CEP 12: SCOTT WILSON ON CHURCH GROWTH
By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger & guest Scott Wilson
Welcome to Episode: 12 of the Church Explained Podcast. A conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your host will be Dave Mckeown. We will talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.
In this episode, I chat with Scott Wilson about the critical factors of church growth. But, first, find out why Scott thinks we should not follow the Jesus model of discipleship.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
David Mckeown 0:00
Hey, welcome to the Church explained podcast, a conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church today. We're excited because we have a very special guest. We have Scott Wilson with us the whole way from Denmark. So Scott, welcome to the show today. Good to have you with us. Thank you. Great to be with you guys. So normally, it's myself and Nathan, who helps to host this podcast, but he's snoozing somewhere, I think, probably on a beach somewhere, but you've got me, which is the better half of the podcast. So you just make people aware of that. So hey, Scott, let me just share a little bit about you so people know who you are. And then you can just share a little bit about yourself as well. So you've been based in Denmark for over 20 years. You're involved in leadership consultant, and coaching within churches. You're also head of Euro lead, which is a group of churches across a network of churches really across Europe, would you help steer that and input into that, you also have set up your own company called iclm, which we're going to find out a little bit about in a moment. But really, we want to talk about today about growth, Church growth and leadership growth as well, because they're both connected. And this podcast is really all about Hi, can we help churches grow and move forward in what they're doing? So Scott, great to have you, as we've said, Why don't you share a little bit about yourself, and how things are with you at the minute and then mark,
Scott Wilson 1:29
or I might, very quickly born in New Zealand moved to Australia, a class myself as an Australian very early in life. Went involved got involved quickly with Church planting in Melbourne, actually. And then we moved further out four hours north of Melbourne by car and we started our own Church. They then started the second Church in a smaller community. Yeah, many months ago, actually, when the COVID thing hit in sorry, the fires hit. To say that right. In Australia, they had a town called mallacoota, where the fires had pushed the people to the edge of the sea. And they were getting into boats to get away. It was on national news every week. You probably saw it here. That's where we planted our second Church, they're probably burnt down. Now. I don't know if somebody else is running it. But then we moved to Melbourne back back to Melbourne. We took on a Bible College. Well, it was really a pioneer work. We were there for 10 years and built it up to one of probably Australia's largest private colleges, then now there are others that are a lot bigger. So 25 years ago, from there, we moved to Europe, but based in Denmark, and we need to get that right out based as Denmark. Yeah, but our coverage is Europe. And everyone has to live some way pretty much. So my wife and I joined the Pentecostal movement there in the Bible college, I became the academic dean and did some work for them for about four years. She was on staff there as well, we then I went out into this work I do now, a good 20 years ago, which is full time helping pastors and leaders build a great Church and get the systems and the structures and the stuff right when they plant the Church. So they don't have to go back and five years and start all over. And that's super important, because it saves a lot of time and energy. If we can get that right. We then she stayed working in the college for a while then she planted her own Church, and still doing that today. I've been basically doing this since then. It's just grown and got bigger. We have two children. And we have three grandchildren. Oh, wow. antastic. So Life is good. Denmark is doing well. We've got no restrictions. Everything is up and running. In fact, every country is open to travel to masks ago on social distancing. And churches gone. They are just coping with what it is more like a flu type thing now if you like that's the right word. But so it's really good here. But that does affect travel for me. I've got to be over on a on a plane somewhere. So I start on Saturday again. And I'm hoping I can get on the road pretty quickly, all all the way through winter. Hey, you
David Mckeown 4:03
must be excited about that. Because as you said, it's been a while since you've been travelling. And of course a lot of your ministry as you say is travelling to other churches, you've worked with some larger churches well and different size for churches. Tell us a little bit about iclm for people who don't know what that is.
Scott Wilson 4:21
I started iclm iclm stands for Institute of creativity, leadership and management and I started that and that name has particular import as well. I started that about 25 years ago. The idea of leadership and management. Institute of Institute of creativity, leadership and management is jewel wing idea. leadership's in the middle creativities on to the left side and managers on the right they're both equals. A leader to be successful has to be very creative vision as creative, getting vision as creative working with vision working with reiatives as we do today, you need to be understanding the creative world, that would be a foregone conclusion. However, at the same time, on the other side, leaders need to be great at the management or keeping things running along the systems and so forth. Drop either of those two, and leadership can struggle. So the name itself, by default, it has some input to it by definition. And that's what I do when I travel, I work with those two things together as the leader is trying to build his Church.
David Mckeown 5:28
Brilliant. So hey, let's talk about Church growth. Because obviously, we're coming out of a pandemic. Lots of people are thinking about Church with us always. We want to try and think of what what are the some of the main growth factors that you notice within the Church churches need to be thinking about at this time as well? going forward?
Scott Wilson 5:48
Yeah, and it has sort of, I think that the words remain the same, but the reflections on those words, and they are different. Let's take, for example, a key one today. Yeah, that I hear just about every day in my life now is discipleship. Yeah, or discipling. Others. What we've discovered, I think, in the last 18 months is possibly churches were doing a good job in the context they were in but have discovered through this 18 months, it wasn't good enough, if that makes sense. Yeah. And so many churches and leaders now, revisiting what discipleship means. Now, the thing about this, as you boil it down for me is it's you can have what's called informal and formal approaches. Formal being the normal thing, you know, the steps system, or you come to a course, or you go away on a retreat, these are very formal things. Then you have informal, which is having a coach or a mentor, or somebody helps you a friend that comes alongside. So you have these two things running at the same time. I think what we've discovered is that actually, discipleship now is really about the heart of the person, we discipling It is really problematic to have somebody you put in over as a mentor of somebody, but they have no heart to be discipled. They have no desire. So what we have to do is go back now to the process of how to not how do we make disciples, but rather, what's our starting point with making a disciple? What's their attitude like to work towards leadership and discipleship? Do they want it? Do they want it in their life Do they want to grow, so that thing goes back pretty much to the salvation moment, and how that is delivered to them or accepted by them if you like, if the salvation moment is a little bit too fluffy, not clear, then you get fluffy Christians, to be honest. So we're really investigating all of this now. And I think that's a huge, it has huge implications for growth right now. And some of the churches I work with, if not many, have lost some of their key disciples or key team leaders during this time, they never thought it would be possible to do so. But for many reasons, I've just dropped out of the race for wherever that may be. So discipleship is definitely on the agenda, but in a different way.
David Mckeown 8:02
So let's just open that up a little bit. So what Where do you think that is? I mean, it hasn't been more formal instruction before. Do you think it's become a more informal? What's your thoughts as you're working with churches and leaders? Well, my encouragement is Don't, don't drop anything you've been doing. Okay?
Scott Wilson 8:20
Keep doing what you're doing. Maybe you tweaks and things and re examine them. The danger is to drop everything and try and rebuild from scratch. And unfortunately, that is going to be time consuming, and you probably won't get it right again. So keep doing what you're doing. But I think what we have to do is be a little harder with our questions a little. I was thinking about this the other day, you know, if you're developing a leader today, you talk about all the skill sets they need and stuff. But actually, there's one ingredient that we have to train leaders in today, especially pastors. Yeah. And that is the ability to fight. And I mean, not fight physically. Paul doesn't talk about the fight, he talks about the good fight of faith and he talks about I don't wave my hands in the air, just with no reason. And when you examine this idea fight allows you to carry weight and weight allows you to fight so I think we have to go back to the disciple that learns to fight and I think we've learned some things in this life that it during this time that many discipleship ideas and concepts haven't added that now I'm doing it in broad stroke of the brush idea, but you get my point. We have to build this Teflon coating within people this this ability to be true to so if you look what's going on in Afghanistan right now, which is horrendous In my opinion, especially with Christians and for that matter, actually just women. You You know the fight for your spiritual life and who you are completely different to us but they have learned to fight and we're finding now some people just can't get out of bed in the morning just don't want to our Church. Well something either. No, this is not Good discipleship isn't so I think it's that inner quality of learning to fight as a disciple in the right sense. Paul writes about it, as you know, quite well in the New Testament. So that's where we start. Pretty much. So,
David Mckeown 10:13
so goes back to that decision moment, as you're saying, you know, that needs to be right, when people have come to faith. And if not, they're not going to impact the rest of their journey really, kinda, but so there is a lot of talk these days, and a lot of churches are, I suppose what I picked up, a lot of churches are setting aside a lot of what they were doing. You know, some are saying, well, we're not going to do Sunday services anymore. We're just gonna do we're sort of, if I use the phrase, cafe, Church, or connections, what's your thinking on that? Because I, you know, that shocks me a little bit, I can see the reasoning behind it. But what's your thoughts as you're working with churches? What is it you're picking up?
Scott Wilson 10:54
Well, that one is a good point you make because that's true things are morphing into something else. And I can't speak for an individual Church, I can only speak in general terms of what you said. And I sort of do get why churches are changing slightly what they do, because they don't have the teams available. And resources are limited. Some of them lost their buildings and fat. Yeah. So there's a lot of things around that question as to why you might change. And that's the important thing is to, not to say we're changing, because well, you know, this new normal, that's not good enough. It has to be out of something that's causing you to change. But fundamentally, for me, I think the big challenge that we've seen during COVID time and will in the future, again, I'm sure is the issue of gathering together. Yeah, it's an x two statement. It's an x two, it's a Church, it's about our Church, it's about Church and what fun mentally is we cannot be a Church without gathering and zoom meetings will not do it. It can supplement but it will not there's no such thing as alignment online Church. For me, that doesn't exist. Why? Because the x two gathering together eating together being together cannot work. Well. We can have a coffee over zoom. Yeah, radio, we've done 18 months of that we know what that's like. We do need to be gathering whatever that looks like Actually, I've been onto some friends in Australia with they're locked down right now. And that's so strong on this right or wrong guys. They are actually having underground Church meetings right now as we talk, they are sneaking out going down and having underground Church because they feel this is violates the x two thing. And I think to myself tell a persecuted Christian in a persecutor country you can't meet together and look at look at your strength, tell them they can do it over zoom. They'll say don't even not interested. There is something innate in us together. Now this is where I'm to answer your question would be if these gathering and lots of it and plenty of it, then the form and structure as long as the cafe thing doesn't lose its basic elements of Church life worship, prayer, scripture reading, and preaching and so on, then that can be good for a while. But gathering is the key one began to do that over zoom and try and do it in distance or smaller groups you might miss out I think on the essential ingredient for churches, that's my way of looking at it.
David Mckeown 13:08
So but better to be together, of course, and in physical proximity. Exactly. Because that's where we rub off one another isn't as for true discipleship, hi, excellent as well. Okay, so let's, let's try and think of some of the things then for you then trying to think of your work with churches and leaders. Like if there's a Church, listen to the Pastor listening listener, think of, well, I want to really get my Church to the next level I want to grow, you know, what would your advice be to them? Without knowing them? There's got to be some general principles, you would say, you need to be thinking about this. What would those be for you then?
Scott Wilson 13:44
Yeah, good question to book of Acts is always a great book to read through again, isn't it about Church growth, because it starts with a few and it ends up with cities being one. What I noticed about the book of Acts is it doesn't tell us much about what they did. It tells us a lot about what they overcame. Okay? And they overcame bumps in the road. There were various bumps in the road. x six is a classic example. Hey, there, Helen is a starving, starving, hungry. That's a huge issue for anyone and in. That's not they didn't miss lunch. That is they have nothing. What are the their response to the apostles were amazing in that time, they said, We're not leaving the ministry of the word and prayer to serve on tables. Meaning did they really care? I mean, in the Jesus model, you'd say I give up everything and go and serve all my sheep and feed them or they actually said form a new structure around this and pick people out. It's the first case actually, of the Church, inventing its own unique structure. Previous to this, the Church for the synagogues, eldership came from the synagogues. It's not a Church perception, or biblical view. It just happened to exist, but x six is the first time they solve the problem through a structural change. And so if you read x, you read all these, the stories of bumps in the road right up to x 15. And 16 Wheeler is a huge split, Nelly In Jerusalem about the pagans coming in, or even coming in, so read x, x all the way through on that one. And you see a great story of growth. The second thing I think, I would say to you guys out there listening now is you've got two elements fundamentally boiled down to make the source of Church. One is called atmosphere, the presence of God, and how that is feeling. And the second is the data, or the information you know about what's going on in the Church. If either of those two are not worked on and are a little low, you do struggle, whatever you do to build Church. So let's look at atmosphere, making sure there's plenty of Holy Spirit meetings, opportunity for the spirit to be expressed. And I think I take up with you what you said, a lot of churches have changed what they're doing, and they've leaned right over one way, now to something and they're going full steam ahead on some spiritualistic programme, when they didn't probably need to, they just need to tweak the spiritualist stick to get that feeling and atmosphere. atmosphere is really important work on that one. The second is data and data has changed. In fact, in COVID, now, the only data you could really know where the Church was at, there's only one number you could know. And that was the finances because salvations have changed and zoom didn't give us a Apple, it gave us an apple with orange comparison. You know, before that we were measuring different things. So your data, and you've got to ask yourself, what's what is the data I'm looking at. Now anybody that checks out data, it's like going to a doctor who says I feel good about you, rather than here's the list of numbers from your blood test, it's silly to say I don't believe in data, I just go by the feelings, or the atmosphere, that's not acceptable. Even the early Church, in the Holy Spirit recorded data, there were 3000 added to the Church, there were 5000 men added to the Church, that's the start of x. So they recorded data, and we need to have both those strong at the same time.
David Mckeown 16:55
I like that, that's very good. Because I think a lot of churches will either focus on one or they focus on the other. I think the how those two elements, there really does make a difference. I feel to help churches grow, you know, you need that atmosphere. But what if you ignore the information in front of you, then that's not that's a killer as well really, isn't it? So that's, that's some of the things we need to pay attention to. What are some of the things then do you think, Scott, are the sort of blockages to Church growth? I mean, not maybe some of them as well. But what are some of the blockages? Do you think? Yeah, there's a lot of levels on this question. To be fair,
Scott Wilson 17:32
this the standard ones we're facing now, then you get a whole lot of biblical ones you could refer to and so on. What I think I might do is just zone in on some of the, and then there's the general blockages, you know, the third level is just stuff that Church has experienced everywhere. And anytime. Right now, I think one of the blockages to growth is probably trying to get our teams back on full bore again, to functionality, it seems to me, we've lost a few as I look around Europe, where and beyond, we've lost a few team members here in this and one Pastor rang me he's got a multisite Church and and he said, We government allowed us to open up the Sunday, we only got a few days to do it. In those few days, my for my three service pastors resigned in one location. Now what do you do with that? Yeah, I mean, that's tough to lose a service Pastor, you want to open up, it's time to open up. So I think gathering team is one of the things that could cause us a little blockage. And this is where sometimes key volunteers and staff need to step up a little more and fill the space, even though they've already been stepping up a lot to encode, there needs to be that more ons on present on here or fill the gaps. Because that one can be a real blockage to growth, you can't get the data and you can't get the thing looking good. And the way you want it so on. I think the second one that's a blockage to growth is probably the issue of thinking growth is something I do, okay, I make something grow. Now, Paul is very clear on this. And Acts chapter three, the seed has the genius of growth, you put the seed into the ground, and it will grow. There's something in the seed that when it connects to temperature, moisture, and the right conditions, it grows and starts growing. What is it in that seed packet, when you buy a bat bag or carry a seed? And you're looking at what's in that seed thing, there's something you cannot open with a knife you can't see thing and put the right so actually our jobs in growth is to provide the right conditions rather than which then facilitates the seed to grow. Rather than thinking we are growing something. Yeah, so so let's
David Mckeown 19:44
just open that up a little bit there. Because then if people are listening and think about what is that said without been the most obvious thing is the word of God. We would think that's the word of God. But what else is the same because we talked about atmosphere. What else is there in there that people have gotta pay attention to, to make that growth.
Scott Wilson 20:04
A great, great reflection on that, because the seed, you're right scripturally, we look at the concept of see being the Word of God. And that's that fundamentally right? In this case, Paul was talking to the Corinthian Church, and he was talking about the idea of the organisation or the Church itself. Actually, the seed is the Church, the gates of hell will not prevail against us. In other words, it's going to keep going. When we're here or not, it'll just it'll just keep going. Why? Because it is the seed itself. So fundamentally, the Church is the See, give it the right conditions in the right moment. And that seed will grow. It's like, that's why we call it Church planting, because we're taking the seed of genius when when Jesus said, I will, I will build my Church that was the creative word went out there. It was, nobody knew what ecclesia was. They'd never heard of it. They gathered together ones, Oh, what's that, and he just threw it out there and bang, in a moment, we have the idea of the seed. Now, the right can put I says, In first country, I planted a polis water and so on. Right there, you see, what they did was they worked on the conditions being right for the seed to germinate. And I think what we've got to do to make sure we don't have blockages is Have we got the right conditions. Now the right conditions are always the skill sets of people, the gift sets of people, the right conditions or atmosphere, we talked about the right conditions, fixing conflict, not having any conflict, but fixing conflict quickly. Because the second time Jesus used the word Church, it was related to conflict, wherever there's a conflict, or a problem, you know, do face to face it, with a witness came to the Church, and so on. So that was second time use the word Church. So he says, So conflicts. And so I think it's about conditions, rather than then saying, I'm gonna grow this. I don't think anybody can grow a thing. I think what we can do is release the power of the genius of the see called Church. Brilliant and and just get the conditions around it really right.
David Mckeown 22:05
Yeah, that that's brilliant. Actually, Scott, I really like that idea of, because that takes the pressure of a one cent of the child responsibility to grow the thing. We just got to focus on what are the conditions? I like that idea, let's just pick up a little bit on that, of dealing with conflict, because obviously, just turn around with leaders, like leaders, I think are facing a little bit more conflict than that today than what they had been before maybe because of the pressure of all the lockdown. Like I'm speaking to some pastors, they're saying, you know, the stuff happening in our leadership teams we didn't even know was happening. So high leaders deal without conflict quickly, because that's one of the things you've mentioned, I deal with it quickly, rather than learning a drag on.
Scott Wilson 22:50
Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you said that. That's very perceptive, because that is actually true. Now, if you go outside the Church walls, obviously, there's conflict out there now. Yeah. And it's a polarisation of views, isn't it? There's the polarisation before that it was the politics with Trump and all the rest. Very polarising, then we came into the COVID thing, and you've got a polarisation near how people believe that shouldn't be responded to even in politics. You've got the Ozzie New Zealand view, and then you've got the European view. there's a there's a poll, and all of them say it's true. All of them set sights. So we've got polarizations. There now you bring bring down the Will you consider that that's already out there? By the way? Can I say this? those views? Were already causing conflicts for family big little on Church stuff? Yeah. So there was conflicts happening with thankfully, in our family, we're pretty much on the same page on how this works. But even in my family, there's often times where, you know, if you go further, with Antoine COVID, or whatever politics, you get into a conflict. So you have to pull back, now bring it down into Church life, and you have that going on, but at a different level. But it's all being set up for that to be some, in some ways now, Jesus view and Matthew 18, where he said, here's my four step process to dealing with conflict was a cultural norm. So to be fair, the churches that have followed the cultural norm built a very it I culture, a very strong culture of let's take this early. Let's see if there's a conflict have actually survived it quite well. Yeah, the churches that haven't got the culture of dealing with conflict like this, are finding these like bombs going off all over the place. And they actually don't know what to do about them. I'm alone. And those four items are so thick and loose for Matthew 18. Yeah, face to face. Yep. Take a witness. Yeah. Take it to the Church. Or sorry, there's three actually three. The first one is the conflict itself. That's why there's four verbal
David Mckeown 24:47
conflict or slowness. Yeah. Yeah. But just to be aware of that
Scott Wilson 24:51
once the company the first ones the bonus, the sorry, the first one is the conflict. Then the second one is it I take a witness and then take it to Church or Church leadership lease. So the four steps have is there. And and I reckon this is amazing because the first two times Jesus use the word Church one was the macro. I build my Church. The second was the micro, hey, when you get together, you're going to argue a lot.
David Mckeown 25:17
Yeah. And it's just a fix on someone leaders are afraid of that, aren't they? And some leaders will pay much.
Scott Wilson 25:24
Oh, yeah, no, that's a very normative thing. There's a lot of leaders, who are the ostrich mentality on conflict, hide the hidden sand, hope it'll go away. And my friends, even in the best of times, it doesn't work. So we we have to get quick, when we sit look at conflicts. Conflicts don't just explode. They start with a fuse a light and then a fuse. That's called the fuse conflict. And that is where something lights and the fuse burns that can burn for months, years. And then it goes done. So we deal with the boom, instead of dealing with the fuse. Yeah, then there's what's called the root conflict, root and leaf conflict. Yeah, that is, there's a root deep down. And that's usually deepen. Often the harder people Paul talked about the root of bitterness, and so on. Sometimes this is value based stuff going on, the leaves are growing up. And then before long, it becomes a weed. And you discover there's a console, each conflict has these one of these two elements to it. But mainly, it's the light and fuse one. And what we shouldn't be as leaders is looking all the time for where a fuse has been lit, and not waiting for the bomb to go off.
David Mckeown 26:32
Yeah. I wonder just on that idea of the fuse. I wonder if some leaders just hope it'll go away, gentlemen. Yeah. And then they discover the things exploded in their face. So Oh, yeah. fuses going at won't go away. And I think, come on back to your earlier idea. scalpers was to do with the fact that not just disciples, but leaders need some more backbone at the manor rather than a sense of fighting them to say, Hey, we're gonna go with this, you know, it's not all over, Jesus is still building his Church still happening. Whatever is going to happen in our world, Jesus will still build his Church, and it's havin, I suppose, our confidence in them to sort of step up and deal with the issues rather than pretend those issues don't exist, because I think there's a lot of leaders out there, maybe even listening to this podcast, and you think, well, I've got an issue there, but I'm going to leave it. And hopefully, it'll sort itself out my experience and leadership is, they never sort themselves out, you've got to get them and you got to get them as you say, as early as possible, because that helps to build the Church, rather than actually cause blockages in the Church. So that's my advice. I got a couple of other questions. Really, one was around multiplication, actually, you know, like, you know, there's a lot of churches a little bit like ourselves, we are a multi site Church, more than one campus. And I suppose other churches will be listening and other leaders will be listening. Do you think that this model is for every Church? Do you think every Church leader should be thinking of multiplication?
Scott Wilson 28:05
That's a good question. And I think the answer to that is a flat out. Yes. But then you've got to decide on what why you multiply, multiply, multiply yourself. Yeah, funnily enough, just before you guys came on, I had a meeting two churches in the country, where they are getting approached by a lot of churches now, or not a lot, but some churches that are struggling to and COVID and want to hand over to them, their Church, so it's for multiplication, and they want to know what to do about that one. Then there's the campus ministry stuff going on, where you plant new churches and extend all part of modification. My answer is pretty much this one. modification that way by the campuses or taking over the churches or both is brilliant. If it happens, and comes and needs a bit of planning, of course, you need to do it right. And we can't get into that now. But I will say this one thing, if you do not protect the heart of the resource Church, the one that carries the low in all of this and it affects that heart, then I wouldn't try and do anything outside of that. Until that very, very strong, strong in the Apostolic gifts strong and the team strong and finances strong in its buildings. And so sometimes a Pastor is better to wait a little while and so into the resource Church. What I think the dangerous sometimes we go are the resource Church. That's the number one Church is struggling a little odd, but here's an opportunity to do that over there. Well actually, you're taking strength from strength, you're taking your strength to go and do something strong. And that hurts that can hurt so you can find you do that and then the resource Church gets hurt. So my opinion would be on this as modification that way you mentioned in the two ways I said Go for it. Nothing clear. And but better. Make sure your resource Church is at its best. And it's the second strongest because it will weaken that one and that's not the one you want to have weakened.
David Mckeown 29:55
Yeah, no good answer that and I think that will help people as that is listening to this podcast because Yeah, I think you're right, we all should be thinking about multiplication, whatever type of Church we are, because it's, it's the process of growth as well. And it just brings me around to this idea again of thinking of discipleship. If I can draw it from a little bit more Scott of this idea of the formal and the informal sense of discipleship, because there is a lot of talk about discipleship at the minute and more so, since we've had COVID, and lockdown, all that sort of stuff. People have seen the gaps where discipleship was missing, they had a programme, but they didn't have a clear disciple making disciple through SAS or environment. What's your thoughts on? How do we hire churches go from being just formal programmes to creating real disciples who then make disciples? What's your thoughts on that? If you can help a Church there? Maybe leaders listening and thinking, I just want to see, see disciples becoming disciples become disciples the way Jesus talked about? How do we do that? Because it seems to be more of a struggle, I think, in the West, like, if you talk to other leaders, I was talking to a leader in India last week. And it's just they're doing it all the time disciples making disciples, you know, they'll sit with them, they'll disciple someone, they'll go and disciple somebody else. They seem to have got it right nauseous from environments. But what about us here in Europe? How do we approach that?
Scott Wilson 31:27
Oh, that's a good one again, and I think your Indian story, there is a good one, because in those cases, when an Indian or sorry, when a person in those cultures become a Christian, the heart and drive of that person is to be discipled. In the Western society we live in, it's more I made a decision. And that's not going to be enough. Good. I already said that previously. So we do it again. But you get my point, the starting point is the key. What are we starting with? Okay, the formal one, we understand that sort of stuff. That's programmes, as you mentioned, quite rightly, it's just a whole lot of programmes we do. And we can tweak them. But the informal one is is more about the interaction, as you said, right there. They meet with them, they talk with them, and it's informal. Now, as I've asked lots of people, including in my own life, and I don't know about you or the listeners, but when I ask people who mentored you, when you were first year or two, as a Christian, most of them didn't have one. Well, in fact, actually, most people I know, that have that are in ministry, they never can point to a mentor. And I'll tell you why. I believe, because that's not the idea of disciple mentoring. It's a totally different thing. Yeah. What all of them say, including myself, and maybe you I don't know, is that we had a lot of people come in and out of our lives, who redirected us changed us. And this comes through, if you look at the gift set of Scripture, epistatic Ephesians, four, and then spiritual gifts. First Corinthians and Romans 12. These gifts is sometimes you get a teacher come into your life who redirects you in your first formative years, they might have a coffee with you, they explain something in the word and suddenly your disciple you get somebody comes along with hospitality or serving, and they redirect you. And I think most people are influenced not by this one mentor, the Jesus model thing. In fact, actually, I I'm sort of I do not believe in following the Jesus model. Funnily enough, not one apostle did what Jesus did not one gather 12 and went around the bush doing lectures, actually, what they did was went out and change the world, you would think after being with Jesus for 12 for three years that follow the same pattern, but they didn't and that's interesting.
David Mckeown 33:44
So yeah, another thing that is interesting yeah, that's that's open that
Scott Wilson 33:48
he gave the Church spiritual gifts, each person character spiritual gifts, I think the average person that's in Christ needs to be exposed to the the generosity of the Holy Spirit and spiritual giftings such as leadership, administrate, they're not just there to do something, they're there to help people to so when you look at the average punter who's managed to make it through, as I have 45 years and others to you find out these courses and stuff we did. They were great. They helped us get the formal thing. But actually people kept coming into our life for a moment here and there some state and while the Barnabas is if you like report, how did Paul get into Church life Barnabas, but then Barnabas went away? Demas was working with Paul, he probably Paul was discipling him more but Demas left him. People come and go and it's watching for the next inform. So it's allowing people to come in and out of people's lives and developing a culture where that's natural and normal. Have them over to your house. You're talking about things to think of the people in Church that have just great family, great kids. When you've got a young 25 year old, who's single, soon getting married, a marriage course is going to be Great, but you put them in the home of the person who's got a couple of kids and a little ahead of them and let them watch for half an hour what that goes like, they're gonna learn more that way. That's called informal discipleship.
David Mckeown 35:13
So it's all about sort of, we've been talking a little bit here, in IKON Church, this idea of things are more caught than taught. And I think you're right on. Yeah, you know, we need to get people in this sort of the atmosphere, come back to that word you mentioned earlier, get them and write up a sphere. But I think there's something powerful in that, in the sense of a lot of us are trying to go back to the Jesus model. And we are thinking about that. So that that's very insightful. I think, Scott, in the sense of April, I
Scott Wilson 35:39
just was on one person on that one, the G 12. Model came out many, many years ago, yes, the full on Jesus disciple model. And I was writing a book at the time. And I wrote in that book, The G 12 model will not work. And it will not work. And it hasn't worked. And it doesn't work. And it's primarily because it's based on a false precept. That is that Jesus had it right. But here's the false precept, he had it right. We should copy that. But he didn't let his disciples Copy that. In fact, he said, Let no man be your teacher, Rabbi, or Master? Because I am divine. So I'm perfectly being your rabbi, teacher, Master. Nobody else can we need interaction from everybody else who carries divinity? Yeah, rather than is divine. And there's a big difference between those two things.
David Mckeown 36:26
So we need to think more of a multiple of input from people rather than just a one individual. And maybe that's a big No, no,
Scott Wilson 36:35
no, you have all of you have. So you do the formal you keep sending PDF classes, but then you do the informal, which is the internet, so you keep beefing it up, rather than just doing one thing?
Scott Wilson 36:47
Yeah,
Scott Wilson 36:48
but that's right. So you, you might have one person who does it, that's okay. But don't make that the solution to discipleship. We've got everyone's got a mentor here in this Church. So yeah, we call you're not call, you just got a mentor. That doesn't mean a thing. Yeah. In fact, if you look at your life, I'm sure you know, probably multiple numbers of people influenced who you are today, not one person. gaff salutely. Absolutely. And be fair, who's even influenced by their pastors preaching on Sunday? Yeah. They hardly do anything we asked them to do. So they forget the next day. So I mean, let's, let's move on.
David Mckeown 37:27
So informal, I think there is something powerful about the informal, and I think a lot of churches, were missing it. And I think we need to encourage churches to be thinking of that sort of the hub, the informal as well as the formal side of discipleship of the programmes. But actually, when you look at the Jesus example, whether we follow it completely, you know, Jesus was highly relational. And I think a lot of churches, they talk about being highly relational. But actually, they're missing it. And I want to reinforce that idea. How can we be more highly relational than most people, then that connect then? And bring about Church growth? Scott, you're sharing something on grid, and
Scott Wilson 38:09
you're gonna say, Well, I add to that is not everybody carries everything that somebody needs. And the dangerous to say, Here's Fred, you go with Fred is to say, Fred knows everything and does everything. Actually, when you have a Church of a couple of 100 people, every one of them has something to add. So there is not one person like that. There's multiple numbers and people like that.
David Mckeown 38:27
Fantastic. Anyway, those timers up. Yeah, that's been great. And thanks for sharing with this today on the podcast. And any final sort of thoughts you want to add in before we wrap up today? No,
Scott Wilson 38:40
I just encourage those who have chosen to listen to keep up the good fight. Paul talks about the good fight of faith, not just the fight of just you know, those other types of fights, but the good fight of faith. And remember, this soon will pass because how many can remember what March 2020 was like when we first locked down Hadley in reverse for now and this one, and I'm telling you now, in 18 months, we won't even remember what COVID was, it will be a distant thing. Yeah, we will be on to something else. So look forward. Don't keep hanging back. Let's keep moving forward. Church will be normalised. Yeah. With different challenges.
David Mckeown 39:18
Yeah. Future focused. Hey, so Scott, if people want to find you, where's the best place to connect with you? Maybe they maybe it's a Church watching. They want to find out maybe some of your bird's eye they want they get your input into their Church. Hi, can I get hold of you?
Scott Wilson 39:33
Okay, the easiest way is to the web page, which is iclm, which you have already mentioned.dk standing for Denmark. So iclm.dk. Now, if you forget that, here's all you have to do. Scott Wilson, Denmark put it in the Google search engine. I come up my web page comes up pretty much first. So if you put Scott Wilson Denmark in the Google that's easy to remember anybody. It's like a calling card, isn't it? I don't carry one because they just say Oh, Google Scott Wilson. Marking off my web pages there, then you then you're right. If you contact me through that web page, it comes directly to me so I can respond to you out of that situation if you want.
David Mckeown 40:10
Brilliant Scott. Well, hey, thanks for taking the time to be with us today on this podcast Church explained podcast. We want to thank everyone for watching and listening. If you want to find out more information about this, or by the show notes, head on over to the website, you'll find the details there. If you're on YouTube, you can subscribe and you can get the information as that comes out. So Hi, thanks for being with us today on the Church explained podcast. Thank you, Scott for sharing some brilliant insights there on Church growth. We hope that it really helps all the leaders here listening
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