GA Baptist Discipleship

Dan Williams formed Partnerships with a Purpose during the Olympics in Atlanta and Salt Lake City. He founded Sports Serve, where he devoted his time to leadership development through sports. Since 1993 Dan has been working with churches and organizations to make disciples in and through sport across North America. He is one of the founding members of the North American Sports Movement.

Chris Weldon has been married for 31 years to Debby. They have 7 children and 3 grandchildren (number 4 is due in November). Chris has been in ministry for 32 years, with 10 of those years in Seattle as a Church Planter with NAMB. The last 5.5 years as a Co-Vocational Pastor at Emerson Church, a replant of a 150-year-old church, that is positioned next to the largest sport complex in Georgia. Chris has a BA in Biblical Studies, a Master of Divinity, and a Doctorate from SEBTS.

In this episode we discuss:

• The cautions of travel sport commitments and the conflicts it creates in the local church.
• How important our world view is when making travel sport decisions.
• How anything can become an idol and specific guard rails we can utilize.
• That disciple-making can happen where you live, work and play.
• Tools to equip families who have chosen to engage in travel sports.
• The importance or seeing ourselves as “in Christ” and not defined by a sport or job.
• Who has the primary responsibility to disciple our children.
• Making disciples requires us to think creatively and keep the priority of connecting with a local church.
• How parents can know if they have crossed the line in priority.
• Mindset shifts church leaders can make to increase gospel impact.
• Three Key questions parents can ask to guide their decision whether to commit to a travel sport team.

Ken Braddy is the Director of Sunday School & Network Partnerships for Lifeway Christian Resources.  He’s been the managing director of adult ongoing Bible studies such as Bible Studies For Life, Explore The Bible, MasterWork, The Gospel Project, YOU, and more. Through his team’s work at Lifeway, they served the Bible study needs of approximately 3 million adults each week.

Matthew Gibbs has been the discipleship and evangelism pastor at Second Baptist Church in Warner Robins, Georgia for the past 15 years and has served in ministry over 25 years. He is a core piece of our discipleship team serving as discipleship consultant in our east central region and one of my close trusted friends.

In this episode:

• The general purpose of Sunday morning bible study and how this can be communicated.
• How curriculum can help us achieve the purpose of bible study groups.
• Curriculum is important because our behavior grows out of what we believe.
• The pros and cons for giving your bible study leaders an option on approved curriculum vs a unified curriculum.
• Practical ideas on how to choose what curriculum to use.
• Why leaders must choose and communicate whether you have an open group vs a closed group when choosing what curriculum to use.
• Trends and cautions when choosing curriculum based bible study or sermon based studies and the benefits.
• One way to get a golf trip with Ken Braddy in the Swiss Alps!

We interview Ken Adams, pastor at Crossroads Church Newnan, Georgia and President of IMPACT Ministries. Carl Johnson also joins us. Carl is the pastor of leadership development at Peace Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia and serves as a contract representative for our Georgia Baptist Discipleship Team in the West Central region.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Craig Etheridge writes that US is now #3 behind India and China for the most number of people NOT professing to be Christian. 
• One specific way to win a NEW 2023 IPAD PRO!!
• A shift most churches need to make is to understand what their Win really needs to be.
• The critical need to understand the church’s marching orders and why we do what we do.
• How to FIGHT for a shift in culture.
  • Form a framily-friends & family
  • Identify and eliminate infections 
  • Give kudos (never miss an opportunity to praise leaders)
  • Hold high your core values
  • Take up for your lay and paid leaders
• William Vanderbloemen says “culture wins with everyone… every time.”
• Keys to create a mindset or programmatic shift.
• Why regular and quality leadership meetings can be THE difference in your ministry.
• Ideas to move your people from consumers to co-laborers.
• 3 thoughts to help you make the above shifts including, seek to build onramps and not cul de sacs (credit: Aaron Hulse-First Fayetteville)

Dr. Allen Jackson currently serves as both a professor and pastor. For over half of his adult ministry life, he lived on the NOBTS campus and taught, researched, and spoke in the field of youth and collegiate ministry. Over the years, his interests expanded into other fields in Christian Education and Spiritual formation including leadership, administration, developmental psychology, risk management, and a heavy investment in the next generation. He has written extensively in adolescent, collegiate, leader training, and Bible teaching areas. Allen now serves as senior pastor at Dunwoody Baptist Church in Atlanta and has been a constant source of wisdom and friendship in my life for over two decades.

Ray Sullivan III serves as the Discipleship Consultant in South Georgia for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. Because conversion is the starting line, not the finish line, Ray is passionate about helping pastors and churches take their next step in developing intentional disciple-making pathways that lead converts to become fully trained disciples of Jesus. Before joining the GBMB, Ray served as lead pastor in churches throughout Kentucky, Florida, and Georgia.

In the episode:

• Learn the events and experiences that influenced each generation and why that matters as we seek to reach and retain Millennials and Gen X.
• Millennials are the largest generation in the American workforce.
• Gen X is the first generation to experience the full effects of divorce and both parents working outside the home.
• Millennials are the first generation to be fully influenced by the cell phone becoming an everyday tool.
• Gen X accounted for the majority of start-ups pre-pandemic and has incurred more debt than any other generation.
• Millennials made popular long beards, flannel, and fedoras.
• Gen X, well, they got parachute pants!
• Millennials will experience the greatest transfer of wealth in American history so helping them learn to manage money is critical.
• Gen X are caring for aging parents and local churches can offer caregiver support.
• Note the pendulum swing regarding what becomes important from one generation to the next.
• Millennials want to be involved.
• Gen X are skeptical and need to see authenticity and moral integrity.
• Listen to learn best practices churches are utilizing to engage both.

Chris Trent is the Next Gen Catalyst on our Church Strengthening team. He served as a student pastor in churches in Texas and Georgia, most recently as student pastor at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church for 14 years. 

Jenni Carter is a Statewide Next Gen Consultant on our Church Strengthening team focusing on helping churches in Kids Ministry. She has served for over 10 years with the GBMB and is nationally recognized for her efforts in VBS training and for seeing thousands of children come to faith in Christ through VBS. 

Gen Z (born years 1997-2013) is easy to focus on the negative things society says about this generation. But on this broadcast, the team has a conversation on leveraging relational authority in the lives of this generation to see God using them in the local church. 

The team discusses:  

• Why relational authority with Gen Z is different than ever before.
• How can church leaders disciple a child if their parent can't (or won't) be the spiritual leader in the home?
• What's one of the first things we can do to begin the discipleship process for kids?

Let's face it. We gather people and organize events in our church to connect church families and guests. But when we create events, are we doing them with a next step in mind or how "great" the event can be?

We invite JJ Yount on the broadcast alongside Adi Coe, who both serve at First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia. As a seasoned student pastor and associate pastor, JJ shares some of his processes for helping events be next-step generators in our discipleship pipeline throughout his ministry and as the student pastor at First Redeemer. Adi serves on the team with JJ connecting women at First Redeemer and the community in discipleship. In this episode, the team talks about the following:

• How do we communicate and promote events?
• All events start with how the church views the events in general.
• What makes the engine of your church go, and how do you make it go faster?
• Are your events just for evangelism, or could they also do discipleship? 
• Who are you trying to bring in, and what action must they take?
• Do something exciting they haven't done before but know your strategy beforehand.
• Someone who has never been to church and doesn't have a relationship with the church, and it's hard not to see it from their view if they have been raised there. 
• It's like Marketing 101: Your internal language needs to be rethought and get out of the bubble of the church.
• The same event doesn't translate into different contexts, so know your demographic and the people you want to reach.
• Where do you start trying to make your church more diverse?
• Dig into what the community needs. People know when it's not genuine.
• God loves creativity!
• JJ visited Africa. Noticed that some of the negative impacts are when we go in and try to make churches in Africa like US churches, they lose the culture. We are not there to create a US church. 
• How can we figure out what culturally matters to that person so we can meet them where they are and meet their need?
• Every human wants to belong, but they belong differently, and you must also see this at your events. Train leaders to see this too.
• The win is the people who move on to the next stage (i.e., joining a small group, etc.).
• Pre- and Post-Checklist

Dr. Patrick Morley founded Morley Properties in 1973 and was one of Florida’s 100 largest privately held companies. He’s been the president or managing partner of over 59 different companies and has taught a bible study to over 5,000 men for decades on Friday mornings. He has written over 18 books. His book, Man in the Mirror has sold over 3,000,000 copies worldwide and selected as one of the most influential books of the 20th Century. Dr. Morley has a new book out entitled: A Man’s Guide to Spiritual Disciplines.

In this episode, Patrick and Scott explore:

• The status of men and spiritual growth in America.
• Evangelism without discipleship is cruel. Patrick Morley
• God tends to communicate in 4 ways.
  • Through His works
  • Through His Word
  • Through the whisper of His Spirit
  • Through the witness of believers
• The importance of drawing value from who I am not what I do.
• How to learn to engage with God’s Word even if you do not like to read.
• Explore the deepest hunger of the human heart.
• How a pastor or leader can observe a Sabbath even when overwhelmed with work and family responsibilities.
• How the pastor can build men in the church through spiritual disciplines.
• A suggestion for the true measurement of men’s ministry success.

Scott Sullivan and Carl Johnson interview Ken Adams, pastor at Crossroads Church Newnan, Georgia and the President of IMPACT Ministries. IMPACT Ministries has a full line of resources developed to help disciples make fully trained disciples.

In this episode:

• Ken shares how IMPACT Ministries was birthed and how leaders all over the world are using the material.
• https://impactdisciples.com/
• Ken shares how IMPACT resources may be different from others.
• Carl shares from experience that the material shows the heart of a disciple making pastor and helps the disciple learn to live a disciple making journey.
• We learn the purpose of curriculum and how it can be used effectively to guide one’s journey.
• Solid biblical curriculum always points people to scripture as the source of faith and practice.
• Ken shares practical ideas how IMPACT curriculum is used at Crossroads Church.
• Scott shares that healthy churches multiply disciples, multiply groups, and multiply churches. And curriculum can be a guide to help you align the theology for a seamless biblical focus.

Where does evangelism end and discipleship begin? That is an initial question in a discipleship resource called This is the Gospel. This is the Gospel was created to help new believers and undiscipled believers understand their walk with Christ, become grounded as disciples, and gain a basic framework for the Christian life.

This resource was developed by Dr. Paul Gotthardt, formerly the founding and lead pastor of Life Baptist Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. After 18 years of ministry in Las Vegas, he was called as the sixth senior pastor at Sherwood in June 2021. Paul is a native of Savannah, GA, and he and his wife have been married for 27 years. Father of two college age daughters: Shana and Kaylee.

John Lagrange is the Director of This Is the Gospel at Sherwood Church, and he was previously the missions and groups pastor at Life Baptist Church in Las Vegas. He is originally from New York and married to Virginia. They have three kids and are exploring all South Georgia has to offer!

In this episode:

• What drove Paul to create this curriculum?
• Why are relationships foundational in our walk with the Lord?
• John gives his testimony and talks about his involvement with This is The Gospel.
• How do we maintain the tension of the relationship with Christ, the Church, and the World?
• What does a basic framework for living a life of Christ look like?

Scott N. Smith is the Communications Director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board (GBMB). He was brought on the GBMB team in 2012 after he had built a digital consultancy for churches while traveling in full-time evangelism for 17 years. Scott's expertise in digital strategy and his broad engagement with hundreds of churches created an understanding of what churches need to use digital effectively. He recently did a series of Facebook live events in which his video on Artificial Intelligence went viral with high engagement. 

PJ Dunn was between two Scotts (Scott Sullivan and Scott Smith) on this broadcast as the team dived into AI and applied it to discipleship that advances the Gospel:

• Scott Smith lays a definition of AI for the audience.
• Looking into the flaws of AI and how it takes on thinking processes.
• AI doesn't add to knowledge but helps humans do things quicker and more efficiently.
• Practical uses of AI with sermon and discipleship preparation.
• Somewhat like using a commentary. The medium is different, but the application is the same.
• You can give personal prompts to AI to determine the output.
• Is AI strengthening, or is it pushing you over to lethargy?
• See AI as a way to gain time back in your day and as an assistant.
• It can't replace personal study and connection to the Lord and Holy Spirit.
• AI can't duplicate uniqueness as you can.