Let Go of the Chainsaw

0:00Welcome to On the Road to No Place Left. Thanks for jumping in and looking forward to having another conversation where Chuck has asked me some questions, and I always try to sneak a few comments out of him, but on the road is just this idea. We're on the road pursuing the multiplication of disciples and churches. We want to see every place or every people fully reached with the gospel and what would that take to get there. So we're talking a lot about an important subject called pioneering and just what it would take to be a pioneer that sticks. And for today's article, we were talking about these blog posts that I've written. You can always look link to the show notes, find that there and read that for yourself if you want to catch up on what we're talking about. Yeah, so today is one of my favorite topics to talk about because it can be extremely useful and it can be extremely troubling. And it's the whole top

1:04of tools. And you introduce this particular post with a gripping tragic story in a book called Range, where a firefighter couldn't outrun the wildfire, go into that story and talk about why that's so important to us. Yeah, he, the author shares actually happened multiple times in wild firefighting, which is really tragic. But obviously, there are wildfires. They'll sometimes do things uncontrollable. And it happens that firefighters have the chance to outrun the flames. But when they don't outrun them, oftentimes what keeps that from happening is now that their inability, like they're unable to do it, but that they actually are holding on to things. And in this case, we would say holding on to a familiar tool, and even that language, I think

2:06is from that book range. And the saddest part is just hold on to a chainsaw actually, which they have as a firefighter, right? They're going to try to felt trees to create a fire break. But then as the winds change and they need to outrun it, they, they don't pause long enough to look at this big if you chainsaw in their hand and realize this is not helping them. And again, sadly, that's happened. So I think it was first in a conversation with you, Chuck, I was realizing that a lot of us in ministry don't actually pause enough to think about, to pray about the stuff that we're doing, the tools that we're using. And we're just go, go, go, go, go. And that story, I think, perfectly captures what could happen, hopefully not to that tragedy level, but we could just be left left inflamed without anything that's actually working. But it was because we were holding so tightly to something that we thought was supposed to help us. Yeah. So this podcast is about the chainsaw. Yeah. Wait, which are the tools that are helpful and what are holding us back? Now, we're big fans

3:12of the folks down in Houston. And one of the reasons we're big fans is because they adapt their tools based on the lessons that they learn. They share the gospel over 10,000 times, knocking on doors. And what did they learn from that? I may be overused this illustration, but it's to me, it's so pointed because again, I don't, I don't know if I'd have a prayer of getting this team together of sharing the gospel that many times. It's awesome to hear. But I remember talking to one of the brothers down there and he was saying what happened eventually is they would have people that would share the gospel. And they'll be really excited about it. And in the midst of that, he realized they were forgetting the end goal was to make a disciple. They would, they drew the finish line at like, oh, we shared the gospel. So the familiar tool of knocking on doors, sharing the gospel was not leading them to sustained disciples, was not leading to disciples being made and multiplied. So I don't think they, when completely

4:18away from knocking on doors and a few conversations ago, Chuck had a great illustration about why that's still something that's great to do. It's a great way to build courage and grow our reps at sharing the gospel. But they took a good long look at that big chainsaw and realized we want to see multiplying the disciples so that they pivoted to focusing on sharing with the people in their lives, first and foremost, or, or I guess more so than just knocking on doors and sharing with strangers and saw some fruit come as a result of that. Yeah, I know Roger in particular has been on the podcast and he really champions this idea of the switch they made to relational networks and they, they really got some traction out of that. But you, you heard about dropping your tools. That's a tough thing to do because they become a part of our identity.

5:24They become a part of us. So how do we recognize that these tools were kind of marrying to, so to speak? Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm done as a piece of money. I feel like people will give back, give it to me sometimes. I don't even want it like, oh, you're that guy that knocks on doors and I feel like, well, we can if you want, but I've done it, but somehow that just gets labeled on you. So it may be our own identity. Sincerely that we're holding on to something we shouldn't. It may be put on us. We just want to make sure we keep the, again, end goals we talked about. What's the goal of making disciples of Jesus who make more disciples? We want to keep that. There's what we're aiming for and again, finding our identity in him. And that can let us when we need to make a pivot, make a change, let go of a tool that maybe we're really, really good at it and we feel like it's maybe it was effective in a season or maybe we just heard it was effective in another context, but if it's not helping us make and multiply the disciples, we need to take a

6:28good long look at it and drop that. Yeah, I call that methodology where we're so married to our tool that we're unwilling to drop it. It becomes an emotional stronghold for us. We just can't do it. And it's not funny. I was going to say it's funny, but it's not funny. That's one thing that Jesus came off the top ropes on the Pharisees for you elevate your traditions above the commands of God. So we don't want to get sideways with Jesus on over tools. So you've led a lot of training sessions and what happens when a person becomes so familiar with their tool that they don't know

7:31that they're actually missing out on results they could have if they just adapt a little bit. Yeah, sometimes people can be so connected to maybe a specific way to share the gospel or specific discipleship tool that they maybe don't even learn, don't even continue to have that learning posture when they go somewhere else or hear about a new tool. So we always want to keep that. Open mind to the fact that God's who saw a lot of different things in a lot of different places that we can learn from a lot of different people at whatever level. Maybe we're way more accomplished or then in ministry, quote unquote, longer than others, but we can definitely learn from people and we should seek to do that. And when we already have our idea whether it's going into a training, whether it's reading a book or a blog post or listening to a podcast, we already know we know the right way. Then they really limits our ability to continue to grow as learners and to grow an effective in the tools that we're using. Yeah. So another dynamic that we could run into is

8:39confusing busyness for fruitfulness. And we're just using the tool because we feel productive. We're busy. So talk about how do you recognize busyness from fruitfulness? How do you distinguish the two? Yeah. Well, we just talked in the last episode we recorded. I think one that'll post before this one is we talked about the busyness is a trap, right? The busyness trap of thinking because we're doing a lot of visible stuff, that must mean we're in a sense doing what we should be, but we want to actually think about is what we're doing, getting to making disciples. And I just read this and then somebody else's article, but that's a good good thing. He was talking about actually the mega church phenomenon and multi-site church, but he just acknowledged pretty brutally and we have studies to show this like discipleship doesn't scale. You can't scale up

9:45discipleship the same way you add a third service or add a new site. So when it comes to making disciples, there are tools that we're going to use. And some of them will scale like a great example. I would say as a tool like the three circles, you can get that out really fast, get that to a lot of people train them in it, but helping somebody become more like Jesus and teaching them to help somebody come up with like Jesus doesn't really scale like we want it to. And our maybe our American church efficient models is just going to maybe be a slow slog as we talked about in an earlier episode. So just remember in that, yes, we need tools, we need to be able to pass things on, that can help us in our discipling, but it will only scale so much because the site when somebody is spending time with them, helping them one step to the next and that's only going to go so fast. But I hear you saying is it's more relational than mechanical. You can have all the great mechanics,

10:45but the relational piece is really what makes it more complex than just step one, two, and three. I think we're going to talk about that in the future. There we go. You say we default to what is easiest in the in the moment. So talk about a young leader. What did they what did they grapple in with when they default to easy? What's going on there? Yeah, and again, we talked about that one last time too. The first trap was busyness. The other one is just comfort, right? We're just going to default to what's more most comfortable with and that really can be the case with our tools. So I think part of the reason that any leader, but maybe maybe younger ones can do that is it's just exciting to have something that really worked well that you're able to use well to able to use something with confidence. We all like that, even whether we're thinking about sports

11:49or a trade that you're involved in, right? We like to be good at what we do. But then in that, we can not continue to have a learning posture. Again, maybe a silly example, but if you take a simple gospel tool like the three circles as is and share it with a Hindu or a Muslim, there's some things in that presentation that maybe they land with the average nominal Christian or agnostic American that you're going to miss if you just immediately take that to somebody with a way different religious background. So that just be a really practical example of yeah, we're comfortable with this tool. We really like it. We can train it well. We can share it in 25 seconds, maybe I don't know. But is it really going to help us reach the people we're trying to reach? And we need to acknowledge in any given city, now there's an even small town. You're going to run into people from all over the place. So we need to have, we do need simple tools. They help us take next steps, but we also need to be not totally married to them that we can't hear

12:49the person that's in front of us. So you and I both used tools. We're not anti-tool, but there's caution that we're expressing here and we're passing on tools to young disciples. How do we help them in the process to keep them from following into methodology? What do we do for them in the process? Yeah, in the process of that is just I would say making sure at different points, we're coming back to the principles coming back to the principles of scripture that those tools are built on because for a young disciple to see a young leader to see, oh, this tool is helpful in this context because it gives me a faster way to whatever gets from A to B, but it is built on scripture or it's based principally in scripture. That allows them when a

13:51tool stops working to not think, well, this thing doesn't work at all to go, okay, let's go back to scripture and see what it is. And even just to come back to the story we told earlier, that was actually part of Roger's journey. I'm really digging deep into scripture of like what did it actually mean to go two by two? How else did Jesus and the Apostles see the gospel spread? Oh, there's some actual great scripture and principles on Oikas and how that spread through web of relationships. So that's just a practical example of what that might look like. Yeah, that's good. Principles transcend time, culture, geography, tools do not. And so we as pioneers have to adapt our tools to the principle. That's really good. All right, so you got this guy, he's trying to figure out, you know, I've only shared the gospel this way five times. It's not working.

14:59That's one extreme. And then the other extreme is I've shared the gospel this way a thousand times and it's not working. It feels like a chainsaw. You know, what do you say to those extreme? Yeah. Yeah. I'm the first extreme. I've definitely experienced like why I tried to offer to pray for one person and they didn't like it. So it didn't work. And I was like, well, maybe try a couple more times. Yeah, I think I actually appreciated this question. It caused me to do a little journal work of like, hey, let's take a minute and list out. What are just some of the practical everyday tools that you do use on the spectrum of engaging a lost person all the way to maybe serving or shepherding a leader, right? And everything in between planting a church, drinking a disciple, all of those actually list them out. Take this time to go, what am I doing and what are those tools look like? Maybe you'll find out like, oh, I don't have a tool. Maybe that's what there's no multiplication happening. Or you can ask that question that Chuck just said,

16:02okay, if I actually tried this enough to know that it's a good or bad tool that I just offered to pray for somebody once or or wow, I do this all the time and I'm not actually seeing fruit out of it. I think just now doing a little audit, hopefully not an autopsy, although again, we can learn from learn from failures. So we feel forward, but just doing a little audit really, uh, start quick. I'm like, here's the tools I'm using. This is where I see them going or not going and then potentially, and it can change this from that. I really like that on audit versus the autopsy. You want to stay away from the ladder, but it happens. Sometimes you've got to. Yeah, you got to put a knife in it, you know, hey, this isn't working. And I think to add to that thought, there are times when practitioners feel a certain amount of pressure from other practitioners

17:03that they have to use a tool, but we're talking to pioneers and pioneers by definition are going to be adaptive. They're going to be flexible. They're going to be trying new things like weird uncle Chuck, Nixon chemicals in the basement, you know. So we can't be afraid, especially as pioneers, to be innovative. But when the light bulb doesn't work, then you go back to the drawing board, you know, we can't be, can't feel that peer pressure and can't be afraid to try things that might fail. So any other thoughts on tools, this is such an important area. You were just brought something to mind. I've heard the the adage before you would make an adaptation

18:06to a tool, make a change. You should try it a hundred times and be curious your thoughts on this. I feel like there's definitely a level where that's true. But for the maybe average disciple maker, if the tool doesn't work 10 times in a row, like I'm sure going to be discouraged out of trying another 90, right? So where I just was wondering like where even after the 10th failed to go, okay, let's do some adaptation here, knowing that I'm not going to fully throw that tool out if somebody's seen fruit with it. I need to learn from them. But that just came to mind maybe as a question on another piece of this conversation. Yeah, I think there there's a tension between giving up too early and not giving up soon enough, you know, maybe 10 times as little early, but it depends on how intuitive you are. If you're a tool maker, you probably have a good sense,

19:09you know, and if you're praying with all these spiritists, like twiddling his thumbs, waiting on you to change, you might press it into adaptation. The problem we use call this in the army, the good idea fairy. Some people are too creative, and you it's like trying to grab a cloud, you know, they got no handles. And when you're discipling somebody like that, it's very hard for people that need handles to follow an extremely creative intuitive person. So there's a balance and a tension and all of that. Talk to a pioneering buddy. I was remembering a conversation between Jeff Sundell and George Robinson. And I don't remember who was on which side of this, but they

20:10were talking about a tool. And one of them said the words like, oh, it's a reproducible tool. And the other one said, well, is it reproducing? And that's like that idea idea. I can crumb up with something that's sure. I think it's reproducible, right? You could draw it out or repeat it, but is it actually seeing any traction when you try to pass it on? And that would be maybe I would add to my own question or answer my own question of that try a hundred times, like even if you only do something 10 times, but you're seeing a disciple pick it up and run with it. Well, now you've multiplied what's getting used and you realize, oh, well, if it's getting passed on, then there's there's something to that. Maybe it needs some tweaks or whatever, but that would be a good way to think about something like that too. Yeah, the space shuttle is reproducible. We made four of them, but good luck to chuck and feed, make it a space shuttle, right? We need to be simple and potent. All right. So we got a listener and they're, you know, they got their

21:17hit bag full of tools. What did they do after they hit, you know, end for a podcast? What's the next step? Yeah, again, I didn't love that conversation man earlier. It's taking a look at those tools and just asking if they're getting, yeah, where you want to go. Remember in that a lot of tools are just one step along that full journey of trying to make and multiply disciples and we would see disciples. A lot of times stick and sustain and simple church expressions and we're gonna get all the way to leaders. Leaders need people investing in them to help them grow. But anywhere along that journey from sharing the gospel to the end of that and like, is that just take a look at a tool and don't be afraid to audit it. Hopefully not autopsy. And again, I think Chuck said wisely, not autopsy. And don't get to autopsy too soon. You want to give things rails to run on. But just see if those tools are helping you or are they so familiar, you don't even realize you're using it,

22:22which is again, kind of that main point I had in that post and that story of just holding on who a chain saw when you could be running to save your life. So yeah, thanks for the interview Chuck. And again, check out the show notes for a link to read this and do some more thinking about the familiar tools you have that may be working or might not be. Next time.