 Franciscan University was very good to me and my family. Sound like Roberto Clemente, don't I? Been very good to me. And I was able to come here as a student and someone who was being accepted back into the church after I left. And my daughter ended up graduating from here. And it's really home for us. And I know the excitement of coming to a conference like this. And I remember sitting in the back over there 22 years ago thinking, I hope nobody recognizes me from the other side of Ohio. And I remember the excitement in my heart of coming to a conference. And here we are, defending the faith. And some of you have been doing this for a while. Some of you, this is brand new. Just in the last few months, you've had a major conversion experience. And someone said, you should go over to that conference because they're real wacko. You know, they really like the faith. And here you are. And you're all excited and filled with anticipation. And it's going to be a good, good couple of days, three days for you to learn from some really good speakers, some really good priests, good fellowship with one another. You know, our theme is speaking the truth in love. And that's what we're all called to do as disciples of Jesus, is speak the truth in love. And we need to really focus on this issue of becoming disciples of Jesus and really taking a look at what we're going to speak. What's the message that we're going to give out to the world? And that message comes from Jesus. It comes from Jesus. And so I want to talk to you this evening about really walking as a modern-day disciple and really get down to the simple relationship as we begin this conference. Because you're going to learn a lot of wonderful things. But I want to provide for you sort of a context to take a lot of wonderful truths and theology and ways of combating relativism in the world and bringing it back into this intimate relationship with Jesus where you can grow in your walk with God and go out in the world and have a powerful influence. But I want to start with prayer and ask the Lord to touch our heart. I believe with all of my heart that what I'm going to share this evening is really key to becoming that modern-day disciple. I really believe it's key. We're honored to have here today some really good speakers, Sherry Waddell is here today. And Sherry Waddell is one of those people that has coined a phrase in our culture, intentional disciples. And so I want to build on that work and on the work of Scott and Kimberly and Dr. Sree and so many others. And I pray that by the end of this conference you will see a new picture of what you can become in Jesus. A new picture of a new boldness in Jesus, a new courage in Jesus that you never thought you had. But it's there, it's there. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, we love you and we adore you. We thank you Lord for the call on our lives. We thank you that you have brought us into your wonderful family and that you have empowered us to do the work that you are doing. Lord, give us a clear vision of who we are as adopted sons and daughters and who we are in relationship to the world as agents of change and hope and peace and justice and mercy and kindness. And we pray that our words would be spiced with everything that is you. But it all starts with you, Jesus. Help us in these three days to renew our relationship with you that we would leave here on Sunday with a new sense of mission in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I wanna talk to you a little bit about becoming a modern day disciple of Jesus, but I'm gonna sort of pepper my talk with some autobiographical stuff that gives you sort of an idea of what not to do from time to time. Yeah, I have been serious about Jesus since I was 18 years old. So that's 10 years now that I have been very serious about Jesus. And I don't know anything after 18 years old other than trying to walk with Jesus, trying to get to know Jesus, wanting to be his disciple, wanting him to use my life to change the world. And I gotta tell you though that sometimes in my life, I find myself going through a little bit of the doldrums. Have you ever felt like that before? Four of you, great. So you and I are on the same page. There's times in our life where things are not going exactly the way we want them to and our relationship with the Lord is not that exciting at times and we feel like we're kind of drifting away. But I started to notice something about my own life that maybe you've noticed too and it's a problem that we can actually get into as Catholics and particularly as Uber Catholics. You know what an Uber Catholic is, right? An Uber, well, you're probably one. I mean, you're here at a university, you gave up your weekend to talk about God, you're pretty Uber and you maybe even took an Uber cab over here. I don't know from Pittsburgh, but you're Uber, you're over the top, you're serious, you're seeking, you're Uber. But here's one of the things that can happen in our lives as Ubers. If somebody asks you the question, are you Catholic? Now that's the question, are you Catholic? Well, that really wasn't a question, but that's fine. So are you Catholic? And the answer typically comes back like this. Someone comes up to you and says, Jeff, are you Catholic? And here's how I answered their question. Am I Catholic? Have you seen my library? I have every book that Ignatius has put out, a servant, Ave Maria. I've got all the books that they put out. I got all 734 of Scott's books and all 1270 of his CDs from Lighthouse Media. I have all of that. I watch EWTN, I listen to Christian radio and I have a fish on my bumper sticker. Hello, materday. I know all kinds of words too. So what I'm saying to them is they'll say, well, are you Catholic? And listen to the way I answer it. I answer it this way. This is what I consume. I'm in Bible studies, I'm in all kinds of things. Yes, I am so Catholic. But they weren't asking what I do and what I consume. They were asking a much deeper question, weren't they? And at the heart of it in this conference is, they're asking, do you know Jesus Christ? Have you been with Jesus Christ? Who are you? So when people say, are you Catholic? And we answer them with, this is what I consume. We're really not answering them correctly. You know what I'm saying? Are you Catholic? Are you a Christian? So we start to define our Christianity based on what we consume rather than who we are and what we do with our life. Now I have fallen into this rut before. I gotta be honest with you. I've fallen into the rut. And here's the rut. The rut is that, get this, that our faith, the studying of our faith, which we hope you all do, the study, and we hope you all buy books. And I'll be out there also tomorrow with all the rest of them. But we define it in terms of what we study and what we consume, okay? But the rut we run into or the problem that we run into is that we begin to define our Catholicism and our Christianity based on what we consume. And the rut is this, and here's the danger that we have to watch out for. That our faith is actually studying the faith. That our faith is made up of getting more understanding of it, which is good and it's needed. But we're called to go beyond just studying. We're called to go beyond just consuming. We're called to go beyond just knowing the right answers. We're called to become Jesus Christ in this world. We're called to become His disciples. We are His representatives. We are the ones that are doing the works of God and the deeds of God in the world. We're the ones that are showing the world His heart and the mystery of the Trinity. We, yeah, we buy books. Yeah, we watch television. Yes, we listen to radio. And those are phenomenal gifts, but it all points to becoming that disciple. Now, let me tell you in a kind of a secular way how this can go wrong. And this has gone wrong in my own life before. And if you've heard me talk about this before, just stay with me. As St. Peter said, it's good that you hear this again. I got into a rut a few years ago, and I said to my wife about seven or eight years ago, I said to my wife, I said, honey, you know what? I just need some kind of artistic outlet. You ever felt like that before? I need to just do something different. I need a hobby. So I started thinking to myself, what could I do? Well, I could paint, because I like to paint. I could write poetry. I could write stories. I could do photography. I could do a lot of different things. So I ended up going to Barnes and Noble. And Barnes and Noble's magazine rack is this literal rack of potential hobbies. Anything you can think of, they got a magazine for it. Tofu cooking. There are people right now that cannot wait till the next issue of tofu cooking comes out. Okay, there's all kinds of these magazines. So I got to think of what will I do? You know what I landed on? Photography. I landed on photography. So they had like 20 magazines on photography, black and white. They had American photography, outdoor, indoor, digital, everything you can imagine. So I bought 10 of them. And I came home and I put those magazines next to me on the couch and I started to read them and I read them and one night after night I'm looking through these magazines and I'm starting to uncover all kinds of really cool stuff about photography. Now I'm gonna mention a few things about photography that I'm quite aware are way over your head because we as photographers are deep into this stuff. Okay, so I'm starting to read about digital photography, single lens reflex, SLR, we call it. I'm reading about composite tripods. I'm reading about different lenses, fast lenses, slow lenses. I'm not gonna get into it right now, Google it, okay? And so I'm reading all these magazines night after night after night and then after I'm done with those 10 I go back to Barnes & Noble and there's a whole new month of magazines. So I bought them, the next group of 10 came home, I came home and I started reading those and I'm getting deep into this and my pile is getting deeper and deeper and I am really getting into this and then I went to a local photography club and I started talking to photographers about all these different aspects of photography. I started telling our relatives about photography and it was so cool and you know, you gotta do this, don't do the iPhone anymore, get this single lens reflex. So I'm doing all of this and then one day my wife walks in and she looks at me and she says, honey, and I said, yeah? And she said, why don't you buy a camera? And I said, I will. I said, you know, this isn't really serious stuff, you don't just go out and buy it, this isn't like your iPhone, this is serious stuff. So I went up to Barnes & Noble and they had two magazines on reviews of all of them and I bought it, came home, I read it all and I continued to read my magazines and then I thought I'm gonna buy a camera. So I went out and I bought a Canon 7D, I know you don't know what that is, I got a 8200 fast lens 2.8 IS code for image stabilization, you don't have to remember that. I got a composite tripod, I got a remote flash, I got everything. I set it up next to my couch and then I got the next 10 magazines and I continued to read and this is true, my wife comes down one day and you know what she says to me? She says, honey, and I said, yeah? She said, why don't you take a picture? Now, let me tell you how deep I was into this. I had been going to the local Minnetonka photography club and they had invited me to be the next month's speaker and I had never taken a shot. I brought the camera to the meeting and I acted like I knew what I was doing and our relatives had a wedding coming up and they asked me to, they asked me to shoot the wedding and I said, I'll pray about it and the Lord said, no, don't you know what I know? Now, I say all of that to say this, if I can be the guest speaker at a photography club and do someone's wedding without taking a shot, what could I do with my Christianity? Now, hopefully it's not speak at Franciscan University and never take a shot, but let me ask you this, is it possible that you could come to this conference and leave and come back to nine more over the next 10 years and leave and never take a shot? Is it possible that you could have a library, that you could have a CD collection, that you could have DVR set to two channels and never take a shot? It's possible. And so what I wanna share with you is a few steps on becoming a modern disciple that goes beyond being a fan, becoming a follower and really following Jesus and taking the shots, learning at the conference, going home and practicing and putting your faith into practice. So what is a disciple? Well, obviously a disciple is not someone who just believes the right things or has the right materials or has the right books, but a disciple is someone who is called by God to enter into his family, to become like him and to adopt his worldview, to allow him to live inside of them and motivate them and to do his works in changing the world. It is someone who is to be conformed to Jesus Christ and to continue with his ministry in the world today. And one of the greatest problems that I think we face in our Catholic circles and among evangelical and fundamentalist and non-denom circles is that there is oftentimes a separation between the head and the body where the body doesn't really feel as though or realize that they are the body of Christ and they study the head, Jesus, as a separate entity. And they live their life as though he's separate by answering questions like, are you a Christian? Yes, this is what I believe rather than this is who I am. And I am the body of Christ and Jesus is living in and through me in the world today. Let me take you back just a few years, 2000 to be exact. And let me take you back just for a minute. Can I show you just real quickly, and I think it always does good to hear it again, the process of becoming a disciple of Jesus 2000 years ago. You know that the process of becoming a disciple of Jesus or a disciple of anybody, any rabbi 2000 years ago was quite a process. It wasn't something where you just followed some teacher and said, well, I'm gonna be your disciple. You had to be chosen to become their disciple. Now in Jesus' day there were a lot of rabbis and a rabbi was a sage, a rabbi was a teacher, a rabbi is someone who gave you wisdom for living. And there were a number of rabbis all over Galilee and all over Judea and they were kind of the same but different schools of thought. And the rabbis were itinerant and they would go throughout the countryside teaching. And every rabbi had disciples. In Hebrew you would say, tell me deem, tell me deem, disciples. A tall mead, a student, a follower. Now the average number of disciples that a rabbi had in the first century was five. Five was the average number that a rabbi would have that meant that that rabbi was committed to those five guys or those six guys or those seven guys to pour his life into them so that they would become like him, his worldview and everything. And they would speak like him and they would teach like him and they would live like him. Now in order to do this, you would go through a three step process as a young boy. I'll tell you them real quickly cause I don't wanna dwell on it but every boy during Jesus' day would from the ages of about six years old to 10 years old would enter what was called the bait sefer or the house of the book and they would begin to study under local teachers. Six to 10 years old, they would study the five books of Moses and they would start to memorize a lot of scripture and every child was issued a slate, a slate that they could write down with honey words to learn so they could learn the Bible. In Hebrew it's called a isolate. Every once in a while I'm just gonna check to see if you're here. That's all that was, okay? A few of you can just erase that from the notes that was actually not even true. So they would be given a slate and when you learned a word or a scripture, you know some form of scripture, you got to lick the honey off the slate learning that the word of God is sweet. So from six to 10, you're introduced to the word of God and you're taught by some of the local teachers. All the while, some of the great rabbis are starting to learn who some of the promising young men are. Now you go to the second phase of your education from 10 to 14 years old and that's called the bait talmud. And the bait talmud is the school, the second phase where you go deeper into scripture but you begin to learn the tradition too. And you learn more throughout half of your day, scripture and tradition. And you also learn a method called Q and A of learning where the rabbi asks you questions. And you answer the rabbi with questions, right? From 10 to 14, so if we were talking about math, the rabbi would say to you, what's two plus two and you would not say four because all your other students and all your other friends would say in Hebrew, duh. Two plus two is four, obviously. That's not what he's asking. He wants to know, do you know his way of thinking? So what's two plus two? You would answer what's eight minus four, excellent. Matthew, what's two plus two? Rabbi, what's the square root of 16? Excellent. Now what was Jesus doing at 12 years old? When he was lost, remember? He was in the temple and he was teaching and asking questions. Now the second half of your day was being taught by your father and your father would teach you about his trade because there was really no such thing as growing up and going to college and saying, this is what I'm gonna do. You did what your daddy did. Your dad's a cobbler, you're a cobbler. Your dad's a builder, you're a builder. Your dad's a teacher, you might end up being a teacher. And so the second half of the day, you're learning all about your father's trade. So if your dad's a fisherman, you're learning about nets. You're learning about hooks. You're learning about boat repair and all these things because right around 14 years old, the rabbis are gonna come around and they're gonna make choices as to who is gonna become their disciple. Who's gonna become their disciple? So at the age of 14, the decision's gonna be made. Are you gonna do what your father did or are you gonna be chosen by a great rabbi to become a student of that rabbi? Now when we talk about a rabbi-disciple relationship today, we're going beyond simply a rabbi-disciple relationship. We're going into a bridal spousal relationship and a covenant relationship with the greatest rabbi who happens to be God. That's an amazing thing. So it's not just rabbi Shapiro down the road. This is God we're talking about with Jesus. So the rabbis would come around and they would say one of two things to you because you see it's not up to you to become the student of a great rabbi. It's up to the rabbi. And the rabbi is gonna make his decision based on this. If I'm the rabbi, do I think you have what it takes to become like me? If I don't think you have what it takes to become like me, I will not invite you to become my student. I will not invite you to come into this relationship. So the rabbi would say one of two things to a young man, he would either say, go ply your father's trade, which means what? You're not chosen. Go ply your father's trade. Nothing wrong with being a fisherman, but you're not gonna become my disciple. Go ply your father's trade. Or the rabbi would say to you in Hebrew, lech achrei, lech achrei, come follow me. And that was a formulaic statement that every rabbi would say to a potential student and a tall mead, come follow me. In other words, you're chosen, you're chosen. And that rabbi believes that you have what it takes to become like him. Now with that understanding, where did we find the disciples when Jesus called them? They were fishing, which means what? They weren't chosen. My friends, have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt not chosen? Have you ever been the one they divided up into teams and Larry and John picked teams and said, I'll take Jeff or I'll take Mark, I'll take David, I'll take Susan, I'll take Mary, I'll take Don, I'll take Larry, I'll take, and then there's me. Well, they say, come on over here, I guess it'll even the teams out. So I was the evener, the teamer out. That's a new word. Have you ever felt not chosen? You see, when Jesus chooses you, he chooses you because he believes that you can become like him. But you cannot become like Jesus unless you spend massive amounts of time with him. The goal of this whole thing is not just simply to believe correctly, but it is to become him in this world, to become like him, to be formed to him in the way he thinks, in the way he acts, and this can only happen with time together. You see, the second thing that a rabbi would say to his disciples, the first was, ah, Chariah, come follow me. The second thing that the rabbi would say was this. He's, Jesus said it in Matthew 11, 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. So what does it mean when a rabbi says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me? It means nothing to do with really ox, oxen, a yoke of an ox, although that's a good message. It has nothing to do with eggs. I don't know where you're at. Some of you are just beginning, okay? I'm just trying to bring you all together. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. What does it mean? It means this, it means take my world view upon you. To become the disciple of Jesus means to take my world view upon you, and hopefully for the rest of this conference, you're gonna be learning about Jesus' world view. And then you commit yourself to knowing him. Now in order to walk with him today as modern disciples, we cannot bypass this critical, this necessary part of being a disciple, which is relationship, we can't do it. You can never become a modern day disciple simply by reading or watching television or listening to the radio. You have to get involved. You have to follow him. You have to spend massive amounts of time with him. And Jesus committed to spending the time with his disciples in an intimate way where he could share his heart, he could share his world view so that they would come to know his voice and his way of thinking so that when he's not with them physically, but he's in them with the Holy Spirit, he can animate them and speak to them and they'll know his voice. Wouldn't you at the end of the day after learning everything at an amazing conference like this, wouldn't it be great to go back to work knowing I can hear God? You know the church teaches that he created you in such a way that you can hear him and that he can hear you and that he wants a real relationship with you? How many of you would say I would give up a lot, I would pay a lot if I could learn to hear the voice of God in my life? If I could know the wisdom of God in my life, I could be that disciple like the disciples were 2,000 years ago. Oh, what I would do to have that, you have it. You've got that opportunity. It's before you. The invitation has been given. Lech achorai, come follow me. I believe that you can become like me, but you cannot go your separate way. You cannot just read a book. We have to spend time together. You know my wife and I, as Scott said, we've been married 38 years, 38 years, both of us. Hers has been longer. It's a miracle. And in that 38 years, I've come to know my wife and I've come to know her voice. And if I came here tonight and I brought my lovely wife Emily up here and I said to you, look, I am gonna demonstrate something that is gonna be absolutely amazing and you're not gonna believe this. I have an uncanny gift. And that uncanny gift is that I can detect my wife's voice even in the midst of 1,500 women. Oh yeah, let's do it. And I come up here and they put a big blinder on my eyes and then one by one at this great big women's conference, one woman comes up after another and stands right in front of me and I'm blindfolded sitting there and the woman says, good morning, honey. And I go, nope, that's not her. Number two, good morning, honey, no. Number three, good morning, honey, no. Number four, number 30, no. Number 112, no. 700, no. 1100, no. 1238, no. 1642, no. 1783, no. 1824, that's her. And I pull off my blindfold and lo and behold, I was right. And the crowd rises with a cheer. How did he do it? What are the odds that he could do that? How did you do it, Jeff? And I say to you, it's just a gift. It's a gift. No, it's not a gift. I've been married for 38 years to my bride. I have heard her voice when she's been crying. I've heard her voice when she has been laughing. I've heard her voice when she had the flu. I've heard her voice when she was tired. I've heard her voice when she was so joyful. I heard her voice when the kids were acting up. I've heard her voice when I didn't do what she told me to do. I have heard her voice. I know my wife's voice. I know it. But it didn't come from just saying I do. And it didn't come from just getting wedding gifts. It came from 38 years of getting up in the morning and spending an hour together. I make her tea every morning. It's another gift. I make tea. I make tea every morning for my wife. Every morning, if I'm there. So let me frame that. All three days a year, I make, man, I'm kidding. Totally kidding. I make tea every morning for my wife. We talk for an hour every morning. And then in the summer, we go for a walk for about a half an hour. We talk. We have a relationship. I know her. My friends, at the beginning of this conference, I wanna open up a door for you, and that is this. Jesus is inviting you into an intimate relationship and all the wisdom of the world is hidden in him. And he wants to share with you how to live, how to think, how to deal with your children, how to have an influence on your grandchildren. He wants to teach you about your finances. He wants to show you how to love your wife in a more fruitful, intimate way. He wants to change you. Now the Catechism tells us that there are two major things that we need to focus on. In paragraph 236 of the Catechism, it mentions in paragraph 236, it says that there are two major things that we really need to focus on. One, and I'll break it down, one is theology. Can I read that paragraph to you real quick? If you write this down, you go back to it later, you're gonna find that it's gonna be a very, very fruitful paragraph. Here it is. The fathers of the church distinguish between theology and economy. Theology refers to the mystery of God's inmost life within the blessed trinity and economy to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the economy, the theology is revealed to us. Now let me break that down just for a second here and kind of put it into a first time conference goer language, and that is this. What's the theology talking about? It's the mystery of the trinity. Let's put it another way. God wants you to know the heart of your father. He wants you to know the heart of the father. You see me, you see the father. You hear me, you hear the father. He wants you to know your heavenly father. Number one, the theology. Number two, the economy. It's not dealing with money necessarily, it's dealing with your father's plan. Your heavenly father has a plan and he reveals that plan in words and deeds in salvation history. That's why the Bible is so important. So the two things that we wanna focus on in that paragraph are knowing the heart of our father and knowing his plans, his family plan and his ways. My friends, a disciple of Jesus knows the heart of the father. A disciple of Jesus knows the plans of their father and when you take the plans of my father and you take his heart and you bring them together, you know what it gives me? A basis for trust. I can trust him from that place of trust and from that place of relationship. I can speak the truth in love. I can speak to this culture in love. When it comes to mercy, when it comes to morality, when it comes to marriage, I have been with the king. I have sat at the feet of the king. I have listened to him. I am totally in union with him. I'm in a covenant relationship with him and he is in me. I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. The faith that I now live and the life that I now live, I live it by faith in Jesus Christ who loved me and delivered himself up for me. That means this, that everywhere I go, I'm a disciple. I am a disciple of Jesus. If you wanna know what disciples look like, I'm a disciple. Ah, go ahead, take a picture, I don't care. I am a disciple but the more important thing is this, how does a disciple live? Because the world right now is not impressed with what we believe but they are impressed with how we live our lives. So I wanna encourage you in the last few minutes that we have today and you're gonna hear more about it throughout the rest of this conference and that is this, that the disciples life is made up of everything we do is knowing our father's heart, knowing his plans but besides those two things we need to commit ourselves to doing what he taught because the goal is becoming like him and becoming like him is the result of spending massive amounts of time with him in adoration, mass, Bible study, lexiodivina, holy hours, the rosary, learning about the extended family, the saints, learning about the family here on earth, all about the catechism. If you want to know the tone of Jesus' voice because I've had people say to me before, you know, you really believe that we can hear God in our life? Absolutely. I believe it with all my heart. In my workshop tomorrow I'm gonna give you some examples of how we can do it. I snuck a commercial in there early. Sorry. And I give out a lot of cash. So, but I'm gonna share with you a little bit about that because I really believe that God does speak to us and as disciples of the Lord we go out into the world but we can only come to know that voice if we have that relationship with him. That means that the modern day disciple has gone through the process of cutting away unnecessary things in their life so that they can give themselves to the necessary things or put this way as Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you. And we live in a culture today that is so busy trying to add everything to their life and Jesus said, seek me first, seek me first. But if you're like me, sometimes it takes a few times to get that across in our thinking. You know what I mean? So we need to do what he teaches. We need to come to know his voice and we are called as disciples. I'm just gonna rifle through a few things for you. You can get the CD and that is this. We're called to be different as disciples. We're not called just to blend into the world. We're called to be different when Israel was called by God to be different among all the nations. It was for the sake of the nations. And if all the nations today are gonna be changed by the disciples of Jesus, then those disciples must become different than the world. We must speak the truth in love and live our lives that way. In Exodus 32, we had the golden calf when they came out of Egypt. And guess what happened with the golden calf? They lost their mission to the nations by worshiping the gods of the nations. And if we're gonna be disciples of Jesus, we cannot change the nations and worship the gods of the nations. We've gotta come out and be different. We've got to be distinct. We've got to be holy. And when we say holy, I'm not talking about, there's Gregorian chant four feet above your head constantly throughout the work day and everyone's wondering, where's that coming from? I'm talking about holiness in everyday situations. That's how we change the world. Or as Kimberly once said, we change the world one diaper at a time. It's in the ordinary things in life. And the disciple relates to things and time differently than the world. We are detached from things and we don't waste time. We sanctify time. The disciple takes risks in sharing the gospel. The disciple loves deeply. Jesus said in John 13, 35, by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And the disciple eventually makes disciples. And so the goal in all of this is that one day you're gonna make disciples is that Jesus said to you, John, Mary, Susan, Paula, Abigail, Thomas, come follow me, come follow me. You're gonna go through a period of transformation. Some of it's gonna be a delight. Some of it is not gonna be so much fun. But I'm gonna change you to become like me. And guess what? I'm gonna have you make disciples too. And they're gonna teach my ways to the nations. That's what we're called to do. We're called to make disciples, discipline followers of the Lord. I believe, and I think that I'm accurate in this, I believe that God used Sherry Waddell. If you haven't read the book on forming intentional disciples, you gotta read it. I think she set the table. I think God was using her to give a call to the church. This is what we need to be focused on. We need to form intentional disciples. The next step is for us to start to do it. It's almost a prophetic call. That do we just say, I believe that we should, or do we begin to form intentional disciples who speak the truth in love in the world? I'd like to just draw this to a close by showing you something. And I didn't know this until just a few weeks ago. Can I show you something? By the way, I got to think about this earlier today, that if our kids can go out and find Pokemon and share it with their friends with great delight, don't you think that we could find the Jesus man and share him with great delight? And everywhere we go, everywhere we go, we don't need the phone to say that these characters are surrounding us. We don't need to know that Pikachu and Charmander and Squirtle are here. But we know that Jesus is here. And we with our lives can grab that and share it with the world. But I ran into something the other day and I'll end with this. And that was this, I'm wearing shoes. You never thought you were gonna see this, I know. I got a pair of shoes here. They're called Floor Shime Shoes. That's all I wanted to say. No, they are Floor Shime Shoes. Take a look at them. It's a certain brand of Floor Shime Shoes. They're called the Imperial Model. You didn't know you were gonna get that either. 20 years from now you're gonna look at these notes you're taking, it's like, what the hell? Jeff wore Imperial Floor Shime Shoes. Boy, was that a good conference. This pair of shoes, this model, exactly, is the model that Michael Jackson danced in all those years. Michael Jackson did Billie Jean and Beat It and all those other songs. He danced in this exact model of shoes. I'll leave them up here afterwards. You can come up and adore them if you want to. This is the model, I just found this out. But I've got news for you. I'm gonna show you something. What are you, oh, yeah, that's sorry. Okay, what do you do, Jeff? I'm a dancer, I'm a dancer. I know all kinds of things about dancing. Just because I put on Michael Jackson's shoes. You're gonna be so disappointed. Doesn't mean that I can dance. Just putting on the equipment doesn't mean that I can dance. Yes, those are the shoes. But I can't make them look anything like Michael Jackson. And I'm not even gonna try much to your dismay. But I say that to say this. Just because we have the equipment doesn't mean we're taking shots and it doesn't mean we're in the game. It's a good beginning. But God is calling you to a deeper relationship where you follow the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You follow the one who created the world. You follow the one who created you. You follow the one who has all wisdom in the universe. You follow the one who knows all about marriage, all about mercy, all about morality. And he's inviting you to come away with him and to become like him. My friends, that is discipleship. And that is what God is calling all of us to do.