First Love 2025 Recap: Living Out Your Faith Beyond the Conference

Episode Transcript
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Pastor Brent McQuay (00:00):
Eight, seven.

Pastor Carlton McCarthy (00:03):
Four, three.

Hey, everybody. And welcome back to another
episode of Between Sermons, Take two today,
because we ran into some technical issues.
You know, we're just having a great
time talking, and technology decided to not
do that thing. But do what? That
thing. The thing. The thing of communication.

(00:31):
Yeah. So, anyways, my name is Brent,
and I am the lead pastor of.
That was the worst drum roll ever.
Disciples Church. And so we're. We're excited.
We've been talking about this thing for
a while, but this weekend, it became
official. We are Disciples Church. A change

(00:53):
after almost 35 years. 35 years in
March.

Ti’heasha Beasley (00:56):
Wow.

From Christian Life center to Disciples Church.
Whole purpose and vision behind that. And
we're gonna get into those details today.
But today is a very special episode
because we are kind of recapping our
first Love Conference. That was Friday night,
Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday
night. And so here we are. And
I'm ready for a nap.

I thought you had something like a
nap.

A vacation.

We'll talk about what first love is
and why we do it and why
I love it and all the amazing
speakers that we had over the weekend.
But first, let me introduce wonderful co
host Taisha Beasley.

I am so happy to be here.

Yeah. Except for it's because you wore
camo. I mean, that's the most combative
clothing you could possibly wear. Like, you
came into this as a statement.

I did. I did it on purpose.

You're here to fight.

Not fight, but protect. I am in
a war every time I sit in
this seat. On between.

What nonsense.

First of all, I had a couple
people come up to me. They were
like, we. I am standing with you.
You always have to hold your ground
when you're on between service. I'm like,
thank you. Thank you for seeing that.

I think everybody should have to stand
their ground. You should always have to
stand your ground. Stand up for your
beliefs, and when you're wrong, let other
people tell you you're wrong.

What? Okay, see? You see what I
mean? Okay, we're not even gonna go
there. So my rule for today, we
don't judge. I was gonna say my
rule. See, they started on me before
we even got started with this podcast.
My one rule for the show today
is we listen and we don.

That's your first problem?

That's my first problem.

Listen and don't judge.

Oh, my gosh.

Because at dc, we get better and
better, and that happens through critique. We've
got to listen and judge development.

Oh, my goodness. You see? Okay.

We get better and Better.

So right now, if you're watching a
second time, stretch your hands towards me
and pray my strength. Pray my strength,
because. Wait, not you stretching your hands.
Okay, we're gonna get started because we
can stay here all day. You sure
can, But I am ready. Okay. I'm
not gonna let you guys run me
away today. Okay.

Stand your ground.

I'mma stand my ground. So I am
excited. Like Pastor Brent said, we have
an amazing show lined up for you
today, and we are ending with some
questions that you guys have about the
transition into D.C. church. I asked a
question on social media, if you follow
us on Instagram or Facebook, but you
have an opportunity, if you're watching live
now, to join the conversation. So if

(03:31):
you have any questions about D.C. and
where we're going, let us know. Are
you about to pull out your.

Yeah, I just. I just realized that
I shared the one that that crashed
on us, so I need to go
in and share the right one there.

Okay. So while he's doing that, get
your questions together and let's welcome our
guest. You all know him as Pastor
Craig.

Am I a guest?

You. You. Not at this point. At
this point, you're like a co. Co
host. Co Co host. We just need
to make you a regular at this
point.

Coco. That's my nickname now.

I love it. So while he's posting.
Well, actually, we're going to talk a
little bit about the background about the
background for first love and what is
about. So you guys were sharing the
scripture. I think that would be a
good place to start. So the scripture
that we use.

Yeah. Revelations, chapter 2, verse 4. When
Jesus is talking to the church of
Ephesus, a letter that John's writing to
them.

Okay.

Getting revelation from Jesus about the church.
And Jesus says, is the one thing
that I have against you. And I'm
paraphrasing here. One thing I have against
you or charge against you is that
you have not returned to the one
you love at first. Or the. Your.
Or. Or your first love. And so
Jesus is telling them that you. You're
doing all these great things. He's listing

(04:52):
out all the. The wonderful things that
he is pleased with them doing, but
he's essentially saying, that doesn't amount to
your intimacy with me and returning to
me in love.

Yeah, you're doing the stuff, but you're
not loving.

Yeah.

Yeah, you kind of. You. You missed
it.

Right.

Basically what he said.

Right, Right.

I love some of the. Some of
the translations have even stronger language. They're
like you've abandoned.

Yes.

Your first love, it's like you're doing
all these things for Jesus, and he's
like, you've abandoned me.

And it's like, it's hard because you
think that you are living for Jesus
by action, right? I mean, you go
back to James and, you know, faith
without works, doing things for the kingdom
and for people is dead. And so
it's like, well, Jesus, what do you
mean? I'm following the Word, I'm obeying

(05:42):
what I should be doing as a
believer, as a disciple. What's missing? And
he says, what's missing is your love
for me, your intimacy with me.

Me. Yeah, because, like, our invitation to
know God in scripture is. Right. That.
That's that Greek word, gho. Like, it's
the. It's the intimate knowledge of someone.

Right.

And then when. When Jesus actually says,
you know, I never knew you. Like,
he's. You know, they. Some say, lord,
Lord, but I never knew you. It's
the same word, ginosko. Like, he's like,
no, you didn't have this intimacy with
me, so I don't know who you
are.

Right.

And so, like, the. The call and
revelation from Jesus is, hey, I want.
I want you to actually put me
first. And so that's. That's the purpose
behind first love. We're like, okay. All
year round, we try and keep him
first, but we get distracted and we
get busy and Christmas happens and groups,
and it's. You know, it's. The pastor's

(06:35):
guilty of it, the layperson's guilty of
it. We all just get focused on
family and stuff and work and things.
And so we start every year with
this. We actually. We start over here
with a time of fasting and prayer,
and then we go into this. This
conference. And so it's a lot of
Jesus over the course of three days.

Yeah.

Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday
morning, twice Sunday night. Yeah, it's. Yeah,
it's just a lot. It's just a
lot of Jesus, which is fantastic.

Yeah, I was gonna say I love
it. And I definitely just have an
opportunity to talk and connect with a
lot of the people from the conference
this weekend. It really did ignite that
passion and. And fire for God. But
how could we keep that throughout the
year? Like, what's some quick things we
can do so that we remember to
put God first?

Sure.

I think that's where discipline comes in.
You know, we talked about this a
couple weeks ago. As far as being
disciples, it requires devotion and discipline because
you don't stick with God in that
Way without intentionality. Like you have to
prioritize him in your day. And so
yeah, we prioritized him for three days,

(07:46):
for a weekend.

But how do you overdose?

How do you continue to prioritize it
every single day even when you're like,
well, I can't take off work every
day, I still got to go into
work. Okay, great. What time did you
wake up this morning? And did you
spend time with God?

That's good.

So what is the devotional habits that
you have created in your life that
are now. They're disciplines and they're disciplines
because you do it when you want
to do it and you do it
when you don't want to do it.

Yeah.

Like right now I'm not being very
disciplined in my diet and my exercise.

Why do you need the same example?

Because it's the obvious one. Right.

Accountability partner.

Am I.

We listen and we don't judge. Anyways,
that was great. Yeah, so, but, yeah,
so there's, there's this idea of discipline
needs to happen so that we, you
know, what, what the guy say, you
know, there's only two times when you
should pray when you feel like it
and when you don't. Right. Well, praying

(08:43):
when you don't feel like praying requires
discipline.

Yeah.

Reading your Bible when you don't want
to requires discipline. Spending time in prayer
and worship early in the morning when
you'd rather be sleeping requires discipline. So
if you want to keep him as
your first love, discipline that fire.

That's great. I think it's a good
segue into the conversation about the, the
different speakers. So let's all collectively try
to recall every session from this weekend.

I had intended to steal my wife's
notes cuz she took excellent notes.

She should post somewhere.

She was taking notes like crazy. But
I was just sitting there like I
think it was, it was the opening
night and he just started talking so
fast and going through so much stuff
that I actually put my notes away
and I was like, I'm just going
to listen and then I'm going to
go back and watch again and I'm
going to take notes the second time
around.

That's good.

But here it is. It's Wednesday and
I haven't done that yet.

It's going to happen, I believe. Yeah.

Eventually we're going to get there. I'm
going to come out of my coma.

Yeah. Yes. So we had William McDow
on the first session.

McDowell.

That's right, that first session. And he
was fired.

What do you talk about?

So he talked about coming back to
your first love.

No. Yes, he did.

He did. It was okay.

He went through First John and he
talked through First John and Second Peter,
I think. And he talked through, where
are your desires? Where is your. Your.
Your love? I guess. Is it in
the world or is it in Christ?
He was really building where our heart
is and where our desires are. And.

(10:25):
And, you know, the focus of our
desires being in the world leads us
out of our desires, being from or
being into Jesus. And so we can't
have both. We have to pick one.
And so he kind of walked us
through that and it was. It was
fantastic.

I was. I didn't know if I
should feel convicted or I didn't know
how to feel. I'm going to be
honest, when I. Like, it was such
a strong message.

Yes.

And I knew I wasn't dealing with,
like, sin issues, but I knew, like,
okay, I was trying to ask myself,
is my desires, like, leading me closer
to Christ or my own flesh? So
that was what I was processing, the
whole message. So how can you know
if your desires are godly desires or

(11:13):
flesh desires? Like, where is that line
of, like, this is okay and this
is not okay?

Sure. I think that if, you know,
certainly we have natural desires for provision,
for sustainability. You know, we gotta eat,
we gotta sleep, we gotta live. You
know, so we have those natural desires.
But when our desires tend not to
be in line with the will of

(11:40):
God for us in our lives, then
we have to recognize that this may
not be godly or this desire may
not be in line with my faith.
Walk. A lot of times what I
do is I process my thinking and
the things that come to me that
I think I desire through the word
of God and I make sure that
it's in line with the word of
God. I make sure that I live

(12:02):
my life through Christ. And when I
say through Christ, through his Word and
through prayer, just to make sure I
put myself in check that the things
that I'm desiring for, the things that
I want in life are in line
with what he has for me or
wants me to do. Because God places
desires in me to pursue. And I

(12:22):
can't, like, negate all the things that
come to me because it could be
the Holy Spirit speaking to me in
order to do the work of the
Lord. And so one thing I do
with anything that I want or desire
or think that I need in my
life for me and my family is
I make sure that those desires run
through Christ. And when I say run
through Christ, run through his word and

(12:44):
run through him in prayer.

That's good.

Yeah. I think I would just add
to that. When you're trying to measure
desires, you need something to measure it
against. And so we measure against. I've
said this before, Scripture, spirit and saints.
So Scripture is, how does this desire
align with Scripture? Is Scripture going to
say that if I follow this desire,
I'm going to dishonor God? Well, then

(13:09):
obviously I need to get rid of
that desire. Right. If it can bring
honor to God and if it does
not dishonor God.

Right.

You got to have both. Because sometimes
we can justify something like, oh, I
could totally honor God through this, you
know, relationship that I'm not supposed to
be in. It's like, no, you're dishonoring
God in that. So Scripture and then
spirit is. How is the Holy Spirit
interacting with you? And if you are
really following Christ, like the Holy Spirit's

(13:37):
voice in your life is going to
be clear. It's going to be evident.
It's going to be loud. The problem
is we sometimes will harden our own
hearts where now all of a sudden,
that voice of the Holy Spirit, it's
like he's shouting at us, but we're
not hearing him. We got the noise
canceling, headphones in when it comes to
the Holy Spirit's voice. And then the
last one is the saints. And no,
I'm not Catholic. I don't mean those
saints. I mean the scriptural definition of

(13:59):
saints, which is the body of believers.
Right. So, like, if I'm doing something
or I've got a desire for something,
and Carlton's like, hey, bro, that ain't
it. I need to listen to his
wise counsel. So scripture, spirit, saints, that's
good.

Good stuff. And I feel like we
can stay there, but we're gonna have
to keep our points because we have
how many more speakers to go through?

So soul's up next.

Yes. So. So that Saturday morning session.
That Saturday morning session, how did that
impact you guys? For me, it was
incredible. If you didn't have an opportunity
to attend or see it on our
online service, you have. I mean, I'm
biased. She's my sister. You have to
go and watch that. That's.

And I'm not biased.

You're my brother. I didn't get to
you yet.

No, no, no. I'm saying my wife.

She's your wife? Yes.

Oh, you're nothing.

Oh, whatever.

But you are so hardcore. You might
have a different sermon that you like
best. So, I mean, I think it
was just a powerful Moment of, like,
testifying. And that's something I don't want
to say. It's a lost art. But
sometimes we don't necessarily see the testimony.
Yeah. In the church, sometimes display.

Yeah. She went so old school with
that whole. That whole message. I remember
sitting with her and talking out her
ideas, and I'm like, we were actually.
We were at lunch when I gave
her the song you gave her. Yes.
And I kind of regretted it.

Oh, my goodness.

You had the whole church up shouting.
It was great.

But no. So we're at lunch, and
she's talking about the message, and she's
like, man, I just. I would love
to, like, close with, like, a worship
moment, you know, just thinking about Jesus
and all he's done for us. And
I'm like, you know that's a song,
right? And she's like, what are you
talking about? And so I, like. I
said it, like, I quoted the song
because we used to sing this way
back in the day, especially, like, UPC

(15:49):
days.

Go ahead and sing some of it
for us.

No, thank you. We want to gain
followers and viewers, not send them away.
And so I. I quoted it for.
And she didn't. She didn't quite recognize
it. I played it for her, and
she's like, we sing that one in
Spanish. And she got so excited. And
so I was like, well, let's do
it. And. And she's like, do you

(16:11):
think Katie and Derek will know that
one? I'm like, if they don't, they.
They're probably at the wrong church.

Oh, my gosh. I remember that song
from Just Childhood, for sure. I was
in the back of the church shouting
during. Glad no one has clips of
that. But, yes, I was back there
getting it in.

One thing I love about the sermon,
Pastor Fuego, is that she had us.
She gave us these cards that we
needed to write our testimony on. Like,
to think back on the good things
that God has done for us. And
I think about sometimes the present struggles
that we deal with. It's always good
to plunder the past for hope, which

(16:48):
helps us get through the things that
we're going through now. And. And. And
one thing I had gotten. I got
two cards. I think one of the
ushers looked at me was like, you.
You. You need two cards. I'm like,
what does this mean?

You're a big guy. You got a
big dust.

You need about four.

I've gone through so much stuff in
my life. God has delivered me out
of the slimy pit, the mud in
the mire. Okay. So I got two
cards, and. And I told my wife,
I said, you know, one I'm going
to use to write my testimony, what
God has brought me out of, but
the next, the other card, I'm going
to write my testimony in faith, what
I want to see him lead me

(17:25):
to. And so, like, it was a
beautiful moment for me. I was like,
man, this is fantastic. I don't journal
often, but this is an opportunity for
me to really think about where God
has taken me out of and then
to actually apply that faith to where
I want him to take me to.
So I thought it was great. It
was a great object lesson.

No, that was awesome. I want to
get a T shirt that says. What
did you say? Plunder the past for
hope.

Yeah. Plunder the past for hope. Yeah.

I need a T shirt of that.

That's a quote from somebody somewhere far,
far away.

It's Carlton McCarthy at this point. That's
where I heard it from.

Plunder the past for hope.

And Carlton once said, you gotta plunder
the past for hope.

Yes. Yes. Get the pillager.

I challenge you both to sit down
and write some original quotes so we
can carry that into the next generation.

Is there not enough theologians out there
with quotes?

I'm just saying there's a new. That
God is raising up. And I want
to quote you guys.

C.S. lewis, Charles Spurgeon, doctor.

Just about every Sunday I preach for
35 minutes. If you can't find something
within that, then I'm probably not going
to.

I'm going to start looking, and I'm
going to put together a quote book
for the pastors here. All right.

How many of my quotes are going
to end with. That's stupid.

Most of them here at Disciples Church.
Let's give a disclaimer. No, I think
that's great. That was great. What did
you get from the service? That.

Yeah, no, I just. I love that.
That message. Soul and I, we. We
kind of worked on some of the
elements together. And then I just watched
her take some of my ideas and
then expound on them and then bring
in her own stuff where by the
time she actually delivered the message, like,
I. I was having a hard time
remembering, like, where did. Where did I
help in this? Because, like, you're just

(19:13):
killing it.

Yeah, I love that.

So it was just. It was really
cool. And obviously, you know, it's my
wife, so I'm cheering her on in
the front. Yeah, just. Just this idea
that everybody's got a testimony. What are
you doing with yours? Yeah, and I
think that that's the issue is a
lot of Christians, they just take their
testimony and they forget about it or
they sit on it and your testimony
is actually supposed to be used by
you for yourself, but also used by

(19:37):
you for other people. And so how
are you using your testimony to encourage
yourself in those difficult moments? And how
are you using your testimony to encourage
others?

Yep.

What if your testimony is just so
bad you want to forget it?

Then it wouldn't be a testimony.

Forget about it.

If your testimony is bad, can you.

Choose the least bad testimony?

You gotta define for me what a
bad testimony. Like, in my mind, you
need to forgive yourself.

I think that's the thing.

No, I was gonna say, like, in
my mind, the only bad testimony is
a testimony that doesn't end with. Right.
So, like, a bad testimony would be
like, I was, am, and will always
be a drug addict. Like, okay, if
that's your testimony, that's a bad testimony.
But whatever your testimony is, no matter
how bad you were, the testimony is

(20:24):
great because it ends with Jesus.

Yeah. Yeah.

But even more so, Jesus says the.
The person with the. With the most
sins are the ones that are most
grateful. And that's what we have to
look at. He gave the parable to
the Pharisees when the woman was down
at his feet, and he was like,
this woman has so many sins. Her
heart for me, is so great now
because of what I've delivered her from.

The image of the man who can't
even raise his head in prayer. Like,
that was just beautiful. That's just. You're
so humbled by your past. You're so
desperate for forgiveness that you can't even
lift your eyes up when you pray.
That's where the Pharisees were like, look

(21:10):
at him.

Right? But that's what. That's where God
wants us, you know, That's. That's where
he wants us to be. He doesn't
want us to fix ourselves and get
ourselves together to come to him. He's
a savior. And so if you save
yourself before you come to him, then
you don't need a savior.

There is hope in your past. You
just got to plunder it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Our marketing hashtag, plunder. That was good.

That's definitely one that needs context, though.

Yeah. I think that was Disciples.

Let's go.

That was great. I love that. So
going into session three at this point
where Saturday nights. Yeah, so go ahead.
I know you guys have a lot
to say about that. That was a.
On fire, you know.

No. No offense to my wife, but
I think Saturday night was my favorite
of the weekend. Manny, he's just, he's
an excellent storyteller. He's a fantastic communicator.
But what he was pulling out, like
there were so many things that he's
pulling out that I was like, man,
I've been trying to figure out how
to articulate what he just said so
clearly and so beautifully. And like, if

(22:22):
I was trying to, it would take
me so much longer and it be
so clunky and I'd be tripping over
myself. And he just laid it out,
but like this, this idea of hope
and anxiety and chaos all being tied
to order like that just. Yes, that
just speaks to my soul.

That was good.

Yeah, it was so good. And he
told the, the story of the disciples
in the storm with Jesus sleeping on
the boat. And you know, you read
this a thousand times, but you don't
realize Jesus wakes up and says, where
is your faith? And you know, Jesus
has mentioned O ye of little faith
so much that you automatically assume that

(23:04):
he's saying, you know, what's the quantity
of your faith? But he's saying, where
is the state of being of your
faith? Like, where is it put in?

What have you placed your hope in?

The disciples say, we are going to
drown. And Jesus is like, is your
faith in you drowning or is your
faith in me? When I told you
we're going to get to the other,
to, to the other side is drowning
the other side, like, where is your
faith? And I think also he, he
talked about like, you know, why is

(23:35):
Jesus sleeping on the boat in the
storm? Why is God silent in our
lives when we're going through the hardest
things that we're going through? And he
said it's because Jesus trusts us to
go through it. He trusts us to
have faith in him to get through
the things that we're going through. And
that's why he's silent. And it blew
me away cuz I'm crying out to
God, like, God, speak, where are you?

How long?

How long?

Like, like, like, like David said, you
know, don't delay, you know, I'm going
through all the psalms in my head
and it's just like, no, Jesus trust
me to have faith in him to
get through what I'm going through. He
doesn't need to say anything. He can,
he has confidence in me that he
can go to sleep.

So, so story time. Because like his
illustration, like it resonated so well with
me. Like that whole like, you're not
sleeping with a stranger, driving the car
yeah, but you'll sleep when it's somebody
that you trust. Like, that resonated with
me so well. But I know that
it doesn't resonate with everyone because we
were on a missions trip in China.
We are literally. It's four of us.

(24:36):
All we have is an envelope of,
like, city names, and we're just holding
them up at bus stops. And all
of a sudden, we're on this bus.
It's, like, probably two in the morning
at this point. The bus pulls into
a, like, bus servicing station. Like, it's.
It's a. Not a bus stop, but
it's a, like, bus warehouse. Yeah. Like,

(24:57):
it's just like, 80 of the same
bus, like, in this parking lot. And
everybody has gotten off except for me
and the other three guys. And we
don't speak Chinese. Like, we don't speak
any. Anything. Like. And so they just
kind of, like, no Mandarin, no Cantonese.
Like, just they. They. They escort us
off the bus. And then the guy

(25:18):
just starts saying stuff to us, and
we're just staring at him like, I
don't know what you're talking about. Long
story short, all of a sudden, he
pulls out his cell phone, and another
guy comes in. Like, just, like, a
Honda. Like, just. Just a random car.
Like, no bus, no markings, no taxi
sign. Like, just random dude in a
car. And he's just like, go with
him. Yeah, just. Just go. Like, what

(25:39):
are you still standing here for? Just
go with this guy. And the other
three people in my group just jump
in the car. And I'm like. I'm,
like, trying to figure out, like, do
we need to. Are we being kidnapped
in the middle of mainland China? In,
like, the middle of nowhere? And we
get into this car, and I'm just
like. I'm on alert. Like, I'm like.
I'm just staring at every. Every bush
we pass, like, waiting for somebody to

(26:01):
jump out at us for some reason.
And the other three people I'm with
are asleep. They literally fell asleep in
the car with this random stranger in
the middle.

Of nowhere in China.

That's what it was.

They just don't understand safety.

They didn't understand the danger they were.

In, so they were just asleep. And
I'm like, no, this is not a
place where I can sleep. And so
when he started talking about that, I
was like, yeah, so what.

Happened in the story?

Like, what are you gonna do?

I mean, clearly, I died, and, you
know, no. So it ended up being
fine. Like, the guy, like, pulls us
into the city that we were trying
to get to. And I gave him
some money, and he tried to tell
me no. And I'm like, I don't
know why you drove us if you're
not gonna take my money. So, like,
it was. Yeah, it was a wild,
wild situation. We could talk stories about.

We need a podcast about that. Just
got dropped off in a city in
China. That's to be continued.

Okay, we'll talk about China sometime. That
was sometime after this podcast.

Part two. Jump right back.

Jesus sleeping in a boat because he.

Trusts the people he's with.

He trusts that our faith would be
in him through whatever it is we're
going through. Where is your faith?

Where'd you put it?

Yeah.

And that's one of those things that
I loved about it, too, because everybody's
got faith. The question is, what are
you putting it in? And anxiety is
a sign that you've put your faith
in the wrong thing.

Right.

Right. And it's. It's like the old
joke of, like, what's the guy say?
You know, don't tell me that worry
doesn't work. The stuff I worry about
never happens. Like, yeah. Yeah.

But he's talked about putting your faith
in the future that Jesus has for
you and then pulling that future into
your presence, and it changes how you
live now.

Yeah. And you're just. You're trusting it
that, like, hey, you know, we're going
to go through a storm. The boat's
going to get rocked around. I'm going
to get wet.

Yeah.

But he said, I'm getting to the
other side. So I'm getting to the
other side.

I'm getting fired up all over again.

We cannot admire the picture that the
devil painted.

Yeah. Yeah.

We have to have faith in Christ.

He's a liar. And David and I
went home and talked about that session
because I was like, it's funny how
we believe a liar. Like, the devil
is known. He's a liar. That's his
identity. And he'll lie to us, and
we'll believe that over.

Yeah. He's gonna paint a picture of
our future based on our circumstances. And
then we gaze at that picture, and
it becomes our reality, and it's not
our reality.

Yeah.

Did Manny also talk about how your
feelings are real, but they're wrong?

Are you trying to come for me?

I can't remember if that was Saturday
night or try to come for you?

I think so.

How you rerouted that towards.

I didn't reroute it anywhere.

Feelings are real, but they're all real.

If you're feeling It. That's called the
Holy Spirit. So you take it up
with him. That was not directed at
you at all. That whole conversation was
just.

I love how he talked about getting
therapy. Like, sometimes you need a process
of deliverance and someone to talk to.
Yeah. You know, that's. You're not asking
for God to be a genie in
a bottle to magically remove the things
that you're dealing with. Sometimes you need
to go through a process.

Yep.

You have to go through therapy. So
that was freeing for a lot of
people.

I would just correct that statement and
say it's not. Sometimes it's most of
the time.

Yeah.

Like 90. The rule is you need
a process. The miracle is when God
does something without the process. Right, Right.
But that's the. It's a mirror.

The majority of the time, you need
the process.

It's a miracle because it's not what
normally happens. So, like, the. What your
expectation going into it is. I need
to go through a process.

Yeah. But even in miracles, there's a
process. You know, Jesus is going to
make mud out of saliva and dirt
and he's going to tell you to
go to a pool and wash your
face. It's going to be a process.
And he can do a miracle in
the process.

Beautiful.

Okay, so you have to go. We
have a whole tab that say first
love 2020, 25 on YouTube. Go. Catch
up as we continue the conversation. I
just had to put that in there.

Just set aside a lot of time
because Manny went for like an hour
45.

You can binge watch.

William was about hour 45. And it's.
It's funny because, like, that's a long
service for us. Like, if you see
the video and it says hour 45,
you're gonna think it's the whole service,
the worship and the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, whole thing.

They can binge watch first love.

Yeah, totally. It is worth it, though.

I will say, it is worth life
changing. So the Sunday morning session, preaching
Ninja. You guys, he wasn't in Ninja
forum this. This Sunday, this past time.
I feel like he. He was on
assignment. He wasn't joking with us.

He changed his sermon.

Yeah, yeah.

During worship.

Yeah. So he's standing next to me.
Like, he's already sent in, like, his
notes and scriptures, everything. He's standing next
to me. And it's. I think it's
technically was the second song of the
morning, but it was the first song
he had heard, like, because he came
in a little late. And so he's
standing there and I could like, just
see him, like, just thinking through this
song because he started pulling on his

(31:20):
iPad and he's like scrolling through stuff
and I'm like, oh, something's about to
happen. He leans over and he's like,
hey, would you be okay if I
called an audible? And I'm like, no
idea what you mean, but yes, let's
do it.

It's like, you got eight minutes because
you only got two more songs left.

I'm like, man, whatever. Whatever you're feeling
like you need to do, we're good.
And he's like, you know, should I
try and send some new notes to
the guys? And I was like, nah,
man, Ruben's great. He's got this. He
can do it on the fly.

Production team, man. Give it up to
the production team.

He's like, gold standard of church production
team.

He's right over there.

He's right over there, guys. He's in
the room.

It's. No, I literally. I was like,
hey, no, I think they'll be able
to rock with you, you know, as
you find scriptures. And he's like, okay,
cool. And then like three minutes later,
he's like, okay, I'm going to do
John here and here. And I was
like, all right. So I'm texting during
worship Reuben to have those scriptures ready.
And yeah, he completely changed everything he
was going to talk about. Which is
funny because we're in my office right

(32:15):
before the service, and he's like, man,
ever since you text me and told
me about the church name change, I've
been so fired up. And I got
a word about discipleship, and it's just
going to connect with your guys vision
and your heart and what you're doing.
He's like, I'm so excited about this.
And then he gets in the sanctuary.
He's like, whoops, got that different.

But it was. I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead.

But it was back to back with
Manny the night before with understanding the
waiting process. And then Lazarus dies and
Jesus waits. And then he walks us
through that process of why Jesus waits
and what do we do during that
waiting period and how Jesus comes to
deliver. And it was like, oh, man,

(32:55):
this is a great part B of
Manny's sermon. So it was. It was
perfect. The Holy Spirit knew exactly what
he was doing.

And it's one of those things I
think we've talked before about. Like, you
could speak on forgiveness every week and
it still hits people, right? Like talking
about waiting. You could do that every
week. And it's still Gonna hit people.
The reality is Christianity is waiting, right?
Like, we're waiting on Christ's return. We're
waiting for the Messiah to come back.
We're waiting. Like, it's. Yeah, there's a

(33:21):
lot of waiting.

But I love how God gave us
a different perspective of the same topic
from two different guys. And one had
an audible. Wasn't planned.

Right.

Or anything like that. Like, God knew
exactly what his people needed. It was
great.

That was good.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, I'm just meditating. That was
a good weekend. I was just going
to ask.

Dan's the best. I love Dan.

Yes, he is great. He's like. You
guys are like, almost like brothers when
you're sitting on the front row.

Yeah, we totally look alike, right?

Asian, Australian.

For those that don't know Dan. Dan
is Chinese from Australia and has never
put down a set of weights. Like,
he just carries at all times, just
in case. So. Yeah, we don't look
anything alike.

You don't look alike. It's like that.
That connection, like a spiritual brotherhood. I
can see the spiritual.

Yeah. Yeah. From the very first time
he came, it was just like, there
was, like, an immediate connection. There's a
really genuine guy. Love him. And he
may treat everybody that he visits that
same exact way because he's just got
that personality. Like, I don't think he's
ever made an enemy in his life.
But, yeah, it just. It feels very

(34:30):
genuine for our church that he actually
cares, which is why we keep having
him back for the Sunday morning of
first love, which it's been three years
in a row. And we were supposed
to talk yesterday about whether we do
four in a row with him or
not, but we never got.

Yeah, we never got there.

Never got there.

We ran out of steam. Just why
we didn't do the podcast.

Right. I was gonna ask, would you
ever just switch your message up in
the. In the middle of, like, worship
either one of you guys just knowing
your personality?

I'm gonna say most likely no, because
fear.

No. Yeah.

No. Like, I. I'm very, very scripted.
Yeah, it's very much so. I deal
with legit social anxiety and everything. So,
like, just me being on a stage
is already, like, God has to work
miracles for that to take place. And
so, like, a total audible now with.
With Dan, like, his total audible was
not to write a sermon. It was

(35:29):
to use a different sermon.

Sure.

And so, like, I've done.

There was preparation there, right? Yeah.

So, like, I've done similar things on
missions where, like, I went in thinking
I'M gonna do this message even though
I've got these other four, you know,
in my back pocket in my iPad
ready to go. It was like, I'm
gonna do this one. And then I
get there and it's like, oh yeah,
that's not the one. So I'll make
that kind of change. But there's, there's
definitely something different when like you're the

(35:56):
pastor and it's your church and it's
your Sunday and all that.

I can audible a 10 minute devo,
but a whole sermon?

No, I can auto audible a point.

The Holy Spirit made me rewrite my
sermon on the Gospels the night before.
And I was finished with it like
at 4am and because I had such
a rough sermon planning the two weeks
before on it because I had just
did survey of the New Testament and

(36:27):
so I kept writing the sermon. Like
a survey of the New Testament of
the Gospels.

You weren't preaching, you were teaching. Yeah.

And so it was just a struggle.
And the Holy Spirit was like, how
about you spend some time with me
and let me download in you what
I want you to say about my
gospel.

I'm not gonna name any names, but
we, we had a pastor friend in
common. That, that was, that was pretty
much how he wrote every sermon. It
was like Saturday at 4 in the
morning. No, there was one time where
like he was, he was in the
parking lot of the church at like
6am writing the sermon.

That kind of anxiety.

I can't do that, man. I can't
do that.

Was it good?

I thought we were not judging today.

We listen and we do not judge.

I just. Okay.

Wow. Wow.

Anyways, I was going to say before
I was really interrupting, I was gonna
say I do feel like, and this
is just a feeling and my feelings
clearly don't matter, but I do feel
like.

Your feelings are real.

My feelings are real. They may not
be right all the time, but they're
real. With Disciples Church, I can see
God doing more of those moments where
it's like, there's something I need you
guys to know today.

So just accept that God is omniscient.

Yeah.

And he will tell me what he
wants the congregation to know. Sunday 2
weeks prior yeah, that can happen. And
he will help me prepare my heart
and my writing for that. And so
God spontaneously changing a sermon regularly isn't.
Not regularly, but even like. Yeah.

You don't see it happening?

No, because it would be, I, I
think it would be more of. For
the speaker to know if he's listening
to the Holy Spirit or if he's
missed it when he wrote the sermon.
I don't want to indict Dan Leanne
of this, so I'm trying to be
careful with what I say because I
believe that Dan Leanne heard from the
Holy Spirit, but I don't think that

(38:35):
God needs spontaneity in any moment.

Yeah.

He knows exactly what he's doing, and
he's strategic about it.

I think that charismatic churches. This is
an indictment against charismatics, which we are
one. I think the danger of charismatic
circles is that we put such value
in interruptions from the Holy Spirit Spirit
that we forget that there's value in
just the Holy Spirit. So the Holy
Spirit doesn't have to interrupt a moment
because the Holy Spirit can be working

(39:04):
three weeks in advance.

Yeah.

And so the same Holy Spirit that
was in the office with me writing
the sermon two weeks ago is the
same Holy Spirit that's going to be
helping me deliver the sermon.

Yeah.

So. And so for that, like, it.
And it extends into things like worship,
like, people, like, I just love it
when the Holy Spirit just interrupts worship.
And I'm like, I love it when
the Holy Spirit plans the whole worship
set.

Yeah, absolutely. And every component of service
will minister.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, does that
mean I'm anti the Holy Spirit in
the moment? No, not at all. The
interruption is cool, but I think that
there's a danger in just saying, man,
if it wasn't a Holy Spirit interruption,
then the Holy Spirit wasn't there.

No. Yeah, I wasn't saying that.

No, no, not at all. That's the
indictment against charismatics.

No. And maybe that's where the thought
came from. Like, I grew up in
a very. Like, God is saying something
different in.

This moment, and you throwing away my
notes and. And I heard a preacher
one time do one of those where,
like, I knew for a fact he
didn't have anything. He was thrown away.
He just.

Wow. He was using.

He was just using that language to
make it sound like what he was
about to talk about was more important
than what it was. And I just.
That's where Brent's. Brent's got to work
on some stuff.

I'm praying on my face every day
that the Holy Spirit gives me something
for this sermon series that we're going
into.

We start on Sunday. Carl keeps looking
at me like, brent, show me your
notes. So I know what I should
have told you.

I came to you. I was like,
what do you have? You look at
me like, what do you have?

That is Hilarious. Inside you guys are
going to see.

The Holy Spirit interrupt us. He's going
to move the day up.

Oh, man. I'm gonna get up there
and be like, you know what the
Holy Spirit is just saying, Just continue
worship.

Yes.

Fun time. So let's conclude with your
message for a first love. Yeah, I
think that was a great icing on
the cake because we spent a lot
of the weekend doing a lot of
like, self reflecting. And the greatest commandment
of all of those things is to
love your brother. So I really like
that message.

I really think that people don't understand
the value and what Jesus is. To
love God with everything that you are
and in the same manner, just like
that, love each other.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's said so much
in the Gospels and throughout the New
Testament that we don't understand that this
is extremely important. Yeah, we want to
worship a God that provides for us
and heals us and delivers us, and
we have hope in eternity and all
these other things. But we miss the
whole point of being followers of Jesus

(41:51):
and that's loving each other. And I
don't think that there's enough value on
it from Western Christianity that Jesus wants
us to love God and in the
same way, love each other and. Yeah,
I think we're missing it.

Yeah. And I see this, this comment
a lot, like online where people are
like, you know, I don't really need
church, I just need, it's just me
and Jesus.

Right.

It's like, well, how do you fulfill
the greatest commandment? Yes, that's good. Love
God with everything. Okay, you can check
that box, kind of. But you're not
loving your neighbor as yourself because you're,
you're isolating from your neighbor. But then,
you know, that's why I said, you
know, kind of. Because first John actually
says, if you claim to love God,

(42:35):
you must.

Yes.

Love your brother.

You have to. Absolutely.

And so then people are like, well,
I love my brother. I just don't
want to spend any time with them.
I don't want to hang out with
them, I don't want to see them,
I don't want to talk to them.

Can I choose my brothers?

Right. And that's what, that's what I
love about Jesus statement. He says, you
know, in the same way that I
loved you, that's how I want you
to love your brother. Because if not,
then we, we come to the, you
know, love your neighbor as yourself passage.
And the, the guy's like, who is
my neighbor? It's like, love your brother
as yourself. Well, you know, I don't
really like myself most of the time.

Right, right.

I don't have to love them like,
I'm woke.

I don't like nobody.

We put parameters around how we love
someone because we have those parameters around
ourselves. But Jesus doesn't have that. His
demonstration of love was the greatest demonstration
of love in existence. And so that's
how he wants us to love each
other.

Love is sacrifice. Yeah. So that was.
That was a. That was a fun
message.

It was fun.

One of my favorite things to come
out of the message is I got
checked by two different young ladies that
came to me afterwards and were like,
okay. She's like, I know what you
were saying. However, you said that God
is love and love is not jealous.
But there's a passage in the Old
Testament that says that God is a
jealous God. And they're both like, so.

(43:52):
And I'm like, I love you right
now. Because, like, I keep telling people,
it doesn't matter who's on the stage.
If you hear something that doesn't match
Scripture, you need to check it.

Oh, my God.

And so, like, it was one of
those where I was like. And I've
told people on this podcast, like, yeah,
do it to me if I'm the
one. And I had two different people
come up to me.

But they probably learned the right interpretation
of God.

Sure. Yeah. You know, I try to
give, like, a super quick answer, you
know, and there's basically, it's the. What's
the object of the jealousy? Like, when
God is a jealous God, it's because
he's jealous over his own possession. It's
already his. Right. And so it's. The
jealousy is actually for your benefit. Whereas
the jealousy that's Talked about in 1st

(44:38):
Corinthians 13 is that possessive jealousy, where
it's something that isn't yours and you're
jealous of what that person has that
you don't possess.

And Paul's talking people to people, and
it's not God jealous of a person?
Is God's jealous of where we put
our attention? Or what? Or who or
what we've made our God.

Yeah. And the proof text, if you
need one for that, is Second Corinthians
something or other. This is my brain
right now. I'll look it up and
I'll post it sometime. But in Second
Corinthians, so, same guy that writes First
Corinthians, same guy that says, you know,
God is love. Same guy that says,
love is not jealous. Same guy also,

(45:22):
Writes, I have a jealousy, a godly
jealousy for you in Second Corinthians. So
he's, he's actually distinguishing that there are
actually two different kinds of jealousy.

There's.

There's a good version and there's a
bad version. And so love is not
jealous in the bad sense. God is
jealous in the sense. The good sense.
Same way I can say, hey, pride
is sinful, but I can also be
proud of my kids.

Yeah, yeah.

There's. There's good. It's good and there's
bad.

Excellent.

I'm just saying.

But I just love the fact that
they were like, you said something and
I got scripture that sounds like it
disproves what you said.

And they didn't post it on social.
They didn't go tell all their friends
how bad of a pastor you were.

And you preach one of the cool
thing. One of the two was like,
look, I trust you and I know
where you're going with it, but at
the same time, can you help me
understand?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they. Are they asking for permission
to be jealous? I don't mean. That
was just my.

I. I think they were chat. Because
I. Well, like, I took my time
with.

That whole justify my, justify my jealousy.
God is a jealous God.

Listen, if, if they're watching right now
that I know that that wasn't where
you're coming from. That's just Taisha.

She's so. I can hate my coworker
cuz she's.

Trying to be combative today.

No.

Okay. No. I don't even remember what
I was going to say. I was
going to say something. It was going
to be great. It was the best
moment of the podcast.

Right there. Y. There you go. There's
your quote. It's gone.

You wanted a quote. I can't give
it to you now. I forgot. Sorry.

If the Holy Spirit drops it.

Spontaneous.

No, but that was. I think where
I was going with that is like
what that came out of is because
I did something that I tell people
to never do. And I'm always telling
people, hey, stop reading the Bible as
if it's about you. The Bible's not
about you. We want exegesis, not isegesis.
We're trying to draw from the text.

(47:14):
We're not trying to insert ourselves into
the text and make it say what
we want it to say. And so
I teach that repeatedly. That's my pet
peeve, is when somebody takes a passage
and make.

But I always want to be David
fighting my Goliath.

I hate that. So Much it bothers
me. And it's funny because it's like,
yeah, no, we're David when he's fighting
Goliath. But not when he's sleeping with
Bathsheba, right?

No, not at all.

Right. Like, so we pick and choose
when to be. We're the good guys.
It's silliness. But then in the message,
I'm like, all right, put yourselves in
this passage.

Yeah.

And so I had to take a
lot of time to, like, work into
that, because I was like, please don't
do.

Where is he going?

Why is he anywhere?

Beating us down in our heads?

Yeah. It took a little while to
build that foundation because. But I wanted
to see. I wanted people to be
able to see that process. Right. So
that they don't neglect what the passage
is about. It's about love. And. And
God is love. So this is qualities
of God. Right. But it's written in
such a way that it's supposed to
be something that we emulate, that we.

(48:16):
What was. What was the. The passage?
I forget now.

It's okay, Pastor.

Passage.

Imitate. Imitate God. That was the word
I was looking for. The word imitate
just fell out of my brain.

It's the week after first. So you
put yourself on the chop in black
on the stage, and you asked the
whole front row if you. What was
it? Was it the.

It was. Brent cannot be made angry
easily. The whole row was on with
me. Asa just wanted to be funny.

Asa was like, damn.

I think it depends on when you
first met Brent, what season. If you
Met Brent in 2010 Like I did,
and then, you know, the brand of
2025, you know that he's not angry.
In contrast, in comparison to the old
Brent, this new Brent that we have
is an angel.

And look, Brent can still be made
angry because the passage doesn't say, love
cannot be made angry.

Now, for a person who met you
today, it says not much.

Probably angry easily.

Okay, So I. I want to give
Pastor Brent. We. We came for him
enough.

Oh.

So we want to play a quick
game with you, Pastor Carlton. We. Listen.

This wasn't a part of the SO15
qualities.

Which one do you suck at?

So we're gonna guess. We're gonna try
to get. So you think about the
one you need to work on.

My writer.

And we're gonna try to guess which
one it is. So you get one
guess, and I get one guess.

Wait, what's the instructions again?

So the instructions is out of the
15 qualities of love, it was. Are
you patient? Are you kind. Don't break.
Isn't proud. Isn't rude. Not selfish. Why
did I agree to this easily anger.

I don't think you did.

Never stops trusting. Never lose hope. Never
quits. Never jealous. Okay, which one do
you need to work on? Just one.
And we're gonna try to guess what
it is. So I'm gonna say is
not rude.

Nah. Nah, that ain't it.

Okay. That was my guess.

Let me see the list.

Okay. Yes. See the list. Okay.

I said no. The scriptures.

I'm gonna say it's a toss between
love is patient.

I thought we wasn't judging today.

We're not judging. It's a toss between
love is patience and love never stops
trusting.

I have trust issues.

I think that there's some people that
can ruin your level of trust.

Yes.

So which one is it?

Well, you should have had me. Well,
how does this work here? I should
have put it in my head first.

No, because we need the authentic answer.

And for clarity, we're all working on.

I'm not jealous.

No.

Dang. This is.

I could exaggerate. I don't know if
that's bragging, though. I'm not proud. I
can be rude, but it's combative leadership.

Womp, womp.

Yeah. Your rudeness is just directness. But
people take that as rude.

I don't sell fish, so I'm not
selfish.

What?

Not easily angry.

He's kosher. No shellfish.

Oh, my goodness.

But I think trust, okay? Because I
can't let you do it again if
it happened one time. And so it's
like I put people in compartments. I
put people in classifications in my mind.

(51:50):
And I know how to deal with.

People based off of broken trust.

So I don't volunteer sadness or hurt
from past childhood trauma. So therefore. Oh,
my gosh, I am not going to
position you in a place in my
heart where my heart will be broken.
Don't break.

And honestly. And honestly, love never loses.
Trust is one of the Just the
harder ones just for people in general
to wrap around. Because that does not
mean you're naive. It does not mean
you're gullible. It doesn't mean that, you
know, your spouse is clearly having an
affair. But love never stops trusting. So

(52:37):
I'm just trusting that when he says
he's just going out or he's working
late that he's not actually seeing that
girl that I've already caught him with
five times.

Yeah.

It's like, okay, no, that's. There's some
stupidity there.

Yeah.

So why was I put on this.
Now I need therapy.

You went to the second place? Like,
really?

See? See, Carlton and I, we've known
each other for, like, 15 years. I
was able to just put my finger
on this. So, Taisha, what's your issue?

This was not about me. And we
have to wrap this up because our
production team have to show anybody.

Let us know in the comments. What?
What's Taisha's issue?

Love is kind.

Just know I'm on social media all
the time, so I will be watching.
I'm just playing.

Love does not hold grudges.

Exactly.

Yes.

Every time I walk past you, you
roll your eyes at me.

That's not true.

You were in the dream team lounge
doing first love, sitting on the couch
next to Ari, and I was walking.

By, and I had him because I
knew he had something smart.

I didn't say anything, and I don't
like smart conversations.

No, I was, like, in work mode.
I was trying to get things together.
He was like, are you okay? Like,
can you handle this? Are you about
to crumble under pressure?

There's a lot going on. Maybe it
was my cry for help.

It was your cry for help.

And I got the roll die because.

My head was hurting. I was trying
to keep it all together with a
smile on my face is not the
worst. They're, like, trying to smell through,
like.

And you're crying in the inside. They're
crying on the inside like a winner.

People are gonna think that working at
this church is just never. I don't
want that.

It's not you guys. It's me. Clearly,
it's me. It's the stretching, Brian.

On the inside, like a winner.

Okay.

Hey. You show up to the podcast
and camo fatigues, then it was intentional,
but.

Now I regret it. Okay, do that
again. So I feel so bad. Production.
But give us a little, like, maybe
10 more minutes. Is that okay? Okay.

To.

I wanted to ask or. Yeah, ask
the questions that people had about D.C.
because you ended your message with us
officially going into Disciples Church, and that
was a great moment.

Confetti.

Confetti.

We got Carlton making a confetti angel.

Angel. If you go to our IG
page, you can see it on the
last recap video. He's tragic on the
ground, making an angel in the confetti.
So it was a great moment. The
energy was high, and I. I could
just tell people are excited about this
new chapter. How do you guys feel?

Tired.

Okay, that's valid.

No, I. Listen, I. I really think
that the vision of the church Is
not something you have to find anymore.
It's not something that you have to
dig into and look for and ask
the leadership questions about the, the direction
of the church is going. We're letting
you know by the name of our
church.

That's good.

And then everything else after that is
going to be intentionally following that vision.
We are going to make disciples of
Christ. We're going to be one and
we're going to make one. And that's
the part that I love about it.
It's not a hidden agenda. It's up
front. You know exactly what we are
doing as a church and what's expected
of you as a follower of Christ.
And I think that's brilliant.

It is. It's great.

Yeah. No, I'm, I'm excited for the
same reasons. Gives us singular focus. It
gives us direction. It gives us even
from like a staff level when we're
talking about like, okay, what events are
we going to do? What sermon series
are we going to do? How are
we going to do this? What are
we going to do here? It's like,
okay, does that help make disciples? Yes.
No. If it's yes, all right, then
we'll probably do it. If it's a
no, then we're definitely not going to

(56:19):
do it. You know, it's just, how
is it adding value to this mission
of be one, make one?

Yeah, I love that. So some people
on social media had questions about this
transition.

All about the merch.

I'm say I'm going be completely honest.
The questions I got was all about
merch. So let's just leave with that
one and we'll end with the, the,
the other two questions. Can we expect
merch every Sunday or at least have
pop up shops?

Pop up shops, but not every Sunday.
Every Sunday there'll be some seasonal things.
I think maybe once a quarter or
so we can do that. For sure.

We'll definitely have another merch drop when
we get into the summer.

Yep.

Summer at clc we usually take over,
do another store, do another launch with
more T shirts, less hoodies.

Yeah.

Although I am requesting now a thin
hoodie because. Okay, I like hoodies year
round, but yeah, yeah, that one, that
one we got heavyweight. Heavyweight. That was
like a. You're gonna, you're not gonna
freeze in this one.

Good quality and you're actually rocking one
of our shirts now. Our oversized.

We still have some of these.

Yes.

So what do we sell out of?
We sold out of the sweatshirts, both
versions. The made to make and the,
the disciples.

Discipline Discipline.

Yep. We sold out of the blue
hoodie.

Yes.

The gray hoodie.

Sold out.

Sold out. The beanies are.

The beanie.

We got a few beanies. We got
this T shirt.

Some kids. Little disciples.

Some little disciples. A couple.

And the First Love T shirts.

First Love T shirts.

The jean jackets are gone.

Gone.

Wow.

Didn't you fight us against that? Yep.
See?

Combative leadership. See, I wanted to see
if you guys had faith in the
direction that.

You guys were going to believe in
your mission.

That's what it was. Pretty. Okay, push
it up.

Buy a blue jean jacket. Okay, go
ahead.

But they sold out, so. Praise God.

Come on.

So the. The next question we had
is, how many people do you think
will be willing to genuinely go through
the discipleship process?

How many people? Less than should. More
than have in the past.

And less than should, because the cost
of discipleship is great and it's probably
hard to digest initially.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the thing.
Like, when everybody is cheering and shouting
and getting excited about merch and logos
and confetti cannons and all of that,
there's a part of me that's just
going, are you as excited about what
comes next?

Well, your first message this year on
discipleship had no.

No incentive. There was literally no incentive.

Yeah. And so people were on board
with it before they even knew you
were.

Going to announce the second message. Because
I didn't do any incentive. The first
message. The second message. I put it
in the message, and then I had
too much content, and I ended up
cutting it out of the second message,
too. So literally, I've never. I mean,
we. I think we talked about it
on the podcast, but I've never given
people, like, a positive reason to want
to be a disciple. All I've told

(59:42):
them is, and people. Jesus said, take
up your cross and die.

And everybody were. They were on the
edge of their seats, ready to run
through a wall for that reason, without
the. Any incentive.

Well, the reality is this is the
call. Like, Jesus said, come and follow
me. And then he showed, like, what
does it require to follow me and
go to church every once in a
while and sing songs? Isn't on the
list of things.

Pastor Carlton McCarthy (01:00:07):
Right.

Pastor Brent McQuay (01:00:08):
Like, it's. Discipleship is not easy, but
it's. It's the invitation. Like, we're called
to this, and it is going to
be sacrifice. It is going to cost
you things, but it's worth it because
you're getting closer to Jesus in the
process. So. Yeah, So I think that
when. When we say, hey, disciples Church,
like, that means Something so, like, yeah,

(01:00:29):
we're gonna still preach sermons on Sunday.
We're still gonna have worship on. On
Sundays. That's normal. Yeah, but what are
you doing to become a disciple? Because
just going to Disciples Church doesn't make
you a disciple.

Ti’heasha Beasley (01:00:39):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope that answered
the question for the person who exited.

I hope a lot of people, I
guess, the best.

Sure.

You know?

Sure.

I mean. Yeah.

I don't trust that. A lot of
times. I'm not gonna bother.

They'll come along.

I listen, and I don't judge. Okay.
What does prayer look like as a
disciple at Disciples Church?

I guess there's kind of two ways
that I could answer that.

So we need a podcast on prayer.

The. The general answer for Disciples is
they are devoted to prayer. Right. So
it's in our listing. So Acts 2:42,
that we've already taught on. They devoted
themselves to the apostles teaching, to the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and
to prayer. And so that is an

(01:01:29):
aspect of devotion. It's also an aspect
of discipline. Right. That you choose to
pray. It's your first response, not your
last resort. It's the thing that you.
It's not your panic button. Not your
Hail Mary pun intended. It is. Come
on. I had. Come on. Come on.
That was funny. Hail Mary, Grace. Get

(01:01:49):
it? Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail
Mary.

Yes.

Come on. That was good right there.
Whatever, people listen, don't judge. Nobody appreciates.
Nobody appreciates my humor.

I think so.

But yeah. So from. From a Disciples
just general standpoint, prayer is. Is. Is
vital. Yeah. From a D.C. standpoint. How
do we embody that? Well, that comes
in every Wednesday, actually. The team is
panicking right now because we start our
prayer service in 26 minutes. And so

(01:02:23):
there is a devotion to prayer in.
In that corporate setting. It's why we
have Pray first books to help teach
on. Prayer will continue to have prayer
be a core component of our services,
our teachings, and in our small groups.
So when you're gathering in a small
group, prayer should be one of the

(01:02:44):
components. And it doesn't matter if you're
gathering to play basketball. Prayer should be
a part of that.

That's great.

So. Yeah. So be devoted to it.

A rhythm of prayer is like. Is
what I like to call it.

Yeah.

A rhythm of prayer.

Carlton, with all the quotes, man.

Right. Is that original? Because I could
put that in the quote book.

The rhythm of prayer. No, I've. I've
seen that in other places, but the
rhythm of prayer.

All right, it's original.

Pray all the Time.

All right, you have one more question.

One more question. And this is the
last question. Pastor Brent, what is your
vision for the future of dc? We
discussed your why, but what is the
vision of the future?

Vision of the future is to be
one and make one. And we want
to do that as effectively as we
possibly can. And so that includes multi
site. So we're still gearing up for
Homewood Flossmoor launch. I'm actually meeting with
our campus pastors a little bit later
today. You know, I kept telling them,
hey, we just got to get through
conference and name change and then we

(01:03:43):
can start tackling this thing. But part
of the reasoning for stuff like that
is, and we've kind of always had
this philosophy is that a church like
CLC now Disciples Church, is needed, but
Chicagoland is just way too spread out.
And so, you know, we could always

(01:04:04):
build a bigger auditorium. But discipleship happens
through relationships and the larger the room
gets, the harder it is to actually
build meaningful relationships. Whereas if we launch
a campus that has, you know, two
to 500 people in it, it's way
easier to, in that smaller room, find
people that you can be connected to.

(01:04:25):
And so the plan moving forward is
to continue helping make disciples and wherever
that takes us. So it'll probably be
in multi site. That's going to affect
our missions work as well. You know,
it's the beautiful connection that we have
to CLC Davao. They're already leading the
way in discipleship and so we're going
to keep supporting them in that. But

(01:04:45):
yeah, so the future of Disciples Church
is BE one, make one. And that's,
you know, I think we started off
the be1 message with, hey, this isn't
something you talk about for 35 minutes.
This is something we spend the rest
of our lives pursuing.

Yeah.

And so the 10 years from now,
we're just trying to be better disciples
and make better disciples. Fifty years from
now, we're just trying to make better
disciples and be better disciples. So that's
good. That's it. That's the future. Wherever
that takes us, whatever that looks like.
And you know, our model for this
is, I said it, you know, Sunday
night. It's, it's through people, not programs.

(01:05:19):
And so it's through our small group
system where we are starting our small
group season in like two weeks. I
think it is two, three weeks. And
it's going to start with an all
church campaign. So for six weeks, we're
all walking through Ephesians together on Sundays
and in our small groups. But in
Addition to the normal small groups that

(01:05:40):
we've always had, we're starting discipleship groups,
which are much smaller. They're. They're isolated,
like, they're capped. And I think most
of them are going to be closed
groups in the sense of you kind
of have to be invited into one.
You can request to join one, but
it's because it's built around discipleship. There's

(01:06:02):
a commitment level to that, and those
are going to operate year round. So,
like, I've got a group that's going
to be meeting on Wednesday nights. I
think I've already got. I was supposed
to have 10 guys. I think I
have 12. So Pastor Jason's already mad
at me for not keeping to my.
I invited 12, thinking that a couple
of them would say no. And they
were all like, yeah. And I'm like,

(01:06:24):
oh, that backfired. Carlton, you're doing one.

Coffee's in the morning.

Yep.

Yep.

So, you know, we've got a few
different pastors and key leaders that are
going to be leading these discipleship groups.
And the goal is we do that
for the first year, actually start tomorrow.

Is that too early?

I start in two weeks. I start
after I get back from vacation. Yes.
Two weeks from tonight, actually, is when
mine starts. But yeah, so the goal
that first year is that real deep
dive with that group of people, and
then the goal is year two. Some

(01:07:02):
of the guys from that group then
start their own. And Soul's doing one
and kind of the same model that
there's some. Some ladies in that group
that'll be leading their own in the
future. And so it's just, look, this
is. We're in this for the long
haul. Like, so if you're like, okay,
tomorrow I become a disciple, it's like,
no, you become a disciple the rest
of your life. It's a process. That's

(01:07:23):
why love is patient, because it's a
process. Process that we walk through with
people.

So. Yeah, well, I'm excited. I. I
feel. I don't like to use the
word energy, but I feel the vibes
coming from dc.

My goodness.

Intangible forces. That's not the Holy Spirit.
That's what you feel.

I feel the Holy Spirit.

Stop trying to bring your New Ageism.

I'm not. I'm trying to be relevant,
tangible forces, but I feel the Holy
Spirit.

In the next podcast, Taisha will not.

Be in that seat.

You wore the pants. That's on you.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. I definitely feel
the Holy Spirit in Disciples Church. I
feel the excitement just all around the
mission of Be one Make one. So
we are excited for this journey. Thank
you for taking this journey with us
on between sermons and just hearing about
First Love and where we're going with
Disciples Church. Make sure to go binge
watch first love to 2025. It's incredible.

(01:08:20):
It will change your life. Help you
set things in order for this year
and share this podcast. Let us know
in the comments below if you enjoyed
it, if you have any questions, thoughts
or concerns, or if you want to
report some people. You know I'm here
for that.

Don't forget to let us know what
Taisha's issue is. Yes, 15 qualities. You
got a lot of options.

Yes and as a quick cammy we
are we have switched over our social
media platform so make sure if you
are not following us, we are now
we Disciples Church on all platforms. So
yeah, I heard someone say woo. We
are excited. It automatically changed over for
those who were following us. But if
you want to follow us, go ahead
and follow us at We Are Disciples

(01:09:02):
Church and we have great things to
come. I look forward to connecting. Have
a great week.

Energy Energy.

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