At some point you made a decision. You said yes to Jesus. What you may not have been told is that discipleship is not the moment of yes — it is a lifetime of it. And the deeper question is not whether you are willing to follow Jesus, but whether you are willing to keep following when following gets costly and the destination is still unclear.

Lori Warning has spent decades in full-time ministry, most recently as the National Director of AG Girls Ministries, and she is stepping into the next chapter: moving to Cameroon as a full-time missionary. She has seen what it looks like when discipleship produces the real thing — including watching a child she poured into as a kids pastor grow up to become a kids pastor himself. She joins Khalil, Sean, and Jeff to talk about what lifelong discipleship actually requires, why dependency on God is the key word nobody teaches, and what open-handed ministry has cost her and given her over a lifetime. This episode explores what lifelong discipleship looks like, how to give God an open-handed yes, and why abiding in Christ through John 15 is the only foundation for fruitful, sustainable ministry, hosted by two pastors and a missionary.

You will learn why dependency is not weakness — it is the entire operating principle of discipleship, because a branch that tries to produce fruit without the vine is not noble, it is dead — and why the church keeps producing striving disciples instead of abiding ones. You will hear Lori describe what it looked like to meet people who had literally never heard the name of Jesus, and what that moment does to any comfortable understanding of calling and comfort. And you will walk away with one challenge: give God your yes before you know what you are saying yes to — and then watch what he does with it.

If discipleship has felt like a program you attend rather than a life you inhabit, this episode will reframe the whole thing. It is not about how much Bible you have read or how many services you have attended. It is about how completely you are willing to depend on Jesus and how open your hands are to wherever that takes you. Lori’s story is proof that open-handed faithfulness produces fruit you could not have manufactured on your own.

Related episodes: Living Life on Mission: What Everyday Evangelism Actually Looks Like | Incarnational Living: How to Share Your Faith Without Being Pushy | The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and Solitude

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