https://discipledbyjesus.org/what-we-do/Transcript Here Read the blog by clicking here. Serving pastors, parents, and churches in growing Christlike disciples and disciplers.
HeartWalk is determined to be all about Jesus, about being with Him, and about helping others be with Him. HeartWalk is about meeting, ministering, and maturing with Jesus, then making disciples who do the same and will be equipped to help others meet, minister, mature, and so on.
Hal & Debbi PerkinsHal and Debbi have given 40 years in studying and strategically applying the principles of making disciples that Jesus modeled and commanded of His followers. Both formally and informally, they relationally discipled their four children (now all in full-time Christian ministry) and those in their churches willing to invest time in their own relationship with Jesus and then to help others.HeartWalk FoundationsIn 1969 Hal was dramatically called into professional ministry. He and
Debbi began their first full time pastoral role in June 1 of 1970 and concluded 40 years of pastoral ministry on June 30, 2010. They have been married 41 years. At marriage, Hal was a math teacher and coach. Debbi finished college to become an elementary teacher.During their 40 years of professional ministry, Hal and Debbi served five Nazarene churches as senior pastor. Debbi taught in both public and Christian schools, served as administrative assistant to the Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma, and ministered as a chaplain in 10 corporations.
Welcome in echo through eternity. I'm your host, Dr. Jeffrey D. Skinner. What is God echoing through your life today? I am joined in the studio today by Reverend Hal Perkins. He has a ministry called Discipledbyjesus.org. As you can imagine, it focuses on discipleship. One of the things that we talk about in church planting. And nine times out of ten, if you have a church that's in need of revitalization or a church that needs to be relaunched, or if you're planting a new church, if you're launching a new church, there are eight systems that we tend to focus on within that church. Planting within the sphere of revitalization that need to be healthy for your church to thrive. Nine times out of ten, if there's a church in need of revitalization, one of these systems are multiple systems are going to be broken.
Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner·02:30
Primarily discipleship system will be broken, your worship system is likely to be broken and your outreach or in reaching system is likely to be broken. There are five other systems that need to be healthy as well. But discipleship is key. You need to be I tell people there's seasons in church, ministry in there, you need to be both receiving to disciple and train and teach and simultaneously be sending those. So multiplication, that's another system, that multiplication system. So we're not just multiplying churches, we're multiplying disciples. That was Jesus. Model was a god of descending god. We invited Reverend Hal perkins on because he specializes in discipleship. He was so good at discipleship that he wrote several books on discipleship, has a ministry that focuses on that.
Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner·03:21
And so I thought it'd be good to bring him on and let him kind of tell his story, how God is reverberating his voice throughout eternity there echoing his voice through eternity. Welcome, brother Hal. How are you doing today?
Rev. Hal Perkins·03:34
Thank you, Dr. Jeff. Good to be with you. I'm doing great.
Speaker 4·03:37
It's good to have you.
Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner·03:38
So tell us a little bit about your story. We've got a mutual friend in. Reverend Jeff fresh low. Jeff is one of our coaches in DCPI. And so at DCPI Dynamic Church Planting International, we offer free training to pastors who Christian leaders who have a call to plant church. And so Jeff is one of our coaches and helps others on our online platform to train others. Actually, he's leading the training right now. And he and I were talking he purchased several of my books that one of the books I just wrote, Revitalized a Plant, and I actually co authored with a friend of mine, Desmond Barrett. And he was telling me a little bit about it. We were talking about the podcast and he mentioned you and he said, have you talked to Reverend Hal Perkins? And I said no.
Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner·04:22
Telling me a little bit about your ministry. I was just fascinated with kind of how it came about and how God kind of led you through this process here. So share it with our listeners here and how all that happened for you.
Rev. Hal Perkins·04:33
Well, I think I won't jump in right at the beginning of how it happened. Let me jump into the very essence. Then it'll take me back to the beginning. The heart of this that is probably a pill for people to swallow is that I discovered in study that the most discipled person that ever walked the planet was named Jesus, because Jesus himself gave his life to prayer, meaning when he was alone, away from people, he was never alone. My father's always with me. And Jesus said routinely, significantly, I don't make any judgments on my own. I only judge, as the Father shows me. And Jesus often withdrew to lonely places to pray. He stayed up all nights to pray. He went away. So when Jesus was alone, he was never alone. He was always in conversation, in communication, and he never led.
Rev. Hal Perkins·05:32
He always followed. He always was led by the Spirit Luke, for he always even judged. He didn't come to any judgments on his own, but only as he was shown. I won't take time to talk about how that spells out theologically for me, and I think it's biblical or I wouldn't believe it. But Jesus Himself in private was always in conversation. So he prayed continually. He brought every thought captive because he had lots of thoughts come to Him. But he didn't judge them. He didn't come to a conclusion about them. And then when he was in public and he's either alone or in public, but he was never alone, he was with the Father when he was in public.
Rev. Hal Perkins·06:14
Jesus always and only followed his father because he didn't do anything or he didn't say anything without being aware that it's what his father wanted him to say and it's what his father wanted him to do. So I say that Jesus was the most discipled person that ever walked the planet. People may struggle with this a little bit, but I say he never led, he always followed. And then he said to us, come to me, learn to me, follow me. Which means I need to be discipled by Jesus. Jesus told us in the Great Commission, he said, Go and make disciples, baptizing them. Who are we to baptize? Oh, not Christians were to baptize disciples who 250 times were called disciples before they were ever called Christians. And that was actually an upgrade from being a disciple.
Rev. Hal Perkins·07:07
But they were called Little Christ in Acts 1126 because they were so much like Jesus. And they said, man, these guys are turning the world upside down. What's with them? Oh, they've been hanging out with Jesus. The whole idea of being discipled by Jesus came first, most foundationally from the understanding that Jesus himself was always discipled. He never led, he always followed. And in one John Two Six says if anyone is in Christ, he must walk as Jesus walked. Well, how did Jesus walked, walk? Well, he walked with his father. He prayed continually, he walked in relationship so that whatever he said did, even judged, he got from the Father. Then we're called to live that way. And we're really grateful that we're saved by grace because that's a very high standard.
Rev. Hal Perkins·08:07
We came into this thing as very independent, practiced leaders, meaning we did what we thought, we did what we felt, we did what we wanted. And then most of us realized that wasn't working so well. So we repented of our own government, we repented of independence, and we became dependent on Jesus. We determined, we set in our heart to follow Jesus. We decided to put our faith in him. And so that's the basic beginning of returning to the kind of life that God created for us to live, which was a life of dependence, not independence. We were never made to be independent. So that's how Jesus lived, depended on his father. And we're called to quit living independently, quit walking by sight and by flesh and learn to walk by faith.
Rev. Hal Perkins·09:00
And the good news is, because God sees the heart, man looks on the outward, god sees the intention, he sees the determination. So I can at new birth, determine or decide to follow Jesus. I can put my faith in Jesus and say, not only do I believe he died for me, but I believe he'll come to dwell in me, to lead me and to guide me into all truth and by the presence of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said would better if he went away. Because if he went away, then he gave us his Spirit. So we don't have Jesus next to us like Peter had. We have Jesus in us.
Rev. Hal Perkins·09:31
So we can actually, by the indwelling spirit of God called the Holy Spirit, we can learn, be coached, be discipled to be discipled by Jesus who dwells in us, by His Spirit who spoke and inspired. And we have Scripture. So we can be discipled by Jesus spirit, we can be discipled by Jesus Word. And because the Spirit of God indwells other belie
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