When God changes a person's life, He gives that person an assignment, a new mission, something to do. Here's Pastor Kenan Vaughn.
My salvation was me having a word of encouragement on Sunday that would get me through my week. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. What does it look like for you to live life on mission for God?
Do you need a little equipping, a little training to figure that out? We're going to talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.
Thanks for joining us. You've been a pastor for how many decades now? Three plus decades, right?
Yep, three. And as a pastor, would you say people in your church are more prone to want to study and go deep in God's Word? No. Or to want to live missionally, do evangelism and discipleship. Yes.
That's how they're more prone? I mean, again, I'm being very sort of facetious, right? But yeah, I mean, we are a church of action. And I think it's sort of an expression of my top gift is probably evangelist. We always say we started our church with ape, go ape. We had an apostle, a prophet and evangelist. An apostle meaning, you know, a stealth starter. Let's take this mountain, a prophet who sort of said, here's what God's saying to us. And so I'm the guy that when I preach, I'm always asking, so what?
You know, what are we going to do with this? And obviously want to go deep biblically, want to go deep in scripture, but I'm always going to lean that way. And I think the personality has sort of followed that in our church.
And what about you, Bob? You're a pastor. I'm a pastor. I think our church is probably prone more in the other direction. Let's study and know and let's get deep. And we probably need a little more prodding. I probably need to do a little more prodding as a pastor and draw the net and bring the application home.
When I do the Sunday afternoon debriefing with my wife about the sermon, she will say, you could have given some more concrete examples here or some action points here because I love the abstraction. And it's harder for me to get to the practical side of things. And I think people will lean in one direction or another. And yet both are really important. We're called to both.
You need a balance, yeah. We've got another pastor who's joining us today on Family Life Today from nearby Memphis, Tennessee. We're here in Little Rock. Ken and Vaughn is joining us from Memphis. Welcome, pastor. Thank you, Bob.
It's a joy to be here. Ken and Vaughn is the pastor of Harvest Church in Memphis and also gives leadership to a ministry called Downline that our church has been involved with and helped support. Explain to listeners what Downline is all about because I think it touches on both of the things we've been talking about here.
Absolutely. It's a great introduction for Downline. Downline is a ministry committed to equipping believers just as Ephesians 4 for the work of the ministry, for the work of making disciples. And really, the primary vehicle by which we do that is a nine-month institute, so we call it the Downline Institute, where we are, just as you guys have talked about, we are equipping people with the Word of God. We literally start the nine months in Genesis 1.
We close the book in Rev 22, nine months later. And as we go, which is a rich gospel-centered study in God's Word, we are also bringing practical evangelism and discipleship training throughout. So we're hoping to infuse kind of a combination of what you're talking about, a deeper passion for God through His Word, deeper understanding of His Word, to be nourished by His Word, and at the same time, to be inspired and equipped to run heartily on the great commission that Jesus has invited us in. Do you lean one direction or the other?
You know, even as y'all were talking, I was thinking, he might ask me that. You know, I really believe, probably through my experience, which has been with some men who are so strong in each that I love to study God's Word. Maybe that's my lean, but I'm so enamored with the great commission and wrapping my life around it every second or every day, what that looks like, that I don't know, I don't know how to parse out which one I lean. I mean, those are just two great passions, God's Word and making disciples. When you started Downline, were you starting it for the people in your church? No, at the time I was not pastoring. I was actually in seminary.
Howard Hendricks was one of my greatest heroes and mentors at Dallas Seminary, and I would pick his brain every Friday at lunch. I did notice, Bob, the guys around me that were also students and friends of mine, they were always talking about church leadership and preaching. I was always talking to prof about disciple-making. It just seemed to me that over the 50 years he had been a prof, he had been even more a disciple-maker. He was so relationally vested in his students, and the influence was so paramount in church leadership in American Christendom of our day because of the depth he went with the students, and I got the privilege of being one of those. In my conversations with him, the Lord began to stir in me just a deep desire to see, if it's fair to say, a restoration of biblical discipleship in and through the local church.
So I did not know what that would look like. I figured I might be like a discipleship guy on a staff at a church, but the Lord just slowly but surely gave me a vision for what we just described, a nine-month institute that would take leaders from churches, and it started in Memphis, and that was all part of the process of I was talking to pastors as I was in seminary and learning from prof and asking a lot of questions at the local church level in Memphis, and pastors were saying there was not a great strength, at least in their churches, even elders, even pastors' leaders, knowing how to intentionally invest life on life in a biblical disciple-making pattern. They didn't see that going on fundamentally in the church. It was the exception.
It wasn't the norm. And so my heart was that this institute we created would allow churches to send leaders. Leaders meaning lay people or staff? Lay leaders.
Well, absolutely both. It was formed for a lay institute, but we have about 60 church partners in Memphis, and so many of them have sent staff through. We've probably had 15 senior pastors go through, probably for the joy of the learning and to be with their people, but it's geared for lay people, and some come because they just want to know their Bible. I've never really understood how to put God's Word together. Others come because they go have been in church 30 years, heard great sermons, but have no idea how to make a disciple. And so wherever you're coming from, the invitation is, hey, come be equipped to participate wholeheartedly in response to the gospel and the Great Commission, and part of that equipping has to be. It quintessentially has to be the Word of God, and so that's primarily what we use to hopefully make you ready, inspired, equipped for the work. I'm not kidding. As I'm listening to this, I'm thinking, every one of our staff members, this should be orientation.
So what's it look like? I mean, if I was saying that to our staff, you're going through the downline program. How do they do it? They can go online, downlineministries.com, and they apply for the institute.
We actually have four live institutes, so there's one here in Little Rock, there's one in Conway in Southwest Georgia and Memphis, and those locations are noted on the website. But we also have an opportunity this year which is very unique. The challenge of the pandemic unveiled an opportunity, and the challenge of keeping our students in all of our locations engaged with our teachers who, when we were limited in our space and our ability to meet, we used the Zoom application to continue our classes March through May. And in doing so, folks always wanted to invite their friends. Let's put out something on social media. Let's invite folks to come study Ephesians with us. And we kept doing this, and I mean, it spread.
It really multiplied. And so in the offseason, that's our summer where we kind of revamp and regear up and set the calendar for the next year, we said, there's a great pause right now globally. It's messing with people's lives. Their vocations are on pause. I mean, everybody's in a different situation, but how could we steward the pause for the sake of Kingdom Impact? And so we said, let's offer a livestream version year. Maybe we'll always proceed this way, or maybe it's a unique opportunity.
We'll see how this goes. But we're opening it up where anyone with a good Internet connection worldwide can go through the institute with us. So now there's a tab, even as of today as we're talking, there's a tab that's been created that just says Downline Online. And so that's where you would click, and someone would contact you and just give you the details, which are generally making sure you understand that from the moment we begin, this year will be September 14th, we'll go through mid-May, we meet together four hours a week. We meet Monday night, 6.30 to 8.30, and this is central time, and we meet Wednesday morning, 5.45 to 7.45. And this is kind of worked around your general 8 to 5 schedule of many of the folks that go through, as we've mentioned, predominantly laymen and laywomen. And everything is taped, and if you miss a class because you have to, whether it's family crisis or work emergency, you have a link, and you're just responsible to listen or watch and catch up before our next class.
5.45 central time is 3.45 out on the West Coast. That's right. You're going to have to be really hungry.
Or you're going to catch it on the backside. Are there exams? Not really. Here's the only assignment. We do together, we memorize a passage of Scripture each month, and you've got an accountability partner, and we have some time in class, and just hiding God's Word in your heart, hopefully that becoming a pattern for their life. And then the other thing that you're required to do is you've got to reteach. And we have it structured in a way. This would make sense if you went through it. We have our Bible teaching, our practical discipleship teaching, and then we have some of our spiritual life teaching, which is our biblical manhood, biblical womanhood.
And so you kind of pick one track, and you have to reteach that track as you're learning it. So some folks say, who in the world do I teach? And that's the greatest place to start. So many people have been a learner for so long without ever kind of crossing the threshold of seeing themselves pouring into someone else. And again, many are intimidated by that prospect. Many would say no matter how much Bible they've received, they just don't know enough. And prophet Hendricks used to always tell me the hardest part is just starting, just being committed, being willing to invite someone to follow you as you follow Christ, invite them into this. You don't have to title it as such, but let them know you're going to be studying the Bible. You love to share what you're learning with them.
And he says the reason people never get good at making disciples is they never start. That's your assignment. You're going to begin. And it could be with a daughter, a son.
I was going to say our kids could be the first ones. We have a lot of spouses that learn and kids. Or again, many of these folks can talk to their pastoral staff and say, hey, where can I be teaching this? Maybe a small group, a class, or a one-on-one relationship. But that is the key assignment.
Each week you've got your classes and then you have a time you're sitting down and you're now taking what has been invested in you and you're pouring it into someone else in the context of a relationship. I'm imagining listeners having one of three responses to what they're hearing you describe. There's some group of listeners who would say, I have been looking for something like this.
This itch has been in me. I want to go deeper into God's word. I want to get more active and more involved. I think that's a lot of people.
I think there's a lot of women. A lot of my friends are saying, I'm going to go to seminary. I want to learn. I want to dig deep into God's word. I think there's a second group that goes, this sounds really good, but how do you even think about fitting this in to everything else that's going on?
Life is crazy and I just don't have space in my life. And then there's a third group that's kind of like, I think this is probably good for those really kind of the Green Beret Christians. The spiritual ones that are really Jesus-y. This is not what the average Christian should do.
This is what the super Christians do. If it would be okay, I'd love to address all three. The first category of, hey, this sounds great. I'm even one interested in seminary. I'm a big fan of seminary. I did a master's at Dallas.
I did a doctorate at Gordon Connell. I was in seminary seven years. And because I love to study God's word and all things related, it was a joy. So I have nothing but encouragement for someone feeling led to go to seminary. I do lament historically that so much of the reason discipleship lacks in the church is because of the creation of the institution of the seminary. In my own research and in doing a doctorate in discipleship in the church, there's a part of me that grieves that we merely outsource to seminaries that which is given as a responsibility to the church. So again, I'm a huge fan of seminary, but I would say and always say to any lay person, for me, one year of downline is about the same equivalent for me.
It's two degrees in seven years. In seminary, I think the first class I took was like Ruth and the Minor Prophets, and I figured out later where it fit in. But to start in Genesis and really walk through, I mean, we go exegetically through about 70% of God's word with overviews over the other parts, and it's so rich to see the way it all fits together. You will have handles on God's word that helps you to be a student of the word. And should you go to seminary from there, this will do nothing but create an undergirding foundation by which now you can learn in a far more accelerated way. Your understanding would be so much exponentially greater if you had downline as a foundation before you went to seminary. So this is either pre-seminary or it may wind up being exactly what you need and you never need to go to seminary. Amen.
So category one, that's it. Let me say this. When you dive in exegetically, but you're also pulling back 30,000 feet and saying, okay, you're going to not only get the book of Genesis, you're going to understand the whole thing. Because so many people in our church and most churches are like, I'm intimidated by this book.
I don't even understand how it all fits together. They're not going to feel that way when they're done. No, this is such a joy for me just to share because I've had the chance to see 3,000 people in my city go through this from 60 different churches, and that's a lot of feedback we gather. And the number one thing that everyone, I mean, we're talking somewhere near 100% of the students have said is I fell more in love with Jesus.
We always get that. And then secondly, I know my Bible. And yes, the intimidation of where do I begin? How could I possibly, I'd have to go to seminary. No, if we start with an overview of the entire Bible and then we go back and we walk you right through it and then we end again with the overview. Two reasons people always tell me they don't make disciples in my years of being in this field of discipleship ministry is, number one, I don't really know what that means. And number two, I don't know my Bible well enough. It hadn't been a seminary.
No formal theological training. If you go through downline, those two fears are tidal-waved with a gospel excitement. Yeah, that's cool.
I mean, I know last year at our church, we, and I brought it to our team. I'm like, let's do a Bible overview series. Yeah. And, you know, I'm doing the Old Testament week one in 30 minutes, Genesis to Malachi. And I'm like, oh, that was great. You know, I had images and walked through the whole timeline and it was great, right? And I'm like, nobody's going to remember this in six months. And they didn't. You know, we did New Testament next week in 30 minutes, you know?
That's right. It's like, this is helpful, but, and people hear what you say and say, wait, wait, wait, I'm going to put this kind of time in a week and guess what? It's going to be worth it because it's going to be an investment that you're going to actually remember. And that was one of Bob's three categories, the person that says, that sounds awesome, but how could I? I don't know how, you know, I'm speaking to people in so many different contexts and walks of life and it may not be the year for someone to do it, but I would say if there is something stirring in your belly, like, oh, I wish I could, I'll just say this, if you find a way to commit that time to the Lord and just say, this is too important not to do, if there's this opportunity and it's now, and I don't know, I mean, what's more important, prophet Hendricks used to always say, if we're too busy to make disciples, which I would include being equipped to make disciples, then we're too busy.
So is it worth considering carving back something? Is there something that could be given over as a stewardship of the gospel in lieu of getting this training that has been, for whatever reason, lacking in your life? And I would just say this, if you begin, I just about can promise you. So this is, I wouldn't have said this in year one, two, or maybe even five, but 15 years in, over 5,000 people trained, 3,000 in the community I'm a part of, no one has ever begun.
In two or three weeks, their hair's on fire. I mean, they're going, this is the greatest thing I've ever done. So if they begin, they will find ways from that point to continue. So take a test, I mean, sample this and just see if God doesn't stir something. That's what I would say. And you start to go, I was doing this, but that's really not as important.
Your hunger for this is going to grow. All right, what about the person who goes, well, this is for those really super Christians. Yeah, that's probably the biggest question, and that's where I would even, from a biblical theological grid, just push back gently to say that's the very problem in our church today, is that we have the mindset that biblical training for the purpose of making disciples would be for the super Christian or for the clergy or for the pastor and not for all of us. Therein lies the entire idea of the sleeping army that is the church. And from warnings we get in scripture not to remain in immaturity, Hebrews and Colossians, to the idea that Christ, even Matthew 4, and he called it something, follow me, the very first sentence, and I will make you fishers of men. I think of 2 Corinthians 5, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come, all this from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. And it's just sad to me that somehow there's a divorce in our churches of folks that believe I am saved and the end of my salvation was me having a word of encouragement on Sunday that would get me through my week versus the invitation which Christ gives to the great commission that his Holy Spirit will empower us for something that he's called us to when he called us to new life in Christ that's part and parcel to our salvation, our sanctification, the ministry he's given us, that's the joy of our salvation.
And so I would love to just kind of speak heartily to the person saying that's not a biblical idea that this is for the super Christian. It's for the Christ follower, the gift given to us, the stewardship of our salvation. Paul in Romans 12, how do I respond to the mercy of God given me in salvation? I respond in surrender, I respond in my life, present my body as a living sacrifice, this is my spiritual act of worship. The gospel compels us to lay hold of the ministry we've been given. Kennan, your passion spills out of every pore in your body for God's word and discipleship.
I mean, it's cool to see this. What does this look like in your home? You've got five sons, like how do you transfer that into your home? Yes, my wife Catherine and I, five boys, Caleb, Luke, Jonathan, David, and Mac. That's sort of from Maccabee. I was wondering Mac. I saw these biblical names, I'm like Mac, Mac, Mac.
My favorite historical fiction is My Glorious Brothers, Howard Fast. It's the story of the Maccabees, and it was a Jewish family. I'm Jewish, and it was a family of five boys.
And so too many stars aligned, and we used to joke, if we have a fifth boy, we're going to name him Mac and pray that God would use him to restore his people to himself. Going back to what Bob said, for the person that thinks it's to the super Christian, another way to deconstruct that argument is the idea that there's no super Christian that's going to disciple your children. That is the privilege and stewardship God has given you. If for no other reason, and whether it's down that or some other way to be intentional about equipping yourself with the word of God, would be to intentionally disciple your own children. And boy, this is an area I'm extremely passionate about.
You said, how does it look in our house? Thinking through the broad strokes and the specifics, but broadly, it exists intentionally. That my wife and I understand that we're not going to do it perfectly, but we want to go down swinging. We don't want to be passive in this pursuit. We don't want to let life happen at such a rapid click that we're going to bed at night having not made intentional spiritual investments in our kids. So we have a morning devotional when we all gather at the table, and that's done in summertime. It's a little lax because they're not in school, but it's done before school. And of course, the boys are generally at school.
They have extracurriculars they're involved with. In the evenings, we gather again, and we have a time where we are reading God's word. We are also reading other great works, spiritual works, that we can enjoy and discuss at their level with them. And then the last thing I do in the evenings is I just lay down with my boys. It's been so fun. I've done this since my oldest son was three, four years old.
I had no idea what he was doing. He was kneeling next to me, and he'd hear me pray, and he'd kind of jibber-jabber something out there. And we just kept it going every night, and now it's really fun because there's five kneeling next to me. And I love to hear the elders pray, knowing how that's even shaping the theology of the youngers. But we start the day in God's word. We end the day in God's word. And we try to have, just like Deuteronomy 6 says, we try to have spiritual conversations interjecting a biblical worldview, a scriptural perspective into the things happening in their lives, the trials and tribulations, the letdowns and disappointments, the great victories and celebrations.
My 11-year-old son's birthday lunch, which is one of our traditions, I always ask them a few questions, and they love it. And one of the things is, hey, what are your great hopes for this year? And he was talking about what his hopes were, and of course most of his metrics had to do with baseball statistics and those kind of things. And so I was trying to bring it back down to a more maybe richer root of where did he want to grow in friendship with one of his brothers in particular or those kinds of things. And he was even saying to me that he's been convicted, especially in regards to one of his brothers, that he does not really have a closeness with that brother that he has with the other ones. And he was saying, how do I have that? How can I possibly pursue that with a younger brother?
And what does that look like, Dad? And so all of a sudden I'm in this shepherding role. I'm discipling him on how to pursue real, authentic friendship with a dear brother that you're going to have the rest of your life.
So it's having space, creating space for spiritual conversations and being intentional with those. We've got a link on our website at familylifetoday.com, and there is information available there about Downline Ministries and about how people can register for the upcoming nine months of Downline ministry. There is a special savings available to Family Life Today listeners. In fact, you can use the word family life as a key code and save substantially on the cost of the Downline program. It starts in about a week and a half. So find out today more about Downline.
Go to familylifetoday.com. And Kenan, thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for letting us let our listeners know about this. I hope that a lot of our listeners will just say, I've had this desire.
Now I've got a way I can scratch this itch. Yeah, and I was sitting there. I smile because I'm thinking there's so many people that are biblically illiterate in our churches. They're followers of Christ. They just really don't know.
And sometimes it's not their fault, but a lot of times they haven't done the homework. And I'm thinking, you know, I was in the NFL for 33 years as a chaplain. If you did not know your playbook, you're gone. You're not in this locker room. I mean, there are quizzes on every flight to every game about the game plan.
If you've failed, you don't suit up. And I thought, why do we think it's any different? We're not going to be kicked out of the league if we don't know the Bible, but I want to be a workman of the word. And here's an opportunity to say, it's that simple. Sign up, get it done, and man, you're going to be in a different place, right, from beginning to end.
You said their hair's on fire. I can't wait to hear people. I like that. It's an absolute transformative nine months.
I can promise you that. Kenan, thanks again. Again, I hope our listeners will go to our website, familylifetoday.com. Click on the link for Downline Ministries.
The semester starts here on September 14th. You can sign up online. Use the key code FAMILYLIFE when you sign up, and you can save some money on Downline this year. And I hope this is the biggest year of impact in ministry you've ever had as people from all around the world get connected with Downline and get a biblical and theological education, and at the same time start learning how to connect with friends and family members and evangelize and disciple and share your faith. And this is the perfect time. You know, what's going on in our culture right now, what's going on in our world, this is the time to say let's do something significant for the kingdom. Go to familylifetoday.com for more information about Downline Ministries.
If you have any questions, give us a call at 1-800-FL today, and we look forward to hearing from you about your experience with Downline. And we want to say happy anniversary today to a couple who are celebrating 60 years of marriage together today. William and Sandra Robertson got married on this day in 1960. She was a mathematician at Cape Canaveral.
He was an Air Force pilot. Happy anniversary to the Robertsons, and congratulations on 60 years of marriage. That's quite a milestone. And with that, we've got to wrap things up for today. Thanks for joining us. Hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able in some way to worship with your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to revisit the Detroit Lions locker room from a number of years ago when Dave Wilson was still the chaplain for the Lions, and the team wasn't doing great on the field, but in the locker room, God was at work, and we'll visit with three former Lions players and hear about what God was doing when we get together on Monday. Hope you can join us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.
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