This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 656: Follow the Way of Jesus with Victor Gluckin This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Audio file 656 Victor Gluckin - Follow the Way.mp3 Transcript 00:00 Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan and you are listening to Restitutio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:12 Sean Finnegan Jesus said, make disciples of all nations. 00:15 Sean Finnegan How are you doing on this? 00:17 Sean Finnegan Are you currently mentoring someone in the faith? 00:20 Sean Finnegan Are you under the impression that this work is only for pastors and those in church leadership or those with the gift of evangelism? 00:29 Sean Finnegan You may say to yourself, I don't have a Bible college degree, or I don't know enough to teach someone else, or I don't even know where to start in discipling someone else. 00:41 Sean Finnegan These are totally understandable concerns and doubts. 00:45 Sean Finnegan Victor Gluckin, lead pastor of Living Faith Christian Church in Rhode Island, has written a book called Follow the Way of Jesus to help you. 00:55 Sean Finnegan Not only is this book easy to read and enjoyable, but it's also designed to enable you to disciple others. 01:03 Sean Finnegan The idea is simple. 01:05 Sean Finnegan Get the book and invite a friend, coworker, neighbor, or family member to work through it with you. 01:12 Sean Finnegan Each of you take turns reading it aloud and answering the questions. 01:16 Sean Finnegan It's that simple. 01:17 Sean Finnegan In what follows, I ask Gluckin about his new practical Christianity book, including who he wrote it for and why he laid it out the way he did. 01:26 Sean Finnegan Here now is episode 656, Follow the Way of Jesus with Victor Gluckin. 01:39 Sean Finnegan Welcome, Pastor Victor. 01:40 Sean Finnegan Thanks for joining me today. 01:42 Victor Gluckin Thank you, Pastor Sean. 01:43 Victor Gluckin Pleasure to be here. 01:45 Sean Finnegan So today we're talking about the book Follow the Way of Jesus, and this is part of the Discipleship series, which is a collection of three books. 01:55 Sean Finnegan I want to ask you about this book and a little bit of the backstory, some of the motivation behind why you wrote it. 02:05 Sean Finnegan Maybe we could just start with that. 02:07 Sean Finnegan Why did you write this book? 02:08 Sean Finnegan What were you hoping to get done here? 02:12 Victor Gluckin Through conversations with fellow pastors, I think we were all kind of recognizing a similar trend in our churches of wanting to help people in our churches follow Jesus, but also help other people follow Jesus and learn about Christianity, learn about the way of Jesus. 02:28 Victor Gluckin And our background has a certain method, helping people learn about Christianity, learn about the gospel. 02:36 Victor Gluckin For many years, we would do like classes. 02:38 Victor Gluckin We would have like foundational classes where we would 02:41 Victor Gluckin teach the gospel, teach the fundamental Christian beliefs, things like that. 02:44 Victor Gluckin People would sign up for the class, one a couple nights a week, attend. 02:49 Victor Gluckin For a long time, that's how we would help people understand these things. 02:52 Victor Gluckin What I have felt is that model, though super helpful in some ways, it's been harder to do. 03:00 Victor Gluckin People are busy. 03:01 Victor Gluckin People are farther away from the churches or a million other things. 03:06 Victor Gluckin And what I've really seen to be effective is one-on-one, 03:11 Victor Gluckin small group conversations. 03:13 Victor Gluckin Okay, I've preached hundreds of sermons in my life. 03:16 Victor Gluckin A lot of times it's like the conversation after church that God really shows up in. 03:22 Victor Gluckin The pivotal moments in people's lives. 03:25 Victor Gluckin Sure, some of them are, that was a great sermon, but a lot of times it's like, I was at my friend's house late one night and my heart opened up. 03:35 Victor Gluckin And so that interpersonal time with people is really a way that God wants to help people grow. 03:42 Victor Gluckin This book and these books are designed to help the Christians in our churches, the Christians in our communities, help somebody else walk with God and learn the gospel and understand the Bible and grow in what they believe and follow Jesus. 04:01 Victor Gluckin So 04:02 Victor Gluckin That's the reason why we wrote these books was to empower the people in our churches who don't think they can help someone follow Jesus, but actually they can. 04:13 Victor Gluckin They just need to be encouraged and they need the content to help them. 04:18 Victor Gluckin And so rather than sitting with me in my office and meeting with people, I'm gonna share with everybody what I would do if I met with, talk about these things. 04:27 Victor Gluckin The people in our churches are gonna be able to really help and impact a lot of people 04:31 Victor Gluckin and see God work and be on the front line of that. 04:33 Victor Gluckin So that's the purpose of the book, to really, it's not just for information. 04:36 Victor Gluckin It's really designed so that someone or a couple or a family can work this with someone else and grow and follow Jesus. 04:47 Victor Gluckin So that's the why. 04:48 Victor Gluckin And I think last point on that is there were people in my church, in our churches that felt confident 04:58 Victor Gluckin discipling someone else. 05:00 Victor Gluckin And so a lot of times people would try to connect a new person or a new believer with the pastor or a leader. 05:06 Victor Gluckin And that's great. 05:08 Victor Gluckin Pastors should be accessible. 05:10 Victor Gluckin But what these people didn't realize is actually they were probably the best person to meet with their friend because they're going back to work with them. 05:17 Victor Gluckin They're in school with them. 05:18 Victor Gluckin They're their neighbors. 05:19 Victor Gluckin They're the reason they're at our church. 05:21 Victor Gluckin And we want to just help empower the church to make disciples. 05:24 Victor Gluckin So that's the reason behind writing the book. 05:26 Sean Finnegan Yeah, these books really are an interesting tool. 05:31 Sean Finnegan I say that because they're not, most people see a book and they're just like, oh, I'm gonna buy the book and then I'm just gonna read the book and then I'll be done with the book and then probably forget whatever is in the book. 05:43 Sean Finnegan Hopefully not. 05:44 Sean Finnegan But that's not really what we have here. 05:46 Sean Finnegan I mean, this is a zero preparation discipleship tool. 05:52 Sean Finnegan And I was thinking like, somebody doesn't even need to read it ahead of time. 05:58 Sean Finnegan You could just be reading it with somebody else for the first time and you're good to go. 06:02 Sean Finnegan It's like, just like you said, having the pastor, this is the content you would say if you were in the meeting. 06:09 Victor Gluckin That's right. 06:10 Victor Gluckin Yeah. 06:10 Victor Gluckin And it empowers Christians to not wait till the pastor gets their act together and formulates some 06:20 Victor Gluckin session foundational class that only the pastor can teach every quarter. 06:26 Victor Gluckin You can start this today with the neighbor that you've been talking to about God and say, hey, I'm working through this. 06:32 Victor Gluckin You want to do it with me? 06:34 Victor Gluckin And you spend an hour a week together in a coffee shop in your living room or whatever, you're going to see God work through it. 06:40 Victor Gluckin Yeah. 06:41 Sean Finnegan Very good. 06:42 Sean Finnegan So this is a book that's designed to not only just be read on your own, 06:48 Sean Finnegan It's really not necessarily even designed for that. 06:51 Sean Finnegan I mean, you can read it on your own, obviously, but it's a book that's designed to be read with other people and in a super small group of like two people or three people, something like that. 07:02 Sean Finnegan And you have all these discussion questions in here. 07:06 Sean Finnegan And the focus of your book is discipleship. 07:10 Sean Finnegan Why don't you share your thoughts on what it means to be a genuine disciple of Christ? 07:15 Victor Gluckin I say this in the book. 07:16 Victor Gluckin The primary word that identifies what we call Christians in the New Testament is the word disciple. 07:23 Victor Gluckin And a good word, I heard John Mark Comer say this the first time many years ago, that a disciple is like an apprentice and it's someone that is learning a trade, an apprentice, someone who's learning a trade. 07:35 Victor Gluckin If I wanna be a plumber, I go spend some time with a plumber. 07:39 Victor Gluckin The plumber's doing everything. 07:40 Victor Gluckin I'm watching. 07:41 Victor Gluckin And then over time, the plumber says, all right, I'm gonna give you 07:45 Victor Gluckin these tools, and I want you to work on this, but the plumber's there helping you, staying with you. 07:49 Victor Gluckin But then eventually the plumber is going to stay there with you, but you're going to do it on your own. 07:53 Victor Gluckin And that's what Jesus did with his disciples. 07:55 Victor Gluckin He did it. 07:57 Victor Gluckin They watched him. 07:58 Victor Gluckin He gave them power and authority. 07:59 Victor Gluckin They started to do it, you know, minister, love, spread the gospel, heal. 08:03 Victor Gluckin And then eventually they did on their own with his empowerment of the Spirit, obviously. 08:08 Victor Gluckin Understanding what it means to be a disciple over the last 10 years or so helped me just understand what it means to be a Christian. 08:15 Victor Gluckin Understanding what I should believe is important, understanding the gospel critically important, but then what does it look like every day to live and to follow the way of Jesus as his disciples? 08:26 Victor Gluckin And so this book is going to help people understand what are things that Christians do every day? 08:33 Victor Gluckin What are practices that Christians have been doing for centuries every week, every month? 08:41 Victor Gluckin a couple times a year, once a year. 08:43 Victor Gluckin And it sort of helps us understand not just the teachings of Jesus, but the life and the lifestyle of Jesus, to follow him. 08:50 Victor Gluckin And so the premise is that we want to not just know his teachings, but follow the way that he showed us how to live, how to be human, how to glorify God. 09:01 Victor Gluckin So hopefully, as people read it, they will have their lives impacted and also then sort of be able to put into practice 09:10 Victor Gluckin the teachings of Jesus, be more and more like him every day. 09:13 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 09:14 Sean Finnegan The Great Commission is to make disciples of all nations. 09:17 Sean Finnegan I think a lot of us have heard that as make believers of all nations. 09:24 Sean Finnegan Converts. 09:25 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 09:26 Sean Finnegan We think that once we share the gospel with somebody, we're done. 09:30 Sean Finnegan You know, let's do the prayer. 09:32 Sean Finnegan Let's baptize them. 09:34 Sean Finnegan All right, they're a Christian. 09:35 Sean Finnegan You know, they've made a commitment to follow Jesus. 09:37 Sean Finnegan They believe, you know, 09:40 Sean Finnegan He died for their sins and then he's coming back to rule the kingdom. 09:43 Sean Finnegan Okay, so that's just the starting point of this book. 09:49 Sean Finnegan This book has two parts in it. 09:52 Sean Finnegan has the gospel, which is the first five chapters, and then it has the way of Jesus or follow the way of Jesus, which is 14 chapters, right? 10:00 Sean Finnegan So you have that like initial part of like, all right, let's make somebody a Christian. 10:05 Sean Finnegan Okay, now you're a Christian. 10:07 Sean Finnegan you still have to teach that person how to live. 10:09 Sean Finnegan You have to, there's like so many different aspects of living as a Christian that are so important. 10:17 Sean Finnegan And that's a lot of what you get into here, the practical stuff. 10:20 Sean Finnegan Did you wanna comment on the two-part nature of the book? 10:24 Victor Gluckin Sure, So the heart of this whole series is the first thing that someone needs to do is to hear and believe the gospel. 10:33 Victor Gluckin And then once someone hears and believes the gospel, 10:36 Victor Gluckin They confess Jesus as their Lord and they follow him and they are filled with the Spirit and they become like him. 10:43 Victor Gluckin And then they're gonna learn to understand and read and love the scriptures, which is the next part of the book, right? 10:50 Victor Gluckin And so you become a Christian, you start following Jesus, then you wanna understand the scriptures and understand the Bible. 10:56 Victor Gluckin And then beyond that, it's going to be, all right, well, what does the Bible specifically teach about various topics? 11:02 Victor Gluckin God, about 11:04 Victor Gluckin the spirit, the church, the future, things like that. 11:06 Victor Gluckin And so the books are designed ideally with a brand new person to start with the gospel, learn to follow Jesus, learn the Bible, and then understand what the Bible teaches. 11:17 Victor Gluckin And so some people listening might be like, well, I already know the gospel. 11:20 Victor Gluckin Okay, well, you might start with following Jesus and you might be listening going, oh, I already follow Jesus. 11:26 Victor Gluckin And then, well, do you, how are you with the Bible? 11:29 Victor Gluckin And so depending on where the person is, they may start a different 11:33 Victor Gluckin places. 11:33 Victor Gluckin But what I talk to couples when we're doing premarital counseling is that so often in our society, people are planning and stressing and getting excited and getting nervous for the wedding, right? 11:47 Victor Gluckin That's the big thing. 11:48 Victor Gluckin And how much money and are we going to have a DJ or a band, whatever. 11:51 Victor Gluckin What tuxedos are we in? 11:53 Victor Gluckin But really they need to prepare not for a wedding, but for a marriage. 11:57 Victor Gluckin And these books are to help someone who says, yes, I want to 12:02 Victor Gluckin get married. 12:04 Victor Gluckin Yes, I want to follow Jesus. 12:06 Victor Gluckin Not just be like, well, we had the wedding and I'm good, but preparing for the marriage, preparing for the life together, preparing for better or for worse, rich or poor, sickness and in health, and learning to navigate the covenant that we make with Christ when we say, you're my Lord and he says, you're adopted by my father as a child of God. 12:25 Victor Gluckin So that's what I understand discipleship, it's like that. 12:29 Victor Gluckin Growing up, it was a lot about the wedding. 12:32 Victor Gluckin get somebody to confess, get someone to hear the gospel. 12:35 Victor Gluckin Super important. 12:36 Victor Gluckin But it's about the marriage. 12:38 Victor Gluckin It's about the life together. 12:40 Victor Gluckin You know, we grew up understanding spiritual disciplines and the importance of being with, you know, at fellowship with people and reading the Bible, stuff like that. 12:48 Victor Gluckin But I'm hopeful that for the people that have been following Jews for a long time, they could get revived in their joy and their zeal. 12:59 Victor Gluckin And for someone that's just starting out, they could learn what it's like to follow Jesus and that etc. 13:04 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 13:05 Sean Finnegan One of the most exciting things we can do as Christians is mentor somebody that's new to the faith. 13:11 Sean Finnegan I mean, you want to talk about meaningful work, you know, sitting, even if it's with your own child. 13:19 Sean Finnegan You know, this book is perfect for a teenager. 13:22 Sean Finnegan It depends on that person's reading level, right? 13:25 Sean Finnegan But you know, a lot of 13:28 Sean Finnegan our children, we don't have like an old-fashioned catechism where we're gonna ask them all these questions. 13:33 Sean Finnegan So, this is really, they can see you how you're living your life, but to go through each of the different practices in here, you talk about prayer. 13:43 Sean Finnegan Practice one is prayer. 13:44 Sean Finnegan Practice 2, Bible reading. 13:46 Sean Finnegan Then #3 is community and fellowship. 13:49 Sean Finnegan Number 4, sharing the gospel. 13:50 Sean Finnegan Number 5, weekly Sabbath. 13:52 Sean Finnegan Number 6, monthly solitude. 13:54 Sean Finnegan Number 7, monthly fasting. 13:56 Sean Finnegan And #8, yearly retreats. 13:59 Sean Finnegan So these are things that, you know, like a child will have grown up in your home if you're doing these things, have seen, but maybe doesn't even understand. 14:07 Sean Finnegan And then if you're coming in from a non-Christian background, 14:10 Sean Finnegan People have never even heard of half of these things. 14:13 Sean Finnegan everyone knows a little bit about prayer, but do they know how to pray? 14:16 Sean Finnegan So let's talk about these practices for a little bit. 14:19 Sean Finnegan Why did you want to organize the bulk of the book around these eight practices? 14:25 Victor Gluckin So short answer is to help people understand the rhythm of the Christian life. 14:31 Victor Gluckin As I said before, things we do every day, there's some things we do every week, there's some things that are less frequent, monthly, yearly, and things like that. 14:40 Victor Gluckin And to really understand the why, I pastor a church in New England, which often Providence and Albany are battling it out for what is the most pagan, Bible-less city in America. 14:56 Victor Gluckin They're back and forth, one and two. 14:59 Victor Gluckin But one of the things I love about New England and Rhode Island in particular is they're looking for something genuine. 15:05 Victor Gluckin They're looking for someone that shoots straight with them. 15:08 Victor Gluckin Tons of people that I've interacted with, grew up in the church system, left the church system, but now they have kids, they're getting married and they're like, well, I think I'm supposed to be serious about God. 15:18 Victor Gluckin And they just, they don't know where to go. 15:20 Victor Gluckin They want to understand how to sort this all out. 15:23 Victor Gluckin And so I interact with people. 15:27 Victor Gluckin For many years, I think I've made assumptions that I shouldn't have. 15:31 Victor Gluckin And getting rid of some of these assumptions has been very helpful for me as a Christian, not even just as a pastor as a Christian. 15:37 Victor Gluckin Here are some of the assumptions. 15:39 Victor Gluckin I don't assume that if someone comes into our church that they know how to pray. 15:43 Victor Gluckin Like why would they? 15:45 Victor Gluckin come to our church service, they come to a home group and they hear someone that's been a Christian for 30 years pray and they go, I don't know how to do that. 15:52 Victor Gluckin If I'm preaching and I say, we all know about Abraham. 15:57 Victor Gluckin I don't assume they think Abraham the father of faith. 16:00 Victor Gluckin I think they think I'm talking about Abraham Lincoln, right? 16:02 Victor Gluckin So 16:03 Victor Gluckin I think the burden is on the Christian, and especially the seasoned Christian, to not hope that the seekers and the new folks catch up, but that we say, hey, I want to make sure that I help people that are seeking and searching for God, searching for meaning, broken, full of anxiety, full of challenges, going through difficulty in their life. 16:23 Victor Gluckin I want to help them understand who God is, who Christ is, and how to follow Jesus. 16:30 Victor Gluckin So 16:31 Victor Gluckin The book is going to talk about how to pray in a very basic level, not assuming that everybody knows how to do it. 16:38 Victor Gluckin Talking about reading the Bible, being very honest that there's some parts of the Bible that are super confusing and boring. 16:45 Victor Gluckin I don't know, but like, and how do you, what do you, what do you do when you get to that part, you know, Genesis is great, Exodus, okay, Leviticus, Numbers, my goodness. 16:54 Victor Gluckin We're going to talk about that in this book. 16:55 Victor Gluckin We're going to talk about what do you do when it's boring? 16:57 Victor Gluckin What do you do when it doesn't seem like God is 17:01 Victor Gluckin speaking to you, like how do you push through? 17:03 Victor Gluckin These are things that if we can be honest and real about, are really gonna help people. 17:08 Victor Gluckin We're talking about basic things like prayer, like reading the Bible, the importance of fellowship, what is evangelism? 17:14 Victor Gluckin Some of us reading these books are gonna be, have a real bad taste in our mouth about evangelism. 17:18 Victor Gluckin Some aren't gonna know anything about it. 17:20 Victor Gluckin The goal is to help everybody understand what it looks like in the real world and in their real life. 17:25 Victor Gluckin And we're probably gonna talk about things that folks from my background are not as familiar with, fasting, 17:31 Victor Gluckin Sabbath, solitude. 17:34 Victor Gluckin I would say one of the, probably the most asked question in my pastoral ministry has been about fasting. 17:41 Victor Gluckin And so you'll notice that fasting is one of the lengthier chapters because I'm really thinking through like people that I know to try to help them understand it. 17:49 Victor Gluckin Because a lot of evangelical Christians, that's not something that they do, right? 17:54 Victor Gluckin Or it means don't watch TV for a month or something like that. 17:57 Victor Gluckin So try to help people understand practices that were modeled by Jesus in the early church and what it looks like for us to follow him today. 18:05 Victor Gluckin So that's the heart behind the organization. 18:07 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's a very, very practical guide to Christian living. 18:13 Sean Finnegan I can't help but notice that behind you there, you are torn between two worlds. 18:17 Sean Finnegan You've got the Boston Celtics and then you've got the New York Yankees. 18:21 Sean Finnegan So, you know, a child of New York. 18:25 Victor Gluckin The struggle is real. 18:26 Sean Finnegan But A sojourner in New England. 18:28 Sean Finnegan So there you have it. 18:29 Sean Finnegan And you know, it is something that in our context in particular, there are many people that are just underexposed to any kind of Christian anything. 18:42 Sean Finnegan And they don't know what it is. 18:43 Sean Finnegan They're not resistant. 18:44 Sean Finnegan We have a young man coming to our church now who is brand new to the faith. 18:51 Sean Finnegan He's favorable. 18:52 Sean Finnegan He believes, you know, he's into it, but like, he just needs to learn these things. 18:57 Sean Finnegan Like, how do I pray? 18:58 Sean Finnegan What does it sound like when I pray? 19:00 Sean Finnegan People hear others pray on Sunday and they're sometimes these really impressive prayers. 19:04 Sean Finnegan They're like, wow, I don't think I could do that. 19:06 Sean Finnegan That's fine. 19:08 Sean Finnegan Those people are up there praying probably because they have a calling in that area of their life or a gifting and that's why they're good at it. 19:15 Sean Finnegan But you don't need to be intimidated by that. 19:18 Sean Finnegan Everyone still needs to pray in their own life. 19:21 Victor Gluckin We said this throughout. 19:22 Victor Gluckin There are people that are coming on Sunday in our church and they want to know and they want to understand. 19:31 Victor Gluckin Then there are people that are in our churches that don't think they could help them. 19:36 Victor Gluckin but they really can. 19:38 Victor Gluckin If you've been praying for a day longer than the guy that hasn't prayed at all, you know that much more than the other person. 19:46 Victor Gluckin And I really want to help people, whether in our churches or listening to your podcast, out wherever, that God can work through them to help people. 19:56 Victor Gluckin So we're all supposed to be being discipled and making disciples. 20:00 Victor Gluckin But very few Christians actually are doing that. 20:04 Victor Gluckin If you just pause for a moment and think about like, 20:06 Victor Gluckin Who are you discipling right now? 20:08 Victor Gluckin Most everyday Christians don't have someone that they could answer to. 20:12 Victor Gluckin Of course, your family and things like that. 20:15 Victor Gluckin They're like, well, let me connect them with, let me have them meet the pastor. 20:19 Victor Gluckin And the pastoral role is super important. 20:22 Victor Gluckin But again, the amount of needs that exist in our churches and in our world and in our lives can't be met by one person. 20:29 Victor Gluckin That was never the goal. 20:30 Victor Gluckin The goal was that the church could be the hands and feet of Christ 20:35 Victor Gluckin And I really want to help the people who don't think they can realize they can by unleashing them on these folks that they're really going to make an impact to. 20:45 Sean Finnegan Yeah, turning spectators into activists. 20:50 Sean Finnegan There's so many folks around the world who listen to this podcast or watch this YouTube channel and they don't have a local community of like-minded faith. 21:01 Sean Finnegan and they're asking themselves, well, what do I do? 21:05 Sean Finnegan This is what you do. 21:05 Sean Finnegan You get this book, find some non-Christian or somebody that's like not living it, and you do a chapter a week or a chapter or meet twice a week and do 2 chapters a week, get through it in a couple of months and see what happens. 21:22 Sean Finnegan This is getting in the game. 21:23 Sean Finnegan You know, you've got the, you know, we're in basketball season right now and I don't know how the Celtics did, but I could tell you the Knicks are still in it. 21:31 Sean Finnegan And not that I'm a big fan, but it's hard to be in New York and not notice that the Knicks are in it right now. 21:38 Sean Finnegan But you got the guys on the bench and then you got the guys on the court. 21:43 Sean Finnegan And I asked you listener, you person who is watching this right now, are you on the bench or are you on the court? 21:52 Sean Finnegan Because that's what this book will do. 21:53 Sean Finnegan It'll get you off the bench onto the court so that you are fulfilling the Great Commission, which is one of the primary purposes of the church that we would be making disciples. 22:04 Sean Finnegan This is obviously not the only tool out there to do that, but this is the best tool I've ever seen to get people started on that. 22:12 Victor Gluckin As a basketball lover. 22:16 Sean Finnegan You care about a lot more than I do. 22:18 Victor Gluckin And as someone who spent a lot of time 22:21 Victor Gluckin on the end of the bench. 22:23 Victor Gluckin Let me just improve your metaphor a little bit. 22:25 Sean Finnegan Please. 22:26 Victor Gluckin We're talking about the crowds and the spectators or people on the team. 22:31 Victor Gluckin Because I didn't play much in the games unless we were down by 100. 22:36 Victor Gluckin They'd throw me in. 22:38 Victor Gluckin But I was there at the practices and I was on the bus and I played a role in the game, even if I wasn't on the court, to cheer them all, to help them, you know, whatever. 22:50 Victor Gluckin And so the difference, I think, for us is to understand that if you are a follower of Jesus, you're on the team. 22:58 Victor Gluckin And you might not have the same role as the best player who's out there and who's going to get the winning shot, but you do have a role to play. 23:06 Victor Gluckin And if you're on the team, you're on the team. 23:08 Victor Gluckin There is a difference between being on the team, but being on the bench and someone that's just showing up to watch the game. 23:18 Victor Gluckin And Christianity 23:20 Victor Gluckin not a spectator sport. 23:21 Victor Gluckin Our churches are not supposed to just be a place we come and hear a good word, get our little dose of Jesus, and then hope we can not sin too much as the week goes on. 23:33 Victor Gluckin We are on the team. 23:34 Victor Gluckin And so, God, what's the role that I play? 23:36 Victor Gluckin Am I an all-star and I'm going to reach hundreds, reach thousands? 23:41 Victor Gluckin Am IA bench player that is serving you the equivalent of handing someone a cup of water? 23:46 Victor Gluckin Pretty sure Jesus said that's a significant role. 23:48 Victor Gluckin So 23:49 Victor Gluckin You're either on the team or you're not. 23:51 Victor Gluckin If you're on the team, we're called to make disciples, we're called to spread the gospel. 23:55 Victor Gluckin And this book, these books are gonna help someone, wherever they are on that bench, to be able to do that. 24:01 Victor Gluckin And we all have different personalities. 24:03 Victor Gluckin When you say like, hey, call someone up and say, I wanna go through this book with you. 24:09 Victor Gluckin I think that's a certain personality that's gonna do that and that's all they need. 24:12 Victor Gluckin And there's other people that are never gonna do that. 24:15 Victor Gluckin And that's like the most terrifying thing they've ever heard. 24:18 Victor Gluckin And so, okay, what do I do? 24:20 Victor Gluckin Maybe it's a Zoom meeting with someone. 24:24 Victor Gluckin Maybe it's connecting on Facebook, making a Facebook event just for the general audience where, you know, learn about the way of Jesus. 24:32 Victor Gluckin Come to the library on Tuesday nights and just see who shows up. 24:37 Victor Gluckin There's different ways that people are going to use this. 24:39 Victor Gluckin My heart for our church is that we would have 24:45 Victor Gluckin these groups of people working through this material sort of all the time. 24:51 Victor Gluckin So they could start up at any time. 24:54 Victor Gluckin My heart and my goal is to have someone in our church that's going to sort of oversee, like almost like a discipleship coordinator or something like that. 25:01 Victor Gluckin sounds like a cool name. 25:02 Victor Gluckin Maybe somebody will want to do that. 25:04 Victor Gluckin Who is going to know that 25:06 Victor Gluckin When there's new people, they'll give them the resources and then they'll be able to meet with someone to help them. 25:13 Victor Gluckin So I want them to be starting up whenever there's a need, not necessarily just waiting for a certain time to happen. 25:20 Victor Gluckin And so people listening, see where God's at work around you and just, it never hurts to ask, hey, I just got this new book. 25:28 Victor Gluckin I don't know anything about it. 25:31 Victor Gluckin There you go. 25:33 Sean Finnegan There you go. 25:34 Sean Finnegan Boom. 25:35 Victor Gluckin So lots of different ways that God will show you how to work it. 25:38 Sean Finnegan So helpful to have something this comprehensive. 25:41 Sean Finnegan And that's really a shining point of your overall approach here is having all these different practices, talking about the gospel up front and then all these practices and then relationships. 25:56 Sean Finnegan How much of life is relationships? 25:59 Sean Finnegan And you have a funny way of spelling the word relationships. 26:03 Sean Finnegan It's spelled R-E-A-L-ationships. 26:07 Sean Finnegan So talk to us about relationships. 26:10 Victor Gluckin Relationships. 26:11 Victor Gluckin We don't want no fake ships. 26:14 Victor Gluckin We want relationships. 26:15 Victor Gluckin Yeah. 26:16 Victor Gluckin The section on real relationships is going to talk about marriage, parenting, community. 26:23 Victor Gluckin Our relationships are, you know, such a significant part of our lives. 26:28 Victor Gluckin and they affect us for better, for worse. 26:32 Victor Gluckin And the Bible has things to say about this. 26:34 Victor Gluckin So understanding Christian marriage, understanding Christian parenting, understanding friendship, understanding work, these are all things that are really basic everyday things. 26:46 Victor Gluckin And what does the Bible say about this? 26:48 Victor Gluckin What does it look like to be a Christian husband, wife, parent, employer, employee? 26:53 Victor Gluckin What I found as we were writing, 26:56 Victor Gluckin was that I'd finish something and go, man, we need to do it on this. 26:59 Victor Gluckin Oh, we need more on this. 27:01 Victor Gluckin And because there's so much that obviously it's exhaustive in many ways of what could be said, but recognizing how important relationships are to our lives in general and to our walk with Christ, that's what the purpose of those chapters are about, to talk about marriage, parenting, and singleness. 27:21 Victor Gluckin I write in the book that if you're a single person, 27:25 Victor Gluckin read the chapter on marriage. 27:27 Victor Gluckin Not because you might get married, but like it's good to know what God says on this. 27:30 Victor Gluckin If you're a married person, don't skip the chapter on singleness. 27:33 Victor Gluckin Like it's important to know what the Bible says about these questions. 27:37 Victor Gluckin If you don't have children, if you don't ever plan to have children, if you're a single person, read the chapter on parenting and family to know what God says about it, because you're gonna be helping people in those relationships. 27:50 Victor Gluckin You don't know the future for you. 27:52 Victor Gluckin You're part of a community where these relationships exist. 27:55 Victor Gluckin Yeah, that's a fun and exciting part of the book. 27:58 Victor Gluckin I probably learned more about God through my marriage and my role as a dad than any other relationship. 28:06 Victor Gluckin I mean, I remember your dad said that to me when I first was gonna become a pastor. 28:10 Victor Gluckin He's like, actually when I first having kids, he said, nothing is gonna teach you how to be a pastor like being a father. 28:18 Victor Gluckin You know, and just about human relationships and about grace, you know, and how sometimes you come home and 28:25 Victor Gluckin there's a consequence and sometimes the right move is to take everybody out for ice cream. 28:29 Victor Gluckin God, please help me with that. 28:30 Victor Gluckin So the book will help us get a good snapshot, I'll say a good thorough snapshot of those relationships, of those real relationships. 28:43 Victor Gluckin Don't bring no fake. 28:46 Sean Finnegan Yeah, last night was an ice cream night for our family. 28:50 Sean Finnegan It was pretty funny too, because I wanted to get a single scoop 28:55 Sean Finnegan And then I said, do you have that peanut butter sauce? 28:58 Sean Finnegan And they're like, we got that. 28:59 Sean Finnegan I'm like, all right, put that on there. 29:01 Sean Finnegan And I said, give me the whipped cream. 29:02 Sean Finnegan I'm like, shoot, I guess that's a sundae, isn't it? 29:05 Sean Finnegan He's like, yeah. 29:06 Sean Finnegan So then I said, all right, just give me the sundae. 29:08 Sean Finnegan And then it had three scoops and it was this huge boat. 29:11 Sean Finnegan And so I ended up just getting extra spoons and we all shared it. 29:16 Sean Finnegan So it was a good night, those ice cream nights, right? 29:20 Sean Finnegan I remember my dad saying, 29:23 Sean Finnegan family is your first ministry. 29:26 Sean Finnegan That if you have to choose between the church and your family, choose your family. 29:30 Sean Finnegan Because if they're not taken care of, they're not served, then you disqualify yourself from ministry. 29:36 Sean Finnegan And boy, is that a hard lesson that a lot of our brothers out there learn the hard way. 29:43 Sean Finnegan So that is really important. 29:45 Sean Finnegan Let's talk about these juicy appendices. 29:49 Sean Finnegan Now, you don't actually have an appendix. 29:52 Sean Finnegan That's true. 29:56 Sean Finnegan I remember you. 29:57 Sean Finnegan Story, true story. 29:58 Victor Gluckin I won't, because this is a video, I won't show you my scar, but it's there. 30:03 Sean Finnegan In real life, you don't have an appendix, but in your book, you have three. 30:06 Sean Finnegan So I guess you're making up for something. 30:09 Sean Finnegan One on divorce and remarriage, one on LGBTQ, and one on speaking in tongues. 30:15 Sean Finnegan Why did you include these in the appendix section instead of as chapters in the book? 30:21 Victor Gluckin Yeah. 30:22 Victor Gluckin if you're like me, the first thing you do when you get a book is you look at the table of contents. 30:26 Sean Finnegan Yep. 30:27 Victor Gluckin And you want to go, is this worth my time? 30:28 Victor Gluckin And you're reading about prayer and fasting and Sabbath and oh man, I don't know if this is, this sounds boring. 30:33 Victor Gluckin Relationships, that's not even a real word. 30:35 Victor Gluckin I don't even know what. 30:36 Sean Finnegan Whoa. 30:38 Victor Gluckin Divorce and remarriage. 30:39 Victor Gluckin I'm buying it. 30:40 Sean Finnegan I'm buying it. 30:41 Victor Gluckin So it's just, it's a ploy. 30:43 Victor Gluckin When you get there, it's just about love and it's just about, you know, following. 30:46 Victor Gluckin But those are what, I'm just kidding. 30:48 Victor Gluckin Yeah, so again, 30:51 Victor Gluckin as we were writing, realized that it was so easy to get distracted on a topic. 30:57 Victor Gluckin We're talking about what the Bible says about marriage and trying to contrast it with the world's teaching and the world's view and the culture's comment on this. 31:06 Victor Gluckin And instead of like every time something comes to my mind of, yeah, but I'm not saying this or well this, it said, you know what, let's just write on that topic and then we'll put these things in an appendix. 31:17 Victor Gluckin So 31:18 Victor Gluckin The appendices are a little more thorough. 31:20 Victor Gluckin They're a little more detailed. 31:23 Victor Gluckin There's more footnotes and things like that. 31:24 Victor Gluckin And they don't have the question and answer part. 31:29 Victor Gluckin But what I anticipate is people are reading about living a spirit empowered life. 31:35 Victor Gluckin People might be like, what about speaking in tongues? 31:37 Victor Gluckin What's that all about? 31:39 Victor Gluckin What about interpretation tongues? 31:40 Victor Gluckin Instead of getting distracted, because that's not the point of the chapter, 31:44 Victor Gluckin We're going to put a whole, we'll put that in and we'll do that there, right? 31:47 Victor Gluckin Talking about marriage. 31:48 Victor Gluckin Well, what about divorce? 31:49 Victor Gluckin What about, what is it? 31:51 Victor Gluckin Well, we'll talk about that in a second. 31:52 Victor Gluckin Let's just talk about marriage and then we'll put this here for those that want to. 31:56 Victor Gluckin And then obviously LGBTQ is an important conversation right now. 32:01 Victor Gluckin And so I tried to deal with these things, which are, which can be controversial. 32:05 Victor Gluckin I tried to deal with them pastorally. 32:08 Victor Gluckin I tried to deal with them that they would be accessible, that they would, even though they're a little denser than the other chap, that they're still easy to read and understand, which is super helpful for me. 32:19 Victor Gluckin I need that. 32:21 Victor Gluckin But also recognizing that if I'm sitting across the table with you, your unique situation is what we're going to talk about. 32:29 Victor Gluckin And so it's hard to address every single possibility or every single hypothetical and things like that. 32:34 Victor Gluckin So these are my attempts to help people understand what the Bible says on these issues. 32:40 Victor Gluckin And often throughout those chapters, I will encourage people of a specific question, like go talk to the elders in your church. 32:48 Victor Gluckin Like if you have a unique situation about this, why don't you talk to a counselor or something like that? 32:54 Victor Gluckin But I don't want to shy away from talking about these things because 32:58 Victor Gluckin They're part of the conversation. 32:59 Victor Gluckin So they're not the most important thing, but they are part of it and that's why they are included as a juicy, juicy appendix. 33:10 Sean Finnegan There it is. 33:11 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 33:12 Sean Finnegan I love how you did that because these are very important subjects. 33:16 Sean Finnegan If you mentioned speaking like in your last chapter, spirit empowered Christian, you mentioned speaking in tongues. 33:23 Sean Finnegan Well, 33:24 Sean Finnegan depends on what background somebody's coming from. 33:26 Sean Finnegan They might be thinking, speaking in tongues as this, or it might be that, or why are we even opening the door to this, or didn't that end with the apostles or whatever? 33:35 Sean Finnegan And so you can handle all those kinds of questions or like the LGBTQ, same-sex attraction, all that kind of subject is complicated, not straightforward, lots of diversity depending on what we're talking about. 33:49 Sean Finnegan And so, you know, you're not hiding from it. 33:53 Sean Finnegan You're like, look, I'm A Christian. 33:54 Sean Finnegan I believe the Bible's true. 33:56 Sean Finnegan I'm not afraid to address these subjects. 33:58 Sean Finnegan And I think what you do in those chapters is model a posture, model a disposition that is like unintimidated but loving. 34:09 Sean Finnegan And I think that's really a good example for other people who are having conversations with family members or friends that are coming from these different perspectives. 34:18 Sean Finnegan I mean, the divorce and remarriage one, my goodness, it is such a 34:22 Sean Finnegan a tragedy to see so much divorce in Christianity today. 34:27 Sean Finnegan I don't think it is as much as we see in America in general. 34:31 Sean Finnegan I think that's been a misquoted statistic as I discovered from, what was it, Brad Wilcox's book, Get Married. 34:39 Sean Finnegan He totally debunks that statistic that says Christians get divorced as much as everybody else. 34:45 Sean Finnegan And Nancy Pearcy talks about that too. 34:46 Sean Finnegan So I think actually our divorce rates are lower for Christians who attend church. 34:51 Sean Finnegan And that's really the statistical difference there. 34:55 Sean Finnegan But it still is a tragic fact of modern life that there is a lot of divorce. 35:01 Sean Finnegan So like knowing what to do in those situations is really important, especially if you're an honest, interested new person of Christianity. 35:11 Sean Finnegan Because let's face it, everyone's default is just like whatever the TV shows and the movies 35:17 Sean Finnegan and YouTube videos and TikTok and Instagram reels tells you. 35:23 Sean Finnegan That's what everybody says normally. 35:25 Victor Gluckin Or a bad experience in church or good or bad experience you had growing up. 35:30 Victor Gluckin I love that really bad line like, oh, well, Jesus never talked about this issue that. 35:35 Victor Gluckin Reality of it is, man, the Bible really does give us wisdom and direction on everything. 35:44 Victor Gluckin maybe there isn't a page in the Bible that says, oh, here's the thing about this modern issue. 35:49 Victor Gluckin But it does give us the wisdom to know how to navigate some of these things because it's inspired and it's timeless. 35:56 Victor Gluckin These were chapters that you should have written. 36:00 Victor Gluckin And fortunately enough, you also suggested that they written. 36:06 Victor Gluckin And I'm thinking, yeah, these are Sean Finnegan chapters. 36:10 Sean Finnegan Except it's not my **** on the line. 36:12 Sean Finnegan You are the one that wrote these words and it says Victor Gluckin. 36:16 Sean Finnegan So if anybody has any problems, they can just talk to you. 36:19 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 36:20 Victor Gluckin Here's why I'm saying that. 36:23 Victor Gluckin I'm saying that because I think that speaks to like a tendency that I have that maybe a lot of people have of like, I don't want to take the time to look at this. 36:30 Victor Gluckin Like, I just, you know, I just want to push this off or maybe like, well, what does someone else think about it? 36:36 Victor Gluckin But to spend the time in the scriptures and to look at these things and there's great resources that I was able to glean from was really helpful for me. 36:44 Victor Gluckin And I'm hoping that I can take this big chunk of whatever topic it was, make it more bite-sized, and that whoever's reading the book can then chew on it and not be like, well, Victor told me this what I should, but now be like, okay, I see what the Bible says on this topic. 36:59 Victor Gluckin And that's the goal in it. 37:01 Victor Gluckin And I was really 37:03 Victor Gluckin challenged and it was very rewarding to consider these things. 37:06 Sean Finnegan And you're such a masterful communicator. 37:10 Sean Finnegan I mean, you really have a knack for making things understandable, but not only that, but also making things enjoyable to read about. 37:20 Sean Finnegan So much of each of your chapters, oftentimes in the beginning, starts with a little story from your life and really draws the reader in. 37:28 Sean Finnegan People are really gonna enjoy reading this book. 37:30 Sean Finnegan It's not gonna be like eating 37:32 Sean Finnegan Lima beans. 37:33 Sean Finnegan It's going to be more like eating Chipotle or some sort of food that is good for you, but it also tastes good, right? 37:40 Sean Finnegan I know you love Chipotle. 37:41 Victor Gluckin Anyone listening who feels offended by the Lima bean comment, that was something solely by Sean Finnegan, and you can talk to him about it. 37:50 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 37:50 Sean Finnegan If anybody already eats Lima beans, you can feel free to unsubscribe from this right now. 37:54 Sean Finnegan We can't be friends. 37:57 Victor Gluckin You can make a negative donation to restitudio. 37:59 Victor Gluckin That's restitudio.org. 38:02 Sean Finnegan Let's talk about how you plan to use the book in your church and how others can use it in their churches. 38:07 Sean Finnegan How do you see it working out? 38:09 Victor Gluckin Yeah, let me say two things. 38:10 Victor Gluckin One, how we plan to use in our church and also I'd like to just speak to those that might not be a part of a church community, how they could use it. 38:17 Victor Gluckin As I mentioned before, my heart is that in our church that we would have sort of like an ongoing, always available opportunity for people that are coming in 38:31 Victor Gluckin to start this with someone else. 38:32 Victor Gluckin So I want to identify people in our church who I believe are ready to be a leader with someone else and to have them over for dinner. 38:41 Victor Gluckin I already know a bunch of people. 38:42 Victor Gluckin I wrote this in many ways in light of the people I know and the people in my life. 38:46 Victor Gluckin And I wanted it to be understandable for them and help them. 38:49 Victor Gluckin I'm thinking like, would they understand this if they read it? 38:52 Victor Gluckin Because that's what I want to be helpful in that area. 38:55 Victor Gluckin So I want to share with some of the leaders in our church, coordinators and people that have been around for a while, seasoned Christians, to give them access to this so that they can then start working with the people that they already are spending time with, this material, with this content, sort of give them a boost to help them. 39:15 Victor Gluckin And then I want to identify, so that's like starting out. 39:18 Victor Gluckin I already know people are like, when is it coming out? 39:19 Victor Gluckin When is it coming out? 39:20 Victor Gluckin So that we want to start using it. 39:22 Victor Gluckin Well, it's out as of this recording. 39:24 Victor Gluckin It's out. 39:25 Victor Gluckin But as new people are coming into our church, as people are, we wanna just have this a part of our culture in the sense of like, hey, you wanna know more about the gospel? 39:34 Victor Gluckin Do you understand the Bible? 39:35 Victor Gluckin This is a resource we're using. 39:37 Victor Gluckin Just have it be something that people can jump into with another person and start that. 39:42 Victor Gluckin So we're gonna have sort of like a formal, but also organic and loose plan to have this ongoing with folks. 39:52 Victor Gluckin It's not the kind of thing you would just jump into when someone's already started, but they would start with someone else and that you could do with someone more than once. 40:00 Victor Gluckin Each person will get their own book. 40:01 Victor Gluckin They can write in it. 40:02 Victor Gluckin They can make, they can look up the scriptures and stuff like that. 40:05 Victor Gluckin So that's what I hope to do in our church. 40:07 Victor Gluckin And then for someone that's like not a part of a church community, other than encouraging them to become a part of a church community and move, it's what God's people do, Abraham and all that. 40:18 Victor Gluckin You can start it with the people that you already know. 40:21 Victor Gluckin You can do this with your family. 40:23 Victor Gluckin There's a ton of people that aren't a part of a weekly church service, but watch a webcast. 40:29 Victor Gluckin And that's really thankful for that. 40:32 Victor Gluckin But maybe they could do this as well, right? 40:34 Victor Gluckin So maybe they could watch the webcast and then on a Wednesday night, go through this book, have it be something they become familiar with, have it be something that they can invite other people to do. 40:44 Victor Gluckin So it will be something that an individual can work through themselves. 40:47 Victor Gluckin But it also, we want it to be something that a couple, a family, a single person somewhere could use to connect with other people in the matters of the gospel and following Jesus. 40:59 Victor Gluckin So our church might have something formal that we're gonna do, but anybody can just start this on their own. 41:05 Victor Gluckin You know, along the way, they'll grow and be able to help other people. 41:08 Victor Gluckin That's my heart. 41:10 Victor Gluckin Will you answer it for yourself? 41:12 Victor Gluckin Like, what is your plan? 41:14 Victor Gluckin You've already done a little bit. 41:15 Victor Gluckin Like, what is your 41:16 Victor Gluckin What's your thought on how you're going to use it and how people could use it that aren't necessarily connected to a local assembly? 41:22 Sean Finnegan I'm going to hesitate on that because I think I will say more at another time and place about this. 41:28 Sean Finnegan But let me just say what I've already been doing for a year now. 41:35 Sean Finnegan Because like I mentioned before, the first five chapters of the book, part one, I had written. 41:41 Sean Finnegan So I've been just handing out to people like a printed version of that, first five chapters. 41:47 Sean Finnegan And a lot of times, because I am the pastor, there's a few pastors at our church, but like I'm the lead pastor, people will come up to me and they'll say, I'd like to get baptized or I'd like to learn the gospel. 42:00 Sean Finnegan And I'll say, okay, great. 42:01 Sean Finnegan Let's meet for five weeks every Sunday after church. 42:04 Sean Finnegan And we just meet like 1/2 hour after the church service ends. 42:07 Sean Finnegan So our church ends at 12. 42:09 Sean Finnegan I meet with people at 1230. 42:11 Sean Finnegan We meet in a room here at the church and I invite someone else to the meeting. 42:16 Sean Finnegan Okay. 42:17 Sean Finnegan So I would be the mentor. 42:19 Sean Finnegan Then I have the person that is the student, the person that's learning. 42:23 Sean Finnegan And then I grab somebody else. 42:26 Sean Finnegan And I usually do this, especially if I'm working with a woman, because just I want to have another woman in the room 42:34 Sean Finnegan just to be wise with the whole situation. 42:37 Sean Finnegan just be prudent and make sure everybody feels comfortable. 42:42 Sean Finnegan if I'm working with a younger woman, I'll invite an older woman to join and then the three of us will meet and we'll go through it for the five weeks. 42:50 Sean Finnegan And at the end of the five weeks, the question is, would you like to commit your life to Christ? 42:55 Sean Finnegan Would you like to say Jesus is Lord? 42:57 Sean Finnegan Would you like to do that publicly in baptism? 42:59 Sean Finnegan So 43:00 Sean Finnegan I've already been using that for a year. 43:01 Sean Finnegan I've had a lot of success with it. 43:03 Sean Finnegan I am dying to use your chapters for part 2 because it's not just about becoming a convert like we already said. 43:10 Sean Finnegan It's also about learning to live it out. 43:13 Sean Finnegan And I think this is just going to be so helpful. 43:15 Sean Finnegan I'm so psyched that this book is out. 43:17 Sean Finnegan I think it's going to do so much good in the world. 43:20 Sean Finnegan This is definitely the book that you want to start with people. 43:24 Sean Finnegan It's the book that you should give away as a present to people. 43:30 Sean Finnegan It's, like we said, gets you off the bench and onto the court to participate. 43:34 Sean Finnegan You don't need to have a Bible degree. 43:36 Sean Finnegan You don't need to have any specialized training. 43:38 Sean Finnegan You don't even have to read the chapter ahead of time. 43:40 Sean Finnegan You just sit with somebody and take turns reading the chapter, answering the questions, and you are going to disciple. 43:47 Sean Finnegan You're going to be faithful to Jesus, which I think is just such an awesome clearing away of all the obstacles and stresses that I think so many people have to really get in the game. 43:58 Sean Finnegan So I'm super excited to see the impact of this. 44:01 Sean Finnegan My heart is that this would just ignite a revolution of discipleship that people would move from inviting people to church to presenting them with the gospel to discipling them to be faithful to Jesus for a lifetime. 44:16 Sean Finnegan And I think all those are steps along the way. 44:18 Sean Finnegan I wouldn't say a bad thing about any one of them, but stopping short 44:23 Sean Finnegan And just like getting somebody converted and then now they don't know how to live it, they go back into sin. 44:28 Sean Finnegan That's no good for anybody. 44:30 Sean Finnegan So I'm super psyched about this project. 44:32 Sean Finnegan I'm so glad it's come to an end. 44:34 Sean Finnegan It's been a long journey, hasn't it? 44:38 Victor Gluckin Has, but it's been good. 44:39 Victor Gluckin I'm thankful that we're here too. 44:42 Sean Finnegan So get one today. 44:43 Sean Finnegan You can get it on Amazon. 44:45 Sean Finnegan Follow the way of Jesus by Victor Gluckin. 44:48 Sean Finnegan Anything else you'd like to share before we close out today? 44:51 Victor Gluckin Yeah, thanks for letting me talk about it at this point. 44:55 Victor Gluckin Jesus called a very diverse group of disciples. 45:00 Victor Gluckin People of different backgrounds, political persuasions, histories, men and women were his close followers. 45:07 Victor Gluckin And we know some of their names, Peter, John, James, some of them wrote parts of scripture, Matthew, but there were many 45:18 Victor Gluckin that were just like you and I, and just like those of you listening right now that had lives that got transformed by the power of God and the risen Messiah, Jesus. 45:29 Victor Gluckin And they changed the world. 45:32 Victor Gluckin And their stories didn't necessarily make it into scripture, but they just were so in love with God and had been so changed and grabbed hold of by this glorious kingdom message. 45:47 Victor Gluckin That is how God has always planned for this to happen. 45:52 Victor Gluckin It's what he has done through generations and it's what he's going to do now. 45:56 Victor Gluckin This book may help further that, but ultimately it's God going to work in whoever says yes, I want to try this. 46:02 Victor Gluckin I want to walk by faith, live by faith, and you're going to be able to help people have eternal life and enter his kingdom and become like Jesus. 46:12 Victor Gluckin Yes, that's the multiplication effect. 46:18 Victor Gluckin And that's what it's always been. 46:21 Victor Gluckin And I just want people listening, give it a shot and believe that God can do something great through you if you have a willing heart. 46:28 Victor Gluckin You don't have to be perfect. 46:29 Victor Gluckin You don't have to, as Sean said, have a degree or know how to say all the words or whatever. 46:35 Victor Gluckin Like the preconditions are you love God and you've confessed Jesus as your Lord. 46:41 Victor Gluckin And you're going to be able to make an impact. 46:44 Victor Gluckin And I don't want anybody to underestimate the value that they have to God and his family to be able to help other people, his children. 46:55 Victor Gluckin So let me just end that with a little preach. 46:58 Victor Gluckin A little preach there. 46:59 Victor Gluckin We'll have the worship team come up and conclude our service. 47:01 Victor Gluckin But that's what I'm most excited about. 47:04 Victor Gluckin Just helping people know that you can do this and that God's going to help you. 47:08 Victor Gluckin And you don't sell yourself short. 47:11 Victor Gluckin and think that because you're not a pastor, I'm telling you, it's the conversation after church. 47:16 Victor Gluckin It's the car ride conversation. 47:18 Victor Gluckin It's in the parking lot. 47:19 Victor Gluckin It's in the cubicle that God wants to move and he's just waiting for someone to be like, yeah, I'll do it. 47:24 Victor Gluckin So I hope that's you. 47:26 Sean Finnegan Awesome. 47:27 Sean Finnegan All right, well, thanks so much for talking with me today. 47:29 Victor Gluckin My pleasure, man. 47:34 Sean Finnegan That brings this interview to an end. 47:35 Sean Finnegan What did you think? 47:36 Sean Finnegan Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 656, Follow the Way of Jesus with Victor Gluckin and leave your feedback there. 47:47 Sean Finnegan On our last episode, 655, God spoke to himself in Genesis 1.26 with Sam Mansfield. 47:53 Sean Finnegan Adam wrote in on YouTube saying, I can only agree with Sam. 47:57 Sean Finnegan You do great work, Sean. 47:59 Sean Finnegan Thanks for your work. 48:00 Sean Finnegan And then a little after that, he added, 48:03 Sean Finnegan As A Christadelphian, it is a real shot in the arm to see others come to the truth of the singularity of the one true God and our Lord Jesus' Son, just from their own reading of scripture and the application of the God-given intellect of reason, wisdom, and logic. 48:20 Sean Finnegan The UCA community has also brought a richness of scholarship to the whole area that I have not found in my own community. 48:28 Sean Finnegan such as the historical background, which I kind of knew about, but in nowhere near as much detail. 48:34 Sean Finnegan Well, thanks Adam for writing in on that interview with Sam Mansfield. 48:39 Sean Finnegan I'm glad you enjoyed the conversation and that you are feeling encouraged in your biblical Unitarian faith as you encounter others from different backgrounds that share that belief. 48:52 Sean Finnegan And I certainly do appreciate Sam's 48:55 Sean Finnegan willingness to come on a non-Christadelphian podcast and to share his thoughts. 49:00 Sean Finnegan And I do think it's great to be able to work together in whatever ways we can, recognizing that we do have differences between our groups and with other groups, but we have this one God belief in common. 49:14 Sean Finnegan Thanks so much for coming on and sharing your thoughts. 49:17 Sean Finnegan Benet Elohim wrote, absolutely love Sam's presentation at the UCA. 49:22 Sean Finnegan I had heard the premise before, but this was done really well. 49:27 Sean Finnegan So it's another comment on Sam's presentation about Genesis 126. 49:31 Sean Finnegan Is God speaking to himself? 49:32 Sean Finnegan Is the deliberative position the best position, or are the other positions worth considering? 49:39 Sean Finnegan Stay tuned for next week where I interview, actually, no I don't interview, I get interviewed by Anna Brown on my book, Read the Bible for Yourself. 49:50 Sean Finnegan And so that's a fun way for us to flip the mic and I get to sit in the hot seat and share my thoughts about my new book. 50:00 Sean Finnegan And then the week after that, I'll be interviewing Will Barlow on his book, Explore What We Believe. 50:05 Sean Finnegan And as you heard, these three books really are part of a 50:09 Sean Finnegan series, we call it the Discipleship Series of three books, but you can get whichever ones you want. 50:15 Sean Finnegan They're all available on Amazon. 50:17 Sean Finnegan And speaking as one of the authors, we all certainly do appreciate those of you who leave reviews on Amazon. 50:25 Sean Finnegan Currently, these books are just hot off the press. 50:29 Sean Finnegan There are no reviews as of the last time I checked on these books. 50:34 Sean Finnegan So yes, if you are the kind of person that writes reviews on Amazon, please 50:38 Sean Finnegan Load these up. 50:39 Sean Finnegan I mean, obviously you want to get the book and read it first, but it's really a simple way that you can support the cause. 50:46 Sean Finnegan If you'd like to support Restitudio as a ministry, you can do that on our website, restitudio.org. 50:51 Sean Finnegan I'll catch you next week. 50:52 Sean Finnegan And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.