[00:00:00] Alex: Like, we're not gonna stand before Jesus. And he said, well done. Good and faithful servant. You kept on learning and attending.
[00:00:06] Jeremy: Right.
[00:00:07] Alex: Like, that's just not what Jesus called us. You know? So there comes a point even for people where it's like, I. In order to do the disciple making, which is the greatest call that you get to do, you may need to do less attending.
[00:00:19] And I think that's again, a super error where people are like, attending is not the goal. You have one verse that says, continue meeting together. Right. the mission is to make disciples. Everybody welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to be joined today by Alex Rossi. Alex, has been involved in a lot of very similar, kind of ideas, that we've been orbiting at 1000 houses. And, somebody on one of our coaching calls, Josh, I think was mentioning his relationship with you, Alex, and just like, Ooh, wow, this, I learned a lot of this from Alex, and I'm like, every time I hear that, I'm like, I want to get them on the podcast.
[00:01:29] Jeremy: I wanna drill in. See, like, what is it that's happened? as Alex and I were just kind of chatting, he was doing missions work in Central America, and this really informed the way that he thought about church in the West and came back to Virginia, became a small group pastor, and now, is a part of ordinary movement.
[00:01:47] lots of very similar pathways, that I've been on, but I would love to, Alex, maybe we'll start with just big picture. tell me what is it you do, what are you part of? We'll then kind of go back in time and get more of the backstory, and then we'll drill down into, what you guys are leading.
[00:02:02] But yeah, what's the big picture? How would you describe
[00:02:03] Alex: it? Okay. Yeah. My, my primary allocation of time is overseen Operations for Ordinary Movement. And Ordinary Movement is a discipleship process, platform tool, resource that we use to give ordinary men and women to run at disciple making.
[00:02:19] we leverage a platform, we leverage courses and training, and then we have a workbook and then resources that accompany all of that. It's a 26 session, workbook that accompanies it. And basically we help anyone, whether they've ever been in a small group, whether they've ever led one, many times or never before.
[00:02:37] just run at, hey, take this and run. Taking all the guesswork out. We've made discipleship simple. And during that six month to 12 month duration, we have some format that goes in with that and it centers around core values like, abiding with Jesus, intimacy with Jesus. Intentional relationships, multiplication and yeah.
[00:02:57] So it was designed for ordinary men and women, stay home moms, moms that, work day jobs or businesswomen or guys that were in real estate, guys that, you could be a plumber, whatever your background that you just wanted to figure out, not just be told to make disciples, but have something to run it.
[00:03:12] Making disciples. That's what we do. So that's like my, my major focus. And then, a team and I, we are working on launching mosaic movement. That is a disciple making movement. it looks a lot like micro churches, if you're familiar with that world. And we just kind of publicly, made that accessible to people and, and we're running it that, so that's a small allocation of time.
[00:03:34] That's what we do as church. Okay. And then, my wife and I are also just involved in different, different business ventures. Okay.
[00:03:40] Jeremy: And what, tell, tell me just one layer deeper on the business ventures, just outta curiosity. What are you guys doing?
[00:03:45] Alex: So, I'm a realtor. and then my wife is a brand consultant and designer.
[00:03:52] Okay. And we also have, a small marketing agency. So somewhere between, real estate investing, marketing agency. a lot of different things have popped up over the years and we love all that. Nice.
[00:04:05] Jeremy: What's the name of the marketing agency?
[00:04:06] Alex: It's called, OMS, so
[00:04:08] Jeremy: OMS. Okay.
[00:04:08] Alex: Mission Strategies.
[00:04:09] I think it's, actually, we've been doing it for a while and we made a website. It's leverage oms.com.
[00:04:15] Jeremy: Leverage oms.com. Got it. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So many cool things I want to drill into there, Alex, but let's start with, so you, what did you learn in Central America? Like how does missions and what you experienced there?
[00:04:28] Because I, the big question we're trying to understand this is like the code we're trying to crack. Why do disciples not multiply in the West? That's what I wanna, that's what I wanna know. I wanna understand why. So, anything, any background, we can't get to the fourth generation no matter how hard we try.
[00:04:45] Alex: so please help me. Like what, what did you see happening in Central America? And then we'll, we'll get into what goes on in our context. That's such a great question. I talked with a leader yesterday about this, and I'm gonna get back to your, like, what did I learn in the missions thing?
[00:04:59] I was just casting vision for him yesterday about like, what is he doing after he finishes this investment of discipleship with the, eight guys he's had for an entire year. And he is like, well, I don't want to keep hanging out with them. I want them to multiply and I'm gonna lead another group and disciple guys.
[00:05:13] Which I was like, that's a great problem to have. And it's only a problem because I, I would love for him to lead another group and disciple more men, but he, he was missing this other new great value and opportunity of becoming a mentor of disciple makers. Hmm. And, and seeing himself as a mentor, not just for them, but then their next layer of leaders and then stage of leaders to that fourth generation, like you said.
[00:05:38] And, and it got into a conversation about mentorship, and the reality was he's just never been mentored. he's gone to church and then been invited to be a small group leader, and maybe had a little bit of mentorship and capacities in that way. and he's never in his world heard anyone talk about actually mentoring disciple makers or mentoring people into generations deep.
[00:05:59] Mm-hmm. it was like, he was like, what are you talking about? Where do I even learn about this? so it was like a foreign language for someone. And so, why do we not see, disciples become disciple makers is, I think it's a, a lot has to do with church model and, and how we practice church and mindset around church.
[00:06:18] So back to then, like what did we do in Central America? How did that inform that? In Central America, we did pioneer missions. it started off with indigenous people up in the mountains of Mexico. They spoke no nawa as their second language. And we would hike village to village, looking for villages that had either no established churches or no believers.
[00:06:40] And we would go door to door and ask if we could share about Jesus. We'd share the gospel. And sometimes that would be being, you know, the door shut, rejected, threatened, sometimes it was like, yeah, we wanna learn more. And other times someone would like give their life to Jesus on the spot. so when someone was interested open, a seeker wanted to learn more, or when someone gave their life to Jesus, then all of a sudden we'd return to that village every week and we would do house visits and explain what it meant to follow Jesus and who Jesus is and.
[00:07:15] We would be bringing in the context where I arrived. Like I was mentored by someone in doing this that was a pioneer missionary. and he already had some people that he had raised up as national leaders and or was still raising up. And so like they'll be with us and we would just continue to, to have them also help lead the conversation.
[00:07:34] Help have them try to teach, have them share their testimony, have them share the gospel, continue to give them room to actually just do what we do and work ourselves out of a job and mentor and coach them while we did this. Okay. And we had a lot more capacity to do this because we were fully supported missionaries doing this every day.
[00:07:54] But these guys that were doing it with us as often as they could, they were farmers. And so they, when they were with us, they were choosing not to farm, to be with us, hiking to a village to do this. And so we just brought them along. They watched us, and if you're familiar with like D Square language, like they watched us do it, and then we began to have them help us do it.
[00:08:12] They began to do it. We'd coach them, and then we just began to celebrate them doing it. and then while that's happening, we're actually doing the work of reaching on church people and then doing the house visits, discipling them, they're discipling them with us. And then oftentimes, we inevitably by us continuing to go through that community door to door or by discipling these people, and people would then come or we'd invite people to join us, or they'd be like, Hey, you know, could you share this with my cousin?
[00:08:40] You know, what would end up happening in the ideal scenario that was really cool to see would be, you know, next thing you know, you have three to five families in a village. You're doing all these house visits and you get to the point where you can't keep up with the house visits that then, you know, culminates into the day where it's like,
[00:08:56] let's talk to a family that has a nice big patio on the front of the house and let's have everybody meet at that house and we're gonna do a service, is what we'd call it. and we did more of like the traditional service, like we'd, do worship outside. Like, I couldn't sing, still can't, like whatever it would look like.
[00:09:13] we'd do prayer, we'd do worship, and then we would, do a teaching on a passage of the Bible and how to follow Jesus and who Jesus is And so, yeah, and then we just continued to do this whole, discipling them and looking for people. We felt like God was raising up in the leaders and having them then learn how to pray and learn how to share the gospel.
[00:09:31] And it usually started with someone who was brand new, like having them go with us on house visits, having them learn how to share the gospel and, and just continues to replicate until you have these national leaders who then are actually doing everything that we do and they can do it on their own. I didn't know about like D-B-S-D-M-M stuff, if people were familiar with that language, disciple making movements, discovery Bible study.
[00:09:53] Yeah. I just knew what come into back in like 2010, and because it was being done and was taught how to do it, and so I think that then probably informed my, like. Wow, this is church planting and, and this is disciple making. And when we would talk to pastors in the States where I would listen to the conversations with pastors and our director at that time, there was this clear disconnect where it was all about the Sunday morning service.
[00:10:16] And they were like, we don't know how to even begin to do what you do in the states because they felt like it had to be kind of the like go door to door house visits. and so it just seemed like there was this huge chasm between what we did in church planting and disciple making and discipleship and then what the Western church does, you know, for growing, thriving kind of arc model churches.
[00:10:41] and I, I, at that time was really young, just it was clueless. I'm like, okay, well I don't know. I guess we just do it differently. So that was probably stage, that was probably that first stage.
[00:10:49] Jeremy: Okay. Awesome. Very cool. So you guys learned a lot. You saw, okay, this does work. And you can see how it multiplies.
[00:10:56] You bring on these apprentices, you have the visits. You start churches, churches start churches. You kind of can see how movement could naturally flow. Then you start turning your attention to America and you see that there, the church models themselves sort of, preclude or create, an obstacle to this kind of natural movement.
[00:11:15] And so now you're back. take me from the mountains of Mexico back to the states and then like what did you first start trying and yeah, walk me through a little bit about what happened next.
[00:11:25] Alex: Yeah. we thought we were gonna go to Iraq. That door closed. We landed in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Got involved in real estate at that time, did not wanna be in ministry, was invited to be a pastor, said no, God convicted me.
[00:11:38] Said yes, joined on staff, did all sorts of crazy roles. And then the one that, well lemme say like, I did not start with small groups and discipleship. I started with a lot of things. beginning was youth and connections, so just that whole front of the house. Greeters, parking, everything. And then seeing some of the challenges in church.
[00:11:57] And just like I was in survival mode coming out of like, you know, support, Ray's missionary, trying to figure out what to do with my life. and just got into this. And then I quickly just kind of between real estate and trying to get my family and even be able to start a family in a commuter driven area south of dc.
[00:12:18] lost sight of just the discipleship thing. This is part of, I guess this is a pivotal part of the story and I took everything, my business savvy that I was learning in real estate and was like, Hey, I see, you know, elevation. I went to Inside Elevation. I got involved in the church planning conferences and there was a point where I just went all in.
[00:12:38] Like, I want our church top of Google page one, and I want the church growth that we see other churches having. because I love our church. Like, it wasn't like out of like total vanity. It was like, I believe in disciple making i church growth in like, I just, it was like church growth and if you had church growth, clearly you have disciple making and people get saved.
[00:12:57] So I went like all out and we did that. And while I was leading guest integration classes, next steps classes, there came a point where, where I was just like everyone of these classes were, were now leaving their churches to come to our church. And I realized these weren't people who, like our church were leading to Jesus.
[00:13:14] They were just people who were ever, they weren't happy. Their last church for whatever thing that they wanted. And now they were hoping they would get it here and we were helping them get integrated and it was a concern to me that was kind of like the first like, flag popped up.
[00:13:29] Jeremy: Very cool.
[00:13:30] yeah, that's frustrating to go from missions where you're like, okay, I know we're here to reach the lost, we're taking new ground for the kingdom to like church growth strategies that are primarily creating transfer growth. Okay.
[00:13:42] Where did that take you next?
[00:13:44] Alex: Yeah, so I became the small groups faster and then really it was again, like I'm just focusing on growth 'cause that's what I'm hearing and seeing other churches celebrate. and we did that, we kind of shifted a church that was very Wednesday night focused couple classes into the, thriving Saddleback, three semester format and learned how to do that and raise up leaders and kind of have an entire pipeline, do all the launches and, got a great percentage of our church into it.
[00:14:12] And that was fun and great. And again, I was, I was kind of, this is in that phase of life that I was in, but I began to recognize like I'm not seeing disciple making movement. I'm seeing. You know, it was a lot more focused. I was also leader of connections. Now, during this time, I'd raised up a lot of leaders, replicated myself, moved into new areas, but I began to feel like I am creating a, pipeline of volunteers.
[00:14:34] And the goal was not to become disciple makers, it was just to raise up good managers who were the John Maxwell style leaders. And it wasn't really creating people who became disciples, who became disciple makers and were capable of really leading people to Jesus and then raising them up as disciple makers.
[00:14:54] Our small groups were cultivating, good friendships, good community. there were opportunities to grow in leadership. but people were staying. I didn't have this language at the time. I just saw it could feel it. people were staying in that knowledge acquisition loop. They were, you know, the same old men's minister, everybody just wanted to do the next Bible study.
[00:15:11] You know, the same small group leaders, trying to figure out what curriculum I was gonna give them or suggest to them. and to the where I was just like, I, I don't know. I don't have the, like, what do you want to do? here we'll get right now media, like just, you know, you're in survival, you know, you're trying to keep up with all these things and also, and then you're like, Hey, but I want you to raise up leaders.
[00:15:31] And then the reality is like, no matter how many times I try to explain this idea of raising up leaders to them, it wasn't clicking. because in hindsight, that wasn't like raising up discipling, discipling makers was not in the DNA and culture of our church top down. Okay. our, our emphasis for most churches was on the Sunday morning service.
[00:15:52] Yeah. And I began to see that and feel that Covid happened. and I think that was the like. Oh my gosh. Like if, if the church can shut down and everybody like it, all of a sudden this falls apart because we can't do Sunday morning service. That, for me, was the major. We were like, this doesn't feel right.
[00:16:11] And I had, watched Chan shift from leading his entire megachurch and his reasons for shifting into their micro church movement. and all of his reasons were like, everything he said resonated with me. And it was one of those like, maybe I'm not crazy. That actually validates what I think God is speaking to me, even though it's entirely counter church culture.
[00:16:33] Jeremy: Yeah. So
[00:16:35] Alex: lemme put
[00:16:35] Jeremy: a pin on a couple things you said there and then we'll get the next part of the story. So it sounds like you're transitioning the church from more like a Wednesday night service, it sounds like, to small groups. When you begin to build up small group leaders, what really small groups need are sort of middle managers, John Maxwell style, middle managers of a large machine, not necessarily replicating disciple makers.
[00:16:57] There's a natural tension that I'll think a lot of church people have not wrestled with between, the kind of fractal, organism multiplying that happens when these things are sort of natural and the top down hierarchical large organization and trying to create small groups and middle managers in small groups.
[00:17:12] So you're like, you're watching this happen, COVID hits, you know, you read Francis' book on letters of the church and like what they transitioned. And so starting to ask deeper uncomfortable questions that we're not supposed to ask this stuff, Alex, because now at this point Yeah, this sort of like, sounds like you're getting close to the red pill moment, so Yeah.
[00:17:28] What's, what's, what happens next?
[00:17:30] Alex: Yeah. I, I had a moment where during staff meeting I realized we weren't talking about discipleship or disciple making and. The epiphany was when I realized I'd been on staff for however many years. You know, you did staff meetings for, you know, two to five hours every week, one day a week with your entire staff.
[00:17:49] And we never once, not even once, like the entire staff meeting was actually about how are we helping people become disciple makers. I love the church that we were at, and I have a great relationship with that pastor and I've asked him to even be a part of this next season of our life. And so I, I'm in a very candid way sharing that, not as a.
[00:18:10] As a, as a slight on that church, that, that's just church culture, right? Because there was so much, the events, the programs, and Sunday morning service that was so much of the burden and the focus to where we couldn't ever be very intentional about creating pathways to help people become disciple makers and, and disciple making had to fit into these quadrants that didn't really empower people and cast vision for what natural, organic, self-sustaining discipleship and disciple making would look like.
[00:18:40] and I guess even that then with having been the connections person, I realized I wonder how many people I've robbed and, and kind of in a sense that they had the capacity to do way more disciple making, but I set the bar low in that, hey, you could just be a great leader on a Sunday morning of the greeters.
[00:19:02] which is beautiful that their heart is serving. They're just doing what we're inviting them to do. But there's the few people on staff doing all the ministry and disciple making and this person, there's just no vision to see them do what we do or to think that everybody could do what we do.
[00:19:20] because of the way that you have to build the machine and then what it takes to keep it going.
[00:19:25] Jeremy: Yeah. I know one way that I think about that challenge, because I think that's well stated. You know, when you start a family, either husband or wife, they have specific things they're gifted at and they can go off as individuals and pursue those things and that's great, but they also have children, and there's a lot of focus, especially in the Bible and clearly on families to having children and using your gifts in the church, there's a tendency to not have children, to not have spiritual children, to not say that this is a part of the.
[00:19:53] The foundational mission, you know, the command given to families is to be fruitful and multiply. The command giving to disciples in Matthew 28 is to go make disciples. That's the command everyone has. But there's always a tendency, particularly in a highly individualized culture, to say, okay, what are your unique gifts and how do we plug those into this larger machine?
[00:20:11] And so these two things, unfortunately, they don't need to be intention, right? They, they, you can do both. I do both in my life. you and your wife do both in your life, you know, you guys are, we're all doing both. But in the church we do only one. We tend to only use our special, special gifts at the neglect of having spiritual children.
[00:20:27] So yeah. that's a real tension.
[00:20:30] Alex: Yeah. So I guess, that was like all these things built to that final red pill moment, we realized, like we had crazy, crazy growth. At a moment where a lot of churches were just trying to figure out how to stay open. We were growing like wild. And for me, all of a sudden I realized this growth is misleading because we're still not actually raising up disciples who live a lifestyle of making disciples.
[00:20:52] we're doing Sunday morning, really well and growing that. but it wasn't just what I felt like this is what I read, that Jesus desires, and this is what I read that the early church looked like and how it actually grew and their growth was because people were coming to Jesus who were far from him.
[00:21:09] our growth was church, people coming to be a part of this 'cause this is, you know, healthier or better or more thriving, all those things. and then I realized there was a conflict of vision. around like direction and what does God put deeply on my heart for discipleship and disciple making and what would that look more and more like?
[00:21:28] And in lieu of what, I needed to build in order to maintain the engine. that was then like, okay, there's a shift. And felt like God was leading me to be a part of more intentional, discipleship disciple making and even helping the church in that trajectory. I just didn't know what that would look like yet.
[00:21:44] Okay. So that was probably like 2022.
[00:21:46] Jeremy: Okay. About three years ago. You guys are starting to transition now. I'd love for you to, and we can kind of dive into the last two or three years story as well, but maybe taking a step back again, I think it would be really helpful at this point to.
[00:21:59] give us a snapshot of, so we've, you know, we heard the story and, almost everyone who's listening to this is gonna have their own story of like, okay, there's a tension that we all feel between the church model and, but give me your vision. So there's a collision of visions. What, like, if Alex could like wave a magic wand and like design a disciple making, replicating movement in Virginia, that, that is really making disciple makers.
[00:22:25] give me some of the elements there that go into what that looks like.
[00:22:30] Alex: all right. So what we're endeavoring to do, I think we're, trying now to endeavor to do that through Mosaic. And so I've been trying to put ideas in writing on what that would look like. And with these ideas, I'm hesitant to say like it, I just wouldn't be dogmatic about it.
[00:22:47] We're learning as we go. I'm trying to learn from what I've seen, work well in proven models, but contextualize it. and also just make it fit our own style of how we're wired, our team and I, so being attracted to more small gatherings, missional communities, micro churches, I'm hesitant to say house churches.
[00:23:07] 'cause I think that has a whole other layer now of people's experience and perception of what that should look like. Yeah. but in homes or coffee shops or playgrounds or parks or, I don't care, they could meet at a church building when it's not being used. but this looks more like ideally, you know, people are coming together for like in in, in the context of church.
[00:23:27] church is not the building or the service. We are the church. I think of church based on what I read, like as a noun and a verb. There is the people that make up the church and there's this verb that we see of like, what did they do in their gatherings. and so for us then there's the, like, we want to come together around like time to fellowship, time to break bread.
[00:23:46] We like to eat a meal, hang out, connect and actually like be known and catch up on life and talk and know what's going on in people's lives. Then we do a time of either worship or prayer. I don't know where this goes. I feel like we've probably overemphasized like singing, and worship culture in church.
[00:24:04] And I love it. Like, I love to have a great worship session at a church with music that I love worship, but I've recognized you can't get people to come to a prayer service. And so if you're asking me vision wise, I think prayer may be more important than that time of singing together, unless that time of singing together really feels and looks more like prayer.
[00:24:25] Yeah. and then looking at more of that DM format for like reading scripture. but having, More learning through discovery, not by lecture. I like the idea of getting people through the Bible, in a year, although it's a heavy lift but it's doable.
[00:24:39] It's 15 minutes a day, anyone can do it. I just think that if you get people to read the Bible cover to cover, and they do it more than three times, they got everything they would've outta Bible school, especially with some coaching and podcasts. And so you, give your structure, Hey, we're all reading through the Bible.
[00:24:54] your gatherings are working with that same synchronization. So you can resource around that and use that for fodder. You pick a passage that everybody would've already read, your host or leaders pick that out. You read it, or a portion of it. The big goal is discussion and that learning through discovery and, We can talk about that. I, I'll, I probably am being long-winded. So there's certain questions that really Yeah. set you up to focus on how you're gonna apply and keep you from getting tied up into theological arguments and what people feel. and so that's important and really focus this more on obedience based discipleship, instead of just theological knowledge.
[00:25:32] and then, and then with this component, is this like, how, how do you inspire and just make disciple making 'cause the gathering, like while maybe I'm leading it and I'm more intentional right now in disciple making these people and helping 'em become disciple makers, I've gotta help them begin to shift towards like, their call to be disciple makers, not just, you know, gathering.
[00:25:53] and so I think then with that, there's gotta be a cultural. Value and also framework to make outreach missional living a part of the regular discussion for this gathering. we're looking at what does it look like every other month to, like, the whole evening is gonna be, that's when we do our group is an evening is gonna be around like, how's the cycle making going?
[00:26:14] disciple making is not, limited to discipling believers. disciple making is also broad enough to include outreach of how are you reaching out to unchurched people and helping people figure out like, where, where did they lean into in the season? Is it discipling the people that God has given them more in this format of gathering?
[00:26:33] Is it one-to-one with some people? Is it kind of introductory? Like who is God? And, and you know, apologetics kind of stuff. Is it the outreach area where like we're helping people, rub shoulders? I mean, really everybody, we want everybody be doing This, and, and, but there's seasons. I think that's kind of where it's like not everything fits into a stage or a program.
[00:26:53] but getting people out there to reconnect with unchurched people and yeah, it might be something very tangible like Taking care of people, who, are struggling financially or the poor or the homeless. It may be something a lot less, holy looking, I guess for, if you will, or spiritual looking, but like, might be you leading a meetup for a hobby that you love.
[00:27:14] And because you're leading that meetup now you're actually getting to meet unchurched people and begin to build relationships with them and have conversations. And through those conversations, your missional intent is actually to have spiritual conversations. and begin discipling them.
[00:27:28] So, yeah.
[00:27:29] Jeremy: Yeah. That's good. I would say one of the kind of major overlaps that, you guys are doing that, we've also begun to move towards you. What you're really describing is a disciple making community like that, that's what the church really was intended to be. because I've been asking this question, you know, what did Jesus come to start?
[00:27:46] Like, if he came to the US and saw our church structures, would he be like, yeah, That's what I came to start, if not, then you've got to, in as clear as possible, describe what he came to start. And it seemed to me like he came to launch a disciple making movement.
[00:27:59] And that community was a necessary component of that disciple making movement. And when that community gathers to encourage each other in their disciple making, which includes the outreach they're doing, that's the church. Like, that's the church experience. And what's so bizarre is that you have people gathering that are core to the church, but have left the movement.
[00:28:20] And this has become incredibly confusing. So one of the things we did, which was kind of this extreme thing, we have a house church that we told everyone, like, don't use that language anymore. It's confusing people. we're just call we do think we're a church, but we're gonna call ourselves a disciple making community.
[00:28:35] And we asked everyone in our, in our house church, hey, it was October. I said, by the first year. we need you guys to give us a plan for how you're gonna make disciples this next year in 2024. This was back in 2023. Yeah. you know, give us a plan for how you're gonna be discipled or make disciples this next year.
[00:28:51] And, you know, some of, some of the, some of them were moms who were newly pregnant. They're like, well, how do I do this? And we're like, all right, well, we will work with any situation you guys are in and make sure that whatever, like if there's a season of discipleship that we can, that you can do, where you can take on apprentices and really build into some people, like, that's, but that's who we are.
[00:29:09] That's what this is. and we're gonna actually define what obedience to Matthew 28 is. because what we kept seeing was that people, their idea of obedience was either just growth in general or someday in the future. When my kids are grown, I'll start making disciples and we're like, okay, this is what obedience is.
[00:29:25] Every year you are either being discipled in an intentional apprenticeship to Jesus, or you are making disciples of people that are being apprenticed by you into obedience to Jesus. That's obedience. And if you go 12 months and you don't participate in that mission at all, then in this community that's just here, this is not general, we're just calling it for here, for this group, our context.
[00:29:47] We're gonna call it disobedience. And so if you're not interested in being on the mission, then, and again, we'll help you in any way we can if there's anything that you need. But if your decision is we're not gonna be on mission, then there are so many other places that you can go and participate in church that is not on this mission.
[00:30:06] we found that without being that explicit, people were going to continue to endlessly consume. The goods and services of the church without actually bearing the fruit that Jesus commanded us to bear. I didn't know any other way to do it. 'cause we tried it for years and years and that actually did flip the, the script, I would say, in our community.
[00:30:24] Um, but man, that was super costly. Just like say that explicitly. But what you're describing, and I love what you're describing, which is so sort of like, look, when the church gets to gets together, we're the people who have been out there all week long making disciples, you know, that can be through the early stages of discipleship and that is like evangelism or through the actual process of apprenticing people into obedience to Jesus.
[00:30:48] But we're kind of regathering and like, we need some time to worship. We need some time to regroup, we need some time to encourage each other. We need some time to teach each other, and engage in this discussion. But it's all in the context of we're all on this mission together. So yeah. Tell me, does that resonate?
[00:31:02] Is that what you guys are trying to say as well?
[00:31:04] Alex: Absolutely. And to echo, what you said, I think in church culture, myself and at large, we've replaced the mission to make disciples with the mission to do church.
[00:31:13] Jeremy: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Alex: And so now we're having to relearn. I mean, I've grown up in church, Christian schools, you name it, like my entire life.
[00:31:19] So I, for me, it's a huge amount of effort to rethink and relearn when you've done something for 33 years certain way. and then to that point, and I guess related earlier, it's like, what is the goal? and hopefully we can teach people what is the bigger goal, you know, the parable of the talents.
[00:31:37] Like, we're not gonna stand before Jesus. And he said, well done. Good and faithful servant. You kept on learning and attending.
[00:31:44] Jeremy: Right.
[00:31:44] Alex: Like, that's just not what Jesus called us. You know? So there comes a point even for people where it's like, I. In order to do the disciple making, which is the most, the greatest call that you get to do, you may need to do less attending.
[00:31:57] And I think pe that's, that's again, a super error where people are like, like, attending is not the goal. You have one verse that says, continue meeting together. Right. the mission is to make disciples. And so I think shifting to what you're saying is to like, how do we help people see themselves, you know, if their group isn't full of like, brand new Christians and people that, that, that are being newly discipled, but they're wanting to do this, how do they see themselves not as a house church, but as a missions team?
[00:32:20] Jeremy: Yes.
[00:32:20] Alex: Like if you were to go to Iraq and start from scratch, you wouldn't just say, Hey, we're gonna continue to meet together and, you know, invite people here or there. it's like, no, you're a missions team and you've gotta figure out how to get out there and meet unchurched people.
[00:32:35] And if your schedules don't allow it, maybe, maybe instead of meeting every week like you normally would for a classical, traditional, we'll worship, pray, and read scripture. It might be that you flip the script and say, Hey, we're a missions team and we all are in communication and we're being very strategic in ing our, leveraging our time to actually like, reach on church people and then we're gonna bring it back in together and do discipling.
[00:32:57] Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, that's, I think, that is a question that's, so taboo to ask what are the rhythms force rank the rhythms of your weak in terms of obedience. So here's the Bible says that we're called to do. Now, if you say, look, I'm in a super busy season where I can only give two or three rhythms a week to the mission.
[00:33:20] what are you doing with those two or three rhythms? you're still called to obey in those two or three rhythms. And if you decide to fill those with things that are leading you down a path of disobedience, of passivity. Then that's not good enough. Like you're not actually on mission, you're not actually obeying Jesus.
[00:33:33] you're sort of participating in a religious system and what you're really trusting in is not what Jesus has both commanded and instructed and inspired you to do and modeled for you, but you're participating in something else, some kind of religious, ritual. and really in so many ways it sort of like replaces this mission, which I think that's what is so difficult.
[00:33:55] 'cause a lot of the pastors that I talk to, they believe 100% that the mission is to make disciples. They understand completely that, we need to be making, disciple makers that are obedient to Jesus. they're not confused about that. What they're incredibly confused about is why it's not happening, when they're committed to doing it through the current model of church.
[00:34:15] And you said there was sort of a collision that you sensed and I think this is where I. I feel like this is where we're all sort of stuck in America, I would say. I would say we're, we're getting right up to this fork in the road, which is, can we just tweak the model of church that we all are super familiar with, this sermon centric worship service ministry, plus the small groups that are necessary to make sure there's, you know, good relational connection within that congregation.
[00:34:42] Can we tweak that in such a way that it, it actually launches and undergirds real disciple making movements. What do you think?
[00:34:53] Alex: A hundred percent. Okay. But it's all gonna hinge on the lead pastor. and maybe the board. 'cause it depends on how much of a board steers the pastor or if the pastor steers the board.
[00:35:03] But like, yeah, top down. If the, if top down your leadership is, is bought in and says, Hey, I mean, for anyone listening, it's like, look at the data, the state of the church. Like the, the majority of all churches that are growing by far, like over 90% of the growth is just transference. And then the, the overall church growth in the United States 0.08%.
[00:35:28] Like we're at the plateau, but like, that's just growth year over year. But then you look at the decline of the church when you step out and look at it big, like, we're in decline, big C church, right? And so at some point you have to say like, is this really working? not that church is dying, but like, are we being effective at the mission?
[00:35:44] and people really owning that and then if you look at the data and you look at the results and you say like. at what point do you have to have a hard conversation and say what we're doing is no longer working at disciple making? Mm-hmm. with the end goal, I think a lot of, like right now it's confusing.
[00:35:58] There's the buzz, the, like discipleship became a trending buzzword again. Yeah. And everybody's like, yeah, our church is into discipleship. But it almost, it's always about spiritual formation and it's got a lot of big, fancy words that I don't even understand unless I like get my theology hat back on. It doesn't help me, but like practices and rhythms do in making it applicable.
[00:36:17] But most of all, the stuff that I'm hearing and seeing in church world about discipleship as they're getting back into it, still lacks that as the goal is to make disciple makers who are self-sustaining, that are now doing the disciple making apart from needing the Sunday morning service or the pastor to coddle them.
[00:36:35] Right. and so I would say yeah, like churches can totally shift this way. Yeah. It doesn't need to be, overnight. I think that they can begin to develop a culture and cast vision. And I think that an under-discussed thing is gonna be that if you're gonna really, truly shift your, let's say, a mid-size, large-sized church that's been Sunday morning centric into disciple making movement.
[00:36:59] 'cause you want to see those results again, of unchurched people being discipled. You're gonna have to have a bigger conversation, I think about the engine that you created and how to attack areas where you're dependent. And financial model is gonna be one of the ones that most people are not talking about.
[00:37:15] That I think has a bigger impact on, our ability to go, like I see pastors that want to do this. They don't know how to get there because of the financial model.
[00:37:24] Jeremy: Right. And you and your wife, you're bi-vocational. Mm-hmm. Do you think that's, that's kind of, should be normalized or Yeah. How do you think about the economic model?
[00:37:34] How would you tweak it? I.
[00:37:36] Alex: We're, we're a blend. I have a salary, ordinary movement, raised support to be a discipleship resource for churches and men and women. we have business income. I raised some support to do missions and some missions initiatives that I do with frontier missions.
[00:37:48] I do think co vocational, should be totally embraced, celebrated. And I think, I don't know that it's cookie cutter. I think, there's things that I couldn't do in leading if I were not full-time focused on ordinary movement and pace. when I think about the ideal of a disciple making movements, I don't see it working unless we show that, hey, even the business guy who runs a, painting business and has crews we've gotta show a model where he can see himself leading this because he's seen someone else leading this that's in business.
[00:38:20] Yeah. Not because somebody was on a salary. So we're rethinking this, and I don't know, as we've mapped it out, I wanted to lead with some structure and guiding that way. People didn't get in. I was explaining, like, I didn't want people to feel like, hey, like we're building some ship at sea, but it's not that we don't know what kind of ship we're building a warship.
[00:38:37] It's focused on disciple making. Didn't want people to join our team and think that like all of a sudden, six months later, why can't we have a slide? Well, it's not because we were building, building a carnival cruise ship. Like this is a well war award. Yeah. So like with that in mind, we're trying to cast vision for that we're working through right now.
[00:38:54] maybe no one will be more than part-time. maybe, I mean, if it grows wildly huge, maybe, maybe it's like admin roles are on salary. Josh and I, my friend and I, we, we've really talked about like what are, what are things that would, if we put it in place now, would keep this from becoming something that, that has those dependencies, that drive decisions that shouldn't.
[00:39:14] So we're looking at what does it look like to, you know. Even, even with your lead pastor, like with in-house, there's, there's term limits. Mm-hmm. just to keep that apostolic movement and, what if neither here, I never take a salary. We raise support if we need to. Yeah. And, and we mostly suggest people be part-time.
[00:39:33] what are we rethinking? Because I think that's one of the most under-discussed issues around, I agree that the stifles
[00:39:40] Jeremy: right, you're putting your finger on really two problems. One is the leadership problem and the other is the ordinary person problem.
[00:39:46] So the leadership problem is, is it possible to have a dynamic movement led by somebody who's part-time? and that's, that's something that's really difficult when you're constantly. You've got a lot of other things, you know, that are putting pressure. Our, our take on that has been that, you know, we've, we've been willing to give full-time salaries to people for up to two years as long as they're on the trajectory towards bivocational life.
[00:40:08] And then once they're there, then part-time is that then the normal, there's gotta be one person in the organization. The ops person has to, that's gotta be their main thing. Even if it's part-time, it's, they, they can't have something else that's gonna take them, take their attention off the ball for six months.
[00:40:22] Yeah. so those are some of the basic things. so that, that's one thing is just the leadership problem. But there's also, and you know, you guys have branded the whole thing under this ordinary movement. And I, I, I love the way you described that. Like, if this isn't work for the business guy, the plumber, like man, that's, so talk to me a little bit about that.
[00:40:38] Like, 'cause one of the things I'm struggling with a little bit is, so you oftentimes these kinds of movements are started by pastors who have, you know, really they don't have normal time constraints when it comes to disciple making. and so they're engaging as part of their job in beginning the process of launching this in their churches.
[00:40:54] and then they also have so much to give. And so they oftentimes create these processes that like last for a couple of years, with the guys that they're discipling. And so it's a real apprenticeship, but it's very difficult for then the people that they're apprenticing to turn around and say, oh, I'm going to, so I, there there's some kind of sweet spot I'm constantly trying to find in our, in our blueprint life and life discipleship, which is like trying to find the sweet spot between what's transformational.
[00:41:20] In the life of an apprentice. But what's also like what's possible in the west for multiplication. Like so that plumber, that businessman that stay at home mom is like, oh, I can do that. You know, and I know it would work. Like that's actually not easy to figure out, you know?
[00:41:34] How do you, and you guys, you mentioned that you have like a 26 session workbook and I'm curious like getting maybe one layer more into the weeds, and how you guys are advocating for The normal ordinary person to make disciples. What does that look like for them?
[00:41:46] Alex: So the lines are blurred a little bit.
[00:41:47] So there's, there's the ordinary movement and there's mosaic movement. Okay. so ordinary mosaic and ordinary movement is a movement of disciple making and, and as a resource and, and less of community, but community in the sense of, like, there, there's people who are rallying around saying like, we want to see disciple making brought back into the ordinary person's life through their churches, through their churches.
[00:42:09] So ordinary movement is standalone a, a resource and platform to equip ordinary men and women through their churches. We're not, we're not a church. and in fact, I just had a coaching call with the pastor earlier and was talking him through like, what does it look like for him to fully champion disciple making at his church?
[00:42:25] And he's looking at taking ordinary movement and integrating it as his, discipleship pathway in his church. 'cause the thought of how do I help my churchgoers become disciple makers? It's overwhelming if you're a pastor.
[00:42:39] Jeremy: Yeah.
[00:42:39] Alex: on the mosaic side, you know. It's different 'cause that that is for us, our church, but we've also felt like God led us to make it a movement.
[00:42:48] And some of that comes into like we wanted to do disciple making movement as church and we couldn't figure out who to do it with. And also then finding an expression that fit the way God wired us.
[00:42:58] Jeremy: Yeah.
[00:42:58] Alex: so with ordinary movement, it's a really simple framework that anyone can use. It takes all the guesswork out of it and you can plug it into your daily life at any time and it'll fit into your church community.
[00:43:10] Whether your church has small groups or does not, it is at the very least six months or 12 months, depending on how you do it, the 26 sessions. but there's also this entire process along with the 26 sessions that we train on how to lead like a disciple maker, not lead, like a small group leader.
[00:43:29] and that really then is this like preparing them, preparing them for multiplication, like preparing
[00:43:33] Jeremy: the next generation while you're doing it.
[00:43:35] Alex: Yep.
[00:43:36] Jeremy: Exactly.
[00:43:36] Alex: Yeah. so not only are the sessions oriented around helping people go from church goer to disciple to disciple maker, we're having that leader, lead by asking questions, not by teaching, lecturing, and then they're leading up front heavy, but then they're working their group through the Discipleship Square, if people are familiar with that.
[00:43:52] But that beginning, like you, everyone's watching you lead and facilitate, and then you begin having them help begin having them now about, a third of the way through. Like all of a sudden now they're leading in, you're coaching. and at the end they're, they're all leading and you're just celebrating.
[00:44:06]
[00:44:06] Jeremy: inside the context of the discipleship process They're already starting to lead.
[00:44:10] Alex: That's great. Yeah. and then, so that's the resource platform for churches and ordinary men and women through churches to run with, to get 'em going as disciple makers. And then the end result we wanna see with this is, do they love Jesus more?
[00:44:23] Are they more intimate with Jesus? They grew their relationship with Jesus, and then as a result, they now feel compelled and desire to live a life of multiplication that may look like watching their own ordinary men, women, you know, movement group and inviting people and discipling people. it may look like them figuring out a different area that God's leading them to disciple making and, and outreach or, or church leadership or, but really, like, we feel like those are the, you know, how, how are we gonna measure this?
[00:44:51] Right now we're on the, like, did they get, did they grow closer to Jesus and did it compel them to live a lifestyle of disciple making Okay. Where they're no longer gonna be a, a consumer. Yes. in Christianity. So on the mosaic side. Can I ask real quick?
[00:45:05] Jeremy: Yeah. On that side of things, what are you guys seeing in terms of generational fruit?
[00:45:08] I know this is fairly new, but how is the multiplication going and what are you bumping into? are you finding that people are taking this to the second, third, fourth generation, or do you find that there's things that might need to prop up or re-stimulate that growth in the West? Just people tend to drop the ball pretty quickly in our culture if that vision's not constantly being cast.
[00:45:28] What are you guys seeing on the multiplication side?
[00:45:30] Alex: Yeah. we're about six years old. Okay. This last year. We just really, for lack of a better words, made it open source to where you could lead a group without ever having gone through it. Okay. our entire growth leading up to the fifth year was through multiplication.
[00:45:44] So started with one group of men that led into over 90 groups across the country, and it was because somebody had been in a group. Then those people in that group multiplied in other groups. Now, this last year, it's, I, I don't know the metrics anymore of what is that multiplication rate, because we've now opened it up to where everybody can do this training and do it.
[00:46:04] And we've, we have a wild amount of signups every single day, that people going through in launching groups. So I think it'll change. But our entire growth leading up to, the end of 2024, if you will, has all been as a result of people who were discipled, who then became disciple makers and the groups that we tracked, LED groups, so effective at seeing those people in those groups multiply.
[00:46:28] and we, we did have a heavy emphasis, intentional of like you as a leader. We want to see you become a mentor for these leaders. I think that we still have work to do on our part that, and that, that I want to see us do that, of, of casting vision like we talked about earlier on this, seeing yourself as a mentor of disciple makers and then seeing that through into maybe two more generations beyond those disciple makers.
[00:46:55] Yeah. And, and it's just something that like, I think we have to begin talking about and casting vision for because the people that are, that are in our community and doing this with us and doing this in their churches, have never heard that before. Right.
[00:47:07] Jeremy: So
[00:47:08] Alex: I dunno, does that answer your question?
[00:47:09] Jeremy: Yeah, that's really helpful. I think what you're discovering, and this is what caught my attention. I think that in our culture, we vastly underestimate how difficult it is to cause the multiplication effect, the movement effect to happen. And so what happens overseas? There are natural sort of defeaters or, issues within Western culture that tends to sterilize the fruit, and make it stop reproducing.
[00:47:33] And so the level of intentionality, and you guys have, you know, at least these three tools that are designed really well from multiplication, you've got a lot of clarity around, how to do it. You've got during the process, the leader beginning to hand over the reins to the people he's discipling and letting him or her actually, feel what it's like to do it.
[00:47:54] So they've actually got real life practice, before they even start their own group. And then you're onboarding this third piece, which is like causing those who have completed leading a group to become mentors of 1, 2, 3 generations downstream to make sure that this continues to go. I mean, that's a lot of effort.
[00:48:11] Trying to keep the seed and the fruit to stop it from becoming a sterilized movement that goes 1, 2, 3 generations and stops. I just think, that it's difficult to overestimate how difficult this is in our culture, and I think that those are some really powerful tools you guys are bringing into that.
[00:48:26] Alex: So, on that, where we need, if we're gonna see it happen better within our own movement is I think we have to see pastors champion this way of thinking because in church culture and small group culture, if they even have small groups, there's still like, the expectation is you lead a group and stop.
[00:48:44] Jeremy: Yeah.
[00:48:45] Alex: and so that's kind of like, people are like, oh, I let a group, and then let alone if they're like, oh, I'm mentoring three guys. You know, once they see those guys lead, they kind of, so I think that's where we desperately need pastors to champion this mindset of disciple making from their
[00:48:57] Jeremy: pulpit.
[00:48:58] And this is where, why I emphasized in our context this idea of defining obedience to the great commission as every year you initiate the making of disciples or if you're a younger believer, you can go through discipleship. but everyone's on this mission. And that's something every pastor listening could track.
[00:49:15] You could take every person that's a part of your church and ask that question, what percentage of people in my congregation in 2025 or 2026, as we get closer, what percentage of them are this year involved in a disciple making process? They're either being apprenticed or apprenticing others. Mm-hmm. And if pastors actually held people accountable.
[00:49:35] And like I said, hey, 3 months before the beginning of the year said, Hey, let's all develop plans. we're gonna launch every year. There's gonna be a big launch and a big celebration. you could create a culture in just a couple of years. You could turn that congregation into disciple making culture.
[00:49:48] The big launch happens, maybe January, February. Everybody's like in, you've got people who are in really busy seasons. They might say, okay, we can't really start our group until July or August. Great, but you will launch then because we're gonna obey the great commission.
[00:50:01] So everyone is participating and then maybe towards the end of the year, you know, November, early December, something like that, you could create this great celebration, you know, where people talk about the transformation that they experienced in their disciple making. And so we got to launch and celebrate and I think in an annual level.
[00:50:17] So maybe, and that would be like a fourth element to your guys' blueprint if you added that. these other three elements I think are great and I agree that that's the weak part, which we were really struggling with until we got serious about launching and celebrating and realizing that in the Western culture, the problem is that people are hearing other visions all the time.
[00:50:35] And so we have to like have some kind of rhythmic way to reignite this. On a regular basis. whereas, you know, in the mountains of Mexico, you've sort of seeded the DNA into people and they don't see or feel or hear other visions. They've, they just experienced, this is what church is. Of course, we just make disciples.
[00:50:52] but that is not the context in the West
[00:50:53] Alex: Right.
[00:50:54] Jeremy: Being serious enough about, about they're, they're constantly, our people are constantly being inundated with another vision, which is the attend church vision. And we're not saying that there's anything wrong with attending a worship service.
[00:51:05] We are saying that replacing the disciple making movement with that, with that and saying, that's good enough. That's a problem. That's disobedience.
[00:51:13] Alex: Yeah. And I think on that, there is confusion around the vision. And you, you and I were talking earlier, like getting into like Blueprint. I think with Mosaic, the reason I led heavy on the showing kind of the blueprint of the vision is like, I think people need to visually see.
[00:51:29] Where, where is the, where's the end goal? What's the finish line like? How, what, what are we really celebrating and trying to work towards? Even if it's extremely hard, it's not just attending church and being on a team, you know, a, a serve team. I think people need to visually see this roadmap and hear about it often and talk about it often and consider where they are in the roadmap and understand the roadmap visually.
[00:51:52] I think that resonates with what you're saying,
[00:51:54] Jeremy: right?
[00:51:54] Alex: because it is so counter-cultural to the, church is where I go on Sunday where I give and attend.
[00:52:00] Jeremy: yeah, yeah. That, that collision's very real. So, and I think that what happens, and then one of the things that I guess you guys are experiencing as well is that when, when you have an entire community of people that are actively, they've made disciples, they're on the disciple making movement, there's evangelism and discipleship kind of integrated as a part of it, then that starts to become this experience of church, of like.
[00:52:20] We are a team that gathers to encourage each other through our time together using the different gifts to encourage each other. But church sort of can become something a little more, of like the sort of small, simple body micro church. like to me that's and what you guys are exploring with Mosaic, and launching with that, it seems to say, look, there, there are these two paths and you've got kind of the traditional church model that needs to activate everyone to make disciples, but there's also a micro church expression that can be really effective, assuming that we're going micro in order to keep people on actively on the mission.
[00:52:58] So tell me a little bit more, I dunno if you have a few more minutes. I know we're a little over time. Yeah, I'm good. Are you? I'm good for a little bit. I'm good. Okay. I'm so, yeah. Give me a little bit more on Mosaic. I'd love to hear what the vision is there.
[00:53:07] Alex: I feel like I should say preface like I.
[00:53:10] The vision of Mosaic came out of looking at hearing about, so I got deep into frontier missions, advocacy and mobilization. for anyone who's listening, like 40% of the world still has no access to Jesus. Only 3% of missionaries go there. and as I began to feel compelled to share that story and mobilize, I learned about the underground church in Iran.
[00:53:30] It's the fastest growing church in the world, predominantly led by women. And I was like, what is going on there? And then I began to hear about this thing called DMM. And then I was like, what is DMM? And you're scouring Google and trying to figure out what it is. and there's always different definitions and ways of doing it.
[00:53:44] And then I came across finally the Contagious Disciple making book by David Watson. He's the guy that founded DMM. And he would tell you this is what it is, but you know, ultimately he's given it to everyone. and there's all these beautiful different expressions of it. So we are an expression of disciple Making Movement, and it's this framework
[00:54:00] And model with principles that he used when he was a frontier missionary that resulted in over a hundred thousand churches, 1.2 million people baptized. and it's all micro church for the most, you know, house, church, like it's missional communities. It's raising up national leaders. and then looking at like, we engage with like we are church, trying to figure out what they do.
[00:54:21] Tampa underground, trying to figure out what they do and seeing who we could join, how this works, what's working. all the different micro disciple making movements in micro churches are two different things. And you know that, so anyone listening like a micro church is not necessarily a disciple making movement.
[00:54:36] It might just be a house church that meets in a coffee shop. So they're, they're, they're, the disciple making movement is the framework and structure that, that actually creates a movement of people making disciples who make disciples resulting in the byproduct are, missional communities.
[00:54:54] Micro churches, wherever they meet, however they do church. And so for us, that's what we're endeavoring to do. And then figure out how to communicate it in a way that still makes sense for the common person who has a churched experience. Doesn't feel like a foreign language. But cast vision for the, the goal is to see everyone become a disciple who makes disciples.
[00:55:16] Yeah. and I felt like we, you know, taking from what we see proven that works, contextualizing it for what we feel like would work in our culture and our community, the way that God has gifted us is what we're endeavoring to do. I think we need lots of expressions, of different style disciple making movements because there's so many people that I would never connect with that would connect with someone else if that person had a way to run it at disciple making, maybe in the style that God's called them to.
[00:55:46] Jeremy: So good. Awesome. Yeah. Well that journey and what you guys are working on, I think that is the frontier of the Western Church, what you're butting up against there with Mosaic and all those movements that have tried to figure out how to take what is happening in DMM and other countries and saying, okay, we've got to figure this out in the west.
[00:56:03] And I think that there are movements that are starting to push past that and see real progress, but it's still very, very early. And that's why I'm really excited, Alex, to meet you and hear what you guys are doing and, you know, really link arms with you guys.
[00:56:18] 'cause this is, this is awesome. both with what you're doing with ordinary movement, which I think it's awesome that that's focused on traditional churches and helping them be, get active, but then also, you know, exploring the micro church, you know, world and what that could mean for movement as well with Mosaic.
[00:56:32] So yeah. anything else that, where people can, can, follow you or, continue to dive deeper into what you guys are doing?
[00:56:40] Alex: ordinary movement.com. that's the resource for anyone who's looking for a disciple making resource to run with. join mosaic movement.com. That's the, the movement that we're doing.
[00:56:49] And, you know, Josh, Janine, they, they were a large part of like us, you know, Brittany and I knew this was something that God was leading us to. And they also came alongside and knew this is what they wanted to do And they were like, we know we're gonna do it, but they also knew they were gonna do it no matter what.
[00:57:04] and so, yeah, so we're, we're in Lady Smith, but we've made it to where like, our, our goal is we're gonna see this happen. If people feel like they're trying to figure out who to run with and do this, you know, join us. We'll coach, we'll train, run with us for as long as you want, and then it might be a great fit.
[00:57:19] And otherwise it might be a, a. Kind of a launchpad for however God leads you to create a movement. so yeah, would love to support anyone any way. even if it's just like you and I had a discussion, like some of it, I think what people need to do is just really work through this and talk through it and wrestle through it and figure it out and, and see how God's leading them to do it.
[00:57:39] And they need a time and space and people who just need that community that know, this is where God's leading us, but we don't quite know how to get there yet. But we want to be challenged, inspired, and encouraged to do it and, we're available.
[00:57:50] Jeremy: Awesome. So good. Alex, thank you so much for jumping on here today.
[00:57:53] It's been great getting to know you also leverage OMS, the O mission strategies, what your wife's doing with branding, what you guys are, everything you've published is so beautiful and awesome. Thank you. I assume she's got a part of that, so, yeah. Yeah. So excited to see you guys are an awesome team. so yeah, great, great meeting you.
[00:58:08] Thanks for dropping on here today.
[00:58:09] Alex: Likewise. Thank you so
[00:58:11] Jeremy: much, Jeremy.
