The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele

Peter Mayrick: Being more intentional in discipleship

• Peter Mayrick • Season 6 • Episode 48

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How do we encourage our staff teams and members to be more intentional in Jesus’ mission of making disciples?

Disciple making is entering into relationships to help people trust and follow Jesus - the whole journey from conversion through maturing and multiplication. 

There’s a formal teaching component. But there’s so much more.

Peter Mayrick, from Partners in Ministry, says he wants us to be more intentional.

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Speaker 1:

Check one, two. I just moved a little bit further away, is that all right? Yep.

Speaker 2:

Okay, it is the pastor's heart and Dominic Steele. And being more intentional about discipleship. Pete Mayerick is our guest. Jesus calls us to make disciples, but how do we make that the main game amongst a whole lot of other competing priorities, and how do we encourage our staff, teams and members to be more intentional in disciple-making as well? Disciple-making is entering into relationships to help people trust and follow Jesus, the whole journey from conversion through maturing to multiplication. Now there's a formal teaching component, but so much more as well. Potentially lots of us do it by vibe, but Peter Mayrick from Partners in Ministry says he wants us to be more intentional. And how can we do that? We're going to come to that in a moment. But, peter, as somebody who meets with 40 senior pastors on a month, six-week cycle, you encourage pastors and you've got a heart for pastors and seeing us lead healthy lives spiritually.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, look, I've been doing this now for 13 years and I learned a long time ago. It is hard to be a Christian when you're trying to make everybody else be Christians, and so I have a real sympathy for pastors living out their faith personally, flourishing personally in life and in relationships, including relationship with God, and, out of that, leading the church.

Speaker 2:

So I mean, I guess there have been with 40 conversations with senior pastors a month for 13 years. There have been some really good moments and some really sad moments.

Speaker 1:

Of course, of course, and some of it's personal, as in personally causation, and others are just the attacks and the barbs of what goes on in church. We all know sheep bite, we know goats kick and it's a hard role to be a church leader Without breaking confidentiality.

Speaker 2:

have you noticed patterns?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and Grant Bickerton noticed this when he looked at burnout that when we leave our spiritual formation which is code for when we leave devotions, that's when we leave our spiritual formation, which is code for when we leave devotions, that's when we find ourselves exposed in many ways to being de-energized.

Speaker 2:

When we leave devotions.

Speaker 1:

When we get so busy that we lift off doing our regular devotions or our regular spiritual input, our devotions, our reading the word praying to God for ourselves, there's a consequential movement that he showed towards burnout or being de-energised, and have you seen that happen amongst the guys you talk to?

Speaker 1:

A lot. It's very, very common. Vocational Christianity means that we have rhythms in our life, and sometimes those rhythms get so big that we drop our personhood, we drop what we should be doing, and that might start with our relationship with God. But we all know sometimes it means compromising our relationships at home, our spouses, our other relationships, which is not healthy, and so that means pastors are not leading out of a healthy environment.

Speaker 2:

How do you help people to turn that around?

Speaker 1:

So a constant question for us and this is what we train when we train people in coaching is the three Gs. It starts with how are you going? And so I'll ask a pastor to give me permission to ask questions about life going in life, going in relationships, going personally it might be physical fitness and things like that. Often we talk about holidays and things like that. But the second of the G how are we going? How are you growing?

Speaker 1:

So, just in case we didn't cover it there, how are you going in your faith? What's God teaching you at the moment? Which is code for starting to uncover. Are you reading the Bible for yourself? We're all reading the Bible. If we're in vocational ministry, we're preparing sermons, we're preparing talks, but are you personally sitting under God's word and are you in prayer yourself with God? And it's amazing how easy it is in vocational ministry we all know that to just do what we need to do and say, well, I'm in the Bible rather than sitting under it. And many, many, many pastors tell me yeah, my sermon prep is not personal, it's preparing a talk, and some aren't. By the way, some people are doing personal prep as they preach as well.

Speaker 2:

And I imagine this has actually helped your. I mean, if you're asking, all these pastors, you've actually got to make sure your own house is in order in this.

Speaker 1:

Any question I ask the person I'm with is welcome to ask it back.

Speaker 2:

So how's your personal Bible reading? My personal Bible reading well it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

I've just come through a period where it's been pretty low. I had a really busy September and I decided, right, I'm going to get back into Acts. And I've loved being back in Acts. So right now I'm actually pleased that you asked the question. A month ago, in the middle of a whole bunch of meetings, I was struggling for devotion Early start out, late night. I'm tired, and that's part of a pastor's life too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Discipleship, intentional discipleship. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1:

I mean by that. If I was doing training in any organisation on culture or on vision and mission, what you'll find is that every organisation, people start to fall in love with their strategy rather than their purpose, or their strategies, or what they're doing rather than their vision of where they'd like to be. And in church it's no different. We say we want to make disciples and we do these things to help to make disciples, and what we find is that what we do is we live out those things. So, for example, one of the core things we do in church is run a church meeting. We run a service, a gathering. It's not hard to make part of what I do about running a good gathering Rather than running a good gathering that helps people to grow in their love for Jesus. It's that next piece what's?

Speaker 1:

the difference between those two things, because if my purpose is good gathering, I'll be measuring it according to how people interpret good. So it might become a good gathering that people want to come to, a gathering that's impressive, a gathering that runs on time, and they all might be important things, but your end goal, if your end goal is discipleship, you'll start measuring impact on lives. Think of a growth group, for example, which many of us in church life run growth groups. If our objective for growth groups is to see people come to know Jesus, grow in their love for Jesus, then we tend to do certain things. We do a Bible study. If the emphasis becomes the Bible study, it doesn't take long till we become a comprehension group rather than a discipleship group. We might move away from seeing God work in people's lives or the application of a text to did you understand the text? And there's a difference. We want to understand the scriptures, but we want to understand the scriptures so that lives may be changed.

Speaker 2:

So, if I'm hearing you right, you're saying sometimes our strategic thinking can actually get in the way of the actual purpose of disciple-making? Yeah, because we fall out of focus. We generally want to encourage people to be more strategic, but you're saying there's a danger at the other end.

Speaker 1:

It's the job of a leader to keep people focused on the objective, on the purpose, and to have people to understand this strategy. This group, this meeting, whatever it is, exists so that we what's the end result and we need to remind people of that constantly. And so part of leadership in any organisation is to keep people anchored onto this is why we're doing it. I was coaching a guy in the US this morning and they've had an offer to have a new building, to get access to a new building, and it's a lovely new building and it's a great change. And I said make sure, as you assess this, that it fits in with your purpose of making disciples of Jesus, because there will be reasons for wanting to go to this new building, which are really good reasons, but if they don't align with the purpose of discipleship, you could go and move into a new building and actually impair the end objective.

Speaker 2:

How might that happen?

Speaker 1:

We could move into the building because it's more attractive to the city, or it's more attractive to our people, or it's more comfortable, or it's more this or that.

Speaker 2:

I mean, they sound like things that would help.

Speaker 1:

They may well help as long as they don't get in the way of. Here's what we're here for, and typically they will help. But it's not hard to just lose sight of the main role and drift into something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, how? Church culture and discipleship and staff culture and discipleship. Let's do staff first, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, culture, I think, is key, because that's what we want to be building is a culture where people are wanting to be, and ascribing to be, disciples of our Lord Jesus. Culture is something I mean. What's his name? Drucker was given credit for saying culture is strategy for breakfast, but culture is the way we do things. It's the reason why boys and girls in school will do things they know are wrong, because acceptance in the group is more important than doing right In church. It's no different. Culture drives the way we do things, and you change culture very, very slowly. It's a significant challenge to change culture. In fact, if you're working against culture, you need to know that, because you really are doing something that's not easy to do.

Speaker 1:

Culture is formed by a number of things, and one of the things that I love about culture is it's copied. So leaders will set culture by the way they do things, and if you think about culture and the influence of culture, the actions, the behaviours, the things we do are extremely important. Leadership is all about followership. Effective leaders have people following them. What are they following? They're following what you do. So a leadership team that is not modelling a culture of discipleship really has very little hope of impacting others into such a culture. So we need to have a focus on those we lead. Are they disciples? Are they living as disciples? Do they understand? That's what we aspire for. What is it? To live as a disciple and therefore, so, what are we modelling? So, as I meet with senior leaders, part of my questioning is are you discipling those who you are responsible?

Speaker 2:

for Rather than just talking about the function of the job they're doing Correct. So I mean, you said how you're going, how you're growing. What was your third one?

Speaker 1:

The third one was how did you go? So 3G is going growing and how did you go on those things that you said you would do, which is basic accountability?

Speaker 2:

Right. So I think if I push you, then I think you're suggesting that in my one-on-one meetings with my staff, that should be my structure.

Speaker 1:

I would encourage you to, or something like it, which means that you're regularly in the conversation of your life is important. Your life under Jesus is important. How's that going?

Speaker 2:

Whereas the temptation is for me to ask how did you go, rather than how are you going? How are you growing?

Speaker 1:

And that's the same for me when I meet with a pastor, the first thing he wants to tell me is hey, did you know I did this, hang on. And sometimes I'm good and I say, hang on, let's start with you. And other times I get to the end of the meeting and I I never asked you, dominic, how are you going?

Speaker 2:

Right, okay, Now when you coach a senior minister, you're not in line management.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

Whereas when a senior minister is talking to their staff team, their staff team is individuals. They're in line management. How does it work with those questions? Are they too intrusive to ask for somebody I'm employing or not?

Speaker 1:

I don't think so and I think it works in both environments. When I'm coaching, when I'm supervising a pastor, I'm in their environment, it is their environment. So I need permission to ask these questions. If I'm in line management, I don't want to be seen as brutal and exploring where I shouldn't explore, so I need permission. So what typically I would say is hey, look, here's what I've been taught, how you're going and how you're growing.

Speaker 1:

My understanding of what this intends to do is to have a conversation about your life. Now you're in charge with your life. What would be okay if I ask for me to ask? And I would typically say you know, some people would say it's helpful to ask how their marriage is or their key relationships. Could I ask you what's important to you? And some people will say well, you hold me accountable to my exercise and then, in growing, look, you and I both know your faith is pivotal to this place. Would you be okay if I asked you how you're growing? How's your relationship with Jesus? One of the questions I typically would say so is it okay to ask you what God's teaching you from his word? I think that conversation is helpful with a staff member too. You have to put it out there. Listen, in no way do I want to be invasive, but the reason for doing this is my understanding. Is this willing? Is to encourage you as a disciple, is that okay?

Speaker 2:

And then that gives me a structure for my staff to ask with all of the people, the team leaders, the community group leaders how are you going? How are you growing? How did you go?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, and so I work with a particular church here in Sydney where I trained the staff team on the methodology of coaching and in delegation, and then they had me train every leader in the church growth group leaders, welcoming team leaders, et cetera. What that does is to create a mutual expectation of. This is what good support looks like, this is what good coaching looks like and, of course, as I train that I train. This is part of discipleship is caring about a person and how they're going, both in personhood and under God. That was culture forming for that church.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I want to say about culture is sometimes we think if we don't get 100% buy-in, we're not successful. I don't work like that at all. You know the theory of tipping point. If you get 10 to 16% of people shifting, that starts to shift a culture. And so if I run a workshop with a group of people, say a group of small group leaders, and only a third of them decide to start implementing something, well, that's about 20% of the church covered. That starts to create a significant shift in momentum, which I'm stoked to see.

Speaker 2:

Actions and words.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, good call. So typically, if I was to just boil down how I see culture, culture is really the expression of our deeply formed values and there are three main broad tools for shifting culture. The number one thing is actions. The middle one that I would put there is the words, the things we say. And the third one that I would highlight are the things we do, the systems, the structures we create.

Speaker 1:

So meeting on a Sunday is a structural thing that reinforces we meet together, we think that's important. Or midweek meetings. I think the Apostle Paul got it entirely right when he said imitate.

Speaker 2:

That's a win for him. I'm glad you said that. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. He knew people win for him.

Speaker 1:

I'm glad you said that. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. He knew people were copying him and as you go through the scriptures, there's actually quite a bit about imitation or be a good example and things like that, because people often don't know what it looks like, but they will copy. But the words are essential because people need to understand why. People need to understand. Why are you doing that, dominic? Why are you reading the Word? And if you leave it open to me to interpret why you're doing what you're doing, I could come up with a bunch of interpretations. No, no, explain to me. I'm sitting in devotion and I'm encouraging you in devotion because this is a really important thing to do to understand God, to understand what it is to be a follower of Jesus, whatever language you put to that, but the why is very important. Now here's where the collision comes, by the way, when we say something because it's much easier to say something from a pulpit and then not match it we call that hypocrisy and that causes an extraordinary collision in culture, and so we want to do what we say right.

Speaker 1:

In business, there's a very, very common parable that lives out, or behavior that lives out. The senior executive will stand in front of people and say people are our most important asset. People are our most important asset. We love people and so we want to care for people. And most people in the organisation will say isn't he a great boss, isn't she a great boss? I love the fact that we love people. When that person works with their direct reports and all they do is care about task and all they do is care about task. Their words are different to their actions, but what starts to happen is those people notice. Well, I'm going to copy what the boss does.

Speaker 1:

And it filters and they filter down and they say people are our most important asset. And people say, wow, isn't Peter a great guy? People are our most important asset, but what Peter now does is what the boss does. He talks when he meets with people. People are not our most important asset, but what Peter now does is what the boss does when he meets with people. People are not our most important asset. The task of doing is more important, and that's what percolates through into culture. Now, people can break it, but that's what percolates, and it's the same in ministry. When I say love one another, love one another because Jesus commanded it, and yet I'm a man without love. That's what those who choose to follow me will do. They'll say the good things, but they will give themselves a leave, pass on the behaviour, and so you won't create the culture.

Speaker 2:

Okay, give me some examples of where a senior minister has decided I want to change the culture of my church and I want to start with me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I think that's a great place to start. I've seen a number of people do this and do it really really well when it starts with me. Who are those people, dominic, in your life that you need to be the discipler of? And they probably will start with staff, but probably something at home, I think the number one thing to recognise. So when I first started 13 years ago, I would say, dominic, what does discipleship look like? And typically a minister gave me a very, very rich view of one-to-one discipleship. I said, man, that's fantastic. And who do you do that with?

Speaker 1:

I haven't got time and they would say none. Part of the problem was this perception that my job is to do that with all 100 people in the church, and I couldn't do that. I can't do that, so I don't start.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's I end up having more of the task-orientated conversations and I go task because that's what I've got to do. If I don't have the task-orientated conversations, the whole thing stops.

Speaker 1:

Correct, and so discipleship becomes what I proclaim from the pulpit, which is part of discipleship. Right, teaching is part of discipleship, but that's what I limit it to, and so I'm not modelling. The conversation would then go look, it's interesting about that 100,. Dominic, let's have a look at Jesus for a moment. He's pretty special, isn't he? And just in case it's not recognised as God, Jesus chose to have 12 people that he focused most acutely on, and then often the minister would say, yeah, and he had his three favourites.

Speaker 1:

Now we're in a discussion and I say well, do you think you're better than Jesus? No, I don't. I would say listen, I've been trained in people management most of my life and I find that I have a sweet spot somewhere between 8 and 10. If I try and be intentional with more than 10 people in my workplace, I tend to shallow out. I tend to be pretty poor. Most ministers I talk to would say 4 to 8. So, dominic, what would it be for you? And that's where we're now in a conversation. I don't want you to give me that immediate answer. I want you to start thinking.

Speaker 1:

What is my capacity for what I've just described? Spending time with somebody and interrogating or investing in them and their life. And if it's four, who would those four be? And often there's a couple that are obvious. They may well be direct reports and there might be a couple of others. They don't have to be inside the church, but this is discipleship, something that's intentional. Then meet with those two people and, as you say, the expectation is they would do similar with other people. Now we're in an organisational structure that can become a discipling community and it won't go right through the whole church but it will percolate through some and that starts to shift a culture.

Speaker 2:

Where have you seen a guy make that change? I mean, I'm not asking the name of the church, but put some flesh on that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've seen that in a number of places the one that I the example I gave, where we started with coaching and delegation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And then that shifted into this, yeah, but that was you going during a seminar.

Speaker 1:

I'm thinking about the guy who says today I'm going to change my he then brought it back into his group and said okay, when we run a staff team, we're going to make sure that we start not just in devotion but we're going to share lives. When I meet with you personally, I'm going to meet with you personally and start to ask you questions about life, and that then starts to percolate and, by the way, I expect that of you.

Speaker 2:

So I've seen that in a number of churches large churches and small churches Is your sense, as you meet up with these 40-odd guys, that most senior ministers are discipling in the way you've described it their staff team, their assistant ministers, no.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Most assistant ministers.

Speaker 2:

And yet you want us to.

Speaker 1:

I want, I think you should. I think, if you want to create a culture, that is what you proclaim, what's stopping it? I think intentionality. I think, if you want to create a, culture.

Speaker 2:

That is what you proclaim. What's?

Speaker 1:

stopping it. I think, intentionality making it the focus. So Because the task has become the focus, okay.

Speaker 2:

Or intentionality, or we don't want to be vulnerable with each other.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that's part of it. I think there's a desire not to be rude. I think the word bully has been thrown around a bit, and so I mean, if I ask an assistant, how are you?

Speaker 2:

I mean, you've said how are you going, how are you growing? Do you know? Am I going to be pressuring them? Do you know so?

Speaker 1:

It's how you enter into the conversation and say, hey, I've just learned about this methodology, or I've just been to a course, or I've… Listened to the pastors this week.

Speaker 2:

There you go, I've listened to the pastors.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to try this. Would you be okay with that? And then, okay, what questions could I ask you about going? What would be helpful? Because I want to model this into our community.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I mean I'm presuming this is not the first time you've argued this? No, so tell me about some wins where you've argued that a senior minister said, well, I'll give it a go this week, and when they've come back to talk to you in six weeks' time, what's happened?

Speaker 1:

The answer is typically the person was very, very glad I actually took the time to have the conversation. It took longer than I expected, because when we start talking personally, there's things to talk about. Sometimes I've found there are people who are just not used to that conversation, and so this is entirely fresh, and so the conversation of what could I ask you really does need the prompt of. Well, I've heard that asking you questions about your marriage is that helpful. Asking questions about your fitness or your sleep or your holidays, you know, so often it needs examples, and I've seen that a few times, particularly with men.

Speaker 2:

So I mean, as you say, that I think I don't think I've asked my female staff. I mean, as you say that I think I don't think I've asked my female staff. I think I've made a deliberate decision not to ask my female staff questions about their marriage, in that I do want their marriages to flourish. But how will I say this? I'm aware that I'm a significant figure in their life, and I'm not particularly thinking about my current staff, I'm thinking about women over 20 years, you know, and I'm thinking I'm a significant Christian leader in their life. I have the potential to undermine their husband by being more focused on the gospel, focused on the priorities of the gospel, than their husband might be, or something like that. And so if I'm going to talk to them about deep personal things, I actually want to talk to them in the presence of their husband, not in that weekly kind of meeting. Yeah, I think there's a wisdom piece here as to what is wise their husband, not in that weekly kind of meeting. Give me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think there's a wisdom piece here as to what is wise and what is unwise, and this is why I think you need to open it up, whether it's a male or a female. Open it up to this is your conversation and your life. What would be helpful and I think what you've just said is very important for someone to hear I don't want to walk on that sort of turf that would cause problems. This is a vulnerability step for a person, for them, but it's also a vulnerability step for yourself, because you're now entering into a more vulnerable conversation.

Speaker 2:

What would be appropriate for this person and it's their life- do you agree with what I just said about the oh yeah, I mean, I do understand, I mean I'm imagining you've talked to ministers who've kind of I feel like um pushed too hard in a conversation or not pushed hard enough in a conversation it's usually not pushed hard enough.

Speaker 1:

When, when you open up the conversation and are very careful to let them own what ground you walk on, it has typically been fine. It has typically been okay. Where people have made mistakes is where they push into it and say this is what we're going to cover. But most ministers have the sensibility to understand that's not the way to go.

Speaker 2:

Right, okay.

Speaker 1:

Because they're professional counsellors, in most cases as a senior pastor.

Speaker 2:

When you talk about organisational discipleship, you talk about modelling, teaching, assessing and overseeing. What do you mean there?

Speaker 1:

If you think about any organisation, there's an expectation of what should be achieved. So that's a proclamation, and preaching is part of that proclamation, as this is what we should be ascribing to. This is what good looks like. The teaching should include examples of what that looks like. That might also lead to recognise that if the examples always come from a minister's life, you need to recognise that some people won't be able to relate to those examples.

Speaker 2:

Like when I was at theological college, kind of Correct.

Speaker 1:

Or even the fact that you've got time set aside to be discipling or elevating the example of those in the workforce. Hey Bob, you're working in a busy workforce. What does it look like to be a Christian? So those examples and those stories are powerful, so testimonials and interviews are very helpful.

Speaker 1:

That's part of the proclamation and the example. There's the percolation of expecting people to do it and seeing that it's done. Then there's, as you say, the assessing, the evaluation. If we were a discipling culture, what would we expect to see more of? What would we expect to be able to measure? And that's where you start to go into assessment.

Speaker 1:

I love the National Church Life Survey. I think that church life surveys are really helpful because what you're measuring is you want to measure the fruit of discipleship. That's what you're going to measure. You can measure the inputs as well. We know that people who are likely to be growing in their faith are probably reading the Bible four or more times a week. There's great studies that show that that's a good input measure. We can measure that in an NCLS.

Speaker 1:

We know that people who are growing in their faith are more likely to be inviting. They're twice as likely to be inviting. They're four times as likely to be looking for opportunities to share their faith. So we can measure those things. So a church life survey is a great thing for that sort of stuff, but we can also just ask people like growth group leaders to ask questions about those things. So assessing evaluation is a core thing to get an understanding of how are we going organisationally and I think that's a key part of a leader's job is to be testing and assessing outputs, if you like, and inputs. Does that answer the question? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good. Yeah, I think that we are reluctant to measure those things because we sometimes think how on earth could you measure them? We have the tools that enable us to measure them.

Speaker 2:

So do you think as you I mean as you look at the National Church Life Survey, I think you would like us, as ministers, to spend more time reflecting on what our last results were rather than just spend half an hour and then move on.

Speaker 1:

I'd like us to be looking at them and saying, okay, that's the outcome, that's the result, that's the measure. Why is it so? I sound like Arthur Summon Miller, don't I? Why is it that that is the case? And I'd love people to join the dots and come back to recognise that growth in so. Discipleship is not a transactional thing. I ask you to invite people and people will invite. But typically the core of discipleship is being a disciple. It's a heart that wants to live for Jesus and therefore it's not surprising that people who are growing in their faith are more likely to do those things, and to do that more naturally rather than because the pastor asked me. The pastor does need to equip and train so that I have the confidence to do so, but all of these acts are best an outworking of faith, are they not?

Speaker 2:

Thanks for coming in.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, brother, it's great, my pleasure.

Speaker 2:

My guest on the Pastor's Heart, Pete Mayrick, and he's from Partners in Ministry. This has been the Pastor's Heart. My name's Dominic Steele. We'll look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon. Very good.

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