Ascending Leaders Presents: The Discipleship Podcast for Church Leaders

Join our President Mike Johnson and our Church Liasion Audra Dezfulian as they discuss Worthwhile Reads on Discipleship.

Click Here for an list of the books mentioned in this Episode.

Our Guest this Episode: Harry Vein

Harry retired in 2022 from serving churches throughout the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church for the past 40 years. He served churches in Houston (Chapelwood - my home church), Cleveland (FUMC), Brenham (FUMC), Cypress UMC and Spring Faith UMC.  Throughout his ministry, Harry loved leading people into an intimate relationship with Christ that would lead their faith to come alive. In planning for life in retirement, Harry was trained through Coach Training For Leaders in order to empower pastors, leaders and churches to be all that God created them to be. His passion in ministry is to see lives and churches transformed as people fall in love with Christ and one another. 

Janet Ables is the Minister of Development (Leadership, Curriculum and Women) at CityView Bible Church in Round Rock, Austin, Texas and she also serves as the interim Student Pastor.  She made the “exodus to Texas” just before the pandemic in 2019 and before coming to Texas she served for over 15 years in vocational ministry in California. The bulk of this was within the scope of women’s ministry and adult discipleship.

She’s written 3 Bible-study books, Faith Refined: How God Uses Hard Times to Redefine Our Faith, Deceived: Destroying the lie that we are not enough, and To Know by Name: An Intimate Look at the Names of God.

She’s also the founder and president of the Esther Movement, an organization dedicated to reaching women in vulnerable places with the love of the gospel. And if that is not enough, she is also a recent graduate from the Evangelism and Leadership program at Wheaton College.

Emmanuel Kwizera, M.A. ’23, is a Billy Graham scholar in the M.A. program for Evangelism and Leadership at Wheaton College. He first arrived on campus with his family in 2021 after spending years working in Kenya as an evangelist.

He is originally from Rwanda, the son of missionary evangelists. In 1994, he survived the brutal genocide that ripped the country apart and led to the death of over one million of the Tutsi people, including over 100 of his own family members. Raised in a Christian family, Emmanuel was left wondering how God could have allowed such horror to happen, especially in a country that identified overwhelmingly as Christian. Join Ascending Leaders' podcast to hear what he learned about discipleship and forgiveness.

Listen as Mike Johnson, Founder and President of Ascending Leaders, interviews Professor Wendy Mohler-Seib about engaging practices for online discipleship. Look for ideas you can implement in your setting.

Listen as Mike Johnson, Founder and President of Ascending Leaders interviews Professor Wendy Mohler-Seib about engaging practices for online discipleship. Look for ideas you can implement in your setting.

The big question out there is this: how will churches use internet interaction positively, even after they are back to in person gatherings? Ascending Leaders is most interested in what that will look like to improve discipleship in churches. Thus episode 31 is about A Promising Example of an In-Person/Online Hybrid Small Group. Our guests Jon Harrison and his wife Katie Lee. Jon is the pastor of Greensburg Christian Church in Greensburg, Kansas. Katie-Lee also serves with Jon and others on their church’s discipleship team. 

Jon and Katie have experimented with a Hybrid small group that I want you to hear about. Possibly you can mimic it in your setting or this gives you some new ideas for doing Hybrid discipleship in the future.

The big question out there is this: how will churches use internet interaction positively, even after they are back to in person gatherings? Ascending Leaders is most interested in what that will look like to improve discipleship in churches. Thus episode 31 is about A Promising Example of an In-Person/Online Hybrid Small Group. Our guests Jon Harrison and his wife Katie Lee. John is the pastor of Greensburg Christian Church in Greensburg, Kansas. Katie-Lee also serves with Jon and others on their church’s discipleship team. 

Jon and Katie have experimented with a Hybrid small group that I want you to hear about. Possibly you can mimic it in your setting or this gives you some new ideas for doing Hybrid discipleship in the future.

For this episode of the discipleship podcast --episode 30, Mike is interviewing two men well experienced with the church and technology. They will talk about what may be the technological options for churches out there after they get past the initial surge of bringing ministry online, Mike is interviewing the President & Systems Architect Steve Bauserman and Project Manager Chris Stieb from the ACTS group.

For this episode of the discipleship podcast --episode 30, Mike is interviewing two men well experienced with the church and technology. They will talk about what may be the technological options for churches out there after they get past the initial surge of bringing ministry online, Mike is interviewing the President & Systems Architect Steve Bauserman and Project Manager Chris Stieb from the ACTS group.