The Whole Disciple Podcast

Discipleship happens in relationships, and we want to help! We’ve put together a discussion guide for you to facilitate conversations just like this one with the biblical community in your life!

Family Member Identity Conversation Guide #6—Being Family as Single and Married

In this episode, Christy sits down with Elizabeth Hughes and Dave and Lauren Turner. They open up their lives to share their story and how they became family with one another. They share silly anecdotes and meaningful dialogue concerning how their lives are better by sharing them together.

Both marriage and singleness are good and about the gospel—just differently.

From Genesis 2 onward, marriage is a normal expectation in human existence—because it is God’s plan to create for himself a great big family, and without marriage, there would have been no way for the earth to be filled with God’s family. And marriage was always about Jesus and the church. Marriage is a God-ordained picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ on display for the world to see.

Marriage is God’s idea. It’s good, and it’s about the gospel. And so is singleness.

In the new creation, all bad, sad, and temporary things are cast off, and in that mix, Christian singleness perseveres. Singleness is eternal and things that last forever are good. Single people live out the sufficiency of Christ through our undivided devotion to him. Through undivided devotion to Jesus Christ as Christian singles, we can be fulfilled and content with the church as family, even if we never marry or have children.

Resources:

Single Ever After by Dani Treweek

Discipleship happens in relationships, and we want to help! We’ve put together a discussion guide for you to facilitate conversations just like this one with the biblical community in your life!

Family Member Identity Conversation Guide #5—Being a Multiethnic Family

In this episode, Christy sits down with John Messiah (Arabic mobilization director), Eddy Gil (associate campus director at Alamance), and Ricky Phillips (ethnic unity associate) to talk about the joys and challenges of living as a multiethnic church family. We also discuss practical next steps that each of us can take to grow in developing multicultural, multiethnic relationships in the church.

Resources:

Ethnic Unity Resources

It is God’s plan from the beginning to the very end for his family to be a beautiful array of cultures and ethnicities, with people from all nations. In Revelation 7, we see God’s final vision for his family is to be a great multitude from “all tribes and peoples and languages.”

But how did we get there? Through thousands of years of God’s commitment to bring people from all nations, tribes, and tongues into his family. From the very beginning, God has been committed to his family being multicultural and multiethnic—from God’s covenant with Abraham fulfilled by Jesus, bringing God’s blessing to all nations and lived out in the experience of the church from the book of Acts until today.

So now we go and tell whoever we come across about Jesus, and we intentionally take steps to seek out the people who we wouldn’t naturally interact with, in order to share the gospel. Then, we watch God gather people into our church from across all cultures and walks of life. When they come, we welcome them with open arms, and just like the apostles in Acts 6, we do our best to make sure nobody gets overlooked and nobody gets left out in our family’s fellowship.

Resources:

The Summit Church Ethnic Unity sermon series

Discipleship happens in relationships, and we want to help! We’ve put together a discussion guide for you to facilitate conversations just like this one with the biblical community in your life!

Family Member Identity Conversation Guide #4—Being Family with Multigenerational Adults

In this episode, Christy sits down with Bryan Galloway (shepherding pastor at North Durham) and Dustin Wells (pastor for young adults) to discuss what it looks like to live as family with multiple generations of adults. They talk through the unique challenges for Gen Z and baby boomers at the Summit and churches like it, and how we can move forward in unity, grace, and intentionality.

Discipleship happens in relationships, and we want to help! We’ve put together a discussion guide for you to facilitate conversations just like this one with the biblical community in your life!

Family Member Identity Conversation Guide #3—Being Family with Kids and Students

In this episode, Christy sits down with Toiya Williams (director of Summit Kids) and Jeremy Berger (NextGen pastor) to talk about what it looks like to live as family as adults, students, and kids. They cast a vision for living as family with the church, where everyone of every age has a place, and give practical advice for parents and other adults in the church living as aunts and uncles for kids and students.

God’s family is a real family—with grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles and teenagers and kids—and when we live with the local church as family, we live out our discipleship across generational lines, both giving and receiving from those older and younger than us, as well as those who are our age, in a complex web of relationships that overlap and interweave.Christy explores this through Paul’s second letter to Timothy with four main points: 1. The church is God’s family. 2. When we believe the gospel, it creates new family bonds. 3. Biological/adoptive parents have a unique responsibility for the children in their homes. 4. Every generation is responsible for guarding the good deposit of the gospel and passing it down to the next generation.

Discipleship happens in relationships, and we want to help! We’ve put together a discussion guide for you to facilitate conversations just like this one with the biblical community in your life!

Family Member Identity Conversation Guide #2—Being a Member of a Local Church

In this episode, Christy sits down with Summit Church Campus Pastors Eric Gravelle and Warren Neverson for a chat about church membership. They talk about the challenges people face when considering church membership, give clear encouragement for those who are hesitant about joining a church, and cheer on church members who serve faithfully!

The question is not if every follower of Jesus should be a member of a local church but simply which one. God’s design for our lives as disciples is to be members of a local church. It’s a nonnegotiable in what it looks like to be a disciple-making disciple.

1 Timothy 3:15–16 reminds us that all the instructions about what a local church is and how we should act in one are rooted in the gospel and in God’s mission to make disciples of all nations.

Local churches are characterized by a combination of components:

1. Right preaching of the gospel according to the Scriptures

2. Right observance of baptism and communion 

3. Leadership and service of the elders and deacons

4. Covenant commitment of the believing members to God and one another

God designed us to live our lives in a web of familial relationships of covenant commitment—making a promise to God and one another to grow as a worshiper, family member, servant, steward, and witness. And we live that out as we baptize one another, share in communion, follow the leadership of the elders and be cared for by deacons, go tell the world about Jesus together and celebrate when new brothers and sisters join our family, and encourage one another toward hope as we wait for Jesus Christ to return again in glory and lead us to eternal life in the new creation.

Resources:

One in Christ

Summit Church Membership Covenant

Start the Membership Process at The Summit Church

Discipleship happens in relationships, and we want to help! We’ve put together a discussion guide for you to facilitate conversations just like this one with the biblical community in your life!

Family Member Identity Conversation Guide #1–God Made Us for Family

In this episode, Christy sits down with Lesley Hildreth, John Muller, and David Talbert for a conversation about living with the local church as family. Each guest shares their own journey to living with the local church as family, and then gives pointed and practical advice on how to take your next step to living with the local church as family. Then, we land the plane by each of them sharing how people can join in the family community at the Summit Church through small groups, women’s and men’s discipleship.