Discipleship | “How To Save The World” with Alice Matagora

Shownotes:

How do we save the world?

That’s a big question with a thousand answers, but today’s guest on The Weight has a simple solution: make disciples like Jesus did.

Alice Matagora has worked with The Navigators, a Christian disciple-making ministry, for nearly 20 years and is currently leading a Leader Development Initiative to develop leaders all over the world. She is also a licensed marriage and family therapist.

She is the author of How to Save the World: Disciplemaking Made Simple” and for her, disciple making boils down to building relationships and allowing ourselves to be broken, vulnerable humans who relate to other broken, vulnerable humans with the power of the Holy Spirit. God wants to use us, so it’s time to let him do the work.

Resources:

Learn more about Alice Matagora on her website, www.alicematagora.com

Learn more about The Navigators here.

Follow Alice on Facebook and Instagram, 

Buy How to Save the World here.

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:02
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:04
Today we're talking to Alice Matagora.

Eddie Rester 00:07

She is from Southern California. She works with the Navigators and has recently put out a book called "How to Save the World: Disciplemaking Made Simple." And in the podcast, you're gonna find out she is one of the most excited people about what she's talking about, I think, one of the most excited we've ever had on the podcast, about her topic about her book.

Chris McAlilly 00:30

Yeah, she's a mother of two young children. She's a storyteller. She loves "The Lord of the Rings." She's also a marriage and family therapist, and that kind of plays into the conversation a little bit in the way that she thinks about the spiritual life, mental health, and even kind of physical wellness and some of the struggles that she's had with that. You'll hear some of the vulnerability that she brings into the way she thinks about discipleship. But you also hear just a lot about just super simple, base-level, this is what it means to follow Christ and what it means to offer Christ to others.

Eddie Rester 01:09

I think one of the things that I'm taking away from her is that disciplemaking is not accidental. It's relational. So disciplemaking is not something that we just say, maybe somebody will catch it, maybe somebody won't. It's how, in my close relationships, am I helping? Just as I've been helped know, Jesus, how do I help someone else know, Jesus?

Chris McAlilly 01:34
I was really drawn to this idea of being a part of a spiritual lineage.

Eddie Rester 01:38 Oh, yeah, fantastic.

Chris McAlilly 01:40

Just this idea that there are certain individuals and you may have met them too, that have a deep impact, not just on you, but on a number of people. And when you run into other people that have also been impacted by that same individual, it, you're part of a lineage. You're part of this story. And it's not just recognizing that other people have done that for you. It's recognizing your capacity and the power that you have to offer that to other people.

Eddie Rester 02:07

Yeah, and not just in an instant, but how your life and your faith can impact people over the course of time. Again, this is a, I think, going to be an important book and important resource, as we think about who we are, and maybe what God is calling us to in the church as we move forward.

Chris McAlilly 02:28

Eddie, I went back and was looking at some numbers, the the number of people who were coming to church, just average worship attendance, you know, before the pandemic, and that's just not a good thing to do.

Eddie Rester 02:41 No, never.

Chris McAlilly 02:42

It's not a good thing to do. But you know, I do think not having worship in person, in the church, in the building for, you know, 13 months, some ridiculous amount of time. It does call it a question like, what is it that we're doing around here? And perhaps there's some new ways of orienting our time and our energy and resources to really get down to the base level business of relational ministry and relational discipleship. But it's not just a professional church conversation. It really is, you know, how do you offer Christ to others within the context of the life that you have, whatever your work looks like, whatever your life looks like.

Eddie Rester 03:24 Wherever you're going.

Chris McAlilly 03:25
Wherever you're going. And so it's very much like an on the go conversation. I really enjoyed it.

Eddie Rester 03:30
Yeah, I did, too. So I hope you'll enjoy it. So like it, share it, text it to somebody, send it to somebody, leave us a review,

Chris McAlilly 03:38
Send it to your mom. Send it to your grandma.

Eddie Rester 03:40
Send it to your mama. I can give you Cody's email address, our producer, if you want to send it back to Cody, I don't know. It's cody@ouumc.org. Send that back to Cody.

Chris McAlilly 03:50
Oh my gosh, you really just put that out there.

Eddie Rester 03:53 Put it in the world, yeah.

Chris McAlilly 03:54
Just put it out there. Cody would love to hear from you.

Eddie Rester 03:58

[INTRO] Life can be heavy. We carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast to create space for all of that.

Chris McAlilly 04:13

We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen, it's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Eddie Rester 04:29
We're here today with Alice Matagora who has written a new book about discipleship, and so

Alice, welcome to the podcast.

Alice Matagora 04:36
Hi, thanks for having me, guys.

Chris McAlilly 04:37 We're so glad you're here.

Eddie Rester 04:39
Yeah, before we jump into conversation about the book, I need your opinion. Are you excited

about the new Lord of the Rings?

Alice Matagora 04:47
Yes. Oh my gosh, you don't even need to finish speaking. Yes, I am so excited about it.

Eddie Rester 04:54 I think I am, too.

Chris McAlilly 04:55

Alice Matagora 04:58
The Lord of the Rings TV show?

Chris McAlilly 04:59
I didn't know is it thing. I love Lord of the Rings, but I didn't know there was a TV show.

Alice Matagora 05:02
I think it's coming out. It's a special on Amazon Prime about the rings. It's called the Rings of Power, going deeper into Tolkien's world.

Chris McAlilly 05:10 Wow.

Eddie Rester 05:11

It pulls a bunch of threads from the early pre-books, some of them I think, that weren't even finished, that he kind of all of this backstory. Yeah, I've always... I've read those books over and over. And so I think it's going to be. I'm excited. When I saw that, I read something about how you love Lord of the Rings, I was like, Well, I gotta find out.

Alice Matagora 05:34 Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Eddie Rester 05:35
She's excited about it. So what are the rings is

Alice Matagora 05:37
Yeah, Lord of the Rings is, like, my main jam, so people don't realize, but I'm like, book deep in

Lord of the Rings, not just the movies.

Chris McAlilly 05:46

I didn't know this was the thing. Tell us about it.

Alice Matagora 05:51

Yeah, well, I work with The Navigators. We are a disciple making ministry, and we are international. We work world missions. We're in the military bases, college campuses. I work in leader development. So my husband, he's a campus director at the University of California in Irvine, here in Southern California, where we live. And I work in leader development, developing leaders all over the world towards our navigator calling of making disciples who make disciples. We also, we're about to celebrate our 14 year wedding anniversary, RJ and I, and we have two little ones, a two, no, he's three now. Oh, my goodness, he just turned three actually the day that my book released, my son, Regi, and then my daughter Clementine, who is eight months old.

Eddie Rester 06:37
Wow, you've got a full life, it sounds like.

Alice Matagora 06:39
Oh my gosh, it's so crazy. How am I getting things done? I don't know.

Chris McAlilly 06:43
How did you find The Navigators? How did you connect with them?

Alice Matagora 06:47

Well, I found The Navigators, I had heard about The Navigators before. And I heard they had a reputation for going deep in the Word, and I was in a season where I had bounced around different college fellowships. So this was when I was in college, experienced different things, the big, flashy, program fellowships and stuff, and none of those really helped me know Jesus more deeply. So I just knew I wanted to find a fellowship that wasn't sexy. It didn't have the frills. It just would help me know Jesus more. And that was The Navigators. That was their reputation.

Alice Matagora 07:22

And so I met them in college, I learned a lot just by being around other people who really loved Jesus and the Word. And then I didn't even know that they were into disciplemaking until I was like in the culture. And I noticed there was this culture of people mentoring people who mentored other people, and then it would just keep going down the line. And so that's how I was first exposed to disciple making as a ministry and a calling for all followers of Jesus.

Tell us a little bit about about yourself and your work for those who are not familiar.

Eddie Rester 07:49
I think that's the best disciplemaking when people don't even realize they're being shaped. They just are simply being shaped over time.

Alice Matagora 07:58 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 07:59

And you've written this new book, just came out this fall about dipole making, and you call it "Disciplemaking Made Simple." But I would say, most people don't see disciplemaking as simple. They see it as something that the preachers are supposed to do, or the professional Christians are supposed to do.

Alice Matagora 08:17 Absolutely.

Eddie Rester 08:18
That's beyond them. So tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book. I know there's a lot of research that really launched you into this project. So tell us about the book.

Alice Matagora 08:28

Yeah. Well, I'm passionate about disciple making ministry. I am passionate enough. I'm Taiwanese American, you can't see me but I'm Taiwanese American. I'm passionate enough to forsake my immigrant parents' wishes for me to just get a regular job and even ask people for money to do so to be a in full time ministry like so I'm that passionate. I'm willing to be like disowned. So I really love, I believe in disciplemaking. I mean, when I was in my fellowship, like I grew a lot just by being around other people. But I grew exponentially when somebody started discipling me, when somebody helped me learn how to have a relationship with Jesus.

Alice Matagora 09:06

So I think I love this idea of disciple making made simple, because you named it. I mean, we've heard of discipleship, we've heard of discipling in the Christian circles that we're in, maybe we like even dare to use it. But I don't think people really know what it means. It's kind of like a laost word in our Christian circles and Christian life. And so I think people think it's more complicated than it really is. And that's what the research identified. So the book, it's featuring research from the Barna Group on the state of disciple making in the American church, and what they found is exactly what you said, a lot of people are like, that sounds like the job of a pastor or a full time minister. That doesn't sound like a job for me in everyday person.

Alice Matagora 09:06

But along with that, it's like I wouldn't know what to do. And so that's exactly what this book addresses is like, no, it is a calling for all followers of Jesus. And it's actually a lot simpler than we think it is. It's a lot less mysterious than we think it is. And here are some concrete tools and perspectives that will help you along your journey along the way.

Chris McAlilly 10:17

So how would you describe who Jesus is? If part of being a disciple is knowing Jesus, and for folks who maybe know the name Jesus may or may not be a part of a church, how do you think about what it meant for you when you came to know Jesus more deeply?

Alice Matagora 10:43

Yeah, you know, I think I knew a lot about Jesus. I became a Christian when I was in high school. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. So I knew a lot about Jesus. I had my salvation, but I didn't know that, like, you could have a relationship with him, that he talks to you through his Word that he's given, and that you can talk to him back through prayer. And that, like a lot of the things, his Word is living and active, the Bible, and he speaks to you about the things that are going on in your life. He actually has a lot to say to you about the things going on in your life. I don't think... maybe this is over. Maybe everybody else knows this who's been a follower of Jesus for a while. But I didn't know that. That was revolutionary to me, that I can have a relationship, a personal relationship with Jesus that isn't like just listening to a sermon or attending a Bible study. But I can interact with Jesus on my own.

Alice Matagora 11:37

So I think that's where this word disciplemaking comes in, is helping other people know, hey, you can have a relationship with Jesus on your own, so you don't need to rely on somebody else for your relationship with Jesus, like a speaker, or a commentary or anything like that. But you can have your own personal relationship with Jesus, too.

Chris McAlilly 11:55

What are some other components of what it means, how you define being a disciple, or being a disciple maker? So if one component is knowing Jesus, coming to love Jesus, what are some of the other components that you think are important?

Alice Matagora 12:09

Yeah, you know, this is where it kind of gets a little meta, this disciplemaking idea of it. To be a disciple, right, the Greek word for disciple, I'm not going to be able to say it, mathesis, or.

Eddie Rester 12:28 MathitÃs.

Alice Matagora 12:28

MathitÃs, yes. And it means student, literally just a student of somebody, you want to become like them. It's not necessarily a Christian word. It's just a general word. And so if you want to, if you say that you're a follower, a student of Jesus, you want to be like,Jesus. And if you look at his life, through the Gospels, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, one thing is very clear is that he devoted a lot of his life to making disciples for himself. I mean, so to be like Jesus, a student and follower of Jesus, is to make disciples for Jesus. It's not just to know him. You know, the research indicated that people thought like, you know, discipleship is successful if somebody simply knows Jesus at the end, but we want to take it to the next step where a big part of their becoming like Jesus, is that they start to make disciples for Jesus as well.

Eddie Rester 13:21

Yeah, I think one of the things that you say in the book is, you define discipleship as a relationship where one person helps another as they learn from Jesus together and become more like Him. I think most Christians would say, well, being a disciple, discipleship is just me learning about Jesus, me learning about Jesus, but what what I think is helpful in the way that you define discipleship, is that you add the relational component to it. And you're exactly right. To be a disciple, a learner of Jesus would have been, yes, you learned about Jesus, but your responsibility, and not just if you were a learner of a rabbi in that day, your next step was then to go teach people what you knew about the rabbi, and bring them into that same relationship. Is there anything in the research that you did that really helped you understand why that broke down? Why we lost that component of discipleship?

Alice Matagora 14:22

Yeah, you know, I think one of the big things that was evident is it seems like there's just a general lack of familiarity with the term disciple making, discipleship. People don't really know what it is. One of the research points was like, do you believe that it is your responsibility as a Christian to make disciples? And I think 70% of American Christians who did the survey said, no, I don't believe that that is a responsibility. But when you reword it a little bit: do you believe that it is a responsibility to pass on what you know to somebody else? That 70% said, yes, I do believe that that is my responsibility to invest in somebody else by passing on what I know. Isn't that basically the essence of discipleship? Is passing on what we know investing in the people around us by passing on what we know about the spiritual life. So I really see a breakdown.

Alice Matagora 15:15

People just don't know what disciple making is. And I really think that another catch is like the pace of life, the life that we're in. You know, we're in a fishbowl. Our culture, the pace just doesn't match up with the pace that it takes, the slowness that it takes, to have these one-on- one relationships. I think that the church may have kind of moved towards programs and we want to mass produce disciples. And it's good, and that has a place. But it also doesn't replace the vulnerability and the relational one-on-one of walking alongside the depths with somebody, forming Jesus into the depths of somebody's heart.

Eddie Rester 15:59

Yeah, I think about that, and I think about the revivals. And I'm not saying anything bad about revivals, but I remember the revivals that I went to growing up, and I'm 50. So that was back in the 80s, where, the focus was let's get people to walk down the aisle and profess Jesus, which is a good thing. But then there was never the emphasis beyond that on what does that really look like, over the course of the next 10 years? But I don't think, in any organization, much less the church, do we think long term like that. I do, there's a conversation I had with a young adult in my church recently, he talked about his dad small group has been meeting for 30 years.

Alice Matagora 16:42 Wow. Oh, my goodness.

Eddie Rester 16:45
And there are a lot of things I could say about that. But he started naming the men in the group and how these are amazing, godly men with a rich depth of faith.

Alice Matagora 16:57 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 16:59
But it's 30 years in the making. And we just don't think that way. What in your mind could help Christians begin to think long term? What have you seen helps?

Alice Matagora 17:14

I mean, I think just knowing ahead of time that it is going to take time. There is a sacrifice. There is an investment. It's not convenient or quick or efficient. I think that helps. But then I think offering what we have, what little we have, I mean, we're partnering with the God who multiplied to abundance the fish and loves to feed thousands. That's the God who we're partnering. We're not. It's not our work. You know, it's not our idea. It was Jesus's idea. He called his people and he promises the presence of his Holy Spirit with them, the promise of the helper.

Alice Matagora 17:54
And so when I feel like I don't have enough, you know, I mentioned I'm a mom of two young kids. It's a crazy age right now.

Eddie Rester 18:04 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 18:05 Word.

Alice Matagora 18:06

Yeah. So I feel like my humaneness, I want to just pour what little I have. Like, it's not enough. God can't use it. It's not worth it to invest it, I'm just going to hold on to it. But when I believe that, if I just offer it to God, and He will take it and use it, and multiply it in a way that I can't even imagine. He shows up. He shows up. And so these days, I am a naptime disciple maker. I have two girls from the university who drive down. Not everybody wants what I have to offer, but some do. And as long as I offer it, God can use it. He'll multiply.

Alice Matagora 18:40

And they've grown. I'm like, how did you grow while I was on maternity leave? How did you? You know, I think worldly Alice in my mind would be like, that wasn't enough, that's not worth giving. But God's like, just give it. Offer it, and I can do something with it.

Eddie Rester 18:56
You said in the book, one of your inspirations is Moses. So why is Moses, the story of Moses so important? What does it speak to you?

Alice Matagora 19:05

Oh, man, I am a hothead like Moses. I think in the beginning, it's like, yeah, I'll be the savior. You know, I can do stuff and then you know, God humbles, smacks you down and humbles you really, really hard. But I think what I love about Moses is when God calls him back into his calling as a leader to lead the people of Israel out of slavery, out of Egypt. Moses, he comes up with all these excuses, like no well what about this? How will they know that it's you? What signs? I have a stutter. And then at the end, it's just like, please God, don't use me. Please send somebody else. I don't... I can't do this.

Alice Matagora 19:46

You know, I relate with that where I will throw any excuse. Like, God, well, what are the logistics gonna look like? How is this going to be in my life? How is this going to fit? And then at the end it really just comes down to my fear. Like, God, I don't want to make a weird with this relationship, or God, please send somebody else. I'm not equipped, I'm not resourced to do this. You can use anybody else, but just send somebody else and not me. And God's like, nope, I'm going to use you. I love that.

Alice Matagora 20:14

And then it becomes a really sweet relationship that Moses ends up having with God as he obeys God, as he walks towards leading these people that God has entrusted to him, that God has called them to, then eventually, God refers to Moses as a friend, like they become friends and companions, you know. And so I think that there is an aspect of we experience God in a different way, when we choose to take the mantle of his calling, and to follow him and to obey his calling, wherever he calls us to.

Chris McAlilly 20:48

I wonder, you know, for you, you mentioned that your parents... To pursue full time ministry that there's a costly dimension. And that even, you know, you're risking being disowned, you know, like this sense of... I do think there's a costly dimension to the work of disciplemaking. And I wonder kind of how you think about that, not only for yourself, but also as you do leader development, how do you talk through the costly dimension? Because I do think some people are, you know, they want to be faithful. They want to do the right thing. They want to live their life in accordance with what Jesus would want. And yet, like, the costs are really costs.

Alice Matagora 21:35

Yeah, you know, I think this is where it's so important to set before you the why, always right before your eyes, the why. Because I think we forget. Things get busy. And then unless it's really, really a priority, we can convince ourselves out of doing good things that we know God has called us to. And I think this is why in the Old Testament, God, he calls us to put his commandments, set them on the door, tie them around your neck, you know, because we're so prone to forget the why. We're so prone to forget the what, and so I think it is costly. And because it is costly, when we don't have a compelling why always in front of us, we're going to be like, it's too costly, I don't have it in me to give it up, instead of remembering the why and that it is a calling as a follower of Jesus, and that that keeps me invested. That keeps me bearing the cost and bearing the load that it requires.

Eddie Rester 22:43

Yeah, it's not an exceptional calling. I mean, as you say, it's part of the work that we take on as a disciple of Jesus. And when you look at scripture, I always think about how ordinary and sometimes less than ordinary, these people are who follow Jesus, and who really begin to move into the world over the course of time. And for me, I think that's encouraging that these weren't people with college degrees. These weren't people who had any kind of political power. These weren't people who spoke a million languages. These weren't people who had 10 years of Bible study behind them. They were simply people who love Jesus.

Eddie Rester 23:28

And are there, I mean, are there stories that you can tell from your own experience from disciple making few years where you've seen God work through people who the world would have said, "Gosh, they're not gonna. They can't do this kind of thing. They're not equipped for that."

Alice Matagora 23:47

Yeah, me. I mean, I think me for sure. My story, who I am, who I was when I first started making disciples. I mean, I mentioned earlier that I met The Navigators in college. I was discipled in college. And at that time, I was in probably one of the darkest seasons of my life, like coming out of treatment for multiple eating disorders. I just gained 40 pounds at an eating disorder hospital. I was really depressed, really anxious. I felt like a loser. Because, you know, I mean, in Asian world, you know, I took a year off of school to get treatment. And so I was a loser who had to, like, be held back. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I had no theological training. I'm not the person that I feel like anybody in the church would be like, "she's going to be the disciple maker," you know. But as I was discipled, I experienced so much freedom from all of these things, freedom and transformation that years of therapy, like inpatient therapy, intensive outpatient therapy, years of therapy, didn't bring. It was just knowing Jesus really healed a lot of these parts of my heart.

Alice Matagora 24:54

And so as a licensed therapist, I am also going to say that I would never, never recommend forgoing, for life threatening conditions, forgoing therapy and treatment and just being discipled. I just want to put that out there. But for me, that was my experience. And so I remember afterwards feeling like oh my gosh God, like, Do you guys know you can have really, really have a relationship with God and he'll change your life will transform you? And so that girl, that girl who was just fresh out of her depressions and anxieties and eating disorders, God has used her to make disciples? She's the least likely disciple maker, and God has used her.

Alice Matagora 25:33

I really relate with the story of the Samaritan woman. And since then I've seen God surprise me through this spiritual lineage that I've been a part of through the people who discipled me and that has continued on over the years. You know, you kind of like lose track after a couple of generations. And then, you know, one day like 10 years later, there's this gal who comes up to me and she's like, "I'm Tamsin, I'm your spiritual, great, great, great granddaughter." And it's like, wait. This line is still going? People are still discipling down? And it started from this girl, who was fresh out of her depression, fresh out of the eating sort of hospital, God used her to actually touch this line and this lineage of women, all throughout Southern California and even overseas. God used her. He could use her? And so I believe, I am a firm believer, if God could use me as I was back then, he can use anybody, literally anybody.

Chris McAlilly 26:33

I love hearing about that. I don't think that every... I've certainly not heard it in every Christian circle or culture that I've been around, but this idea of a spiritual lineage. I was talking to a group of pastors just today at lunch, I came from this lunch over here to have this conversation. And there was this one individual whose name was Prentiss Gordon. And he was an older gentleman, in our, you know, part of the country, in our part of the world, in our little tribe. And each individual at the table, all four of us, who are not really connected in any other way, had all been touched in different ways by this particular individual. And he passed away around three years ago. And the person that brought him up, said that he went to his funeral, and there were all these people that came from all over the state of Mississippi and all over across the southeast with Prentiss Gordon stories, about ways in which he had touched their life.

Chris McAlilly 27:38

And what just one story that emerged, he said that he was a hunter. He was just a man who loved to bird hunt. And he would take people, talking about Jesus, bird hunting. And this one individual, he was going to go and do some training. And Prentiss actually, you know, helped set up the financial resources for this individual to do the training. And all these years later, decades and decades later, he still thinks of him as part of his spiritual lineage. And there were, you know, multiple stories like that, that were shared around the table.

Chris McAlilly 28:12

And I think that's something to pay attention to. And I think, you know, I think that should empower folks that are out there that are... You know, you have an ability to impact other people beyond what you realize, or that you will ever see, you know, more than I will ever see.

Alice Matagora 28:31 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 28:33

I was gonna, I was just sitting here thinking about your willingness to minister and to talk out of your brokenness. And I think so often what we're taught in our culture, at least, is that if you're broken, that's fine. Get it together. And once you've gotten it together, then you can get on the broken, that's fine. Get it together. And once you've gotten it together, then you can get on the way and you can get things done. Yeah. But we don't live out of our brokenness very well. And we definitely don't want, too often, don't want to spiritually present out of our brokenness, I don't think. And this is one of the places I think that AA, NA, those groups are so miles ahead of the church these days, is that you live out of your brokenness. How can we help people recover the sense, and maybe you can speak into that, they recovered the sense of living out of our brokenness? Because that's the place where God does the work.

Alice Matagora 29:40

Oh, my goodness. Well, this is a great question. You know, early on when I first started discipling, I think I made the mistake of believing that I needed to be perfect and have it all together in order to make disciples. I remember I was discipling two gals, when I was a senior in college, I was discipling two gals, and they were like, "It just seems like you never have anything wrong," or like, you know, "We like it better when you share things that are hard and how you're wrestling with God." And I was like, oh, well, there's like a lot that's hard in my life. There's a lot that I could share with you about that. But that's just been ingrained in my mind since then, is like, people they want to experience the God who is with the broken and the lowly and the contrite in spirit.

Alice Matagora 30:26

You know, I've been I've been reading "Gentle and Lowly," so a lot of this language is coming out. But they want to experience that God. There's so much brokenness in our world. We're broken, you know, relationships, there's nothing that hasn't been impacted by the fall. And so a lot of times we can view these things, like recurring sin or relational difficulties or the brokenness around us, you can view them as obstacles or things that get in the way of forming Jesus in others, when really that is exactly where Jesus shows up and where Jesus shines, and Jesus becomes real.

Alice Matagora 31:01

The God who emptied himself to be among broken people, who so loved the broken people, that he made himself nothing to come to earth as man to be among, and to save us so that we can have a better life in him, through him and through his Spirit un us. I think there's something about modeling our own vulnerability and our own brokenness and our own not- togetherness as we disciple others that gives them permission to come before Jesus with the same not-togetherness.

Eddie Rester 31:39

One of the things that I think your book offers is you begin to talk about these things that we're about as disciple makers and loving Jesus, knowing the Bible, fostering community, but one of the ones I love is the spending time among the unconverted. Why is that so important as a part of who we are as disciples?

Alice Matagora 32:08

I mean, it's important... I mean, how else is the world, those who don't know Jesus, how else are they supposed to know Jesus if we just congregate together? But I think that's, again, part of our humaneness is to just congregate in the safety of being with one another. And, you know, from time to time, God's like, okay, I'm gonna disperse y'all. I'm gonna do something and spread you all out, because you're not supposed to be just huddling together in your own safe bubble. You're supposed to be in and among, and you're supposed to be salt and light. You're supposed to share me. Be a light wherever I have you. And so, oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry. I forgot your original question. But...

Alice Matagora 32:50
Am I right on it? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah. That that's, that's what... I forgot the original question.

Eddie Rester 32:50 You're right on it. Yeah.

Eddie Rester 33:01

We were talking about the unconverted, why it's important to be among. I love what you're saying about salt and light. And there's this sense, again, we like to, and we need our moments of being in our holy clubs. We need to have people who can disciple us, but I can tell you, at times as pastors if I wander too far, into certain places, Eddie, why were you there? Why were you with them? Or they may not come out and say it, but I get the sense of, did you really want to be with those folks? And sometimes I think we try to protect the dignity of Jesus, or we're trying to protect the dignity of the church, I don't know. And I'm not sure that Jesus's dignity needs to be protected by us,

Chris McAlilly 33:54

Isn't it also that there's a safety and security kind of thing, where you kind of know what the conversation is like, and you kind of have, you know, what I mean? There's a familiarity. And I do think that, you know, at times, I'm looking at just kind of the original call of Abraham in Genesis 12: "I will bless you, I will make your name great, but I'm going to send you out to land that's unknown." And the whole reason for the gift or the blessing is so that, you know, Abraham and his family will become a channel of blessing to other people. And, you know, I think that's the promise. Like, you're gonna get sent out to someplacenthat you find unfamiliar, that's unsafe, that's not secure. But there you can, you know, that's a place where you can be a channel of blessing.

Chris McAlilly 34:50

I think the other thing that I've noticed though, is that, you know, sometimes I find myself the kinds of questions that I hear when I'm among people who are not church people can help reshape and also actually give a fresh picture of what the gospel is. You know, so it's not just like, we've got Jesus, and we're on Team Jesus, and we're going out and, you know, all of a sudden, you know, we have something to offer people. It's also that, I don't know, I just find my life enriched. And I feel like I meet Jesus as a stranger in the questions of people who are not connected to the life of the church, who are not, who don't consider themselves believers. I think that's also something that's important to acknowledge.

Alice Matagora 35:39

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love what you shared about the uncomfortable and the unfamiliar. I think our natural human tendency is we want to be comfortable. I want to feel some semblance of control. You know, like, I know what's going to happen, I can expect... Because nobody likes feeling uncomfortable. Is God even going to show up? You know, or maybe God's not even in our minds, then. But that is exactly when God shows up, is when we're uncomfortable. And that's why I think he calls us into these spaces, so that we rely not on our own strength or our own understanding, but we have to depend on his Holy Spirit to give us the words to speak, to have the sensitivity to encourage or exhort those who don't know him. But we have to be willing to be uncomfortable in order to access that Holy Spirit power, which I think not a lot of us are willing or wanting to do.

Chris McAlilly 36:35

So I wonder, I want to ask you kind of beyond just like an individual that's going out. You're in a leadership development role with The Navigators. I wonder if you could, I'm fascinated by that. I just think that's so cool. And I wonder what you've learned in that particular kind of role where there is work that you're doing, but you're also in a position where you're training people and sending them out. Just talk through what is the process. What does the leadership development look like for you with The Navigators? And then what are you learning about that work as you do it?

Alice Matagora 37:09

Yeah, what I'm learning about the work and leader development is, well, I think the first major need that we're seeing among our leaders is the need for sustainable margin, rhythms, and pace. And I think that all comes down to this: Am I in control or is God and control? Can I trust God enough to let go and to stop and to believe that he's gonna keep the work going, even if I stop and take a Sabbath, or I live within my means, and watch this unleashing of Holy Spirit power work, where my limits end? You know, so I think that's one area that we're seeing, just as a need for our leaders is margin, rhythms, pace, but then also this Holy Spirit ledness, this Holy Spirit dependence, as we are moving towards equipping and empowering every day disciple makers.

Alice Matagora 38:07
I think COVID actually was really awesome and shaking things up. I think we got real comfortable with our structures and our systems. And, you know, in collegia it's like, we have our large group night, and we have our Timothy team, and we have our student leadership team. And this is how we do it, and lather, rinse, repeat. But then COVID kind of threw it all up in the air, and we had to come up with new systems. We had to be uncomfortable. We had to try new things. We had to lean on the Holy Spirit in our disciplemaking and in our equipping of our leaders to lead their people to continue to make disciples in that season. I think the Holy Spirit showed up. I think it was honestly a gift of God, COVID, to get us back in that place of dependence, humble dependence, and relying on his leading.

Chris McAlilly 38:57
I think the limits, the conversation, Eddie and I just both jumped at.

Eddie Rester 39:01 Jumped, Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 39:02 You jump, Eddie.

Eddie Rester 39:03
No, you jump first. You go ahead.

Chris McAlilly 39:05

I think that's it. I mean, I think one of the things that Eddie, so Alice, Eddie and I were working in the same context. And then now Eddie has moved to a new place. I'm sure he's thinking. I'm thinking about it through the lens of, here's my buddy, who just moved into a new setting, into a place that's unfamiliar and strange. And then I'm in an unfamiliar and strange position, because, you know, everything feels a little bit different, because, you know, my running buddy isn't here.

Chris McAlilly 39:34

But the thing that I was thinking about, one of the things that Eddie said to me before he left, he said, "Pace yourself." Or maybe you told my wife to tell me to pace myself. And I think that that's a good word. You know, there's a desire or a sense that you've, you do... I mean, the title of your book is "How to Save the World." There's a sense that the world is gonna get saved. It's on me to do some of that work. But you do run up against your limits, and you want to do it in a sustainable way, and you don't want to burn out, and so pacing, I guess that's one of the things I hear what you're saying, Alice.

Alice Matagora 40:08 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 40:09

And I think pacing is a reflection, Sabbath is a reflection of not only do I know my limits, but I know my Creator. And I think that so often we feel like, and I'm going to speak to some Christian leaders, maybe that we feel like it all hinges on us. And I think you're right. I think that if there was a blessing to come out of COVID, it was the deep breath of it's not all dependent on me. I've got my part to do, and I've got my work to do. And maybe what your book does, and for folks that that can dig into it is, a reminder of really my first work is not a million things here. My first work, if I want to be part of saving the world, is to return back to a fuller definition of discipleship and disciple making.

Alice Matagora 41:09
Amen. Oh, I believe that. I totally believe that.

Eddie Rester 41:12

How has, I know your book's just... While we're recording this, your book's been out maybe a week, week and a half. Any reflections from folks on your book that had been surprising or encouraging or helpful for you since it's been out?

Alice Matagora 41:29

Yeah. You know, I think that I think what I'm seeing is people are using it to kind of restart, reignite disciple making movements within their churches, which is actually really cool. Like bring back a disciple making culture to the church, because I think that we have kind of deviated and lost our way as Big Church, you know, to rely more heavily on programs. And we've kind of lost this heartbeat. You know, the Great Commission, what Jesus entrusted to us, his way of bringing his message of his good news to the ends of the earth, which is to go and make disciples of all nations. That's it. We've kind of lost our way, as Big Church, as leaders in the church, but really, it's simple. It's simple enough for any follower of Jesus to do.

Alice Matagora 42:30

And so I'm excited. I'm excited to see, as these people are leading their churches through the book, just what all could happen. What could God do in these spaces that these everyday people are in? In their workplaces, in their lunch time, their lunch breaks, you know, or in their soccer parents group or in their, I don't know, singles group or wherever God has them, where they live, where they work, where they play. What could God do, if these people had an eye to see those around them who need the love of Jesus, and they were faithful to invest do the hard, costly work of investing in eternity through them? What could God do? I don't know. I have yet to see. I feel like we're not going to know until later down the line, but I'm excited to see what God can do. So I think that's what I'm excited about.

Chris McAlilly 43:26

Your passion and enthusiasm for the work is infectious. I can see it on your face. I wish I wish you guys that are listening to this could see Alice and the way that she's like, punching the air with all these points. That's awesome. I am so grateful for the conversation, Alice, and thanks for creating this tool that I'm sure will be used in all kinds of different contexts. And you know, really just grateful for your work.

Alice Matagora 43:57
Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that.

Eddie Rester 43:59
Alice from Southern California, we're coming to see you.

Alice Matagora 44:03 Yeah. Come on out.

Eddie Rester 44:03

So yeah, thanks. Thanks for your time today. And the book again, "How to Save the World: Disciplemaking Made Simple." Go grab a copy and find yourself I think, drawn into not a program but just into a new way to see your life and your faith. So thanks, Alice.

Alice Matagora 44:24 Yeah. Thank you guys.

Eddie Rester 44:25
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 44:34
If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]