Ep 56 ｜ Discipling Millennials with Grant Skeldon
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Summary
Grant Skelton is a master of discipleship who travels around the country teaching others how to attract, attract, and disciple millennials. He wrote a book called The Passion Generation, which helps older generations understand our generation. In this episode of Relatable, Allie interviews Grant to talk about his book and how to disciple and attract millennials.
Transcript
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Hello, hello. Welcome to Relatable. My name is Allie Stuckey. This is a podcast by CRTV.
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If you're not watching this, you should watch it. We've got like our little set in a tiny
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corner of my little room that I'm in that you could watch and you could see how much I move
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my hands and all the facial expressions that I make when I'm speaking. But you have to go to
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CRTV.com slash Allie and you have to subscribe. You can use promo code to Allie20, I think,
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and then you can get a discount or you can just listen on here. But it's not as cool that way.
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Anyway, today we are going to interview one of my good friends and just an incredible
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influencer in the Christian community. His name is Grant Skelton. He is a master of discipleship.
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So he travels around the country and he really invests in or invests his time in and teaches
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churches, churches, and pastors, how to attract and how to disciple millennials. He's a millennial,
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I'm a millennial. And so the conversation we have is going to center on millennials and how to not get
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us into church, but get us involved in our relationship with Christ through intimate discipleship.
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He wrote a book called The Passion Generation that really helps older generations understand our
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generation. We're often seen as these kind of mysterious, awful people that are completely
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hopeless and are going to drive our country and the church into the ground. But neither Grant nor I
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actually believe that's true. We believe that there's hope for millennials. But of course, just like
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with any other generation, we need discipleship. We need help. We need others to come alongside us.
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And I keep wanting to say mentor, not mentor, but give us wisdom and show us what life in Christ
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looks like. And in turn, we millennials need to turn to people younger than us or behind us spiritually
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and disciple them as well. So the conversation that I have with him is going to center on that.
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Full disclosure, I haven't read Grant's entire book yet. I'm sure that it's wonderful. I've read a
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large portion of it. I haven't read his entire book, so I'd love to hear your feedback about it,
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what you think about it. I know we talk a lot about theology on this podcast. And so if you have
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any questions or any feedback about his book that you're wondering about, I will certainly take those
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questions. I can direct those questions to Grant. So like I said, I haven't read it in its entirety,
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but what I know of Grant is that he is so passionate for Christ, so passionate for this ministry.
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He's doing such good work for the church. And I am really excited for you guys to learn more about
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him and about his book. First, I need to talk about something really important, really important.
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And that is your pillow. What pillow you're sleeping on. This is a really important conversation
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that we need to have. You didn't think that I was going to talk to you about your sleeping habits.
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Actually, you probably did after the last couple of weeks of listening to this podcast,
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because I've talked to you about it a lot. I want to talk to you about your sleeping habits,
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because chances are you probably aren't sleeping as well as you could. Like you probably have a
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crick in your neck. You're probably waking up and you're like, why do I hate my life every time I
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wake up? Why do I want to sleep for eight more hours? Well, that could be because you're just not
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a very fun person, or it could be because you're not sleeping on a bolster sleep pillow. I started
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sleeping on a bolster sleep pillow, changed my life. Told you guys, I create like a little cocoon of
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16,000 pillows around my head. I don't have to do that anymore because my bolster sleep pillow
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keeps its form all night long. And it's just really comfortable and it keeps you cool. It has
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amazing material that you don't have to flip it over to get the cool side of the pillow. It's just
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cool all the time. And you want to know what? My husband started stealing my pillow and pretending
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like he didn't steal it. And we ended up getting him another pillow so we could both have it so we
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don't fight over it, which is what you should do. You should get one for you and then one for your
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spouse. Because you don't want to fight over a pillow. That's no fun. And they're just that good.
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And if you use promo code Allie, A-L-L-I-E, you get 10% off your entire order, which is a lot of
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bolstersleep.com. Use promo code Allie. Get yourself a pillow or why not? A whole mattress.
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Sleep is that important. So that's all I'm going to say about your pillows and your sleep until next
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week. Of course, for now, we are going to talk to my dear friend, Grant Skelton. Grant, thank you so
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much for joining me. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Allie. Yeah. Could you tell everyone a little
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bit about who you are and what you do? Yeah. So my name is Grant and I have a huge passion for the
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millennial generation. But really bigger than that, I have a huge passion in unity, really racial
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unity, denominational unity. But a big part of God's using me for right now is just generational
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unity. As you know, there's a lot of people trying to figure out millennials. And so I've found myself
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a lot of times trying to help pastors that are trying to reach millennials, parents that are trying
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to raise millennials, and even business leaders that are just trying to retain millennials.
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But as I've looked into the millennial conversation, what I've found is, and really my hope is to help
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older generations better disciple millennials and help millennials better show honor and hunger
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towards learning from the generations before us. Because I actually think there's more of a
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discipleship problem than there is a millennial problem. And so whenever there's a discipleship
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problem, you'll always kind of have tension between generations.
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And that's what really your book is centered on the passion generation. And one of my favorite
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parts about your book is that there's, I don't want to call them cartoons, but they're kind of
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they're drawings, they're depictions that I think, just send a very clear message of what you're trying
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to say. And one part of that is, I think that you made the point through one of those depictions that
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you shouldn't be criticizing this generation if you're not discipling this generation.
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So can you tell us kind of how that disconnect happened? How that happened to where baby boomers
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and older generations started saying, gosh, millennials, you need to fix yourselves without
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saying, okay, let me take responsibility and start mentoring them myself.
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How did we get there? I don't think I don't I never try to act like millennials of the first
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generation to not get discipled or mentored. I think I think that's happened for a while. However,
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you know, I had someone once say that like, maybe a little bit after the Industrial Revolution,
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fathers and sons weren't going out together and working together and stuff like that. And maybe there
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is some truth to that. But I really feel like, I don't know, there became a point in I'm talking
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more from a Christian perspective, but it became a point when I think we wanted the church to do
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discipleship when we left parents left it on the church to do the training and all that. And I think
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discipleship first starts in the home. But I don't know, I don't know, I feel like it's a pretty rare
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story to see a millennial come to Christ and then get discipled right after. For myself, I was very
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lucky to the very first time I went to this new church. It was a very broken time in my life. I was 16
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years old, and I gave my life to Christ. And then two weeks later, I had an older man take me under his
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wing. And what I realized as I got older, most young people never had someone like that. And so
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as you may have saw in the book, I also believe that this is maybe one of the most fatherless
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generations. And so that is also, I think, something that has impacted millennials and where
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discipleship is important, is there's a lack of fathers through divorce, but even spiritual fathers,
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as there's a huge increase of mostly women in the church now, even though a lot of churches may be
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led by males, it's filled by women. And so you have a lack of, I think, spiritual fathers,
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Yeah, I agree with you that certainly millennials are probably not the first generation not to be
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discipled, but it does, or I get the feeling maybe just as a millennial, that a lot of older people
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think that we are the worst generation that has ever lived. They compare us to the baby boomers,
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the silent generation, the greatest generation. And it said, oh my gosh, these millennials,
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they're so entitled, they're so apathetic. And so there does seem to be this just very
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intense feeling about millennials. And you talk about that part of that is because, like you said,
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the lack of discipleship. So what is the first step that an older person can take to, instead of
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just criticizing younger people for what are probably truly our faults, what's the first step that
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someone can take to say, I'm going to take you under my wing? Yeah, I think the first step is,
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of course, I think building a different culture, whether someone's listening and they're maybe an
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employer that has a lot of millennials that are frustrating you, or if you're a pastor, or if you
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maybe just, maybe in your own home, you have a lot of millennials. I do think having a heart shift
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is one of the first changes, you know, because like I said, and I think the poster, the thing you read
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is, it's hard to say out of one side of your mouth, millennials are this, like lazy entitled
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slacktivists, all these negative things, and then another side, but we really want to reach them.
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Why weren't they showing up? Because no group of people would ever want to be a part of a group
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where they're made fun of behind the scenes or behind the back.
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And there's one thing our generation is really good at is being raw and authentic, and we're so
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marketed to that I think we can tell when you don't really want us, you want us, you don't like want
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to use us, you just want us to be a part and be here. And we can kind of feel like a means to an end.
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And so the other thing I would say, first step is, I always say just discipling is not mentoring.
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Mentoring is when you meet with someone over coffee, which is good, but discipleship is a lot
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scary. It's when you allow someone to join your life.
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So tell me the difference between mentorship and discipleship, because I think that's probably,
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discipleship sounds a lot kind of scarier than mentorship, because it sounds more vulnerable.
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Yeah, it is. It's extremely vulnerable, even me today. I mean, the very first person that ever
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asked if I would disciple them, I was 19 years old, so I'd only been discipled myself. By that time,
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I would have been discipled for three years. And this guy named Nick, who was a freshman in college,
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he's kind of like, hey, will you disciple me? At the time, I was pretty significantly mature for
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my age. I was leading a ministry. I was leading on campus. I was pretty influential. I was speaking
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just a little bit. And so compared to others my age, I was a little set apart. But when this kid,
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Nick, wanted to get discipled by me, I was like, man, if he really does get, like, if I allow him to
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follow me, he's going to see everything, like the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I remember thinking,
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man, I play Call of Duty a lot, like hours of Call of Duty, even though I'm leading and I'm
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doing this, like, yeah, I'm going to be embarrassed for him to see that. Or if he sees my room is such
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a mess and my car is such a mess. And he's going to see like, at the time, I wasn't that close to
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my family. I was still figuring out how do I do what God's called me to do, even though my dad
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doesn't understand. And that kind of created some tension between me and him. And he's just going to
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see that I'm not perfect, I'm still working it out. And so it does, it does require vulnerability.
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I actually think that God probably likes that. I think it's very easy to live a type of cultural
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Christianity or comfortable Christianity, when you don't have someone who gets to see your junk.
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And so John Maxwell, I remember him saying a quote where he said, if you want to impress people,
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just share your successes. But if you want to impact people, share your failures. And so I found
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that the people that are willing to disciple and therefore share some of their failures in their
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places where they're not perfect, are very attractive to young people. Like, I don't feel
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like we're looking for perfect leaders. We're just looking for real ones.
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Yeah. So you just touched on this, but tell me what a discipleship relationship looks like.
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You talked about Nick, um, and you talked about how he decided to disciple you, but tell me,
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walk me from like the beginning of Nick. Like, did he just come up to you and then what that
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relationship looked like? And then kind of the impact that it had on you and what you took from
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that discipleship relationship? Yeah, I'll probably, I'll use a kid named Connor. Um, he's another guy
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disciple because Nick was me figuring it out. And, uh, it was crazy as Nick is still in my life today.
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He talked to me today. And so, uh, it, it looks different for every person, but generally,
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um, what one, I'll just say, how I define discipleship for me is someone is frequently
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following someone who is spiritually a step ahead. So it is a key word of frequently. Um,
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I don't like to say once a week or once a day, but just frequently, frequently, and then following,
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it's gotta be joining their life. The four parts of life that I invited Connor, who I discipled,
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but I said, Hey, you can join me in my work life, my church life, my personal life, and my family
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life. Um, and usually when I asked to get discipled by someone older, and there's two guys that are
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doing that now, I try to find an area of their life that I really want to learn from them in. And so
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one of them is more of his personal life, which is like hobbies and fun stuff that he may do, or,
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or, uh, maybe even disciplines. Like this one guy who disciples me, he's a very wealthy business
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leader, a very strategic kingdom investor kind of guy. Uh, and he runs like every Tuesday and
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Thursday at 6am. And so, uh, I went to jog with them and I, we did a talk about life and talk about,
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um, I'm in a relationship now and I got to talk about, uh, the new year and some changes I may be
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transitioning into. And so, um, it is trying to join their life. I, I like saying the work life,
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personal life, church life, and, um, sorry, family life, because the number one excuse I've found for
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why people don't disciple is they'll say, I am way too busy. Like I just don't have time. And
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they're right. We, I don't know about you or me. We were just literally talking about how we don't
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have a lot of time. We have to choose what we do. And so I can't, you don't have kids, right? Yeah.
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Well, you have a cat. I do. I have, I have for, uh, children. It doesn't count. And so do you,
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you have a cat too. I tell young people, I've never met a leader who's married and with kids
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who's been like just twiddling their thumbs every day thinking, I wonder what I'm going to do with
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all my free time. Yeah. And basically they don't have time, but you, so what we have to do is figure
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out how do you not add something to their calendar? Right. How do you include yourself in their
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calendar and join their life? And so that's what discipleship looks like. It usually looks like a
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year for me. Um, and I, I like to disciple people in maybe two to three areas that they want to grow
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in. And usually they will, I found that they tend to, people that I disciple tend to want to do
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something similar to what I do. Like they want to learn how to better communicate. They want to learn
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how to start an organization. Maybe they want to learn how to lead a team, stuff like that.
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Yeah. So how do you know if you are quote, ready to disciple someone? I think a lot of people like
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millennials, if we wanted to, um, if we wanted to go disciple someone, I think a lot of people would
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say, well, I'm just not ready. Who am I to disciple someone and invest into someone it? Do you have
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benchmarks for when someone is ready? Or is it just kind of this individual thing?
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That's good. It's a good question. Um, I might be very generous with it, but I, I feel like,
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so you're hitting on the second number one reason I said, number two reason I hear people not
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disciple. Usually it's one, I don't, I'm too busy or two. It's like, man, I want to, and I can make
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some time where I would include someone in my calendar, but I just don't feel qualified to do it.
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And I would say, going back to your question, how do you know when you're ready to disciple
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is I would say when you feel like you've been following Christ for a while. Um, and if you've
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been following Christ for a while, then I'll, I'm not saying you'll never feel ready. And personally,
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I, I think, um, if we waited till we felt ready or if everyone waited till they felt ready or qualified
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disciple, I don't know if anyone would ever disciple because there's always that like whisper in our
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ear that we're not good enough. So you can probably do what we're doing today, honestly, in some senses,
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but I say like, if you've been following Christ for a while and simply say, and this is what Paul
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said is follow me as I follow Christ. And so it's not a follow me because I'm perfect. It's follow
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me as I follow someone who is perfect. And so it leaves room and grace for, I'm not going to be
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perfect. I'm going to stumble, but I'm going to stumble towards Christ. Would you want to come and
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follow me? And I find a lot of people say, but I just don't feel qualified. They usually think
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because they're not maybe good communicators. They don't know the Bible too well, this and that.
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I usually say, but do you feel like you're spiritually a step ahead than most millennials?
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And that's when they're like, of course. And I'm like, great. Then you, you're, you,
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you follow Christ a little longer than they have. So just ask them to follow you as you follow Christ.
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Yeah. And I like your distinction between someone who, okay, I'm going to take an hour a week and I'm
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going to meet at Starbucks and have a Bible study with someone. Uh, I've heard you talk about this
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before that that's not, there's nothing wrong with that per se, but that's not exactly discipleship.
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And I think that might take, well, in some senses it puts a lot of pressure on, but it also takes a
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lot of pressure off that, okay, I am not some, um, you know, Bible teacher that is teaching someone
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about theology. I am just inviting them into my life. I'm being open and honest about here's my
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relationship with Christ. Here's how it affects my life. Let's grow in this together. I think people,
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I don't think that most people realize that that's what discipleship is. I think that there's
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a big confusion about what discipleship is. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have found a lot of
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people, Christians, including pastors. I mean, I would say the book, The Passion Generation is the
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name of the book and the subtitle is the seemingly reckless, definitely disruptive, but far from hopeless
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millennials. And so now I'm speaking on this book. The first half of the book is how do you
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practically disciple millennials in the 21st century? And what I've found is as I'm speaking
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a lot more practically about it, two things, some people are like, and these are mostly pastors that
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I've been speaking to lately. They'll realize, man, we don't disciple, we mentor, like we just meet
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with them. We don't ask them to follow us. And Jesus didn't go to Peter and say, Hey, come and meet
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with me once a week for three years. He said, come and follow me. And, but, or two, another thing happens
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is as I define it and give more structure and language to it, I've found people say, you know
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what? I realized I will kind of was discipled. Like maybe it was just for a short while, but there was
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this person who let me like follow them or join them. A lot of times it happens in the workplace
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or, or maybe it's a teacher that like, or a coach that I gave a little bit more substantial time to
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someone, but they realized they were discipled, even though it was never called discipleship.
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And how do you find someone to either disciple you or for you to disciple? What is that process
00:19:28.780
Yeah. So this is where, um, I don't, yeah, I tend to find that I, I look for two things. Whenever I
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look for a new person to disciple me, I usually look for someone that has a characteristic I'm trying
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to grow in or that has a competency that I'm trying to learn. And that's like, I want to learn how to do
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something or I want to learn how to be something. And so, um, one guy that's discipling me, the guy
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who's, he's an architect, um, he's a very influential man, but he's a very humble man, like incredibly
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humble for how powerful and influential he is. And I wanted to follow him just because I, I, I was very
00:20:03.700
attracted to his humility. And at the time when I asked him, which was like a year and a half ago,
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I was getting a lot of platform and a lot of stage presence. And, um, I was a little worried
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about if I would have the character that could, um, right. Kind of, uh, hold up the stage time that
00:20:21.760
I was getting sometimes in our generation, we were literally talking about this is we can like get a
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lot of influence, like in a year or in some, in one video, like one single video and they get way,
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probably too much influence for the character that's been developed while before it used to have to
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develop with it. And so, um, I wanted to learn a characteristic with him. Um, then there's
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others that I want to learn a competency. Like right now I'm trying to learn how to better consult
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larger churches because that's what I'm getting asked to do a lot. And so I'm going to look for
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someone who's really, really good in that arena. And, uh, depending on how, like your listeners,
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um, for young people, I, I highly stress, man, if you're young and especially if you're young and
00:21:03.800
single, this is the best time ever to like go and learn from someone who is actually doing what you
00:21:08.980
want to do. Um, it's better than college because college right now kind of has, I think, a better
00:21:15.480
guarantee of getting young people debt than getting them a job. But if you go and get like mentored and
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discipled, um, by someone who's actually doing what you feel that you want to be competent in, uh, this
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is the time to do it when you're young. But if you do it when you're older, like 30, 40, especially
00:21:30.920
when you're 50 or 60, uh, they'll maybe help you, but they'll then send you an invoice and it will
00:21:36.380
cost you money. It's called consulting. But if you're young, it's called discipleship. And so I'm
00:21:41.000
like, yo, leverage this while you're young rather than wait. And then people are a lot less open to
00:21:47.520
helping. Yeah. I think that your message is really important because, and I am so guilty of this. I'm a
00:21:53.320
very classic millennial in so many ways, but I, we are very much driven by hyper individualism.
00:22:00.720
Like I am my own unique individual person. No one can tell me what to do. No one's going to
00:22:06.140
interrupt my life. Whatever makes me happy, whatever is most convenient for me. And these
00:22:10.940
are all, it's a sinful mentality, but a lot of millennials think this way. That's what I'm going
00:22:15.620
to do. And discipleship really kind of blows that up. Whether you're discipling someone or you're being
00:22:20.700
discipled, it's not always convenient. It's actually kind of inconvenient. And there might be someone who's
00:22:26.160
telling you, you know, this area of your life needs to be improved. So, and I think really that
00:22:31.980
can only be overcome with the power of Christ. Someone in their own sinful nature is probably
00:22:35.940
just not going to approach that. And maybe, I don't even know if I have a question with that,
00:22:40.960
but is that something that I guess you have encountered when you're talking to millennials
00:22:45.240
about discipleship? Yeah, no. And I mean, you might be a disciple and millennials, we can be kind of
00:22:52.460
pretty bad at, we want advice from someone older and we really just want them to approve of the
00:22:57.360
thing we already want to do. But we want them to like co-sign it. And so, yeah, I have to tell
00:23:03.580
millennials a lot. Like, and it's hard even for myself. Like sometimes you, you know, you want this,
00:23:10.540
but you go to, and they've been there and they've done that. And they say, Hey, you should do X, Y,
00:23:15.180
or Z. And it might be really difficult. But it is like trusting that person more. My, one of my
00:23:21.160
favorite stories in the Bible where, I mean, this is, I never seen it this way until recently, but
00:23:26.460
you know, with a rich young ruler is this like young guy who's seemingly influential and powerful
00:23:31.440
and has wealth, but he didn't trust God's advice. Like he didn't trust Jesus advice. Hey,
00:23:37.440
sell all you have and follow me. And in a sense, that could have been like the 13th disciple. He
00:23:42.320
invited him to be a follower of his and a disciple. While Peter, who's like a real hothead, very
00:23:49.400
passionate, loose cannon, Jesus goes up to him and says, Hey, put your nets out again. And he did
00:23:56.480
trust him and he would listen to his advice as hothead as he was. He was still teachable. And so for young
00:24:01.480
people, I say a lot, you need to be faithful. You need to be available. You need to be teachable.
00:24:05.980
You need to try to need to be compatible to them. And then also you need to be hungry.
00:24:10.260
Yeah. So it takes effort on the part of the disciple too, not just the part of the discipler,
00:24:17.360
I would say, I'd say discipleship hinges on the hunger of the disciple more than the availability
00:24:22.560
of the older generation. So that's where like me kind of have to call out our own generation.
00:24:28.000
I have to often call them out for their lack of hunger and honor.
00:24:31.840
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that's hard. It's something that I'm guilty of too. I think
00:24:38.380
even Christian millennials, we get very complacent. We don't want people to speak into our lives.
00:24:44.160
What is the one thing that you want people to take away from your book, or maybe even the
00:24:51.420
My prayer a lot with the book has been that it would normalize discipleship, not just for
00:24:58.020
the sake of millennials, but I, this is kind of doom and gloom. But it is sincere is I do feel
00:25:04.840
like what we do over the next five to especially 10 years in America and the American church
00:25:09.880
specifically will make or break what happens to the American church. If we don't disciple millennials,
00:25:16.960
because for us, I mean, when I met you, you were a millennial conservative. I'm kind of
00:25:22.420
like the millennial Christian pastor guy. Like we, in a lot of ways, we got our platform
00:25:28.080
by being bold, articulate and having a representation for millennials. And for me, the big question
00:25:37.120
is, I would assume for you, it's kind of like a little bit of how do we get millennials engaged
00:25:41.320
in politics for me? And I know it's not all of it, but for me, one of the big ones, the biggest
00:25:46.320
one I probably get asked is how do we get millennials more engaged in the church? And I personally
00:25:51.060
think that's the wrong question for me is how to get millennials to church. I think the question
00:25:56.140
should be, how do we not reach millennials, but how do we mobilize millennials to disciple
00:26:00.880
the Z generation? Because the Z generation is very close behind us. They're growing every
00:26:06.600
year, literally, of course, but they are more diverse than us. They are going to be, the conversation
00:26:12.600
should already be mostly moving towards them, utilizing millennials to impact them.
00:26:22.480
Okay. I just recently went and it's crazy because of course, this is where most of the
00:26:27.280
Bible is written is in this region of the world. And what's crazy is like, this is where
00:26:32.120
Jesus is. This is where a lot of people have it on their bucket list to go and see where
00:26:35.820
Jesus really walked and changed the world. But there's not a lot of churches in Israel,
00:26:40.700
which is, it's pretty interesting because you would think if all the Christians in the world
00:26:45.740
want to travel to this one place to see like all these important sites, why would there
00:26:51.240
not be churches there? But it seems like God goes wherever his people are really hungry
00:26:55.320
for him. And if you're also familiar with like church history, a lot of it's in Europe,
00:27:00.240
a lot of the reformation, a lot of just church history happened there. But now Europe is not
00:27:06.080
this strong location anymore. And it seemed like God then started moving through the people
00:27:12.260
that were hungry in America. Uh, but now it seems like God's moving a lot in, uh, the
00:27:19.000
Middle East. It seems like he's moving a lot in South America and Asia where his people are
00:27:24.080
very desperate and hungry. And so my point is God, the church will never die, but it's
00:27:29.880
not promised to one location. And I do think we're in a season where we are either like Nineveh,
00:27:35.660
we're either going to repent and like, Hey, we got to get back to the basics or God's going
00:27:41.180
to keep moving and the church will be alive and well, but it's not promised to America.
00:27:45.060
And I, I don't want that. And that's why I'm like, my hope going back to your question is
00:27:49.680
that we would, um, I joke that we would make the commission great again, uh, because this great
00:27:55.900
commission of go and make disciples. It's not like I'm trying to say, let's go do something new.
00:28:00.260
I'm saying, let's do this old thing. Yeah. Work until Jesus comes back. Yeah. And I think that's
00:28:05.720
so important to something that, uh, I've heard pastors say in the past is that you never graduate
00:28:09.980
from the gospel. And that's true. You never graduate from the great commission. You're not
00:28:14.160
trying to rework something or reinvent the wheel. You're just saying, let's go back to that. The same
00:28:20.180
gospel that, you know, freed proverbial slave 2000 years ago is good enough to free people today.
00:28:25.900
I think a lot of people think that today we're faced with so much cultural backlash that
00:28:31.480
Christianity is so looked down upon that we have so many more obstacles than we've ever had in the
00:28:36.820
past. It's just going to be impossible. Um, but that's why I like your approach of really
00:28:42.020
intimate, uh, evangelism, not that mass evangelism isn't important, but evangelism through your own
00:28:48.960
life. Um, that, you know, there's not a law against that. There's not, uh, there's nothing that can
00:28:54.700
stop you from doing that and the impact that it can have, you know, tangentially is, is limitless
00:29:01.540
really. Absolutely. Like speaking on that specifically is, uh, there's a lot of fear of
00:29:08.120
like church and state and laws that may go against us. And of course I, heaven forbid, do not want any
00:29:14.600
of that to happen. However, like that wouldn't be a new thing for Christians. Like literally the church
00:29:19.740
was birthed in the middle of like persecution Christians and that actually grew the church.
00:29:25.040
Um, but there wasn't the ability to do, we're, we're in Dallas where like there's huge churches.
00:29:29.580
There's, uh, it's, you can do that here. But, um, if that ever was to happen, uh, it's like in China,
00:29:36.540
they can't gather a lot, a lot of Christians, but they can all make disciples. And so
00:29:40.820
discipleship is this model that works everyone everywhere. And I kind of liken it to, um, there's a
00:29:46.600
business model that I think is doing really, really well. That's usually discipleship or
00:29:50.420
multiplication, if you will. Um, are you familiar? Do you know what car company actually has more
00:29:55.660
global presence, um, than any car company right now? They're in Uganda. I've seen them in South
00:30:00.680
Africa. It's not just a guess, not Toyota, not Nissan. Oh, you want me to guess? Yeah, you can guess.
00:30:06.680
I've seen them in Israel. Honda. Honda, close. What's close to a Honda? Hi. All right. What's the,
00:30:15.480
what? Uh, yeah. What is it? It is, uh, a lot of people think it's like one of the Asian car
00:30:23.460
companies, but the car company that has cars, global presence in third world countries to large
00:30:28.560
cities is actually Uber. Um, and so the twist is of course, it's not actually a car company that makes
00:30:35.860
cars, right? It's a car company that gives this platform to people that already have cars. And that
00:30:42.580
has revolutionized the whole car industry. They don't need to keep building new buildings or
00:30:47.560
manufacturing sites. It's just like for us as Christians, a lot of times we think we need to
00:30:51.800
build a new building. It's build new churches. Instead discipleship, like, like Uber gives the
00:30:57.620
ownership to the everyday person. So you could be a mother, you could be a CEO, you could be, uh,
00:31:02.600
a college student, you could be a high school students and everyone can do it just like Uber.
00:31:07.300
They have big cars, small cars, beat up cars. And so I just think that model is the model that
00:31:14.700
works better. And this is why Jesus can leave just like us. I don't, I would assume most people don't
00:31:20.700
even know who started Uber. Um, it's this crazy car company that has changed so much, but it's not
00:31:26.200
built around just them. While many of our churches today are built around one person or one communicator,
00:31:32.380
Jesus's model is more built around this platform that is on the people, not just on, uh, one person
00:31:39.700
in the communication abilities. Yeah. So we are the, the Christians are the Uber of the world. Is
00:31:46.900
that what you're trying to Uber for evangelism? Yeah, no, I mean, if, if 2 billion Christians
00:31:53.140
disciple one person, I mean, the game will be over very quickly. Yeah, totally. Okay. Tell people
00:31:59.660
where they can get your book. I hear that it is in high demand on Amazon.
00:32:06.160
Yeah. So, okay. It is on Amazon. It's on book Barnes and Noble. It's at books, million
00:32:10.780
life way logos, but yeah, on Amazon right now, just for warning, if you go on there,
00:32:16.460
it's going to say it takes a month to two months to get the book. Uh, that was getting changed
00:32:20.660
quickly. We are sending more books, but it is a good problem. However, it is a problem that's
00:32:25.420
annoying right now that we, yeah, we need to get more books to them, but yeah, it's been
00:32:29.520
the number one book in four different categories. That's awesome. And it's called the passion
00:32:34.040
generation by Grant Skelton and they can find you on Instagram, right? Is it just Grant Skelton?
00:32:40.620
Yeah. Twitter and Instagram is just Grant Skelton and Skelton is with the D not a T.
00:32:46.520
Skelton S K E L D O N Grant Skelton. Okay. They'll look you up the passion generation,
00:32:52.180
Amazon Barnes and Noble. It'd be a really good Christmas gift. Like if you're a mom listening
00:32:56.220
to this or a dad listening to this, you want to give it to your millennial or read it yourself.
00:33:00.280
It's one of those books that really transcends generations. It's about millennials, but it could
00:33:05.480
be about discipling them if you're even a grandparent, or it could be about being discipled by them.
00:33:11.000
So it really works for any age group. Yeah, totally. I've seen a lot of parents and their
00:33:16.040
kids reading together and I've seen a lot of pastors with their young adults reading it, but it
00:33:20.140
was more designed for older generations to understand young generation. Yeah. Yeah. That's
00:33:25.280
good. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom. I know that all of my listeners are
00:33:30.680
going to glean a lot from it and I will make sure to remind everyone again to check out your book.
00:33:36.240
Thank you, Ellie. I hope that you guys learned a lot from that conversation. I know I did. I always
00:33:41.400
learn a lot from him and I'm always really challenged by the things that he posts and the
00:33:44.900
things that he writes. He's just, he's a doer. I would say that I lean towards thinking, which is
00:33:51.520
good, but action is always required, especially in the Christian life. And I would say that that's
00:33:57.200
a weakness of mine, but he's just a doer. He gets stuff done. He organizes things. He makes sure
00:34:01.900
that he is living up to his word. Whereas I would rather just talk about things and think about things
00:34:06.960
all day. Grant is someone who actually goes out and does them. And that's what we all should be like.
00:34:11.800
And sometimes we need those kinds of people to speak into our lives, to motivate us and encourage
00:34:16.260
us to get off the couch and actually put the great commission into action, which is a lot more than
00:34:22.940
doing a podcast like this. It's loving your neighbor and doing the hard thing, inviting those people into
00:34:27.580
your life. So I don't know. I was really challenged by that conversation and I hope that it sparks a
00:34:33.560
change in all of us. Please feel free to send me your feedback. You can email me,
00:34:37.720
allyattheconservativemillennialblog.com. You of course can message me on Instagram.
00:34:42.820
I hope that everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving. This is, I think the first week since we started
00:34:48.500
doing twice a week podcast that we are only doing one podcast this week. We're going to take a break
00:34:53.860
for Thanksgiving. We're going to come back next Tuesday. I hope that everyone has a wonderful time
00:34:58.660
with their family. If you are dreading Thanksgiving, if maybe you don't have a good relationship
00:35:06.140
with your parents, with your siblings, and you are worried about it, just remember, just remember
00:35:14.300
one, who you are in Christ, that your identity is not in your family. Remember that your relationship
00:35:21.220
with him is far more important than your relationship with anyone else on earth. And your
00:35:25.400
goal in whatever interaction you have in your family is to be as loving and as kind and as Christ-like
00:35:31.860
as possible. I know sometimes that seems absolutely just, it just can't happen with your family as
00:35:37.620
crazy as they are. I understand. That's our role as Christians. And of course, just as human beings,
00:35:43.580
being as decent and as moral and as kind and as compassionate as we can be, even when that is
00:35:48.780
difficult. I hope that you find things to be grateful for. We can all be grateful because we
00:35:53.520
have the freedom and the privilege to live in this country. And we can all be grateful too, because Jesus
00:35:58.360
died for our sins. And if we believe in him, we get to spend eternity with him. Even if we had
00:36:03.180
nothing else in this world, we would have that to be thankful for. That's more important than politics.
00:36:07.980
That's more important than all of our differences and all of our division. That's the one thing that
00:36:12.480
at the end of the day can bring Christians together. And it's transcendent. It's our only
00:36:16.740
major ultimate purpose. So let us all be thankful for that. Let us take a breath just for one day,
00:36:23.040
maybe unplug, maybe don't get on Twitter, maybe don't scroll through Instagram,
00:36:26.400
just enjoy where you are, enjoy the people that you're with, and enjoy everything that God has
00:36:32.220
graciously given you. That's what I'm going to try to do. It's hard for me not to be embroiled in
00:36:37.440
Twitter conflict, but that is going to be my effort this Thanksgiving. And I hope that you
00:36:42.920
guys have a wonderful week and I will see you here next Tuesday.