In this episode, Christy sits down with Pastor Bryan Loritts to talk about what it means for Jesus to be the center of all things.

Pastor Bryan shares some of his story of how he first met Jesus through the investment of his church and his parents. Then, as he became a Christian, his parents discipled him by training him in the faith through reading the Bible, prayer, telling others about Jesus, and caring for people in need.

Pastor Bryan explains how Jesus being the center implies both a vertical and a horizontal dimension. The gospel should always seep out of your life in transformative ways relationally. The gospel should always be bearing fruit in impacting others. Just like what we see in Ephesians 2, that begins in the vertical and immediately moves into the horizontal.

As parents, we ought to hold Jesus at the center through intentional decisions of disciple making, while at the same time maintaining a healthy gospel distance between their successes and their failures. Parents can’t take credit for the work of the Holy Spirit. 

When we think about Jesus at the center of the church, Pastor Bryan explains that the number one enemy to engaging in the Great Commission to make disciples is busyness. If we want to be able to do the work of Jesus, we have to have a lot of margin in our schedules, and that takes intentionality for all of us. We have to learn to say no.