The Daily Growth Discipleship Podcast

Sometimes it can feel like the Christian life is boring or mundane. You go to church on Sunday, work all week, spend time with your family, and probably don’t have time for much else.

But the Christian life is so much more than just that, especially in our relationships with our family, friends, and coworkers. Jesus calls us to be like him in the way we live our lives. And living like him is an adventure people like the Apostle Paul and those who followed Jesus in the gospels knew very well.

This week Chris and Josh had an opportunity to preach. And God led both of them to speak on living the Christian life.

In his message, Chris opens up omen of his favorite passages of Scripture, Philippians 1. In that passage, Paul tells one of his dearest churches about what it means to live a life worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It turns out to be more life-changing than many of us ever imagined.

In his message, Josh tells his story of battling depression and anxiety to learn, just like the tax collector in Luke 18, that the Christian life is about repentance, humility, and grace.

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Justin Whitmel Earley (JD, Georgetown University) is the creator of The Common Rule, a program of habits designed to form us in the love of God and neighbor. He is also a mergers and acquisitions lawyer in Richmond, Virginia. He previously spent several years in China as the founder and general editor of The Urbanity Project and as the director of Thought and Culture Shapers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the community through arts. He and his wife, Lauren, have four sons and live in Richmond, Virginia.

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Daniel Sangi Im is the Director of Church Multiplication for NewChurches.com at LifeWay Christian Resources.

He serves as a Teaching Pastor at The Fellowship, a multisite church in Nashville. 

He's the author of No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts that will Transform Your Ministry and Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply (2nd Ed). He also co-hosts the New Churches Q&A Podcast, the 5 Leadership Questions Podcast, and a brand new podcast with his wife on marriage and parenting called the IMbetween Podcast.

Daniel has a M.A. in Global Leadership and has served and pastored in church plants and multisite churches ranging from 100 people to 50,000 people in Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Korea, Edmonton, and Nashville.

He's a scholar-practioner who can not only create theory, but also implement it in an innovative way to solve problems. His experience and strength is in creating alignment and momentum within teams and churches by implementing strategies and systems to move the church towards multiplication. In other words, He's a strategic thinker that can produce, rather than a strategic thinker that can muse.

He's also a Gallup Strengths Performance Coach (Strengths Advisor) and has led over 600 people through the StrengthsFinder assessment in multiple countries. His top themes are: Maximizer, Learner, Intellection, Developer, Strategic, Achiever, Input, and Relator.

He has been married to his wife, Christina, since 2006 and they have three children.

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Brian Dietz is the Marriage and Family Pastor at Highrock Covenant Church in Arlington, MA. He’s been married to his wife, Heather, for 14 years and they have three kids: Abby (12), Lydia (10) and Caleb (7). Date Nights and Family Nights are both favorite part of Brian’s week and he loves encouraging others through the highs and lows of their own marital and family intimacy. In 2011 Brian started developing a curriculum called Milestones: Raising a Jesus-loving Generation to help families in his congregation celebrate spiritual mile markers and prepare for the next season of discipleship. This curriculum has evolved over the years and continues to be one of Brian’s biggest passions.

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Chris has spent his life bearing witness to the possibility of hope in a world that has legitimate reasons to question God’s goodness. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, Chris studied at Asbury University in Kentucky before moving to India where he was mentored by Mother Teresa for three years. While living in India, he helped launch South Asia’s first pediatric AIDS care home–creating a safe haven for children impacted by the global pandemic. A forerunner in the New Friar movement, Chris and his wife Phileena served with the Word Made Flesh community for nearly 20 years, working for women and children victimized by human traffickers in the commercial sex industry. His vocation has taken him to over 70 countries working among the most vulnerable of the world’s poor. In 2012 Phileena and Chris launched Gravity, a Center for Contemplative Activism.

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Dr. David L. De Garmo has served as the Provost of Global University since June 2016. Previously, Dr. De Garmo served as the Dean of the Graduate School of Theology and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Theology. An experienced educator, he has served other institutions as an instructor, Chief Academic Officer, and President/CEO.

A lead pastor for fourteen years, David also served seven years as a minister of music and worship leader. A deep interest in the topic of worship and a desire to lead the church in authentic worship has been a theme of his ministry.

David earned the Bachelor of Music from Evangel University, the Master of Divinity from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Doctor of Ministry from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. The topic of his doctoral project was Leading the Pentecostal Worship Service.

He enjoys reading and sports. David is married to Ruth. They have two grown daughters, both of them accomplished musicians.

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Adele Ahlberg Calhoun (MA, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) has worked in Christian ministry for over forty years, and she and her husband, Doug, currently work with Highrock Church in Arlington, Massachusetts. As certified Enneagram instructors, they enjoy resourcing spiritual leaders and pastors through spiritual direction and teaching the Enneagram. Adele is the author of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Invitations from God and the coauthor of True You and Women & Identity. Spiritual Rhythms and the Enneagram: a Handbook for harmony and Transformation comes out this spring.

Previously, Adele and her husband copastored Redeemer Community Church in Needham, Massachusetts, and she was formerly pastor of spiritual formation at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Illinois. A retreat speaker and trained spiritual director, she has taught courses at Wheaton College and Northern Seminary. In the early 1970s she helped pioneer student work with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. She has also worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in New England and Canada and with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in the West Indies and South Africa.

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How do some Christians manage to find the motivation to keep growing even when they go through tough times? If someone so much as cuts you off in traffic, it can be tough to remember to be like Christ. A lifestyle of discipleship requires one key element to help you keep growing in tough times. It requires a desperation for God. In this episode, David Trementozzi tells his story of losing three children and the desperation for God he learned to cultivate in the middle of those difficult times.

David Trementozzi is a Professor of Theology as well as the Vice President of Education and Academic Dean of the Masters Program at Continental Theological Seminary in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Belgium. He has served in ministry for over 10 years in pastoral, youth, college and career areas. David has a BA from Messiah College, an MDiv and Ph.D (Theology) from Regent University. David has written both devotional and theological books. He also has a weekly devotional blog, Desperate for God. David and his wife, Emily, live in Brussels, Belgium with their three children: Judah, Kaleb, and Halle where they serve as missionaries with the Assemblies of God.

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Imagine expecting a 5-year-old to have the strength and muscle tone of a world-class weightlifter. It would definitely be the rare exception to see a kid with this kind of physical maturity.

Spiritual maturity is much the same. You may often expect your own journey to become more like Jesus to happen instantly. Maybe you even expected it to happen almost immediately after you said, "Yes," to Jesus. In reality, being like Jesus doesn't happen immediately. It takes a long time, a lifetime in fact. And really, the goal isn't to just "look like Jesus." Instead, it's a deep, intimate relationship that's built over a lifetime. And the result of that lifetime relationship is Christian Spiritual Formation.

Evan B. Howard, Ph.D. is the founder and director of Spirituality Shoppe, a Center for the Study of Christian Spirituality. He is also an affiliate faculty with Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of A Guide to Christian Spiritual Formation: How Scripture, Spirit, Community, and Mission Shape Our Souls and other books and articles. He leads workshops and seminars on Christian Spirituality and enjoys living a simple life with family and animals in rural Colorado.

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Throughout history, God has been at work redeeming humanity. So really, your story and the story of everyone who has ever lived are all a part of God’s grand story of redemption. After we take a look at God’s grand narrative, Chris and I will take turns sharing our own stories and a few of the spiritual disciplines and tips we’ve picked up along the way that have been helpful for us in our journeys to become more like Jesus.

Chris Lamberth and Josh Havens are the founders of Daily Growth Discipleship. They have a heart for helping others grow daily as disciples of Jesus because he's helped them go on that same journey.

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What is it that would so compel the apostle Paul to continue on to Jerusalem, when everyone around him urged and pleaded with him to stay away? Why would he be willing to say, “I’m ready to be imprisoned and die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus?” And why do we secretly think to ourselves, "I hope God never calls me to do that?" Following God into dangerous places isn't something only the most noble saints in Church history do. The very thing that motivates them to follow God into dangerous places can motivate us to follow him in that way. All it takes is a desire to know God and the willingness to cultivate that relationship every day.

In this episode, we take a break from our featured guests to share a sermon by Josh Havens from Acts 21:1-16, preached at Bent Oak Church in Springfield, MO.

Josh Havens is the co-founder of Daily Growth Discipleship and co-host of the Daily Growth Discipleship Podcast. He lives in Springfield, Missouri, with his wife Elisia, and two sons. He also works at Global University as a software developer and as a faculty member for the School of Bible and Theology. He enjoys solving puzzles, learning about pretty much anything he can, and has a particular weakness for macaroni and cheese.

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What gives you meaning in life? Is it your achievements? Your career? Your family? Or maybe you struggle with that question altogether. Maybe you don't see much point or meaning in life at all.

Previewing his upcoming book, Chase takes us through Samson's story in Judges. Samson was given an identity before he was born. And he spent most of his life, it seems, struggling to understand who he was and his purpose in God's big plan.

So take heart! You're not alone in your quest for meaning in life. And the meaning you're looking for may just be closer than you think.

Chase Replogle is the pastor of Bent Oak Church in Springfield, Missouri. He has a degree in Biblical Studies and an M.A. in New Testament. He hosts the Pastor Writer Podcast, interviewing pastors and authors on the calling and craft of writing. Past guests have included: Pete Scazzero, Dick Foth, Os Guinness, Scott Sauls, and Drew Dyck. The podcast has been featured by The Gospel Coalition.

A native to the Ozark woods, he enjoys being outdoors with his wife and two kids: fly-fishing, playing the mandolin (badly), and quail hunting with his bird dog Millie.

Listen to Chapter 1 now!