CEP SEASON TWO EP: 30 - THE FINALE FOR 2022

Dec 1

By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

The Church Explained podcast is a conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your hosts will be Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger. We talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.

Join your hosts for the finale of 2022 as we share a brand new resource we developed at IKON Church to help us with discipleship. We reveal the step-by-step guide of how we went from an idea to the launch of our new site called FOLLOW JESUS, which is helping our church become more like Jesus.

We will return in January 2023 for season three with an amazing lineup of new guests and content.

THANKS FOR BEING WITH PART OF THE COMMUNITY AND LISTENING IN OVER THE LAST YEAR.

FOLLOW JESUS DISCIPLESHIP RESOURCES

FULL TRANSCRIPT

CREATED BY AI - SO NOT 100% accurate.

David Mckeown 0:00

Hey, welcome to the church explained podcast a conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church

David Mckeown 0:13

we're so excited today. It's just me. We're so excited because it just made you Yeah, man. Yeah, we we are the we are the main people for today.

Nathan Benger 0:22

We are we are. And if you're watching on youtube, you will see Dave's beard. And he's ready for Christmas.

David Mckeown 0:31

It's rowdy. Some extra pocket money. Who knows? He knows. Yeah, it does look a bit different. First time ever growing a beard? Is it? Yeah.

Nathan Benger 0:44

Are you beard oil,

David Mckeown 0:46

beard, beard oil and beard balm? Oh, depending on the morning, oil in the evening.

Nathan Benger 0:52

That's for another podcast is another podcast. We're gonna start a podcast, the beard podcast or whatever.

David Mckeown 0:59

give that a go. But hey, it's good to be here it is. We're excited to say that. Well, we're not excited to say I was gonna say we're excited to say that this is the last episode. But we're

Nathan Benger 1:09

not really sure why we shouldn't be excited about how many episodes that we want to be. And people can still access all of those episodes. But this is the last episode for 2022

David Mckeown 1:20

Glad glad you said that. Because there's so for a moment that it was the last whatever. That was the end of May. We'll

Nathan Benger 1:27

be back in 2023 January 2023. With a brand new episode where season three season three common right out here on new episode.

David Mckeown 1:35

What we wanted to do today was to finish the year strong talk about something we've been developing here. Yeah, Church. So over the last while we've developed a new resource site, I guess we've developed it mainly for IKON Church, but of course, it's open to anybody. Yes. And it's a site called Follow Jesus dot you can on. We've got lots of practices and resources to help people I guess, you know, be disciples of Jesus follow Jesus. So we thought it would be good to talk about that process of getting to there. Why we've done it. Yeah. And also maybe why discipleship is a bit of a hot topic. Yeah,

Nathan Benger 2:16

it is. It is, I think. I think it will start there in terms of discipleship, because I think for a lot of people, that is the hot topic it is. And you know, it was during the, maybe during the pandemic, it became an even hotter topic. Yeah, definitely. In the fact of people were away from Church. People were online, so you weren't physically seeing and the pendulum seem to swing massively towards this discipleship. Are people really following Jesus in their every day lives? And whilst pendulum swings can be negative, I think there are seasons where there is a real focus. And I think there is a real focus in the Church on how do we how do we truly make disciples of Jesus

David Mckeown 3:05

Christ? Because that's the challenge, isn't it? Lots of churches are running programmes and dance doing all the stuff. And I guess even during the pandemic, and come out of that people were asking that question, Have we really made the same? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, as we look across our congregation, are people REALLY following Jesus? Or they're turning up to Church on Sunday? Yeah. But is there more than that? Yeah. And so that's one of the things I guess lots of churches are struggling with lots of Church leaders. And they've, they began to explore what can we do better? And I guess that was our approach. It was rather than, hey, we're not doing anything because we were as a Church. We were doing stuff but I guess our approach is highly we do this better. And so we began on our journey with no other churches. Right. There are other leaders are out there are already exploring this topic. We began to look at some of their stuff. I guess we wanted something a bit more unique for us. Yeah. As IKON chair, so should we should we share maybe a little bit about the journey of that?

Nathan Benger 4:03

Yeah. So we went on a what we call a staff retreat, which is that really a retreat stuff where we

David Mckeown 4:10

Yeah, more intense.

Nathan Benger 4:13

But, okay, future ones might be more retrieved. But yes, but it was more the topic was really asking the question, how do we as IKON Church follow Jesus? What does it look like? What what could we say to the Church are some of the practices the principles, the big ideas of how do we follow Jesus as IKON Church and so we sat there a staff retreat that staff retreat will include our core team. Yeah. And then also our campus pastors of our each of our campuses then plus a few other staff and a few of the key people in Iran that and it just was discussion. Yeah. How do we do this? How do we follow Jesus as IKON Church and we explored we listen to talks on the is a, you know, topic of discipleship and following Jesus? And that's really where it started. It started in that discussion around that.

David Mckeown 5:08

And that was almost 12 months ago. It wasn't was It was when was that? Was it? February? February? Yeah. So February 2022. Yeah. So you started the work there? Yes. Just to give people a bit of context I get no, yeah,

Nathan Benger 5:19

I get confused. Because we did a staff retreat in the October 2012. As soon as we could kind of like, get together and get together. It was like, let's get on a staff retreat, let's pray together, Let's be together. And then we usually our staff retreat is in February of each year.

David Mckeown 5:36

And as you say, like Nathan, in that staff retreat, you know, there was a lot of discussion, a lot of work took place in the sense of like roundtable staff, open conversation, like trying to just narrow down like, you know, as IKON Church, what does this look like? Yes, yeah. Because we knew there was some brilliant resources out there. And we want to share those guides on people who already do stuff like that. But we wanted to think well, right here in our setting here in the UK, here in Europe. How does this work? Yes.

Nathan Benger 6:04

And I think that's important to recognise. Because I think I think for a lot of people, we look at things that other people are doing. Yeah. And that's great. And sometimes we kind of go, we just pick it up, and we go, Okay, let's try that. Yeah, rather than going, but what does that look like for us here in our content, exploring that and given a bit of time for that as well, I think is really important and saying, Does that, does that fit in our context? Does that fit in our, you know, in our environment, dafen Does that fit here? Even just little things, you know, we looked at great sites where their language would work where they are, but it wouldn't work so much here.

David Mckeown 6:47

That was the tricky bit. So the concepts rigour, yeah, but the language is a little bit of a sticky point for us just because of our content. But I guess if leaders are thinking about this, maybe the question they need to think about is the one we thought off was Haida we follow Jesus, as IKON and for them, but maybe how do we follow Jesus hours? Whatever? Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to know that it will be different. But I think the thing we landed on was, we realised actually to follow Jesus. We need certain rhythms. Yeah. Habits built into our lives. Yeah. So as we began to think about the Church to different people coming, I think our desire was higher, we then begin to instil habits and rhythms where people are actually following Jesus doing the things that Jesus asked us to do.

Nathan Benger 7:38

Yeah. And we had lots of ideas with loads, we had lots of ideas and lots of things. And I guess for any leader listening, you can know that you go into a session like that, where you're coming out your discussion, you've got lots of thoughts and ideas. Yeah. It's like, okay, so then how do we narrow this down? How do we narrow this down? And so for lots of those thoughts, ideas, even practices, they could fit under a heading, or they could fit under, under something else. And so we were able to narrow that down to five practices, which I think, you know, just encourage, I think, if you went to your Church and said, Here's 10 things, I think that's too many, too many. So trying to get it, you know, five, yes, six Max, for me, is is really important. And being diligent with that work of here's the five things. Here's the three things. Yeah. Here's the six things, trying to be diligent with that, and we ought to be and we even though we're things good things that we had to say. But that's not Yeah. Now we've got to nail these five things.

David Mckeown 8:44

And as you say, there was lots of good language. Lots of good stuff. But we had, as you say, no doubt right down here, or, I suppose our big five that we thought were applicable for us right here and I conscious. I think they are universal, though. Yeah, I think they do work across all churches in all settings. Yeah. And if we're honest or not rocket science, they are the basics.

Nathan Benger 9:08

Now, I think, I think if you said when we mentioned the five years ago, oh, is that exactly. All that worked for five years? Exactly. Those five things?

David Mckeown 9:17

I hold stuff. But but in reality is it was about us. I think also going on a journey as a team. Yes. We had to go on a journey as a team so that when we got to the point of launching, yeah, everyone on the team knew we had worked on this. Yeah. So there's something about that. Yeah. Because that's a leadership lesson in itself.

Nathan Benger 9:38

There's ownership. There's ownership, ownership from the team, and also ownership on this is the way we disciple people. This is what we're bringing people. So there was ownership. there

David Mckeown 9:48

was clarity. Yeah, people were clear. Then at the end of this process, this is what we're looking for. Yeah. So So we went from the staff trait. Yeah. We then had a staff meeting on the back of that On a weekly staff and we kneel down to the five year I guess we should say what the five should we should? Do you want to go for it?

Nathan Benger 10:06

We pray? Yeah, we read the Bible. Yeah, we play our part. Yeah, we gather the Church, we gather as the Church. And then we build relations.

David Mckeown 10:16

So that's the five that survived. So again, not rocket science, but they are essential. Like we pray, we read the Bible, we wanted to really make sure that we had those key things in there. Because there's so much, I guess, noise content out there. That isn't useful for people. And we wanted to say, look as IKON Church, we want to say that we should be taking our lead from what the Bible has, yeah, we want to pray. We want to read the Bible. We want to gather as a Church, we want to play our part. And of course, then we want to build a relationship and all those things again, essential on Yeah. So so we had the staff meeting, we narrowed down the fire, we came up with some phrases around those five. We're not going to test you today. Don't test Don't test me. Because I mean, I'm no no, no off by heart, but they are on the SIR on the website. But it gets them from that staff meeting, then we had another I guess, a strategic planning meeting. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 11:11

And our idea was not just to present to the Church, here's the five things we do. So you go away, you read your Bible, you go where you pray you go, you know, we're gonna gather as Church. Yeah, you know, we actually wanted to place within people's hands practical ways, and resources that they could then go into their own life and go, I can do this. Yeah. Here's, here's something I could do. And so we got together. And we decided, okay, you know, from our staff retreat and the staff meeting, we're going to build a sigh of practices, resources, all of that. And so we got together and go, Okay, so how does this look?

David Mckeown 11:52

Yeah, what does it look? Yeah. What? For somebody who's going to come on to the site? What's the journey? Yeah. And we had a filter it through a number of different ways. And we had to filter through, like a brand new person come to Church, who's new backline? Yeah. So we wanted to start really bass. Yeah. And then we also had to filter through somebody who's been insured for a while. Got some background that's got some, you know, they're following Jesus. Yeah. So we had to think it through a number of different levels. Yeah. Because we wanted to save the function, but very simply, very cleanly. Yeah. But to help people all on those journey. Yeah. Because we realise that as people come into Church and become part of IKON Church, or any Church really, like everyone's on a journey, people come in, at different parts of the journey don't Yeah, so we broke it down. We said, Okay, five areas. But on each area, we're going to have three sections. Yep. So let's talk about those. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 12:46

So so if we just do the we pray. So we would have we pray, and it'd be start here started here. Very simple. You get, as you click on that, there's a video of a very good looking man,

David Mckeown 13:01

Hey, weren't wearing the same jacket,

Nathan Benger 13:02

same jacket. On youtube, and it's not made, by the way, it's, you know, it's me, it's me. And all it is two to three minute video on each of those sections. Really, just here's what prayer is. And here's why. It's one of our big five things of here. You know how we follow Jesus? Yeah. So that's the start here. And it's just really simple. You can just start by learning. Here's what prayer is.

David Mckeown 13:32

And I guess the idea and the thinking behind that was as somebody new comes, they make a decision, we can say, Hey, listen, start here. You know, go on to our site, follow jesus.uk. Start here, we want to help you start here. And then after that, we had some practices. So that was

Nathan Benger 13:48

so at the bottom of that page, or wherever you can even click this off the main page is discover more discover morning on on here, you'll find practices. Yeah. So practices like the first 15. Yeah. Which is basically just taking the first lesson that we read the Bible. Yeah. But that's a practice Yeah, in there, where somebody could go, and they get the explanation of what that practices, but then also the practical application of here's how you can do this today. Yes, step by step. And it's step by step. And it's, and it's just easy for somebody to grab it and go, Okay, I'm gonna try that. Yeah, I'm going to try that in my own relationship with Jesus. And there are many practices on the Discover more under each of those five

David Mckeown 14:34

headings. And that was the genius of a data. We wanted to get to we wanted to have practices. Yeah, I guess we're using the word practices, but what we're really getting at is helping people develop those daily rhythms to really happen. Yeah. So so that we know that as people come to be part of our Church yet, are actually we're helping them begin to form new habits of reading the Bible praying, so we're not just expecting it to happen. It's Not gonna happen? No. And that's somebody super duper motivated. Yeah. And they've got somebody alongside and we needed to get a way to help people. Take those first steps. Yeah. So there's lots. And then the third section. The

Nathan Benger 15:12

third section is explore further. Yeah. And begin this section, excuse me? Excuse you. And do you want to drink water. Now, I've nearly drunk it. But in the expo further, there are more practices, but a lot of it is resources, his things that you can access his resources out there that you can access. One of the things that I do love about the site, and we'll talk about, like how we created that content and got that content. But one of the things I do love is that we do link to things like Bible plans, we do link to books, we do link to the resources that we've got the, you know, ideas from all the practices from, we link to those things, because we want to point people to those that actually they can even delve further exam to these practices.

David Mckeown 16:03

And I think that was one of the things we wanted to do, because we realise there's lots of great content idea. So we don't necessarily have to create everything. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. So we focus on two things really didn't we creating content, the stuff we would write ourselves, and then curating content, and like, as you say, sending people to certain lengths, Bible plans, good books to read, and try to link it all together. So like if somebody went on, they said, Well, I want to know how to do a particular type of prayer. Yeah, we've said, Okay, here's how to do the practice. Here's maybe a suggested podcast, here's a suggested reading. So we're given people on off on where we're very keen, because we're very collaborative. And we'd love to send people elsewhere. And there's good stuff out there. We're not saying hey, look at us, we've got the gear, like go somewhere. Yeah, get some stuff. Yeah. How help yourself does really grow disciples. So the three sections are we start here out here. Next one is, is discover more, and the third one and explore further. So on each of those sections, we pray, we read the Bible, then people go into any of those sections. And the idea was to get people to really move forward, where they have no fear. Yeah, even if somebody has no faith, and they want to go on and explore can do that as well.

Nathan Benger 17:22

Yeah, and, and, you know, we've pulled all that content together. And we've got it all together. You know, we've designed the site you try, you know, the big idea around the site is just that it's easy to use, simple, simple, clean, easy to use, and that someone can go but then there was a step further for us. It was so it wasn't just, we want to create a psi. And we want to go, Hey, go look at the psi. It was like, okay, but But what happens when someone has a question? What happens when someone needs a little bit more help? Yeah. And I wonder if you could just, you know, talk a little bit about that, Dave, in terms of, because discipleship, whilst we can create all of this, and we can create an environment for somebody to grow, actually, discipleship can happen through conversation as well.

David Mckeown 18:21

Yeah, definitely. And we wanted to make sure that was on there on the side, because really, most discipleship happens through releases. Yeah. So of course, we can provide resources, people going anywhere and get resources. But we wanted to say, listen, we're going to put a chat function on our site where people can contact us. So let's say somebody goes onto the site, they begin to read about a practice, they need a bit more information, then they can contact us. And we will have somebody contact them personally. Yeah. And help them walk through a practice. So let's say somebody said, Well, I'm reading about, let's tell me how to do this. But our Tischer really get it. Yeah. So we wanted to make sure that we go a step further. That's not just content on a site that it says static site, but they can actually connect with us. And we can have somebody connect with them, to even sit with them. Or even if they needed a zoom call, or somebody in person on a Sunday, or we want to make sure that they are connecting with someone because for us, it is built on relationships. So that's one of the key things that we wanted to make sure we have on the site.

Nathan Benger 19:23

And one of the things you've done this week, we had a couple of people make decisions in our Church. Yeah. And, uh, you just, like, did a screen recording? Yeah. And just to help them hey, here's how you can use the site here is this week, here's what you can do. Yeah. As you start this journey of following Jesus, yeah.

David Mckeown 19:44

Because we wanted to make an almost like a personal feed on the side. But like, we don't want to just like a brand new person, like teach that or say like that. It's just too too much. Yeah. So we want to just create these little videos make it personal for them. very intentional of you Using their name. Yeah. So like, you know, that's very important. If someone comes they it's not

Nathan Benger 20:04

a stock video. It's not a stock video of like, you know, it's actual, we're sending it personally. Person. Yeah.

David Mckeown 20:13

And we really wanted to focus on that, how do we make a person? So if someone makes a decision on something like we want a personal video to them to say, hey, such and such, well not mentioned names, but hey, such and such. Here's, here's our site, we want to help you take your first steps, here's how to do it. And then we've said, like, watch the videos, start here. After you've done that, when you've done that drop off, you know, some information in the chatbox to say, Hey, we've done that. What's next? Because I think it's important, because one is, it's about them taking ownership. Yeah. Because if we just do it all for them, yeah, then that's not healthy. No, we want to make sure discipleship is about partnership. Yeah. And ownership together. So once they've done that, they contact us. And we can say, depending on the person, here's a practice on the site, maybe yeah, for you. So we're excited about that. Yeah, I'm gonna see how that goes, Hey, it could really work for us.

Nathan Benger 21:07

So it's all new to us. And, you know, hopefully this helps us to Yeah, you know, the following Jesus, a lot more. I guess we've kind of skipped an important part, though, is how we launched this. Oh, yeah. We never said that. No, go for it. And we we had our what around our vision offering? Yeah. Lead Pastor Paul, has been on the podcast, and even talked about this on the podcast, the integrated Church while he was teaching this to the Church. And within that, we launched the site through this. So I think it was the second week, second week, the second week, where he was talking about the communal aspect. And then he did that, but then really focused on it on the third week of those messages in terms of the intimate work of the Holy Spirit, and how we can follow Jesus intimately in our lives. And that's how we did it. Yeah. Well, one of the amazing things that has also happened off the back of that we've had a few Sundays off the back of that. We had a young guy preaching, Nathan blood, who's creative Pastor here. He was preaching on the Sunday night, and he talks about one of the practices that he had been using from the site, which was breath prayer, and how it had just been really great for him. And then this past Sunday, I was speaking and spoke on a couple of practices that were on there. And so within that, we've not just launched it and said, Here it is, see you later, we've actually gone, and we've not done this intentionally. People have done it in their messages on their own. We've not said to people, you've got to do this. But it's happened because we're it's being built into the fabric of our Church.

David Mckeown 22:54

Yeah, definitely. And of course, that always starts at the top level does this? You know, shall we go right back almost 12 months ago, back in February, when we had our staff retreat? Yeah, that was the start of that journey. Yeah, there we were taken ownership. Yep. So that means neither the sites launched, like, We're expecting our teams to be using the site to help them follow G. So we don't want to just say, here's the site for you know, I think we want to be looking on there. And even though I've created some of the content and written some of the stuff and plus some of the stuff in there, like I'm going on tour, you know, I need that one today. Yeah, so there's stuff that we can all use. And I guess, as you say, we weren't intentional about those messages now. But we were intentional. But the Lord Yes. And there's something about that. We just want to settle newsletter, if you're putting, if you're putting energy into something, you've got a launch where, because you're just creating content, doing stuff something and then just not doing anything. Now, we wanted to be very intentional. Hey, we're going to launch this. Yeah, we're gonna launch it strongly. It's featuring in our vision Sundays. Yeah, we want people to really get there. Yeah, we're getting some great feedback. We are

Nathan Benger 24:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think it's one of those things that people are using, but also for us, we intentionally and maybe I'm saying this out loud, so we don't forget or whatever. But intentionally, we we've got to keep speaking about it. And I keep telling them gotta keep using it. And I know one of the things that we want to do in the future is around our small groups with it. And we've not done that yet. But that's one of the things that we want to do in terms of integrating it into

David Mckeown 24:35

down there. Yeah, yeah, just making it work for us. As IKON Church so let's just dive in a little bit further then what's your favourite practice on the site? And why favourite?

Nathan Benger 24:49

Was there the one of the big five or in? Well,

David Mckeown 24:54

yeah, one of the rather than one of the big one of the practical one of

Nathan Benger 24:59

the prizes Call says one of the habits, I think at the moment. Yeah. And I spoke about it Sunday. Yeah. Is this silence and solitude? Yeah, same. So I've got three boys at home. My wife would say she's got four boys at home, including me. And our house is very busy and very, very loud. But I think also in our world today, and I noticed this in my own life, world can be full of noise. So you get in the car, you put music on, you put an audio book on, you go to the gym, you put podcast on, you listen to music, whatever it is. There's just noise all around on. So just taking an intentional, yeah, you know, 1010 minutes, and just sit there in silence. Let me tell you the first time you do it. It's like, oh, only two minutes have gone. I feel like I've been sat here forever. But actually, if you're, I think that's been my favourite practice at the moment just to have space where I can just go okay, God, I'm here. Yeah, just

David Mckeown 26:03

be Yeah. Just being just okay. So you're not asking God for anything. You're not common. You're just being just being God's presence? Yeah, I think yeah.

Nathan Benger 26:12

The practical element, in terms of on the site has been great in terms of like finding a place. Yeah. You know, so, you know, I've got a chair in my front room. Yeah. So I'll just sit there. And just finding that place, I think has been really important. It's just separate. It's not, it's never been part of my morning routine. So that chair has never been part of my morning routine. Now. It is in terms of, I'm taking

David Mckeown 26:42

space, places we're going to for solitude. Yeah. creating that space. And that's fine. It's fantastic. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 26:48

What about yourself?

David Mckeown 26:49

Good question. I think one of the ones I've really enjoyed, is Orion praying, you know, when you're making decisions decision making, yeah. We've got a practice on that. Yeah. And just to help people think through as they make decision. Yeah. And I've really, I've really enjoyed that. Because, again, it's a little bit of a process. Yeah. I think leaders, sometimes they struggle to make decisions for themselves, they make decisions for others quite. But I think just have a have a have a bit of a process and a practice of yeah, I've got to make a decision in life, whether it's family, whether it's whatever, you've got a process to follow. So for me that that's a great one. It's very simple. It seems straightforward, but but it just helps you to think through, like if I'm gonna make this decision. Want one? Is it in alignment with the teaching of Jesus? Yeah. I mean, it sounds obvious, though. But it's good. Just a filter, every decision we make decisions is an alignment with the teaching of Jesus. Is it? Is it? Is it does it bring life when I think about it, because if it doesn't bring life, and you're making a decision, maybe you shouldn't be making that one. Thanks. Very good. Yeah,

Nathan Benger 28:00

great, great. We have many resources we do on the site, like extra resources, all of those, what would be one of your favourites or one that you want

David Mckeown 28:09

one I like it's on there, which is a bit of a more of an in depth study. There's a 21 page guide of how to pray. Yeah. And I like that, because it's talking about, you know, what prayer is how you pray. And but one of the things in in that study is, is this idea of actually listening to God? Yeah. I like that. Just to help you think that through. Yeah. And you?

Nathan Benger 28:33

Me, I I actually like something that we created. Okay. The study on the book of Ephesians. Yeah, fantastic. So we did that. So just that extra, I know, we recorded that together. And we sat and did it. But I was I was watching that again. I was watching a couple of those again. And I was just thinking on this so much in that.

David Mckeown 28:57

Yeah, definitely extra. So that's a 10 part series on the book of Ephesians that we recorded during lockdown. Yeah. We thought well, let's get creative. Yeah, let's sit down. There was myself. You, Paul injure the lead Pastor. Yeah. And we just talked it through more conversational. Yeah. And I think it's really useful. And I know even like somebody one of the pastors in Poland, yeah, I'd said they'd be listening to watching it. Very helpful. Yeah. So we're glad that content stands usable.

Nathan Benger 29:25

Now. Yeah, I'm one of the things I do love about the site is that there's a practice. But then that, you know, just simple things like there's a Bible plan you can be attached to it is not attached to everyone. No, no, when there is one that we find where we think relevant and relevant, I think is really good. And it just can solidify those kinds of things.

David Mckeown 29:47

So we we've shared about this site, we're not really showing the site if we're honest to plug this out. It is for IKON Church but it is open down the bottom. Yeah, people can use it and in fact, we encourage people to go on have a look cuz I guess we want to talk about it one because it's an important project that we've worked through. And we wanted to sort of spell out a little bit about the process of how to go from an idea of, you know, working through something as a team, to its delivery, and its application. And maybe even in that process we're talking about today, Nathan, leaders can learn Yeah, or maybe just get a spark of an idea. If they want to launch something here at Church. We need a process.

Nathan Benger 30:30

And I think the one thing that I would encourage leaders to do is we start with this idea of discipleship. Yeah. How do we decide people? Well, as IKON choose how do we follow Jesus as IKON Church, and that's always been through it. That's so so so when when you do have a project an idea, and you have a y at the start, or you have a question at the start, I think that has to go through it all. It's gonna be it's got to be a filter. Because many times I know even in my own leadership, you can start here and you can end up way somewhere else where you didn't want to be, and it just doesn't happen. Whereas for us, that was our idea. That was our thought that was our question. Yeah, we've, we're, that's what we're delivering on. It's not we're going to end up somewhere else.

David Mckeown 31:24

So, last couple of questions is, I guess we've alluded to this already, like, can other people use the site of IKON Church?

Nathan Benger 31:32

Yeah, I mean, the site is free to use three people can use it, it is tailored to IKON Church. So a lot of our language will be IKON Church and about us as IKON Church and US following Jesus, because we're, we're putting this resource into the hands of IKON Church, but you can go on you can get the practices you can use it use, you know, and I was

David Mckeown 31:56

gonna say, they use an abuse. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 32:00

But also, you might be a Church who's thinking this would be good for us to do? Yeah, I think I think going on the site would help you, you know, just develop okay. Yeah, that would work for us. Yeah. Or that would work with this language, or that would work in this context. Yeah. You know, for me, it's just go on and see.

David Mckeown 32:22

Yeah, definitely. I mean, it let people explore it. And of course, we've said that it does have stuff on there, around IKON Church, some of our language. But there's lots on there where people could just pick up a practice or pick up a resource where they could just take that and just use that right in their setting. Yeah. So we wanted to make sure that was covered. And yeah, as well. So so let's go to the final question, I think for this podcast, final question for the final podcast of 2020 to 2022, which is, you know, what can leaders do to disable those they lead in 2023?

Nathan Benger 33:00

I think be intentional. Yeah, I think that's been really, I think nailing these five things was key. I think the clarity of that and the intentionality of that helps us in this season where you could do discipleship, and you could think of 20 3040 things, but they just go in. Okay, this is how we follow Jesus as IKON Church, these are the five things. And I think if you can do that, and even just, you know, you just might have a small group, and you might, you know, it might be a leader, you might just have your leadership. Well, what does it look like for us as leaders to follow Jesus? Hey, here's three things. Here's five things. Right. We're going to do this. And any can just start there. Yeah, I think getting that clarity is really

David Mckeown 33:55

helpful. Yeah, so So we encourage people, anyone who's listening leaders, listen, get some clarity. High you're gonna disabled people. We've already said like, it has to be intensive. Yeah, you know, it's it's not just gonna happen. No. And we fully believe like, it's a conscious that people are discipled on us. Yeah. When they come. Yeah, there are experiencing discipleship moments. Yeah, that's why we gather as churches. Wow. That's why Jesus admits in there. Yeah. Because we wanted to say to people, it's not about doing discipleship over there. And over here, no, it's all integrated

Nathan Benger 34:29

together. And discipleship. Not. I'm all by myself. Yeah. I think I think sometimes we think right. Here's the thing, you go and do it. Yeah. And then we leave it you know, it's a we get to do this together. Think

David Mckeown 34:41

think of community there. Yeah, that's what we want to do. So a lot of, I guess discipleship. In the past has been like the individual. Yeah. But the strength in community. Yeah. Like we gather together we play our part, the language we use, you know, we want encourage leaders to think of that Like start, start with your leadership team. Yeah, ask the question higher, we're going to help you follow Jesus as whatever Churchill.

Nathan Benger 35:08

And you might be think today, we can't we can't put anything like that together. But actually, we've put it together grabbing resources from elsewhere. Yeah, we have. So there will be things that you found you've read, you can use that will actually you can go, Hey, why don't you read this? Or, you know, here's a practice you can do with people. Here's a access to a website, whatever, doesn't have to be our website. And what if it is our website? Feel free? Feel free to do that. But you can do that as a leader. Yeah. To help you disciple. Definitely.

David Mckeown 35:41

And just to say on that, like, because some people may say, well, we don't have all the stuff, we don't have the team. We're a small Church, whatever. Listen, like I was speaking to another couple of leaders recently, and they have a very clear discipleship process. And they've got it written down on a Google document. But they know all the team know, this is what we do. Yeah. So like, you don't necessarily need a website. Now. You just need to know, as a Church as leader like hire, we're gonna design people, because it's all about helping people to grow to become more like Jesus and do the things Jesus wants. Exactly.

Nathan Benger 36:16

I think that's a wrap. And I think that's a wrap. That's a wrap for 2022 and 22. Words on we're done. It's been so great to be together on the church explained podcast, a big thank you to everyone who listens, who shares who rates reviews, wherever you're consuming this content. Just a big thank you. And we will be back in 2023. With season three of the church explained podcast, don't forget, you can access the follow Jesus website, follow jesus.uk. But also, we have loads of resources available for leaders at IKON dot Church forward slash open loads of free resources out there. And if we can help you in any way, then please do get in contact but have a great end of the year of 2022 and a great start 2023. And we will see you soon on the church explained podcast. Hey,

David Mckeown 37:05

well done. But I want to say one last thing. A big thank you to all our guests who've been with us this year, who have been on the podcast. We've had some amazing. Go back, listen to them. Listen to them. Thank you to all the guests. Thank you to Sam and the technical team behind the scenes who've done an amazing job for us this year. And credits coming down. It's yeah, yeah, we could do that. Like you know, whatever. Okay, so anyway, a big thank you to all the team everyone involved. He threw me off there but that is fantastic all the time. And we've got some brilliant guests lined up for 2023

Nathan Benger 37:38

And if you're still listening now, well done. Well done. Bye.

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