Rob Chartrand (00:01.724)
Well, hey, we are excited to have on the podcast today, Jeremiah Capule, and he works with Send Network based out of Calgary, Alberta. And we're excited to have you on the show. So welcome, Jeremiah.
Jeremiah (00:16.258)
Thanks Rob, I'm glad to be here.
Rob Chartrand (00:18.64)
Hey, we want to talk about the exciting work that God's doing in your context and what's happening there. But before we do that, why don't you just tell us a little bit about SEND Network. Tell us a little bit about what your role is there.
Jeremiah (00:32.034)
Yeah, sure. Well, so I'm officially a church planter with the SEND Network. Although my official role is I'm the strategy coordinator for the Jonathan Initiative, which is an initiative of Alberta Underground. So that's the organization that I put together and it consists of a network of micro churches. So basically the Jonathan Initiative is a...
You can say it's a training movement that seeks to produce what we call a level five disciple maker or discipler maker, multiplying discipler makers. Normally people who get to this level of being a disciple maker, they typically find themselves starting and leading a reproducing microchurch or simple church.
Rob Chartrand (01:27.764)
Okay, okay, well, there's a ton we can unpack there and I'm gonna put a pin in Disciple Maker for a bit. We're gonna talk about that a little bit later on. But why don't you break this idea down for us a little bit more for us. So first of all, what is a microchurch? And I mean, for a lot of our listeners that maybe aren't familiar with the idea of microchurch, maybe compare that maybe how that might be different than say a small church. So tell us about microchurches.
Jeremiah (01:35.618)
Mmm.
Jeremiah (01:52.578)
Yeah, well actually if you make a small church even smaller and simpler, you know, you might have an idea or a small group, you know, there's a lot of churches that have small groups and if you have a healthy small groups led by volunteers, convocational people, disciple makers in different fields and they try to live together, you know.
as a community of Christ followers in worship and pursuing the mission together, that actually is a picture of a microchurch. So basically a microchurch or we call them sometimes simple churches, these are spiritual families of Jesus followers that are learning together, to live together through the indwelling life of Jesus. They seek to love God and their neighbors.
and they want to, as a team, together participate in God's mission in making disciples in simple and relational ways. So microchurches, they find their purpose and identity in being sent ones, you know, God sent ones, and they do it together as a team. And sometimes microchurches can actually grow, although we encourage...
micro churches to stay small and we do that by multiplying. So you get to a point when you need a sound system, then that for us is already a mega church. And we want to keep it simple, not just because we're trying to stay away from the complicated stuff like buildings and budgets and programs and registrations, but.
Rob Chartrand (03:23.956)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (03:32.499)
Okay.
Jeremiah (03:44.822)
We want to keep the multiplication going, right? Every person, we want to see every disciple become a multiplier. And I think that's the foundational idea behind, at least the version of Microchurch that our network pursues.
Rob Chartrand (04:04.076)
Okay, okay, so I mean, multiplication is a huge part of that.
Discipleship making is a huge part of that. So let me just tease this a little bit. I I'm attending a church and I go to a small group that meets It's set up on my church. We might meet every week We might eat meet every other week and you know, I go to my small group and we have a Bible study We might watch a video. We might eat a little bit of food. Maybe pray together a little bit and then If somebody gets in trouble, we might lean into that a little bit to help the member of my group, but that's
That's kind of what a small group is. I mean, how is that different than say a microchurch? Like what is it about a microchurch that makes it so different and unique?
Jeremiah (04:49.166)
Yeah, that's an excellent question, Rob. In fact, a lot of the guys that's become interested in this whole idea of microchurches are also part of churches. And the first step that we almost always tell them is just start setting up small groups, right? And see these small groups become healthy small groups. Some of the churches, some of the leaders in churches that we coach, Rob, they have...
small groups already cell groups, D groups, whatever they call it, right? But the question is, okay, how do we see this groups become healthy groups and health is like in our definition, it's always accompanied by multiplication, you have a sign always a sign of a healthy disciple and a healthy small group or a healthy micro church, or even a healthy regional church because
Rob Chartrand (05:37.509)
Okay.
Jeremiah (05:47.886)
once you have several micro churches together, you form a regional or a network of micro churches, right? But almost always in each of those levels, we want to see multiplication happening. And multiplication never happens when the group is simply stuck in studying scripture, right? I mean, studying scripture is definitely part of it.
Rob Chartrand (05:59.996)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (06:10.876)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jeremiah (06:13.474)
but what does it look like to obey together, to be faithful together, to really apply individually and corporately as a team together, the things that they are learning in scriptures, right? And this is one of the biggest, I think, transitional points in many people's, like those who are part of small groups already. This is the hardest part, right? Because...
I think here in North America, people are so used to, okay, I'll hear something, I'll learn something, and it's just completely up to me how I'm going to go about it, how I'm going to do it, if at all he or she is going to do it, right? But small churches, small micro churches, they practice a more intentional accountability, right? And we record, you know, steps of obedience.
Rob Chartrand (07:04.091)
Mm.
Jeremiah (07:09.446)
every member make and we hold people accountable in a gentle empowering way. But when we meet together, the question is not just what passage are we studying today, but the first question is what happened to this week's application, to last week's steps of obedience, to the people that we committed to share.
Rob Chartrand (07:16.733)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (07:32.63)
the scripture to the people that we committed to reach out to or call or share the gospel or our testimony to, right? So it's a very intentional process like this. Every gathering is like a training, right? And there's a very cooperative relational thing going on. And this is something that I find...
Rob Chartrand (07:56.688)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (08:02.99)
Cultural roadblock should I say especially here in North America, right? Like so I'm a Filipino and our culture is very relational We find our identity normally in the group and we share, you know stuff, you know, people don't normally feel Violated when people are asking personal questions things like this and so I think it makes it more natural
Rob Chartrand (08:07.516)
Mm.
Jeremiah (08:30.442)
for this kind of church culture to be promoted, to be practiced, right? Here people are very private, Rob, right? They're like, okay, if I don't give you permission to ask these questions, then you cannot ask them. So that's one difficulty.
Rob Chartrand (08:55.682)
Okay.
Jeremiah (08:57.064)
I hope you're seeing the intentionality, right? So microcharges are pretty intentional in this.
Rob Chartrand (08:59.517)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I mean, I'm picking up on intentionality. I'm picking up a high degree of commitment to be a follower of Jesus and be accountable as a follower of Jesus. I'm picking up multiplication and disciple making and evangelism are central to these as well. And even picking up on like, this is what everybody does. It's not just the leaders, but it's part of every person who's participating.
Jeremiah (09:19.598)
very.
Jeremiah (09:28.126)
Yeah, yeah. That's crucial that the last bit rob that you mentioned Every disciple is a disciple maker In fact a disciple who is not yet a disciple maker We don't have a lot of evidence that person is already a disciple, right? So disciple making reproduction Becomes a concrete evidence at least for us. Of course No one can ever judge whatever's true in the hearts of people right? It's between them and the lord
Rob Chartrand (09:28.944)
Kind of reading your, yeah, okay, good. Okay, so, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (09:37.885)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (09:45.586)
Right.
Jeremiah (09:57.494)
but as far as the grouping is concerned, we use disciple making also as a metric of gauging if a person is truly committed to Jesus.
Rob Chartrand (10:08.496)
Yeah, yeah, so disciple, a disciple is not really a disciple until they've reproduced a disciple because to be a disciple you have to follow Jesus in obedience and one of those steps of obedience is to go and make disciples. So yeah, okay, hey, let me pivot for just a second here and let's talk about your story a little bit. You've already mentioned if...
Jeremiah (10:21.166)
That's right.
Absolutely, yeah exactly, exactly.
Rob Chartrand (10:34.32)
If people haven't guessed it, you're Filipino, and you're fairly new to Canada. So tell us a bit about your journey from the Philippines to Canada and what ministry has looked like for you.
Jeremiah (10:46.698)
Yeah, so our daughter, our oldest daughter, Yesha, she turned six last February and she was born in the Philippines. So we're here in Canada for about six years and before that we were in the Philippines. I became part of a church, one of the 13 pastors of a huge church in the metropolis in the capital city of the Philippines. It's called GCF.
and it's for, I think that time, four or five thousand strong. And it's, so it's big, right? And I was part of the missions team. I was a sort of a missions pastor, missions in mobilization. And we were supporting, coordinating, and doing some trainings with some, you know, maybe a couple of dozen full-time missionaries. And the question, one of the questions that arose during my time was how?
How do we send more people or more specifically, how do we train the people who are already moving overseas? How do we give, how do we ensure that they go with a missional mindset and a skillset that they're ready to disciple people wherever the Lord sends them, right? And so this whole conversation regarding raising a convocational mission force.
you know, became the question that we were asking and my task became, okay, let's create a pathway for these kinds of missionaries. And so to make the long story short, I, I started pursuing, um, dive, it's the professional diving world. So I became a scuba diving, a professional scuba diving instructor in the Philippines. And I served in a, in a remote Island where there were
Rob Chartrand (12:31.964)
Wow. Okay.
Jeremiah (12:38.646)
some weak cliff and new tribes missionaries. And basically I got to train dive masters and even some of them became instructors, but they are missionaries. They are fully, not fully, like highly equipped disciples who you can, God can call them anywhere. And you know that they're going to make disciples, they're going to evangelize, they're going to make disciples. And eventually a community of followers is going to be formed.
Rob Chartrand (12:50.461)
Hmm.
Jeremiah (13:08.822)
Right? So, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (13:10.076)
Wow, let me just pause on that for a quick second here, because I don't know if everybody who's listening is familiar with the diaspora of Filipinos around the world who have gone out, and that that's, like this is a cultural phenomenon for you guys, but what you're saying is that rather than just sending them to the different parts of the world to find work, to actually send them out as missionaries of the gospel and to prepare them and equip them, like that's a strong missional DNA.
behind your work there. Ha ha ha.
Jeremiah (13:42.758)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was brought about in the context of me being one of the pastors of a very structured, strong, I would say, almost healthy megachurch during that time, right? But what happened that when I was doing that training, when I was sent to that remote cluster of islands in my own country, I served as a missionary also.
Rob Chartrand (13:56.177)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (14:09.662)
And that's how I got to experience the smaller way of doing church, right? Where we would just intentionally train high school students, Rob, right? High school students, disciple them, meet with them on a daily basis. We would wake up at 5 a.m. and we would meet with them every single day. We would do life together, eat together, go to the hospitals together.
And what we saw happening was these students, when they step into college or university, instead of simply plugging into a different church, so normally they would go to the capital, right? To Manila to study further if they have the chance. And what we would see happening was these young guys, instead of just plugging into existing churches, they...
churches would arise like God would, we would see churches planted through them, whether intentionally or unintentionally, right? And it's because they have learned to live this evangelistic, disciple making lifestyle. And I think that is key, right? Because Rob, there's also a version of microchurch where it's just a smaller traditional church and it's still one person does everything, right?
Rob Chartrand (15:13.672)
Wow. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (15:28.2)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (15:37.169)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (15:38.006)
But what we saw happening was ordinary people, God using ordinary, young people, like without very long formal theological training, without a lot of resources, without a lot of connection, but they're being used by God in extraordinary ways. So, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (15:56.112)
Yeah, and I think it's important to differentiate. Like a microchurch isn't just a church for people who don't like big crowds. It's not just a place for people who don't like big church, but they want to just get together with some people and have really good coffee and casseroles. But a microchurch is an environment where people come together who want to be full-on disciples and who want to make disciples and be the true church of the gospel. Is that?
Jeremiah (16:24.778)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's ideal, okay? Of course, when you start pursuing microchurches, you're going to have a mix of people. You're going to have people who are also, their primary motivation is just the disgruntlement from the traditional system, and it takes a long time to transition and to assist this kind of people in their spiritual journey.
Rob Chartrand (16:25.949)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (16:41.426)
Yes.
Jeremiah (16:52.886)
But when you have a person without prior, you know, they do not have any background on learn, right? It's a different story, for sure.
Rob Chartrand (17:03.044)
Yeah, well I know when I planted Crosspoint Church 12 years ago in Edmonton, we had all sorts of people from so many different church backgrounds and everybody who came had their own vision of a perfect church, right? So much of that early work was just establishing the core DNA of this movement. What's it going to look like? And you know by...
Jeremiah (17:20.856)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (17:25.168)
turning to scripture and turning in prayer and you know having lots of Lots of discussions about what uh, what discipleship was so yeah, I can I can see all of that. Hey listen Let's let's talk about um your journey then from scuba diver to canada. Tell us the rest of that story
Jeremiah (17:41.994)
Oh yeah, sorry I got distracted there. So anyway, my wife and I, we were preparing to be sent out to a creative access nation, right? These places where it's illegal to do a mission work or to plant churches. And I'm like, okay, I'm now a dive instructor. I can have a different identity or a cover, if you may.
Rob Chartrand (17:45.03)
Nah, it's my fault.
Jeremiah (18:08.226)
But before doing that, we did a sabbatical. We decided to visit a brother in Calgary here in Canada. And so I got here, but naturally I got connected to churches too, you know, visited. I was invited to speak in some church camps. And I got to meet a group of millennial guys, you know, who are coming from different churches. And one time we were having dinner
Jeremiah (18:39.234)
And they asked me to talk about Jesus and what Jesus is doing in other parts of the world and mission work and stuff like this, disciple making. And after several hours of speaking to them, I looked up and some of them were crying and I'm like, what happened? And they said, Jeremiah, no one talks about Jesus to us this way. Right?
And I guess that was the beginning of when God started to impress in our hearts and he's trying to make us see how Canada is also a mission field. I was not seeing Canada as this mission field compared to other mission fields that we were targeting to pursue, to go to. But when we heard that and then when we really started opening our eyes,
Rob Chartrand (19:14.877)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (19:24.658)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (19:31.074)
we realized, man, the harvest is plentiful here, right? In fact, it's even more challenging in many respect, right? The ground here is kinda maybe harder, harder than other countries who, you know, even though some of the other countries are predominantly Muslim, let's say, or predominantly Hindu, but here, there's openness.
But there's like underground hostility towards the gospel and other challenges too.
Rob Chartrand (20:02.128)
Yeah. So you decided you're going to stay?
Jeremiah (20:10.718)
Well, we prayed about it, went back home, prayed about it, and we felt like the Lord wanted us to be here, and so now we're here. Until when? We're not sure, but for now, we are seeing God move in great ways and we want to be part of it.
Rob Chartrand (20:28.528)
Yeah, I'm wondering if you might be able to share maybe some stories of how God's been working in your micro churches I mean, I know when you and I spoke we you shared a story about a young man who You had a chance to disciple got any stories you want to share?
Jeremiah (20:45.463)
Oh, I'm not sure which young man you're referring to. I have a database of young men. But yesterday I was talking to a young man. He's 18 years old and I met him when he was 17 years old. So this was just last year. And this guy is yet to be baptized actually. That's why yesterday we were talking about the meaning of it and several others.
Rob Chartrand (20:50.028)
Okay. Hahaha.
Jeremiah (21:10.582)
but he professed his faith to Jesus after seven months of us meeting together in coffee shops or in pho, you know, restaurants and he has always a battery of questions about Christianity. He, I think his family is originally from South America and there's a lot of colorful background there but finally after seven months to make the long story short he professes his faith to Jesus.
Rob Chartrand (21:18.164)
Wow.
Jeremiah (21:39.526)
And so I said to him, bro, it's a blessing to follow Jesus. And obviously he knows it because he just made that decision after seven months of considering it. But then I said, Ali, it's a great blessing to lead others to follow Jesus. He was nodding his head. He agrees he's imagining already leading some of his friends or family to Jesus. But then I said, bro, it's even a greater blessing.
to actually start your, a new spiritual family, a new spiritual faith community. And he said, oh, Jeremiah, that's actually what I'm thinking of doing. Because he's been, I've invited him in some microchurch gatherings, and he, it's always a blessing for him, right? In fact, one of the things that was a witness to him was how this group of people, the microchurch that he was able to observe, he always feels good.
when he's there. Maybe he finds, you know, he observes love and care and acceptance and belongingness, right? And so the church, the microchurch has become a mighty witness for him as a witness for the gospel. And so because he sees the simplicity of it, the first day when he professes his faith to Jesus, he could already imagine himself being a leader of a microchurch like that, right? But finally I said,
Rob Chartrand (23:03.486)
Mm. Yeah.
Jeremiah (23:06.326)
But bro, the greatest blessing would be for you to equip others to start their own spiritual families. And so now you're a follower of Jesus, you are blessed. But I want you to experience the great, great and greatest blessing. Would you like for me to train you? And so our journey continued. But this guy, man, I was...
I should not have been surprised but he just kept sharing the gospel to people. When I started counting, I think two months into his being a follower of Jesus, two months, he was two months old as a follower of Jesus, he has shared the gospel to 150 people. And he's introduced to me some of his friends that he's reaching out to and three months
Rob Chartrand (23:55.072)
Wow.
Jeremiah (24:03.146)
I think three months ago he started his own group already. And I know it because I was, you know, he invited them to our place and we were having a three-thirds group discussion. And my hope is that this guy that he's reaching out to would eventually turn to the Lord just like he did. But when that happens, he's going to be the leader of these guys. And this group
Rob Chartrand (24:07.156)
Wow.
Rob Chartrand (24:25.416)
Mm.
Jeremiah (24:32.346)
It's not going to be just a discovery Bible study group. It's going to be another microchurch, which this new believer leads. And again, Rob, this guy, we're still talking about his baptism, right? But he knows this thing we call the duckling discipleship principle, where you don't wait until you have fully learned anything before you start sharing it to others, right? In fact, I told him, bro, you're not going to fully learn everything.
Rob Chartrand (24:51.01)
Yep.
Jeremiah (25:01.602)
right? But what you need to do is whenever you learn a small thing, part of us pursuing faithfulness is understanding it, obeying it ourselves and sharing it to others. This is the three things that we always do every time the Lord speaks to us through his word, right? We understand it or memorize it so that it's easy for us to obey it and share it. And he does that. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (25:26.928)
Yeah, yeah. And most people end at obedience in doing it, but not necessarily.
sharing and that's such a crucial part of your DNA as your movement. I love the fact that he's when he was born into the family of God, he immediately had a family to be part of. Like he was already birthed into like a micro church and I know in my challenge in pastoral ministries, oftentimes people will come to faith in Christ, but they don't have that infrastructure of family that's around them immediately that they can get into, you know, real and ask those questions and
disciple than be transformed.
Jeremiah (26:05.478)
Oh yeah man, you know yesterday when I was talking to him, he was quite teary-eyed because I told him I was training him how to make a list of people to pursue, right? And I said the first thing we do bro is we pray for them, right? So he was asking what I meant. I said, Alejandro Did you know that when we were talking like last year when we were having our meetings? people were actually praying the
the church that you, the guys that you met, the microchurch, we were all praying for you, man. And he was a bit surprised. And he's learning the importance of prayer in everything that we do, but he was also learning at the same time the importance of a microchurch, of a group of people who are actually wanting and asking God for the same thing. So.
Rob Chartrand (26:42.219)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (27:01.148)
Yeah, wow. So, you talked a little bit earlier on about some of the challenges maybe of doing this in a Canadian context. I mean, you talked about that cultural difference, first of all, versus a individualistic society, which Canadians tend to be, but you coming out of more of a communal kind of culture. Any other challenges that you face in trying to implement this in a Canadian context?
Jeremiah (27:27.914)
Yeah, well, there's consumerism, which is an universal problem. I think there's nominalism, easy, believism. But I think here what is very pronounced is this learned helplessness. You know, there's this that undue dependence on a few people to do the work of the ministry instead of looking up to their spiritual leaders for, you know, how do we do what you guys do also? You know, how do we imitate what you do? How do we?
Rob Chartrand (27:30.644)
Okay. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (27:40.508)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (27:46.868)
Mm.
Rob Chartrand (27:54.867)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (27:57.37)
or how can you empower us to do ministry? And I guess it's, so it's a systemic thing, right? When you have a very, very professionalized kind of ministry, again, nothing wrong about that, but the danger is people thinking, okay, I'm going to be present on a weekly basis, I'm going to pay my spiritual dues,
Rob Chartrand (28:05.979)
Mmm.
Jeremiah (28:27.642)
I'm going to let others do the ministry right and they miss out Rob they miss out on the joy of actively and personally participating in the kingdom work of God advancing his Gospel one person at a time making disciples one person at a time Because I am deeply convicted that every disciple of Jesus is privy Jesus is so eager
Rob Chartrand (28:54.472)
Mm.
Jeremiah (28:54.53)
to empower each of his disciples to make disciples. And I think that when Jesus said, I'm going to be with you as you do this, right? I think he's talking about his manifest presence. He's talking about how individual disciples will get to experience the manifest presence of Jesus. Right? And so if people are not in that journey, then they miss out on experiencing Jesus in a meaningful way. And they miss out on the joy of
Rob Chartrand (28:57.092)
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (29:12.913)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (29:23.246)
of seeing God transform a person. Because it's very addicting, right? To be in the front seat, seeing God transform people, I mean, people can easily become Jesus junkies, if they just get involved, their feet get wet into this whole world of disciple making. But a lot of people never start that journey. I mean, I think it's because of that learned
Rob Chartrand (29:49.681)
Yeah, what?
Jeremiah (29:52.546)
helplessness. So for me, one of the challenge is the unlearning process, right? It's so hard for me sometimes to be so patient with people because, you know, for a brand new believer, the journey can sometimes be like quicker, you know, faster because we read something, you know, Alejandro, my guy, this new guy, we read something, there's no more argument. This is what God said. Okay, let's do it. But sometimes for...
Rob Chartrand (29:58.621)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (30:22.466)
10 years old, like 20 year old believers or even 5 year old believers who have been accustomed to a different culture of doing church, of being a disciple, it's tough.
Rob Chartrand (30:37.72)
Yeah, yeah, I love that phrase, learned helplessness. And, and, you know, I, as a pastor of 30 years, I know that we can, we can sometimes reinforce that.
That structure that can I mean as much as we believe in the priesthood of all believers we can somehow Reinforce that structure that you know, you need the leader you need the you know, the paid expert the professional clergy and And that's not to minimize that model But I mean we want to see the people of God empowered to be the people of God on mission in the world and So, how do you get there? Right? That's a challenge. I know that you're working with Some pastors to kind of answer this question for them
Jeremiah (30:59.694)
course.
Rob Chartrand (31:21.231)
You guys are meeting together regularly. What do you say to them? How are you working with them on this?
Jeremiah (31:28.79)
Yeah, well, we start from the foundational stuff, right? We start from the theology of disciple and disciple making. What is it, who is it for, what does it look like, how does Jesus show us, how is his life the blueprint in how to do this, and how is it that he expects every one of his followers to actually live just like him?
to have the same priorities as him, to have the same values as him. And you know that the person is in that journey of walking like Jesus, of living exactly like Jesus, when you see that person starting to make disciples too, right, because Jesus was a disciple maker. He was quite a focused, committed disciple maker. So a very starting point passage for leaders that I normally share.
maybe the first or second session Rob is the prayer of Jesus in John 17. Right? It's a very revealing prayer. And to the undiscerning eyes, it's a normal prayer, right? But it's actually a very revealing prayer. In verse four, he says, well, he says at the beginning, I glorified your father, glorify me. But in verse four, he says, I have finished the work that you have given me to do.
And I asked the pastor, so what's the work of Jesus that he's referring to? And normally that's his work on the cross, right? And for many people, that's it. The work of Jesus is exclusively his work on the cross. And yet this prayer in John 17 is very interesting because he said, I have finished the work that you have given me to do. And this he said,
prior to going to the cross, right? So before Jesus went to do his work on the cross, which was a central part of his mission, he was able to pray to the Father, I have done it, accomplished, finished, completed the work that you have given me to do. And then he starts enumerating the things that he did to the few men that the Father has given him to disciple. And so in that prayer, you can see that Jesus was a focused, committed,
Jeremiah (33:52.61)
disciple maker. And that's the very thing that he commissioned his disciples to do. This whole affair of learning from Jesus and learning how to live and walk like Jesus is a pathway towards becoming not just a disciple but actually a disciple maker. So we start there and I ask the leader or the pastor, how many in your group, in your people are at least on this path of becoming healthy, reproducing,
Rob Chartrand (33:54.098)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (34:21.602)
multiplying disciple makers and usually Rob the answer is very low. In fact we have this online tool, I think it's via exponential.org becoming a level five. You can you can have a very systematic way of assessing where you are as a leader or where your church is as an organization in terms of multiplication, right? And so we start there
Rob Chartrand (34:26.813)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (34:50.554)
And when they start seeing, man, what have we been pursuing? Yes, we're doing a lot of good things, but the things that Jesus expects us to do, we're actually neglecting it. And so that becomes a foundational beginning of this journey with leaders. And again, it's not without challenges, because if the culture of a church is one of a non-disciple-making culture,
And then the primary contributor of that culture also is the pastor, right? And so for these pastors to start transitioning their churches to health, first to health and then to reproduction and then to multiplication, it can take so many trial and error, you know, things, experiences. But it's been rewarding.
Jeremiah (35:50.23)
me and several other pastors who are pursuing this disciple making culture, we collaborated together to put some of the guys that we are training, some of the groups that we are leading to work together and start a new church community basically, right? And it's such an exciting thing to see. But it happened after almost a year.
of us meeting together every Tuesday morning, for four or five hours, one-on-one, doing accountability, doing some coaching, struggling through some of the things that we need to unlearn or some of the things that we need to put less priority on. And, but it's a rewarding journey. It is possible.
Rob Chartrand (36:38.324)
Hmm. Yeah.
So for some of our listeners who are continuing to pastor traditional churches, which is very much needed. There are established communities of faith everywhere and they're doing good works and God is with them and at work in them. But for some of these listeners right now who are listening who are saying, well, I'd love to move my church towards being disciple making as a priority. Having disciple making as a priority.
give to them? What would you say to them?
Jeremiah (37:14.082)
Well, practically speaking, ministry-wise, if they're in the place of readiness to pivot, to pursue more intentionally a culture of disciple-making, well, simply start smaller groups, right? Within the church, start smaller groups. Because that's how we can train leaders, right? That's how we can see disciple-makers when they would actually disciple people, right?
A lot of times, even though disciple making is being pursued, it's still just being talked about, it's being preached, it's being taught, but how is it being practiced? So these leaders and pastors, I asked them at the beginning, okay, so how many people are you on an active disciple making relationship with? Right?
Jeremiah (38:11.974)
I'm not in any relationship like that. Right? It's a public, you know, I have one kind of relationship with members and it's this, you know, weekly gathering, preaching. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's, we don't want to remove that, but we cannot produce disciples that way, only. Right? That can be a good part of what we do, but we need to be...
Rob Chartrand (38:14.433)
Okay, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (38:20.593)
Yeah.
The preacher, yeah.
Jeremiah (38:40.538)
We need to start knowing where our people are. So having the skill and the ability to assess where a person is. So normally I would encourage them to look at it in four chairs or four stages, right? So you have a person who is not yet a disciple. And maybe this is a person who is already attending, he knows the right things, he sings songs of worship to God.
But when you ask him whether he or she is a disciple in terms of what Jesus said is a disciple, then you might identify this person as a not yet disciple. And then there are those who are new disciples. So a not yet disciples, we want to engage them, right? We want to pray for them, care for them, share the gospel to them. New disciples, we want to establish them to become healthy disciples, right?
What are the rhythms? What does it mean? What's my identity as a new disciple? So establishing them to become healthy disciples that's founded on the biblical identity of a disciple, Jesus. And the third chair is equipping them for reproduction. How do we equip them to share the gospel, to share their testimony?
to start sharing the things that they read from scripture through their daily journals or daily devotions, right? So those kinds of skills. And then finally, once they're discipling others, how do we coach them to disciple their disciples to disciple others, right? That will be the fourth chair. So this is a good initial way of helping leaders pursue a disciple-making culture.
what percentage of the church memberships are in each of these chairs. And being able to assess where everyone is, gives them a better picture of, okay, maybe it's because a lot of our activities and programs are actually, you know, for this chair only. And we don't have a lot of activities, we don't have a lot of efforts or funds going to this level of training or level of the disciple or this level of disciple.
Rob Chartrand (40:45.949)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (40:58.566)
being able to assess and that's actually a very important skill as a Leader disciple maker Rob right is when you meet a person in one conversation You can give a fairly accurate assessment of where this person is because people in different chairs need different kinds of things
Rob Chartrand (41:18.288)
Yeah, yeah, Ron, Ron Heifetz, he, in his book, his research on adaptive leadership, he, he calls that getting up on the balcony. So getting up on the balcony and looking down and seeing where you're really at. And, and, you know, the first step towards that any sort of adaptive changes you want to do in a congregation means you got to get up on the balcony and actually just get a good assessment of what's going on. Right. So, um, but
I mean, there's gonna have to be quite a big shift from, you know, what you're describing, and what we might notice is kind of our standard small group environments that we have, right? Like, there's a DNA shift in the heart of a church community that needs to happen to get there. Do you know what I mean? Like, I mean, to get people to think, oh man, I am...
Jeremiah (42:08.31)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (42:13.676)
to be a reproducing disciple to whose Jesus is empowered through his Holy Spirit to go and change the world and make disciples. I mean that's quite a little bit you know that's quite different than hey it's Bible study tonight I guess we better go you know and oh did we did we bring dessert and you know you go and you have a good time of you know quote-unquote fellowship and that's all good and everything and then you go home and you go back to work the next morning I mean that's
It's a different kind of animal that we're talking about here. How would you advise, like, how do they make that DNA shift? Are you saying, you know, start small and work your way there, you know, slowly or, yeah.
Jeremiah (42:44.51)
Right, no, yes it is, it is, it is.
Jeremiah (43:00.102)
I think the first thing is not to start something. I think the first thing is actually to stop doing something. And what I think we need to stop doing is we need to like...
we need to stop limiting what God can do and what God wants to do through people, right? For example, this whole talk of disciple making, you would be surprised, Rob, that leaders vary, like the opinions and theological stance vary on the area of, okay, who's supposed to make disciples? Right? Because what...
Rob Chartrand (43:15.098)
Hmm.
Okay.
Jeremiah (43:34.934)
the pastor or what the leader believes about that question, how he answers that question, makes a huge difference. Is it just a few? Is it just a select, fully trained, qualified few? Or is it for every single disciple of Jesus? Because if they start having a deep conviction about this one thing, I think they can be well on their way, right? I think the Lord will start
broadening their horizon and imagination as to what can happen. Now, unholy contentment is another, I think part of what you were saying earlier, this is how I describe it. This is unholy contentment. It's a, you know, how people, like I'm content with my spiritual, where I am spiritual. This is, this is it. You know, I give my 11% whatever to the church. I volunteer in some ministry and that's it. You know, my boxes are ticked.
Rob Chartrand (44:14.589)
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (44:22.62)
Mm.
Rob Chartrand (44:30.183)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (44:32.206)
And I think that's a hindrance. And so what I have found useful, I'm going to share with you a fundamental passage that I always use at the beginning. When I start sensing that God wants me to disciple someone, one of the first things that God does is to create a holy contentment and a holy uncontentment or a holy dissatisfaction. Oh yes, there you go. Holy discontent, right?
Rob Chartrand (44:45.544)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (44:55.056)
Holy discontent. Yeah. Holy discontent. Yeah.
Jeremiah (44:59.946)
where God starts to help them see that, okay, you're here right now, but God doesn't want you to stay here, right? He wants you to move. You know how I find, like, how I've been doing it recently is I ask people, Rob, let's say this guy I met recently, Phil, so after sharing his story, you know, I ask him, so of these 10 years that you said you have been of...
Christian, a follower of Jesus, would you say that you have ever outdone Jesus? And this is a shocking question, Rob, right? Maybe you're even shocked, but I always ask this. And everyone says, of course not. I mean, they look at me with some fear in them. Who am I talking to, this guy asking me if I've ever outdone Jesus? And then I have them read Jesus' words in John 14.
Rob Chartrand (45:35.677)
Ha ha.
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (45:57.096)
Hmm, yeah.
Jeremiah (45:58.142)
right? Because Jesus said to his disciples in John 14, truly, as if anticipating objections and disbelief from his disciples, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will not only do the works that I do, they will do even greater works than this. And of course, this hinges on the understanding of, again, that work of Jesus, right? Which I
I said earlier in John 17, Jesus gives us a detailed, a more detailed explanation of how he defines his work to be. But he expects his this who he said, whoever believes in me. Right. And so when they start reading that, then we mean for 30 minutes, we'll go through that passage to just unpack it. Then if they're in a position of readiness, you know what's going to happen, Rob? They're going to start to have.
Rob Chartrand (46:26.184)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (46:34.309)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremiah (46:55.762)
a bigger vision for their life. Right? What? This is Jesus' vision for my life? Not only am I going to do His work, but I'm going to even do greater than Him. Of course, not because of my competence or, you know, skills or resources, but because of Him who lives in me, who wants to do the same thing that He started 2000 years ago. Right? And so having that... Okay.
Rob Chartrand (46:57.819)
Mm.
Rob Chartrand (47:20.52)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (47:25.846)
I'm not there yet, but Jesus wants me to be there. I want to pursue that. So when people want to go from point A to point B and I sense that the desire is real and strong, then I ask him, so do you want me to train you? And I got to filter people actually that way, Rob, because some people are not going to have that holy discontent.
Rob Chartrand (47:45.142)
Right.
Jeremiah (47:56.023)
They don't want the boat to rock. They're so content with the kind of life that they have. And they don't want, but there are some who will.
Rob Chartrand (48:06.384)
Yeah, yeah, and the cost of following Jesus in that way can be very hard. Like it's a radical reorientation of your life towards Jesus and his priorities. And that's a big cost to take on.
Jeremiah (48:22.67)
It is. It is. But it's a tragic, unfortunately it's a tragedy that this is not the common understanding of Christianity in this context, Rob. Right? This radical, how do you say it, reorientation of life. I say maybe on the third or fourth meeting with a person, the cause of following Jesus is everything. You actually would have to reckon yourself dead.
Rob Chartrand (48:33.116)
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (48:53.542)
Which is so fundamentally true of everything that Jesus taught and the way that Jesus lived. So it will cost you everything to follow Him.
Jeremiah (48:53.7)
Right?
Jeremiah (49:05.918)
It will cost you, but you get Jesus, right? He is worthy of everything. And that's why this being able to say without apology, the cost of following Jesus is so crucial because as we do so, we portray the Jesus who is worthy of everything, right? Not a puny little God that we add to life.
Rob Chartrand (49:12.209)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (49:28.529)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (49:33.146)
He's like a lucky charm for us, right? Oh, he's here to bless my... No, no, no. He is the guy who created you, who has a purpose for your life, who knows what is best for you, and who has your best interest in mind, and he calls you to trust him fully. This is it, right?
Rob Chartrand (49:49.904)
Yeah. And I think the problem is we often everyone.
often looks at, and I'll include myself in this, is everything I have to lose, but misunderstanding or not seeing everything we have to gain. So what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet give up his only soul, his very soul? But on the other side, I mean, we find our life in him and we find joy in, I mean, I've never had any greater joy in my life than when I had the chance to bring someone to Jesus or to mentor a leader who can reproduce the gospel. I mean, there's no greater joy than that
Jeremiah (50:03.886)
Absolutely.
Rob Chartrand (50:25.002)
life. I mean obviously my wedding and my children being born and all of those things you know but there is a tremendous joy in following Jesus and glad obedience and seeing the fruit of that gospel at work in somebody's life. Yeah so um
Jeremiah (50:28.622)
Hehehehe
Jeremiah (50:39.846)
Amen.
Rob Chartrand (50:45.208)
I know that Sindh Calgary really values co-vocational ministry. There's a lot of talk about that. And I mean, you are in a unique role. I mean, you've got like a whole bunch of groups that you're leading and whatnot. But I wonder, can we just talk about that for a minute? Like Sindh Calgary is, and not just Calgary, like the Sindh Movement. I mean, what you guys are doing is really starting to use this language of co-vocational ministry. Why is that? What's the big deal about that?
Jeremiah (50:54.19)
Thanks for watching!
Jeremiah (51:13.446)
I think it's because from the get-go, San network is all about multiplication, right? And I think across the world, we are seeing more and more pictures of multiplication happening in smaller expressions of the church.
Rob Chartrand (51:18.193)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (51:36.102)
And the key for this is actually the convocation, like raising more, it's easier to produce more convocational leaders and planters and pastors, right? But I, and I think that the pandemic really highlighted this, right? You have a lot of the smaller groups that are more organic and flexible actually thrive during the pandemic. But,
Rob Chartrand (51:47.089)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (52:04.63)
But I guess it boils down to if our, so our desire is to see every man, woman and child in our city to have multiple opportunities to hear, see and respond to the gospel. And a huge part of that is collaborating with one another but also how do we see, how do we really see multiplication, not just addition, right? I mean, I think in the statistics 14...
Rob Chartrand (52:28.232)
Yeah.
Jeremiah (52:32.098)
the 16% of churches in North America are in that adding growth. The rest, 85% of churches are either stagnating or in decline, but the 14% or less than 14%, they're in an additional trajectory. But we don't see a lot of churches that are reproducing in a multiplication way, right? Like...
Rob Chartrand (52:58.364)
Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Jeremiah (52:59.362)
two becoming four and four becoming eight. And those who do, we're seeing multiplication happening with churches that are smaller, more intentional with convocation leaders. So I guess that's part, and I see that too. You know, when I was assessed as a church planter, Rob, this whole convocational thing was fairly new to so many people in our network, right? In fact, there were some people who
didn't really know what I was doing and how we were pursuing that. But we kept on persisting into it and now I've been part of several assessment as an assessor and we are seeing more and more convocational people, you know, nurses or accountants or, you know, people with normal, normal day-to-day jobs. They're deciding to see that these jobs are part of the sacred calling of God for their lives. And...
They're asking, okay, what does it look like to pursue ministry, to disciple people and to lead a community of believers even without necessarily leaving my job? I have this guy, Rob, he's a PhD student in the U of C doing a PhD in chemical engineering or something like this.
Rob Chartrand (54:11.165)
Yes.
Jeremiah (54:23.59)
And when I started sharing the Jonathan initiative and how we seek to train people to become convocational church practice, you know what he told me this guy, he said, German, can you tell me more about that? And to make the long story short, this is a person that who has already sensed that God is calling him to ministry by his like, so do I have to leave this? I really love chemical engineering and I really love this job. I want to pursue it. God has gifted me to it, you know.
But so far in his life, the only option was, you know, if you're going to go to ministry, then you leave this, right? But now I started talking to him about this whole convocation approach, and he was quite ready, right? And so I immediately started training this guy, Rob, and maybe next year we'll see him. He's now, like, he's a level three disciple maker now. And...
Rob Chartrand (55:00.455)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (55:18.087)
Mm.
Jeremiah (55:19.158)
when he steps into level four, that means he's leading a microchurch already. So, stay tuned. I'm going to tell you more stories in this video.
Rob Chartrand (55:23.176)
Yeah.
okay i'd love to hear it i'd love to hear it well and i appreciate uh... you guys make a distinction between by vocational co-location on and one of the clear distinctions you would say is that by vocational person in ministry hopes that they'll eventually get into full-time ministry your philosophy is that
you want people to stay in convocational. So they are connecting as much as they can and rubbing shoulders with people and they're working through their careers. Is that correct? New onset, new onset, yeah.
Jeremiah (55:56.342)
Well, yes, let me just correct it a little bit. Not necessarily that I want them to stay, but they don't need to leave it, right? In the future, if the Lord leads, let's say their church becomes a big church and it becomes a more structured church, a network of microchurches, and they sense that the Lord calls them to go full-time. We're all for that, we celebrate that. I mean, if God calls them to do that, to go to seminary, to get formal training, you know, like.
Rob Chartrand (56:06.108)
Yeah, OK. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (56:11.421)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (56:19.57)
Okay. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (56:25.788)
Yeah, great. Yeah.
Jeremiah (56:26.518)
let's go. But at the very beginning, they don't they don't need to there's no it's not a necessity. Yes.
Rob Chartrand (56:32.636)
Right, yeah. I guess with the bivocational, sometimes you can see your job is kind of like, I got this other job. It's kind of helping me to fund me. It's a necessary evil, right? Whereas convocation is like, no, this job is a great opportunity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if the Lord keeps you in it, the Lord keeps you in it. That's, that's.
Jeremiah (56:41.354)
unnecessary evil. Embracing it. Yeah, embracing the job. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, because this, this PhD student in UFC, I would hate to pull him out of that level of influence, right? This sphere where only he can reach. I don't have access to that group of people that he has access to. Right?
Rob Chartrand (57:09.276)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Jeremiah, this has been rich. I see that our time is all but gone. If some of our listeners are interested in learning more about the work you're doing or with Send, how can they get ahold of you?
Jeremiah (57:25.594)
Oh yeah, for sure. So they can email me at jonathaninitiative at gmail.com. So that's jonathaninitiative at gmail.com. And you know what? You can also just text me 780-716-1208. So...
Rob Chartrand (57:41.468)
Wow, you're a brave man giving us your cell phone number. Ha ha ha. Is Jonathan got it? We'll put it in our show notes as well. So thanks for sharing that. Wow, this has been Rich. Thank you for your time. And we'll hopefully catch up with you again in the future.
Jeremiah (57:43.722)
Rick. Yeah.
Jeremiah (57:49.55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeremiah (57:58.302)
I'm glad Rob, thank you for the opportunity. Okay.
Rob Chartrand (58:00.442)
Alright, God bless.