Mobilizing the Saints!

This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

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Thanks for listening and for choosing the Truth Network Podcast. This Christ Together mission you're on now, because people are going to go crazy when they hear about this. Yes, I think like so many people, Stu, in the South, in the Bible Belt South, I grew up in church, attending church, being a part of the local church every week. And what I realized when I left the church as a 17-year-old, that indeed I had been converted to church culture, but never to Christ.

Right? There's a big difference. And so in my mid-20s, I met a church planter who had actually come to Davie County to start a new church, and he began discipling me and began the process of deconstructing and showing me the difference between a very cultural, religious expression of Christianity and what the true gospel and good news was and why I needed it. And through the process of being discipled and being poured into through prayer and through investment and challenge, I came to know Jesus, and that radically set me on a different trajectory.

I want to talk about the trajectory, Will, but can you just speak to the importance of what you just said is so critical. Every pastor, every person listening, and before you shame your pastor or call him out, I'm going to ask you this, layperson or person in the pew, who are you discipling, and who's discipling you? Because you're about to hear about how God's using this guy in nine different languages all over the world with this ministry, because the guy poured into you, you were a snotty-nosed kid who knew it all, but you didn't know Christ. You were in the church, but you were not of it, right? And we're of the world, to be in the world, not of it, but we're in the church.

Hey, I just come up with something right there. We're in the church, but not of it, but we are to be in the church and of the church, right? But we're to be in the world, but not of the world, but Will Plitt was in the church, not of it. You weren't born again. You weren't a big C Christian.

You hadn't truly been transformed. You knew about Jesus, didn't know Jesus, but speak to the importance of discipleship. Just everyone listening right now, go grab that pesky, snotty-nosed kid that's annoying you to death, that's begging you to take him to a milkshake, and take him there and disciple him.

I mean, talk about that. Even fostering a child, like David Platt has really pushed hard. Even going out and mentoring a kid, the inner-city kids that have no dad. One of the things we talk about at Christ Together is that if we're going to reach every man, woman, and child in a geography, that you have to mobilize each man, woman, and child. Every follower of Christ needs to understand what they've been saved from, sin, death, Satan, hell, and what they've been saved to. Have the glory of God in his mission. The majority of Christians, sadly, sit and soak and consume, and do not see the immense harvest all around them. So when we talk about helping every follower of Christ, helping them understand that every believer in Christ is a missionary, and every missionary, Stu, equals an opportunity to share and show the good news. So what if every follower of Christ in every church across the triad and beyond invested in one person who was far from God, but close to them? There's one person. One.

Can you imagine what might happen and how that would go toward discipling a city? I'm just so encouraged by that and just that guy that invested in you. Everyone you hear that's on fire for God, everyone you listen to, you listen to these radio guys, you listen to these speakers, you listen to Truth Talk, you listen to shows, and you're like, man, what set that guy on fire?

Well, let me tell you exactly what set me on fire. A guy like him, Will, and other godly guys, like another guy named Willard Lones, camp counselor guy. I think of Wigginton, I think of Hoppe, I think of Jarms, I think of all these coaches, Coach Hankinson, all these men of God that poured into me. I think of my mom who taught me the scripture and I was knee high.

None of that stuff made sense. A bunch of words, but all of a sudden, God opened it up. And so everyone you hear that's in Christ right now is here because someone poured in and discipled them.

So the question is, it's time for me now to turn my sights out on others and say, hey, that guy right there behind the counter with a mask on, taking my coffee order, who's discipling him? Hey, bud, let's get a coffee after. Let's talk about how you're growing in Christ. I'm not recruiting you into a business.

I'm not asking you to join anything or give anything. Let's build people up. So this has led, I just see God's redemptive thread all over your life, brother. And I just want to bless you and confirm you in that, and affirm you in your giftedness, and you're telling me about your kids and your family. It's like you and I are filling in a big gap here.

This is going to be a long coffee, and we're at a coffee shop having this conversation, my favorite place to have a conversation. But you've gone into this Christ together. What is Christ together? How did God drive you into this ministry? You're executive director of that, and what's God doing?

Well, a lot of it really, Stu, comes from just our personal experience and conviction. About eight years ago, there was a group of pastors that convened in Atlanta to have a conversation around the re-evangelization of the United States. And it was a growing burden that we had that we were presiding over the greatest decline of Christianity on our watch. And I would add, in historically the most Christian nation, and this was a room full of very influential churches, mega churches that were doing incredible things, but there was nothing that any church was doing in any city that was decreasing lostness.

Nothing. So we began to have a conversation really around Jesus' prayer in John 17, where he talks in verses 20 through 23. He talks about how the Father and the Son are one, and that his desire that we might be one, all of God's people, so that the world might know that Jesus is divine, the Son of God. And so the question that emerged out of that for us, and really the observation was, we believe there was a missing apologetic to the Western church, and it was this. It was unity of the church. So how would the lost people of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, know that Jesus is the Son of God by the way that the church is united for his glory and for his mission?

And none of us could say that they would, because we weren't united. So Christ together was really birthed out of the kind of the Christological, ecclesiological reality that Jesus paints for us, that there's a theology of oneness embedded in all of scripture. Jesus writes, if he were to write a letter to the church of your city, who would he write it to? So we began to pull churches together in a city to convene them to begin to have a conversation around what we call gospel saturation.

And the way we define that is, and this really for us is the why, the conviction of the why. Christ Together works to bring churches, networks, and denominations in a city together for the shared outcome of the church taking personal responsibility to own the lostness of their place to ensure that every man, woman, and child has repeated opportunities to see, hear, and respond to the good news of Jesus Christ. So about eight years ago, that's how Christ Together started. We started with a handful of cities where churches were coming together for the fulfillment and completion of the Great Commission.

We've since grown to 92 cities. We've jumped into Canada now, and we're putting all of our cards on the table, all of our chips in for that vision. You act like there's an urgency. You act like Jesus might be coming back. You act like that people might be dying and going to hell, and you act like we need to get the gospel to them. What's going on there?

Yeah, don't get me started on that one, right? You know, I think, and you're a visionary leader, a vision has to have, I believe, two things. A vision has to be important, but it's not until it becomes urgent that leaders will actually do anything about it. And I believe one of the gifts the Lord has given us in this moment in history, this redemptive moment in history, is I believe desperation is beginning to call the North American church to begin to ask a different set of questions. It hasn't been willing to ask. Namely, for example, has God called you to simply lead a church, or has He called you to reach a city?

Those are two very different operating systems. You know, what if we began, Stu, to bring churches together in the city and ask questions like this? What does God want for our city? And what would rise up out of Scripture on how the Lord would answer that? The second question would be, well, what would it look like if God had His way? Were the people in a place as the gospel invaded people's lives and it brought salvation and sanctification and restoration? And then the third question is, well, what would it take?

And it would take the church actually beginning to see that we're actually a part of a larger church in the city, that we have a responsibility together to work together for this vision. Wow. I just love that. Man, I'm over here. You see on my calendar, you've taken up like a whole week here of notes on my calendar, brother.

Will Plitt has spoken. His ministry is Christ Together, and we're out of time. We're going to keep talking and turn this into two segments. We'll make this a podcast.

Everyone like and share. Give this to your pastor as just an encouragement. I think a lot of times we throw missives at our pastors, like, hey, you need to be doing this. Hey, why aren't you doing this?

Hey, this. Well, let's send this encouragement. Let's say, hey, Pastor, I love you. And man, I tell you what, and be prepared to say, Pastor, put this on my shoulders.

You've got enough. You know, we should already be taking loads off. We should already be visiting hospitals for pastors. You don't need your pastor to come over to lead your neighbor to Christ for Pete's sake. You know, but but so Christ Together.

I love this. The re evangelization of the USA of America. I love the word gospel saturation. I just love that God has called. Has God called you to lead a church or to reach a city?

That's so cool. And you really you do one to the other end, right? Is that just so so challenge everyone real quick, kind of on the Great Commission, if you would.

You know, there's two point five billion people. It's my favorite question, by the way, to ask people. I asked them one of the most controversial pastors on the Internet. And I probably not I'd I with this guy and everything, but I love his courage. His name's Pastor Greg Locke. And he's the guy that all the pastors around either say, oh, man, this guy's bad news. He's just he's too radical. Or pastors say, man, what in the world? We got all of a sudden we got this this, you know, judge of Israel that's going nuts and shaming us all by his boldness. Right.

But he asked him this question. I was so excited that he had a missiological passion to reach the nations. And I'll ask you this, Pastor Wilplet, head of Christ Together. Your Web site is what, by the way, tell us that real quick. It's Christ Together dot org.

You can find everything there. Christ Together dot org. Two point five billion people on our planet have never heard the gospel. Why are we still here? Why hasn't Jesus come and take us home? Why does Matthew 24 16 say? And this gospel we preach and all your all the earth, all the earth and then the end will come. So will you talk about your passion, your waking passion with Christ Together for everyone listening to do something about that glaring problem of two point five billion of fifteen hundred plus languages that don't even have the Bible translated their language. And we've got brilliant erudite kids.

Even in our Christian homes, they could go become translators. They could do something about it. Your challenge. Yeah, that's great.

I think three things come to mind, Stu. One, I believe it starts with prayer and it starts with desire. And it's a dangerous prayer. It's saying, Jesus, help me to see the harvest the way you see the harvest, because without a burden and a conviction for that, it really doesn't ever go anywhere.

So would you be willing to pray that bold prayer? I think secondly, it's a posture of leaders. I love how Tim Hawkes, pastor of Hill Country Bible Church in Austin, Texas, he says it this way. Do you view yourself as the pastor of a church in a city or do you view yourself as a pastor of the church in the city?

Now that begins to lift your eyes up to see the harvest and the responsibility. And then I would say the third thing very quickly is I honestly think that we have viewed the Great Commission in the wrong light. That most pastors and everyday Christians view the Great Commission simply as aspirational. We should be about that.

And organizational. And we probably should organize our church and do some things that, you know, move toward that. The Great Commission is geographical and it's generational.

If we begin to view the Great Commission as it's for a people and a place that God in His sovereignty has placed me for a time such as this, that then begins to activate the Great Commission and moves it from simply being important to now being urgent. Take our listeners. Put some feet to this, will you?

Some shoe leather. Give us some Book of James on acting, living this out, living out what you just talked about, the Great Commission. Will you challenge our listeners right now, pastors listening, young people listening especially, I'm going to put this all over the Gram, I want people to hear this broadcast, podcast, we're going to make it viral. We'll put Christ together. What do you say to everyone right now to tell them, they're saying, what do I do now? I love Jesus, what do I do now?

Give us a practical next step, will you please? Yeah, absolutely. Imagine, Stu, if every Christian understood in a deeper sense their identity in who they were in Christ and what Jesus has actually called all of us to. So if you're an everyday Christian who just works a regular job like the majority of all of us, every believer in Christ equals a missionary.

Wow. And every missionary equals an opportunity. And pray, again, a dangerous prayer, God, give me one person over the next year who is far from God but close to me.

Imagine just the impact that would have if we did that with one person and then the next year that person did it with one person and I did it with another person. And when you fast forward that out, you actually begin to disciple a city. So I think, again, it's just where we start. Do we start with, hey, what's my discipleship strategy for my church? Or are we starting with how would we work with other churches and other Christians to disciple our neighborhoods and our communities? So in my mind, Will, every human being I come in contact with, no matter who it is, if it's a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a friend, a young man in a coffee shop. And so, but is that a good way to approach everyone? I mean, how can we have intentionality in every relationship we have, pairing that with what you just described?

Yeah. I think it's acknowledging that, I forget what pastors said years ago, but he said you never lock eyes with someone that God doesn't desperately love. And so how would we live with kind of the, you know, the apostle Peter talks and I think it's 2 Peter 3, 9, I believe that, you know, God's desire, none perish, all come and reach repentance. So obviously we're not responsible.

We can't save anybody. But our responsibility, Stu, is to be an ambassador that if I work for a coffee shop before I'm an employee, I'm a disciple. And I think we just, we've kind of buried our calling that before I'm a husband and a father, I'm a disciple, that the disciple has to inform the way I live my life. And when I get that calling out of order, we begin, we fail to actually see the harvest that's all in front of us.

So good. Will Plitt, we are a five minute conversation, turn a lot longer. I hope you will like, I hope you'll share this everywhere you go, social media. We'll take a picture so they can get a good look at you. I've got a face radio. You're a lot sharper than me. ChristTogether.org, get plugged into this network, get involved, reach your neighbor for the gospel and be a Kingdom Great Commission minded believer. And thank you for being a part of the show today. Thank you, brother.