperation. Every time I was rejected, the feeling Father must have felt when I collected my coins became more tangible to me as I remembered the look of devastation in his eyes the night of my perceived liberation.

Alone.

Hungry.

Invisible.

The gnawing emptiness in my stomach. The nights I’d spent shivering under a bridge trying to stay dry. The realization that pride doesn’t fill a belly. All the pain of wallowing in the hopelessness of my “freedom” led me to the door on which only the most disqualified knock. My head was held as low as I walked up the dusty road that led to the pagan pig farmer. Jews like me would add an hour to their journey to avoid nearing this farm in order to minimize the risk of becoming unclean. Somehow, our religious scruples take low priority when our bellies are screaming hunger and our aching bodies are begging for a place to sleep.

“Please,” I begged. “I’ll do anything.”

He looked me up and down with disgust. A Jew, willing to tend pigs?

Without a word, he thrust a staff into my hands and pointed toward the swine wallowing in the mud. “You really are desperate, you loser! Anyone as desperate as you will do. Even if you can’t work, I’m willing to pay for the joy of seeing one of your kind walking around smelling like swine.”

And there I went. Down into the muck. Down into the pit of my own making.

The pigs lived better than I, feasting on food that satisfied their standards. I watched them devour those carob pods, husks that even the poorest considered less than food, and my mouth watered. I reached for the trough once when no one was watching. The food that I once would have considered trash to a lowly slave now became a feast for a lost soul.

That is what I had become.

A Jewish son with the promise of succession over a portion of my father’s empire, now fighting pigs for scraps and spending my evenings alone. I dreamt of only one who would love me for who I was. And there I found myself, scavenging garbage for bread. Longing for the comforts that I recently turned on in order to make my own way and write my own story.

Is this the best story I could write?

One evening, as the sun set over that wretched place, I collapsed against the fence post. My ribs pressed against skin that hung too loosely from the hunger that lingered like a dark cloud over my hopeless state.

And I wept.

These tears came from somewhere deep. They came from the place where a man finally stops running from the truth. Memories flooded in that I’d been drowning out with wine and distraction as long as I had the money to hide. My father’s hands, strong yet gentle. His voice, firm but laced with love. His table, overflowing with food, where even the servants ate better than this.

The servants.

The thought hit me like a lightning bolt. My father’s hired hands had bread to spare! And there I was, his own son, starving and stinking among swine. Maybe I could go back. Not as a son, for I had forfeited that right. Could I return as a hired hand?

Anything was better than the pigstys.

As I left the pigs, I heard the owner laughing out loud. “Good riddance,” he shouted, “You lasted longer than I expected, and it was worth every minute you slept in my barn, vagabond.”

I rehearsed the speech as I walked. Day after day, step after agonizing step.

“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Would you, no, could you make me like one of your hired servants? I will do anything you ask.”

But it wasn’t the speech that terrified me. It was imagining his face when he saw me. Would he turn away? Would he bar the door? Would he send me on down the road? Every imagined scenario ended in rejection. It would be the final confirmation that I had burned a bridge that could never be rebuilt.

I deserved whatever scorn awaited.

But still, I walked. Because dying on that road, moving toward home, felt nobler than dying in that pig pen, sleeping in that mud, and accepting an identity that made me an outcast.

The familiar hills came into view. Then the olive groves where I used to play. Then the roof of the house. My legs felt like sand. My feet wanted to turn 180 degrees and begin to run as far away as I possibly could. I stopped at the crest of the final hill, frozen between the pull of hope and the push of shame and hopelessness.

And then I saw movement near the house. A figure emerged from the front gate. Distant at first. But something about the way he moved seemed urgent. Almost frantic.

The figure began to run.

No.

An older man, running? That wasn’t right. It wasn’t dignified. Elders don’t run. They walk with measured steps, proving that nothing is beyond their control. Running was for children. For servants. Not for masters of estates. And certainly not for patriarchs or elders!

But this man was running.

Sandals kicking up dust. Robes gathered in his fists. Arms swinging. Beard flowing.

Father?

He should have been inside, waiting to receive my apology from a seat of judgment. Planning his punishment and scorn. He should NOT have been running toward me as if I were worth his excitement and his embrace.

But he was.

And then he was upon me. His arms crashed into my frail body and wrapped around me so tight I thought my ribs might crack. His sobs were loud and unashamed. His tears were wet on the side of my face. His oiled and cared-for body touched my dry, smelly skin.

“My son. MY SON! You’re home!”

I tried my rehearsed speech. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you…”

He wasn’t listening. He was shouting instructions even as he held me.

“Quick! Bring the best robe! Bring a ring for his finger! Sandals for his feet!”

“I am no longer worthy to be called your son…”

He pulled back and looked at me. His eyes took in the hollowed cheeks, the matted hair, the smell of the pigsty proclaiming that I was unclean and a humiliation to my family.

And he smiled!

Helpful? Buy me a Coffee.

“This son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found!”

He wasn’t hearing my confession because he didn’t need it. He didn’t see a disgraced failure who deserved to be a servant.

He saw his son.

And he ran to him despite the pig dung and the stench of failure.

I collapsed against his chest and wept. The tears weren’t from hunger or self-pity. They were the tears of a man who had prepared for wrath, but received an embrace. Who had braced for justice and was flooded with mercy. Who had prepared for legalistic punishment, but received radical kindness and love. Who had rehearsed a request to be a servant and was restored to sonship.

I’m sitting now in the comfortable bedroom of my youth. The robe they placed on my shoulders hangs in the corner as a symbol of the overflowing expression of Father’s love and grace. I can’t bring myself to wear it yet. It feels too clean for what I’ve done. I slowly look down at the ring that sits heavy on my finger, a constant reminder that I belong here even when everything inside me screams that I don’t.

The journey home wasn’t just about returning to a place. It was about returning to who I was always meant to be. It was symbolic of a redemption I didn’t deserve and love I didn’t earn. I learned in that pigpen what I couldn’t learn in my father’s house: my worth will never be based on what I possess or earn.

It is not based on WHO I AM, the rebellious son of a forgiving Father. No! Not on WHO I am, but on WHOSE I am.

I am the son of my loving Father.

That truth sent him running before I could speak the first word of my rehearsed repentance. That truth covered my shame with the finest robe and sealed my identity with the family ring.

I still lie in bed and smell a remnant of pig stench. Whether it’s real or ingrained in the memory of the rebellion, I do not know. But I don’t resent it anymore. That smell is a monument to the unreasonable and unlimited grace of my loving Father.

I was dead, and I’m alive. I was lost, and I’m found. I was wallowing in rebellion, and now I’m a recipient of the love of an unimaginably gracious Father.

Safe. Secure. And Sure.

One hundred articles and more than 2,000 notes posted!

See All My Notes Here!

(if you don’t know what a note is click the button above)

But what we are really celebrating is not content. We are celebrating a growing tribe of people who are refusing to let disciple-making remain theoretical. 🎉 And who are chasing real-life, real-time, real-effective disciple multiplication.

This content is not meant to become a platform. It is meant to serve as a shared language for leaders and everyday believers who are quietly wrestling with the same tensions and working together to discover answers to our deepest questions and concerns.

We are deeply grateful for the church. And at the same time, we are unsettled by how little Jesus Pattern Disciple reproduction is happening through it.

Over the last 100 articles, a common thread has emerged

• sometimes intentionally

• sometimes through wrestling

• sometimes through repentance

  ---

Jesus did not design His movement to be sustained primarily by performance, programs, or professionals.

👉 He designed it to be carried forward by ORDINARY DISCIPLES who are learning how to follow Him together. 👈🏻

✔︎ To mark this milestone, I want to revisit the ten long-form articles on this site that have most clearly shaped the conversation and the direction of this community.

These are not simply the most popular posts. They are the ones that most directly address the core questions we are learning to ask.

🔗 CLICK EACH HEADLINE TO READ THE ARTICLE 🔗

1. One 2,500-Member Mega-Church or One Hundred 25-Member Simple Churches? What’s the Difference?

With more than 3,500 views, this article has become the primary on-ramp into everything else written here. It sets the tone for the culture of fast multiplication and deep relationships. It wrestles with the expense model of the Western Church. It asks hard questions and leaves the reader contemplating.

😳 The question is intentionally simple 😳

Would you rather see one large, well-run, well-staffed congregation of 2,500 people—or one hundred simple, relational, reproducing communities scattered throughout a city?

This is not an argument against large churches.
It is a challenge to our definition of fruit.

The article explores how Jesus framed fruitfulness—not in terms of crowd size, but in terms of obedience and reproduction. When we examine the way the gospel moved in the first century, what stands out is not centralized gatherings, but decentralized, simple churches that met in homes and faced persecution well.

At the heart of this article is a quiet theological tension.

• We have become highly skilled at gathering believers.

• We have become far less skilled at forming disciple-makers.

The comparison forces us to ask what kind of future we are actually building. A church that grows larger and gets more bulky and expensive, or a movement that grows wider.

Why it resonated

Because it gently exposes a deeply rooted false assumption—that scale equals impact. And it invites us to imagine a different kind of faithfulness.

2. Salt and Light: The Identity of a Disciple-Maker

This was a collaborative article written for and his amazing community of disciples at Salt and Light.

Before Jesus ever gives strategy, structure, or systems, He gives identity.

This article explores Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 and reframes salt and light not as inspirational language, but as missional assignment.

Salt preserves. Light illuminates.

Neither exists for itself.

The article challenges a subtle shift that has happened in much of Western Christianity: we have turned identity into something we receive privately rather than something we live publicly.

Disciples do not become salt and light after training. They become salt and light the moment they belong to Jesus.

Why it resonated

Because it grounds mission in who we already are, and not in what we are trying to become.

3. My Journey From the Meeting Room to the Mission Field

This is one of the most vulnerable pieces on the site.

It tells the story of leaving professional certainty and institutional ministry to pursue a calling that felt both clearer and far less controllable.

The deeper thread of this article is not transition.

It is surrender!

It explores how easy it is for leaders to mistake productivity for obedience, and how painful it can be to untangle our careers from our assignments, and our identities from our platforms.

For many readers, the story mirrors their own inner conflict: the growing sense that God may be inviting them into something smaller, slower, and more relational than the ministry structures they have known.

Why it resonated

Many leaders carry a quiet grief that their faith has become functional rather than formative. And that their ministry has become functional rather than transformational.

4. Discipleship Starts at Home

This was a collaboration with , and it was so good for him to speak into our disciple-making tribe. In this article, Maury confronts one of the most common blind spots in disciple-making strategy.

We often

• Talk about the neighborhood

• Talk about the city

• Talk about unreached people

But we rarely examine our own households as the primary discipling environment.

This piece reframes family as the first laboratory of obedience

The place where forgiveness, confession, prayer, conflict, Scripture, and reconciliation are practiced daily. It quietly dismantles the idea that discipleship is something we outsource to church programming, replacing it with the biblical pattern of faith being formed in everyday life and among the people right inside our own homes.

Why it resonated

Because it restored dignity to ordinary, unseen faithfulness at home, amid distractions, among kids arguing and parents wrestling.

5. How Can You Make More Disciples by Partnering with Others?

This article introduces the APEST framework not as personality theory or leadership hierarchy, but as a biblical picture of how Jesus continues to form His church. It outlines the structure of The Great Team that God gave the church to both multiply and mature the believers.

Apostolic pioneering, prophetic alignment, evangelistic proclamation, shepherding care, and teaching formation are not competing approaches. They are complementary expressions of Christ’s ministry.

The article presses into a truth most movements eventually discover the hard way:

• Disciple-making stalls when one gift dominates the system.

• Multiplication flourishes when diverse functions are allowed to serve together.

Why it resonated

Because it offered leaders a language for collaboration rather than burnout, and a framework for disciple multiplication coupled with spiritual maturity.

6. Tracking Disciple-Making Movements: A Biblical Foundation and Practical Way Forward

Few topics generate more quiet discomfort than measurement in the disciple-making world!

This article explores why tracking disciple-making activity is not a modern managerial invention, but a deeply biblical practice of remembering, discerning, and stewarding what God is doing.

From genealogies in Genesis, to census language in Israel, to reporting patterns in Acts, Scripture consistently records spiritual movement. The article carefully distinguishes between control and care, between performance metrics and pastoral stewardship.

Why it resonated

Because it allowed leaders to hold both spiritual depth and practical accountability without shame.

7. The Simple Church Movement

This article examines why small, relational, reproducible expressions of church continue to emerge in vastly different cultural contexts.

Rather than positioning simple churches as a replacement for traditional congregations, the article frames them as an ancient pattern rediscovered. It presents a pattern centered on shared life, obedience to Jesus’ commands, and spiritual family.

It invites readers to reconsider what actually forms disciples: proximity, vulnerability, spiritual practice, and mission.

Why it resonated

Because Jesus-patterned discipleship is built on the principal of more time with fewer people produces greater results.

8. Jesus Might Not Hire Your Pastor

This article intentionally disrupts modern church leadership assumptions.

By comparing contemporary hiring practices with the way Jesus chose and formed His disciples, it exposes how easily competence, communication skills, and charisma become substitutes for character and obedience.

The article is not an attack on pastors. It is a call to recalibrate our true values toward the values of Jesus in spiritual leadership. Jesus shaped fishermen, tax collectors, and zealots, not through professional training programs, but through proximity and practice.

Why it resonated

Because many leaders sense that our leadership pipelines are producing managers more readily than Jesus-patterned disciple-makers.

9. APEST Series #4 – The Shepherd Among Us

This is one of seven articles in the APEST series. This particular article highlights one of the most misunderstood and undervalued spiritual functions in church culture.

• Shepherding is often mistaken for niceness.

• In Scripture, it is far more costly.

Shepherds protect people from harm, confront deception, sustain spiritual health, and cultivate relational depth over time. In movements that prize speed, innovation, and reach, shepherding can feel inefficient.

This article argues that without shepherding, movements eventually fracture and the people disperse for lack of both care and challenge.

Why it resonated

Because growth without care is not formation—it is expansion without maturity.

10. King David’s Lament After His Greatest Failure

This reflective narrative slows the reader down and sits with the emotional weight of sin, shame, and repentance. Rather than rushing to restoration language, the article allows space for grief, brokenness, and spiritual reckoning.

It invites leaders and believers to see themselves in David, not only in his calling, but in his collapse of character and restoration to redemption.

Why it resonated

Because many faithful people are quietly carrying wounds they do not know how to name.

What These Ten Articles Reveal About The Missional Disciple-Making Collective Community

Taken together, these ten articles form a theology of practice.

• They are not primarily about models.

• They are about spiritual and missional formation.

They reveal a shared hunger for:

• identity before activity

• obedience before innovation

• relationships before structures

• multiplication before scale

• formation before platform

They reveal a community willing to examine deeply rooted assumptions about success, leadership, church, and mission. They reveal a group of people willing to ask slower, more dangerous questions.

• What if disciple-making actually requires our entire lives?

• What if Jesus actually meant obedience when He said “teach them to obey”?

• What if the future of the church depends more on living rooms than conference rooms?

Thank You for 2,000 Conversations

Two thousand Notes do not belong to a writer.

They belong to a community.

They represent

• Leaders who are trying again after failure.

• Parents who are learning to disciple their children.

• Missional servants who are re-imagining what faithfulness looks like.

• Ordinary believers who are discovering that God can actually use them.

Thank you for reading slowly.

Thank you for disagreeing honestly.

Thank you for sharing generously.

Thank you for practicing courage in quiet places.

Here’s to the next hundred articles.

And far more importantly, here’s to a new band of disciple-makers who are learning how to dive headlong into the Jesus Pattern of disciple-making!

While films like Sound of Freedom are bringing awareness to trafficking, there’s a crisis happening after the credits roll that no one’s addressing: How do you safely transport a survivor with no ID, no resources, and a trafficker who knows exactly where to find them? Jared’s answer? Build a network of 100+ private pilots willing to donate their planes, fuel, and time to fly survivors to safety.

But this conversation goes deeper than logistics—it confronts the uncomfortable question every listener needs to ask themselves: How have I contributed to the problem?

Connect With Our Hosts & Guest

Resources Mentioned:
📖 The Truth About Sex Trafficking by Melanie Patterson - Available on Amazon
📖 The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken
📖 To Be Told by Dan Allender

Kevin Beasley - Co-host, Kingdom Effect Podcast & Discipleship Network Leader
🌐 Website: kevinebeasley.com
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/kevinebeasley

Glenn “Buckshot” Buckley - Co-host & Former Law Enforcement
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/rambler113.6

Jared Miller - Founder, Freedom Aviation Network
🌐 Website: freedomaviationnetwork.org
📘 Facebook: Freedom Aviation Network
📸 Instagram: @freedomaviationnetwork

Kingdom Effect Podcast Community
👥 Facebook Group: Kingdom Effect Podcast

👆 Support the Guys with a Couple of Cups of Coffee 👆

The Uncomfortable Truth: It’s Happening in Your Backyard

Glenn drops a sobering reality check: trafficking isn’t just happening in Colombia or overseas. It’s happening in Spring Hill, Tennessee. At Summit High School. In every major American city.

“We do want to make sure that those people listening understand that trafficking is a real thing. It happens globally, internationally... But it’s happening right here in Nashville, and Jackson, and Memphis, and every major city across the United States.”

Kevin admits his own awakening—hearing stories from Glenn and Harmony at Rescue One Global about incidents at his own kids’ high school. The enemy’s greatest lie? It’s somewhere else. Not here.

What Happens After the Sex Trafficking Rescue
(The Part Nobody Talks About)

Both Glenn and Jared emphasize that rescue is the easy part—and it’s over quickly. The hard work is restoration, which can take years.

The typical survivor journey:

1. Addiction recovery - Most survivors struggle with narcotics, alcohol, or sex addiction

2. Trauma processing - Can only begin after addiction is addressed

3. Multiple facility transfers - Rehab → safe house → restoration programs

4. Ongoing accountability - Survivors often want to run rather than face more counseling

5. Security management - The trafficker is often still looking for them

“The rescue part... that’s the Hollywood, attractive thing. But the hard work in my opinion—and I’m a rescue guy, give me a machine gun and let’s go—the hard part is walking alongside somebody through the recovery process and the restoration process.”

Glenn explains why he hasn’t watched Sound of Freedom: “When you’ve seen and experienced a lot of that firsthand in real life, watching it depicted on a screen triggers a lot of emotion... I haven’t worked up the courage to watch it and deal with all those emotions.”

Human Trafficking Signs Every Parent Needs to Know

Glenn offers practical guidance on identifying potential trafficking situations in children:

🚩 180-degree behavior changes - Extroverted kids becoming reclusive, or vice versa 🚩 New, unexplained possessions - Clothes, electronics, gifts you didn’t buy (grooming) 🚩 Friend group changes - Sudden shifts in who they’re hanging out with 🚩 Appearance changes - Dramatic shifts in how they present themselves

Critical action: Monitor internet activity and electronic devices. Glenn notes most parents are “behind the learning curve” on what happens on their kids’ devices.The Movie That Changed My Mind

The episode opens with each host sharing a film that shifted their worldview. Jared points to End of the Spear, the story of Jim Elliot and the missionaries martyred in Ecuador—and how their sacrifice led to generations of transformation, including in Jared’s own life. Glenn references Machine Gun Preacher and his own trip to Kenya that radically reordered his priorities about Western church culture. Kevin recalls Hotel Rwanda and the haunting scene where a journalist admits Americans will see footage of atrocities, say “that’s so sad,” and go back to eating dinner.

This sets the stage for the real conversation: What’s actually happening in anti-trafficking work that the movies don’t show?

The Transportation Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight

Jared shares the origin story of Freedom Aviation Network. After years working alongside Glenn in anti-trafficking operations, one 30+ hour rescue operation pushed him over the edge. A survivor with “compounding levels of risk” needed to be moved to safety, but the logistics put everyone—the team and the survivor—in unnecessary danger.

“I was angry for a few days. And I’m not an angry person. Glenn will tell you that... It was like a final straw. Why is transportation hard for us?”

What Jared discovered: Most shelters and case management agencies had been putting survivors on buses or trains and hoping they’d make it to the other side. A survey of 233 trafficking-dedicated shelters revealed they didn’t even recognize transportation as a significant problem—they’d just been doing “whatever it takes.”

The barriers are real:

• No identification (traffickers withhold IDs as a control mechanism)

• Safety concerns (perpetrators can track public transportation)

• Cost (who pays for tickets?)

• Accessibility (survivors can’t buy tickets without ID)

Jared’s solution? Become a private pilot himself and build a network of aviators willing to donate flights.

By the Numbers: Freedom Aviation Network Today

🛫 100 pilots recruited across 30 states (announced for the first time on this episode) 🛫 47 passengers flown to date 🛫 100% US citizens - every survivor flown has been domestic
🛫 More than half had no identification
🛫 $1,500 average in-kind donation per flight from volunteer pilots

Under FAA public benefit flying regulations, pilots must pay their “pro rata share” of each flight—meaning they cover fuel, aircraft costs, parking, and their own time. These pilots aren’t getting reimbursed. They’re donating flights worth $500-$2,000+ because they want to use their skills for eternal impact.

“Instead of going to get what we call a $100 hamburger—which now is more like a $300 hamburger—flying to the beach for the weekend... now you have an opportunity to actually affect a life indefinitely, permanently.”

The Hardest Question: How Do You Reconcile Evil with a Good God?

Kevin asks the question many are afraid to voice: How do you witness this level of abuse and still believe in God’s goodness?

Jared’s response:

“I believe that everything happening in our world is not a surprise... But in the midst of all that, the Lord is redeeming people’s spirits, hearts, minds, and bodies every single day in miraculous ways.”

He shares how God allowed him to go through his own “very, very, very dark, abusive, painful, used and abused time” before calling him into this work. That personal suffering gave him the compassion and insight to sit with survivors in their pain.

Glenn’s confession:

“There were times where I was angry at God... I felt like he didn’t protect me. You called me into this, gave me the heart and the passion to do it. But yet you’re not protecting me from all this trauma.”

Glenn had to remove his “selfish glasses” and trust that God’s faithfulness might not look like what he expected. He references The Insanity of God and the misconception that Christians won’t face persecution—when Scripture actually promises we will.

“We’re Not Superheroes—We Just Said Yes”

One of the most powerful themes of the episode: the people doing this work are ordinary.

“Not a single person in the world of anti-trafficking is a superhero, nor an action hero. That is not who we are. We are regular people who just made a decision to be obedient... to be his hands and feet.”

Jared pushes back against the “kick down doors” mentality:

“Every day when someone asks me what I do: ‘Oh, so you’re the one that goes and kicks down doors.’ No, actually, not at all. I just love on people as long as they let me.”

Both guests emphasize: God chooses people for this work. Glenn says if he could remove the calling and choose again knowing what he knows now? “I would say heck no. I want to stay as far away from that as I can.”

The Human Trafficking Call to Action That Will Wreck You

Jared closes with the most uncomfortable challenge of the episode:

“The most painful thing that you can do is ask yourself a very hard question: How have I contributed to the problem?“

This means examining:

• Have I clicked on exploitative content?

• How have I devalued human life?

• What do I consume that’s produced through exploitation (labor trafficking, not just sex trafficking)?

Glenn echoes: “If there’s not a consumer, then there’s no need to have the product.”

The bottom line: You don’t need to be a rescue operator to make a difference. Pray. Give. Support. Champion those on the frontlines. Ask hard questions about your own consumption. And if God’s calling you into this work—say yes.

Key Quotes Worth Remembering

💬 “A person is not fully healed from their trauma until they can tell the story to someone else going through a similar trauma.” — Dan Allender (referenced by Kevin)

💬 “It’s a great tragedy to see others go through trauma. It’s a greater tragedy to go through trauma yourself. And it’s the greatest tragedy to go through trauma and it never be used for someone else’s good.” — Kevin Beasley

💬 “We experience trauma through the survivors... We share as much of that burden as we can without actually being the survivor. And that stuff sticks with you.” — Glenn Buckley

💬 “God never promised, ‘Hey, become a believer, and it’s easy sailing.’ It’s actually probably quite the opposite.” — Glenn Buckley

Next Steps

✈️ Want to fly for freedom? Visit freedomaviationnetwork.org to learn how pilots can join the network

💰 Want to fund a flight? Connect with Freedom Aviation Network to support survivor transportation

📖 Want to learn more? Read The Truth About Sex Trafficking by Melanie Patterson (available on Amazon)

🙏 Want to get involved locally? Reach out to Kevin, Glenn, or Jared to get connected with anti-trafficking organizations in your community

Kingdom Effect Podcast - Where ordinary people make extraordinary decisions to impact others for good. Available on all major podcast platforms and Substack.

I don’t say that to be harsh. I say it because I lived it.

For years, I have worked on my personal doctrinal beliefs.

• Trinity? Got it, well, as much as any human can.

• Atonement theories? I have opinions.

• Ecclesiology? Can’t get enough.

But ask me to confess a sin to another believer? To actually bear someone’s burden in a way that costs me something? To admonish a brother who was drifting?

🦗 Crickets 🦗

We have theology down cold.

❓But, do we have any idea how to actually BE the church❓

Click HERE to Download the 59 One Anothers and the 14 Categories

The Missing Curriculum in the Body of Christ

Here’s what’s wild to me: We’ve built entire discipleship programs around Bible knowledge. We test people on books of the Bible, memorization, doctrine, and church history. And those things matter, don’t hear me wrong.

But the New Testament is absolutely loaded with instructions on how Christians are supposed to relate to one another.

Not suggestions.

Commands.

‼️And most of us couldn’t name more than five of them‼️

When I started taking a look, I thought maybe there were a dozen “one-another” commands scattered through the New Testament.

💥 There’s 59 💥

I think I’m gonna get a 59 tattooed on my arm (just kidding, I don’t do tattoos).

Fifty-nine specific instructions on how followers of Jesus are supposed to treat each other. And I realized I’d been part of churches most of my life that barely practiced a handful of them. So, no shame, it’s never too late to start.

We’ve mastered efficient worship services. We’ve perfected listening to and preaching sermons. We could sing in tune and shake hands at the greeting time. We gladly drop some coin in the offering plate. We may even be able to recite a creed or the Lord’s Prayer.

But “one-anothering”?

That messy, vulnerable, inconvenient way of doing life together that the early church practiced? It made them stand out from the rest of culture. It provided them all they needed to become martyrs for their faith. It multiplied to change the entire known world within a couple of hundred years.

AND THEN…

We canceled that out of the Christian church experience in exchange for efficiency, excellence, and worship team practice.

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What Scripture Actually Says

When you pull all 59 commands together, patterns emerge. I organized them into 14 categories, and honestly, seeing them laid out changed how I think about Christian community and church life, no matter what form that takes (Sunday church, simple church, house church, etc.).

1. Love One Another — This one shows up more than any other. John 13:34-35, Romans 13:8, 1 John 3:11... over and over. It’s the foundation everything else builds on.

2. Serve One Another — Galatians 5:13 tells us to use our freedom to serve, not to indulge ourselves.

3. Accept One Another — Romans 15:7 says to accept each other just as Christ accepted us. Not after people clean up. Not once they agree with us. As Christ accepted us—which, if you remember, was while we were still a mess.

4. Forgive One Another — Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. That’s a high bar.

5. Encourage One Another — Hebrews 3:13 says to do this daily. Not when you feel like it. Daily.

6. Build Up One Another — Romans 14:19, 1 Thessalonians 5:11. Pursue what builds others up, not what tears down.

7. Admonish One Another — Colossians 3:16. This is the uncomfortable one. Speaking truth when someone’s drifting. Most of us avoid this like the plague.

8. Confess to One Another — James 5:16. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. When’s the last time you actually did this?

9. Bear Burdens for One Another — Galatians 6:2. Carry each other’s loads. This fulfills the law of Christ.

10. Be Kind and Compassionate to One Another — Ephesians 4:32. Sounds simple until you’re stuck in traffic or dealing with that one person at work.

11. Submit to One Another — Ephesians 5:21. Mutual submission out of reverence for Christ. Not hierarchy. Mutual.

12. Be Devoted to One Another — Romans 12:10. Honor others above yourself. Devoted. That’s family language.

13. Live in Harmony with One Another — Romans 12:16. Not uniformity. Harmony. Different notes, same song.

14. Be Hospitable to One Another — 1 Peter 4:9. Without grumbling. (Peter had to add that part, which tells you something about human nature.)

Fifty-nine commands across these categories. This is supposed to be normal Christian community.

So why does it feel so foreign?

The Hard Truth

Here’s what I’ve learned: You can’t “one-another” from a pew.

You can’t confess sins to someone you only see for an hour on Sunday. You can’t bear burdens for people whose burdens you don’t know. You can’t encourage daily if you don’t have daily access. You can’t admonish in love if there’s no relationship to hold the weight of hard truth.

The 59 “one-anothers” require

• Proximity.

• Consistency.

• Time.

• Margin.

• Vulnerability.

• Real life rubbing up against real life.

This is why I’m convinced disciple-making communities have to be smaller than we’re comfortable with. Not because big gatherings are bad—they’re not. But because the “one-anothers” don’t scale. They happen in living rooms and coffee shops and group texts and driveways.

They happen when you’re close enough to see someone’s real life, not just their Sunday best.

Your Challenge This Week

I’m not asking you to master all 59 commands. That’s overwhelming, and God doesn’t work that way anyway.

Here’s what I want you to do:

Pick ONE.

Just one “one-another” that you know you’ve been avoiding or neglecting. Maybe it’s confession—you’ve been carrying something alone that needs to be spoken out loud. Maybe it’s encouragement—there’s someone in your life who’s running on empty, and you’ve noticed but haven’t acted.

Maybe it’s admonishment. There’s a hard conversation you’ve been avoiding because it’s easier to stay comfortable than to risk being rejected.

Pick one.

Practice it this week with someone in your life. Not a stranger. Someone you’re actually walking with.

And watch what happens.

When Communities Actually Do This

I’ve seen what happens when groups of believers take the “one-anothers” seriously. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t make headlines.

• People get free.

• Marriages get restored.

• Addictions lose their grip.

• Loneliness dissolves.

• People who’ve been burned by “church” find family.

The early church didn’t have buildings or budgets or branding. But they had each other.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking bread, and to prayer.

They shared everything.

They met daily.

They practiced the “one-anothers” as a way of life.

And the Lord added to their number DAILY.

What if that’s still available to us?

What if the revolution we’re waiting for isn’t a new strategy or program—but a return to the relational commands we’ve been ignoring all along?

The 59 are waiting.

Which one will you start with?

Click Here to Download the One-Anothers

I slowly dipped the pen into the ink. I was considering the words that would become my alibi. A drop fell to the ground as if it were a drip of blood from my broken heart.

Uriah – one of my very own mighty men of valor – his life has been on the line for the best in me, and he was about to die for the worst in me. My eyes shifted from the parchment to the floor upon which he slept. I tried to get him to go home. I tried to make this easy for both of us.

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I saw him as quiet as a sabbath morning, resting, preparing for his next battle. That was his last night in a king’s palace. It was also his last opportunity to embrace his bride. “My Lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I…” Those words became his crowning glory.

She was beautiful. As I stood on that roof looking down, I thought it would be worth whatever it cost. Just one night. Just one. Just…

How could I know the brokenness in this one hasty decision to call her in?

How could I know that a man would die at the altar of my selfish appetite? Not just any man. Uriah.

She resisted. I couldn’t. That part of me that screamed from the pit of Sheol the day another glorious woman took the fruit in the Garden seemed too much to resist.

It felt like the blood of a thousand spotless lambs couldn’t cover the shame of the words scripted from the tip of that writing tool that day. But I couldn’t stop myself. Those words seemed to be my only hope to save my pride… dignity… and honor.

“Joab,”

My hands were shaking. I could hardly get the words to fall on the parchment.

“…put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest.”

How could I? I was a man after God’s own heart. How could I?

“Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and…”

Had I lost my mind? Was I mad?

“…and die.”

I watched her eyes as the horse galloped through the city gates to bring the news. She had no idea that he was coming to announce that her beloved was dead. As the pages of this tragedy were slowly opened, she fell to her knees and screamed. Her tears flooded my soul with pain. Those screams rang in my ears, deafeningly proclaiming my guilt. But only I knew what they truly meant.

I considered taking my own life in payment for his. One for one… an eye for an eye. That notion was never stronger than the day my faithful prophet leaned over and whispered in my ear,

“The man is you.”

Exposed. Ripped open for all to see. I still don’t understand how I made it through the following days.

Months later, he was born. The son of that sin looked me in the eyes with such peace. Seven days and death snatched him up, stealing away what felt like the only redemption of that fateful night.

Hopelessness ensued. Darkness engulfed me.

But now a window of hope that allowed me to peer into a future worth living was framed by Nathan’s words,

“The Lord has taken away your sin.”

How could He? And if so, how could I ever acquit myself?

It took time to learn to stand on the truth that it is not what we do or do not do that merits His love, but in our identity as His beloved. Brokenness followed in the years to come. I had to force myself many times over to believe the scandalous proclamation of innocence he pronounced over me.

It will take you some time, too.

When the antagonist looks you straight in the eye and says that you are used up and good for nothing, you’ve got to fall to your knees, throw your arms tightly around the feet of Abba and believe with every ounce of energy in you that it’s not what others say about you or even what you think about yourself.

Just as he flung his Word at the speed of light straight from Heaven and thundered, “Let there be light!” He speaks over you.

The light of a million torches flamed into existence and lit up a void of darkness we cannot comprehend. That same voice, with that same magnitude, declares with an assurance that a thousand noble men cannot match,

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“It is finished.”

Hop over there and follow Paul for some great discipleship content!

SALT AND LIGHT: THE IDENTITY OF A DISCIPLE-MAKER

By Kevin E Beasley

Name (noun): A word or set of words by which a person, animal, place, thing, or concept is known, addressed, or referred to. (dictionary.com)

In other words, a name is a label that gives identity and allows for recognition or distinction. I am known by my name, and my name represents who I am in relation to others. In biblical thought, a name wasn’t just a tag; it expressed essence, destiny, or role. That’s why God changes names (Abram → Abraham, Saul → Paul). He’s marking a new identity and purpose.

In Matthew 5-7, we have recorded the longest of the eight long-form sermons that Jesus taught while on Earth. There were many times throughout scripture that he “renamed” individual people, but in this sermon, He NAMED those who follow Him. That discourse on the hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee spoke volumes about who we are as we become disciples and disciple-makers in our respective mission fields!

Salt and Light | Preservation and Illumination

“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.”
- Jesus in Matthew 5:13-14

Salt of the Earth. Light of the World.

Those are not small identities! Each of them carries a suggestion of a worldwide impact. Each of them points a finger to the fact that our role as Salt and Light is not for a future glory in eternity, but for here and now. For TODAY, not later. We are living in the “here and now,” and our identity is as SALT and LIGHT. We are the preservation and illumination that bring glory to the Father and honor to His Son. We are the Preservers of His promise and the Light to illuminate His Good News.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE THE SALT OF THE EARTH?

Here are three ideas that Jesus may have been pointing to when He identified us as the Salt of the Earth.

• Preservation
  Salt has been used as a preservative in ancient and modern times. It is known to slow and even stop the growth of bacteria, mold, and decay. It draws moisture out of cells and bacteria, leading to the “drying up” of unhealthy substances.
  No Water = No Life = No Rot!

• Purity
  Salt in its natural form is pure white and is often used to symbolize purity and cleanliness. In ancient times and in its refined form, it was considered free of corruption.

• Promise
  Salt was used in Levitical offerings (Lev 2:13) as a symbol of the enduring covenant and Jesus is the New Covenant in His blood. As His followers, we are the subject of His Promise!

So, when salt is salty, it fulfills the work for which it was called! At the top of Jesus’ call to His followers was the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). As we go, we are functioning as the Salt of the Word of God, we PRESERVE the message, walk in His PURITY, and live into the PROMISE of our Messiah!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD?

Light is illumination, and illumination brings clarity, and clarity drives out confusion.

Wow! There’s no better word to describe the culture and world we live in than confusion, right? So, what does it mean to be a Light?

• Reveals What’s Hidden
  Light helps both us and our disciples find things that would otherwise be hidden - in scripture, in the dark recesses of our heart, and in God’s illumination of Himself through creation.

• Guides the Way
  Psalm 119:105 says that the Word of God is a “lamp to our feet and a light to our path”. When we feel like we or our disciples are walking around lost in the dark, we ourselves are a reflection of the light of the Word, guiding us and them to find the way.

• Pushes Back Darkness
  When darkness fills a room and light enters, the darkness has no choice but to flee. As we carry the light of Jesus into our missional contexts (the places where we live, learn, work, and play), the darkness of the enemy has to flee!

• Gives Warmth and Life
  From a creation standpoint, the Sun is our source of light and life, and without it, there would be darkness and death. We, as representatives of the True Light in whom there is no darkness (1 John 1:5), are Light carriers to our mission field!

SALT AND LIGHT IN MISSIONAL DISCIPLE-MAKING

When Jesus referred to Salt and Light in the Sermon on the Mount, He was referring to YOU (and me)! He has a great vision for your life and purpose to bring preservation and illumination.

But it is extremely important to remember that we, in ourselves, are not the source of saltiness and illumination; it comes from our Savior and the One who imbues us with the qualities that qualify us to be salty and bright!

But, there is another aspect to this “naming” in the sermon, we have the capacity to lose our saltiness and brightness. And Jesus says that when we lose those qualities, we become useless. May God grant us the ability to sustain and thrive in the mission He has set before us to take these gifts into the mission fields where we live, learn, work, and play!

WE’RE NOT A SOURCE, BUT A REFLECTION

Why did God give us two lights in the sky - the Sun and the Moon?

Well, I’m not speaking as an authority on God and Creation, but I think one reason may have been to teach us what He longs for us to be as disciple-makers in our mission fields, a REFLECTION of His saltiness and brightness to a sick and dark dying world.

Our primary source of light at night is the moon. It has a tremendous impact on the Earth in relation to tides, weather, seasons, and biological rhythms. But, interestingly, the moon is not a light SOURCE at all, it is a light REFLECTOR! The source of ALL light is the Sun. And that is what it means to be a Salty and Bright reflection of the life of Christ to those in every nook and corner of our missional life!

SO LET’S BE THAT!

A reflection of preservation and illumination - SALT and LIGHT!

Thank you, Paul, for reminding us of that every time we open up your newsletter and read about the Goodness of our Savior!

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This question might hurt a little.

But Hey! “No Pain, No Gain,” right 💪 ?

• 📈 How many of your staff meetings feel like you’re running a religious corporation instead of equipping the body of Christ for mission?

• 😫 How many Sundays do you attend church services each year, with 10% of the members doing 90% of the ministry?

• 👨🏻‍💼Has your church seen multiplication of disciples down 3 generations or more, or does everyone depend on the senior leader(s) to make disciples?

🎯 Yeah. Those landed, didn’t they?

Here’s the brutal truth: Your church leadership is probably structured like a business team, not like a band of biblical equipping co-laborers. You’ve got a Senior Pastor (CEO), a Worship Pastor (Creative Director), a Youth Pastor (Youth Department Manager), maybe a Care Pastor (HR), and if you’re lucky, an Outreach Pastor who’s basically your sales guy.

And none of that → NONE OF IT → reflects what one of my mentors, Greg Getz, calls “The Great Team.” Greg refers to Ephesians 4:11 as the “leadership strategy God gave us to advance the Kingdom of God on planet Earth.” And if we fail to embrace the model that scripture gives us, we will not have a chance at getting the results that God intends.

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You’ve heard of ➠

• The Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20)

• The Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40)

• The Great (Golden) Rule (Matthew 7:12)

But, how many times have you heard teaching or training about “The Great Team”?

The five-fold ministry isn’t a new idea. It’s not some trendy church growth hack. It’s literally in Scripture:

• Apostle (grk - apostolos or “sent one”)

• Prophet (grk - prophetes or “one who speaks forth”)

• Evangelist (grk - euangelistes or “one who brings good news”)

• Shepherd (grk - poimēn or “one who tends sheep”)

• Teacher (grk - didaskalos or “an instructor or master of a skill”)

But somewhere along the way, we traded this divine design for a model that looks more like General Motors than the Book of Acts.

So how do you fix it without getting fired, losing your elders, or splitting the church?

Buckle up. This is going to get real!

Click HERE for an overview of THE GREAT TEAM
Click HERE for Article #1 - The Prophet
Click HERE for Article #2 - The Apostle
Click HERE for Article #3 - The Evangelist
Click HERE for Article #4 - The Shepherd
Click HERE for Article #5 - The Teacher

The Problem: We’ve Idolized the Senior Pastor

Let’s call it what it is: The American church has created a rock-star pastor culture that Jesus never endorsed. This shift in leadership culture also sets up the Sr. Pastor for performance and standards that Jesus never meant for them to carry.

It’s not fair to them or us!

We’ve put one person—usually a gifted Teacher or Shepherd—in charge of everything. We’ve asked them to cast vision (Apostle’s job), call out sin (Prophet’s job), reach the lost (Evangelist’s job), care for people (Shepherd’s job), AND teach the Word (Teacher’s job).

That’s not leadership.

That’s pastoral malpractice.

And when that pastor burns out, falls into sin, or just quits because they can’t do it all?

💥 The church implodes 💥

The five-fold ministry isn’t about eliminating the senior pastor role. It’s about distributing the load and unleashing the gifts God has already placed in your church.

But here’s the kicker:

Your church staff and your elders don’t know this.

So how do you lead them into APEST without a mutiny?

The 10 Challenges (And How to Navigate Them Without Blowing Up Your Church)

Challenge #1: “This sounds like you’re trying to control the pastor.”

🛑 The Fear:

People think you’re trying to dismantle pastoral authority or create some kind of leadership-by-committee chaos.

🔥 The Truth:

You’re not removing the pastor. You’re empowering the team. The senior pastor doesn’t disappear, they become one equal member of a powerful disciple-mulitplying team!

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Frame it as multiplication, not subtraction. “We’re not replacing the pastor; we’re releasing the whole team to function in their God-given wiring.”

• Use sports analogies: “Tom Brady doesn’t play defense. He trusts his teammates to do what they’re designed to do.”

• Start with a pilot project. Don’t announce a full restructure. Test it in one area (more on this below).

Challenge #2: “We don’t have an Apostle or Prophet on staff.”

🛑 The Fear: APEST sounds theoretical because they don’t see those roles represented.

🔥 The Truth: You probably do have them, you just haven’t recognized or empowered them. The Apostle might be your church planter or missions director. The Prophet might be that elder who always asks the hard questions and makes everyone uncomfortable.

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Do an APEST assessment (take mine HERE) with your leadership team.

• Observe their behaviors and concerns to identify who naturally operates in each role, even if their title doesn’t reflect it.

• If you genuinely don’t have an Apostle or Prophet, partner with someone outside your church who does. This is why movements and networks exist.

Challenge #3: “Our elders will never go for this.”

🛑 The Fear: The elders are traditionalists who see this as trendy consultant nonsense.

🔥 The Truth: Elders fear chaos and loss of control. They don’t fear biblical models; they fear what happens when things go wrong.

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Teach Ephesians 4:11-16 in a sermon series. Let the Word do the heavy lifting. When it’s framed as “getting back to Scripture,” it’s harder to oppose.

• Invite them into the process early. Don’t surprise them with a restructure announcement.

• Show them case studies of churches that have successfully transitioned (or bring in a leader from another network to speak to them).

Challenge #4: “This will create competition and division on staff.”

🛑 The Fear: Staff will start jockeying for position, claiming they’re the “Apostle” or “Prophet,” and turf wars will break out.

🟢 The Truth: Undiscipled APEST is dangerous. An Apostle without a Prophet will create chaos. A Prophet without a Shepherd will crush people. That’s why all five have to work together. (see my APEST Series on discipling each function HERE)

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Emphasize interdependence, not independence. “None of us can do this alone. We need each other.”

• Create a culture of humility and service. Model it yourself.

• Use the CHAORD pendulum (click HERE to see it): The Scattered (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist) need the Gathered (Shepherd, Teacher) to resource and sustain the movement. The Gathered need the Scattered to keep the church on mission.

It’s a rhythmic dance, not an authoritative hierarchy.

Challenge #5: “We’ve always done it this way.”

🛑 The Fear: Change is threatening. People are comfortable with the current structure, even if it’s broken.

🟢 The Truth: “We’ve always done it this way” is the most dangerous sentence in the church. If we had kept saying that, we’d still be taking mikvah baths before church.

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Ask diagnostic questions: “Is our current structure producing disciples who make disciples? Or are we just running programs?”

• Show them the fruit (or lack of it). If your church isn’t multiplying disciples, something has to change.

• Use historical examples: The early church didn’t have senior pastors. They had apostolic teams (book of Acts).

Challenge #6: “This feels too business-y or worldly.”

🛑 The Fear: APEST language sounds like corporate team-building exercises, not spiritual leadership.

🟢 The Truth: Ephesians 4:11 is God’s design, not a business consultant’s framework. But yes, healthy businesses often mirror biblical principles because God’s design works wherever you find it (all truth is God’s truth).

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Ground everything in Scripture. Always. Don’t let it drift into “leadership guru” territory.

• Avoid business jargon. Use biblical language and stories.

• Remind people that Jesus Himself operated with a team. He sent out the 12 and then the 72 in pairs. He didn’t do solo ministry.

Challenge #7: “What happens to the staff who don’t fit?”

🛑 The Fear: Some staff members won’t align with an APEST role, and they’ll feel sidelined or let go.

🟢 The Truth: APEST isn’t about firing people. It’s about helping them thrive in their wiring. But yes, some people may need to shift roles, or acknowledge they’re not in the right seat.

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Frame it as a gift discovery process, not a performance review.

• Give people time to adjust. Don’t force immediate changes.

• Some people may realize they’re in the wrong role and choose to transition. That’s healthy, not hurtful.

Challenge #8: “The congregation won’t understand this.”

🛑 The Fear: This is too complex for the average church member to grasp.

🟢 The Truth: Your congregation is smarter than you think. They’ve been living in dysfunction long enough to know something’s broken. They’re hungry for a better way.

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Teach it simply. Use the APEST graphic in your teaching.

• Tell stories. Help people see themselves in the five roles: “That friend who’s always starting new things? That’s an Apostle. That person who asks the uncomfortable questions? That’s a Prophet.”

• Let them take the Great Team assessment (Click HERE). When people discover their own wiring, buy-in skyrockets.

Challenge #9: “This will take too long.”

🛑 The Fear: Restructuring the staff will derail everything else the church is trying to do.

🟢 The Truth: You can’t afford NOT to do this. If your current structure isn’t producing multiplication, you’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Start small. Pick one area to pilot the APEST model (e.g., your discipleship strategy or your outreach team).

• Don’t try to restructure everything overnight. This is a 2-3 year process, not a weekend retreat decision.

• Celebrate small wins publicly. When people see fruit, momentum builds.

Challenge #10: “What if we fail?”

🛑 The Fear: This might not work, and we’ll have wasted time, money, and relational capital.

🟢 The Truth: You’re already failing if you’re not making disciples who make disciples. The risk isn’t trying APEST. The risk is staying where you are.

✔︎ How to Overcome It:

• Reframe failure. The early church didn’t get it right the first time either. They learned, adjusted, and multiplied.

• Build in feedback loops. Check in every 90 days to assess what’s working and what’s not.

• Trust the Holy Spirit. If God designed the five-fold ministry, He’ll honor your obedience to pursue it.

Your Next Steps: The Stealth Strategy

Here’s how to start without announcing a full-scale restructure:

Step 1: Identify the APEST roles already functioning in your church.

Do the Great Team assessment with your staff and key leaders. Don’t make it about restructuring; frame it as “understanding how God wired us.”

Step 2: Create a pilot team around one initiative.

Pick something missional, like launching a discipleship pathway or starting a new outreach strategy. Staff that team with people who represent all five APEST roles. Let them work together and see what happens.

Step 3: Let the fruit do the talking.

When that pilot team starts producing disciples who make disciples, people will notice. Don’t over-explain it. Just let the results speak.

Step 4: Teach Ephesians 4:11-16 to the whole church.

Once people see the fruit, teach the biblical foundation. Help them see that what’s working isn’t your idea, it’s God’s design.

Step 5: Gradually shift staff roles and titles.

As people embrace their APEST wiring, start adjusting job descriptions.. But do it organically, not through a forced restructure.

The Hard Truth

Here’s what most church leaders won’t tell you: Transitioning to APEST will cost you something.

You’ll lose some people. Some staff members won’t be able to make the shift. Some elders will resist. Some church members will leave because they prefer the old way.

But here’s the harder truth: If you don’t do this, you’ll lose more.

You’ll lose your best leaders to burnout. You’ll lose the next generation who’s hungry for mission, not programs. You’ll lose the opportunity to see real multiplication in your lifetime.

The five-fold ministry isn’t a program. It’s not a model. It’s how Jesus designed His Church to function.

And if you’re not organizing your leadership around it, you’re fighting against the very structure God ordained.

So what’s it going to be?

Are you going to keep propping up a system that’s slowly dying?

Or are you going to step into the tension, lead with courage, and trust that God’s design actually works?

✏️ Drop a comment below

Have you tried implementing APEST in your church? What resistance did you face? Or are you the Prophet on your staff who’s been screaming about this for years and no one’s listening? Let’s talk about it.

For more on building APEST teams and leading multiplication movements, check out the tools at Disciple-Making Collective and Ignite Church Network. You can find resources and a coach at either of those networks.

A couple of months ago, I asked our resident scholar, Dale Moreau, to draft a paper on discipleship from the perspective of a Divine Counsel Worldview (DCW). My goal was to ground the definition of discipleship in the ancient biblical context that Dale has spent a significant portion of his life studying.

Dale was super kind in working on this for us, and I am proud to partner with him on publishing this post!

On behalf of the Missional Disciple-Making Collective on Substack, thank you, Dale.

If you are interested in the Divine Counsel Worldview and scripture from its ancient cultural context, click below to follow the work of Dale Moreau and the Theological Voice Newsletter.

Click Here to Follow Dale

What is the Divine Counsel Worldview?

Before we get to Dale’s work, let me give you a quick primer on the Divine Counsel Worldview.

This theological perspective is a biblical framework that takes seriously the Bible’s portrayal of a populated spiritual realm—one in which God reigns as supreme King while presiding over a council of lesser spiritual beings. Rather than imagining God acting in isolation, this worldview reads passages such as Psalm 82, Psalm 89, 1 Kings 22, Job 1–2, and Daniel 7 as snapshots of a heavenly court where God delegates authority, renders judgment, and advances his purposes through spiritual agents.

This view insists on reading Scripture on its own ancient terms. The biblical authors lived in a world where spiritual beings, cosmic geography, and divine assemblies were assumed realities, not metaphors. The Divine Council worldview argues that modern readers often flatten these texts by imposing later philosophical ideas about God rather than listening to the text’s ancient context.

Within this framework, rebellion in the unseen realm (Genesis 6; Deuteronomy 32) helps explain the spread of evil, while Christ’s incarnation, resurrection, and exaltation are understood as the decisive reclaiming of authority over both earthly nations and rebellious spiritual powers.

Now, for Dale’s take on discipleship through the eyes of the DCW.

Discipleship as Cosmic Revelation by Dale Moreau

Layman’s Definition of Disciple

A disciple is a person whom God has made new in Christ, restored as an image-bearer, and who openly declares Jesus the risen Son of Man as their only Lord. A disciple orders their life under Jesus’ kingship, learns to reflect His character, rejects the claims of rival spiritual powers, and participates in His redemptive work in the world.

In clearer terms

A disciple is someone who belongs to Jesus, imitates Jesus, and lives as a visible sign of His rule in a world still contested by spiritual powers.

---

Layman’s Definition of Discipleship

Discipleship is the lifelong, Spirit-driven formation through which Christ shapes His people to share in His mission, extend His reign, and faithfully bear His image in a spiritually contested world.

It is not merely personal growth; it is participation in Jesus’ cosmic work of reclaiming creation for God.

Discipleship involves

• Public allegiance to Jesus as Lord through baptism, confession, and belonging to His church

• Imitating Christ’s life and character, including His humility, obedience, and cross-shaped pattern of self-giving

• Daily obedience that resists spiritual darkness and demonstrates loyalty to Christ’s kingdom

• Being restored in the image of God, prepared to share in Christ’s rule over the renewed creation

• Engaging in the work of the kingdom, proclaiming the gospel, healing, reconciling, and reclaiming people and places for God

• Living as citizens of the new creation, embodying Christ’s future reign in the present

Put most simply

Discipleship is the Spirit-empowered training by which Jesus forms His people to live under His authority, advance His kingdom, and manifest His victory over the powers until He renews all things.

Discipleship Inside a Bigger Story

In much Christian discussion, “discipleship” is treated as a private matter: learning the Bible, praying more, or improving one’s moral life. The New Testament includes these elements but places them within a much larger narrative about God, the nations, and unseen spiritual powers.

When the risen Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18), he is not simply encouraging his followers; he is announcing his enthronement as the world’s true king. This claim echoes the vision of Daniel 7, where “one like a son of man” receives authority, glory, and an everlasting kingdom from the “Ancient of Days.”1

From this perspective, discipleship is not just about “my spiritual life.” It is about being drawn into the rule of the risen Son of Man, joining his mission to reclaim the nations, and living in a world where spiritual powers—good and evil—are real actors in the story.2

The Divine Council Worldview (DCW) helps make this visible. It emphasizes that God governs the world in the presence of other spiritual beings, some loyal and some rebellious, and that human life unfolds within this contested spiritual environment.3

In that framework, a disciple is a person whose loyalty has been transferred to the enthroned Christ, and discipleship is the lifelong process by which Christ trains his people to share in his mission to reclaim creation from hostile powers.

Jesus, the Nations, and the Reversal of Deuteronomy 32

The Great Commission as Royal Decree

Matthew 28:18-20 is often called “the Great Commission,” but it is also a royal decree.

Jesus first declares his universal authority, and only then commands, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

The logic is important:

• Because Jesus has been enthroned

• he now sends his followers under that authority,

• to bring the nations into obedient allegiance to him.4

Commentators note that this language deliberately recalls Daniel 7: the Son of Man is given authority over “all peoples, nations and men of every language.”5 In Matthew 28, this Danielic authority is now realized in the risen Jesus. He is no longer ministering only to “the lost sheep of Israel,” but sends his disciples to all nations, teaching and baptizing them into his name.6

The disciples do not possess this authority in themselves. Their authority is derivative: they act in Jesus’s name and depend on his promised presence—“I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).7

Deuteronomy 32 and the Reclamation of the Nations

Within the DCW, Deuteronomy 32:8–9 is crucial. At Babel, God responds to human rebellion by scattering the nations and “apportioning” them under other divine beings, while keeping Israel as his own inheritance.8 In this view, the nations are effectively handed over to lesser elohim, who later become corrupt and hostile to God. The Great Commission and Pentecost mark the beginning of the reversal of that situation.

Michael Heiser describes Pentecost as the launch of “the reclamation of the nations disinherited at Babel,” in which the Spirit empowers Jesus’s followers to preach in the languages of those very nations.9

The church’s mission is therefore not simply geographic expansion; it is a spiritual repossession of peoples who had long been under the rule of other spiritual powers.

This means that discipleship is inseparable from mission to the nations: to make disciples is to participate in God’s plan to bring the Gentiles back under the rule of the true King, Jesus the Messiah, and to dethrone the spiritual powers that claimed them.10

Spiritual Powers, Idolatry, and Public Allegiance

Principalities, Powers, and Idols

The New Testament treats idolatry and spiritual powers as a real threat, not a mere metaphor. Paul acknowledges that in the pagan world, people assume a cosmos filled with divinities and powers. He does not adopt that worldview uncritically, but he does affirm that behind idols there are real spiritual beings opposed to God.11

In 1 Corinthians 10, he warns that what pagans sacrifice “they offer to demons and not to God” (1 Cor 10:20). Participation in idol feasts is therefore incompatible with participation in the Lord’s Table. Idolatry is not neutral; it is a competing claim on human loyalty. G. K. Beale summarizes Paul’s principle as: “We become what we worship.”12

The New Testament also exposes idolatry in less visible forms. Greed is labeled “idolatry” (Col 3:5) because when possessions or desires become the ultimate concern, they take the place of God.13 Discipleship, then, involves exclusive loyalty to Christ. It refuses to share allegiance between Jesus and other gods, whether those gods are statues, money, or ideologies.

Ephesians 6: Between Heaven and Earth

Ephesians 6:10–12 gives one of the clearest summaries of the spiritual situation: believers struggle “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” Derek Prince describes this as a universal conflict that involves both earth and the heavens.14

Commentators warn against reducing this struggle either to purely “invisible” spiritual warfare or purely social and political critique. Gary Burge emphasizes that the New Testament sees both spiritual forces and earthly structures are intertwined.15

Margaret MacDonald notes that what happens in daily life has a “cosmic referent”; our actions participate in a larger conflict in the heavenly realms.16 In this context, discipleship means learning to live in this tension: recognizing the reality of spiritual opposition, while avoiding any justification of violence or hatred against human opponents.

Haruko Ward reminds us that spiritual warfare language has sometimes been misused to legitimize aggression; Ephesians 6, however, describes a struggle fought with truth, righteousness, faith, and prayer, not with weapons.17

Christ’s Triumph and the Position of the Church

Paul’s language about principalities and powers in Ephesians 1:20–23 and Colossians 2:15 stresses that these powers have been decisively defeated in Christ. Michael Goheen argues that Paul is responding to communities tempted to live under the domination of social and cultural “powers” that claimed ultimate allegiance.18

Christ’s cross strips these powers of their absolutizing claims and restores them—at least in principle—to their proper place as created entities under God.

Clinton Arnold shows that this means believers no longer need to resort to magical practices or spiritual technologies to manage unseen forces; Christ’s victory has exposed their limits.19 F. Stuart Piggin notes that, in Paul’s view, believers are “enthroned with Christ” and called to live as those who share in his exaltation.20

Discipleship, then, is not simply defense against the powers; it is a form of participation in Christ’s rule over them.

Baptism, the Lord’s Table, and the Church as Kingdom Outposts

Baptism as Transfer of Ownership

New Testament and early Christian practice treat baptism as a public act of transfer from one lordship to another. In Colossians, Paul connects baptism with participation in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and commentators highlight its connection to the defeat of hostile powers.21

Early baptismal liturgies included explicit renunciations of Satan and every work of darkness. Simon Chan describes baptism as a ritual that claims “the totality of life” and signals a cosmic struggle to reclaim humanity.22 Meredith Kline interprets baptism as a covenant sign that seals a new allegiance relationship with Christ as Lord.23

In DCW terms, baptism announces before heaven and earth that a human being has been transferred from the realm of rebellious powers to the jurisdiction of the risen King. It is not a private moment of inward spirituality; it is a visible reallocation of spiritual ownership.

The Lord’s Table as Visible Geography of the Kingdom

Where baptism marks entry, the Lord’s Table marks ongoing participation in Christ’s rule. Jonathan Leeman argues that local churches, especially when gathered at the Table, function as “embassies” of heaven—visible representations of Christ’s kingdom inside the territory of the present age.24

The Table, like a family dining table, expresses unity and belonging. Robert Webber calls it the strongest symbol of Christian oneness.25 J. Todd Billings adds that at the Table, believers bring their actual bodies and relationships; the meal becomes a place where hidden conflicts and wounds can surface, and where participants experience a foretaste of the harmonious kingdom yet to come.26

From a DCW standpoint, each local congregation gathered around Word and Table is a small but real piece of reclaimed sacred space—a local point at which Christ’s heavenly rule becomes visible on earth.

Acts and the Spread of Sacred Space

The book of Acts portrays the church as the continuation of Jesus’s kingdom ministry and the spatial extension of his rule. S. T. Antonio describes the church as a multiethnic movement empowered by the Spirit, forming local gatherings among the nations.27

Patrick Schreiner emphasizes that the ascended Christ directs the spread of the gospel from his throne, reordering earthly space by sending witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.28 These communities live under a different authority structure from that of the surrounding empire.

Andrew Perriman notes that their willingness to suffer for Christ’s name is tied to their understanding that Jesus is already exalted above earthly powers.29 Charles Erlandson describes the church as the extension of Christ’s incarnation, where a “New Man” emerges—a renewed humanity identified with Christ through baptism and faith.30

In short, the church’s presence in the world is not accidental. It is the kingdom's spatial strategy: small, scattered outposts of sacred space within territories once dominated by rival powers.

Discipleship, Image of God, and New Creation

Restored Image and Human Vocation

From Genesis onward, humans are portrayed as made in God’s image and called to exercise dominion over creation. G. K. Beale describes this as a royal role: humans act as visible representatives of God’s rule on earth.31 Mark Liederbach and Evan Lenow stress that this vocation is not limited to “religious” activities; it includes culture, work, and social life in all its forms.32

The fall damages this capacity. Steven Duby argues that the image includes righteousness, holiness, and wisdom—qualities necessary for proper dominion—and that these are distorted by sin.33 Redemption, therefore, involves both moral renewal and restoration of human vocation. Catherine McDowell notes that New Testament language about being conformed to the image of Christ carries this double dimension: character and calling.34

Discipleship, in this frame, is the process by which redeemed humans are re-fitted for their original role: wise, holy representation of God’s purposes in the world.

Vicegerency and Inheritance

The New Testament picks up the theme of humanity’s royal calling with language of “inheritance” and “reign.” Michael Pocock and Enoch Wan describe believers as renewed vice-regents—official representatives commissioned to act on God’s behalf in an alienated world.35 Christopher Beetham traces a narrative in which a community of “royal sons” ultimately inherits the world in Christ.36

Joshua Jipp shows that Old Testament texts anticipate an eschatological ruler who will receive the nations as his inheritance; the New Testament applies this to Jesus and then extends the implications to those united with him.37 Frank Viola describes the kingdom as Jesus reclaiming the earth that rightly belongs to him.38

Michael Heiser, from a DCW perspective, underscores that the earth was always intended to be administered by humans, not angels; in Christ, humans are elevated to share in God’s earthly rule.39

In Romans 8, Paul connects this with creation itself. Ted Turnau argues that biblical redemption is “material and cosmic,” not limited to souls.40 Jonathan King points out that creation “groans” in birth pangs, awaiting its liberation when the children of God are revealed.41

Inheritance is therefore not a private spiritual reward; it is participation in a renewed creation.

New Creation and the Ministry of Reconciliation

New creation language pulls these threads together. Philip Hughes argues that Jesus’s resurrection signals the rebirth of humanity and the fulfillment of God’s original plan, not the abandonment of creation.42 John Frame notes that believers are remade in the image of Christ with new knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.43

Lawrence Richards suggests that only metaphors like “new birth” and “new creation” adequately describe the depth of change God initiates.44 G. K. Beale and Mitchell Kim connect this to temple theology: as God dwells among his people, they become the beginning of a renewed cosmic temple in which all things will eventually be reconciled to Christ.45

In this light, discipleship is not simply individual moral improvement. It is participation in a project of cosmic renewal, where renewed humans serve as agents of reconciliation in preparation for the full unveiling of new creation.

Discipleship as Participation in Christ’s Cosmic Victory

Put together, the lay-theological picture looks like this:

• God assigned the nations to other spiritual beings, but promised a future king who would inherit them.

• Jesus, the Son of Man, has now been enthroned and claims all authority in heaven and on earth.

• The Great Commission and Pentecost initiate the recovery of the disinherited nations and the exposure of unjust spiritual rulers (Psalm 82).

• Baptism and the Lord’s Table are public acts of allegiance, signaling a transfer of ownership from the powers to Christ.

• Local churches function as kingdom embassies—small territories of reclaimed sacred space inside the present world.

Discipleship is the process by which the risen Christ trains his people to live under his authority, resist rival powers, and be restored to their original calling as image-bearing vice-regents in a creation that is on its way to being made new.

This framework keeps discipleship firmly theological and cosmic: it is about how God, in Christ and by the Spirit, reclaims the nations, restores sacred space, and prepares a renewed humanity to share in his rule in the new creation.

Endnotes