In worship leading it is important to know the difference between Performance VS Presence. We have to start by asking: What is discipleship? What is transformation? If you have been a believer for more than a minute these words may have become little more than Christianese buzz words. In this episode Gina talks with Justin Hoeppner about his journey of discipleship and discovery through a mentor and the stark contrast between performance and presence. Justin is the co-lead pastor at New Community Church in Vista, CA.
For more information about Justin you can visit New Community’s website sdchurch.org And check out his instagram @justhoep
The Process of Discipleship
Gina:
Justin Hoeppner is the co-lead pastor of New Community Church in Vista, California. A dear friend, partner in ministry, and a deep well. We had a great conversation about mentorship, discipleship, and what it means to be formed in Christ. I hope you enjoy this episode of Sacred Space.
Justin:
A mentor at the school I was going to found me and said, “Hey, I want to meet with you on Tuesday mornings at like 6:30 in the morning.” And I was like, “No, no way. Get me out of here.” So I started meeting with him and he started walking me through what he blatantly called discipleship.
Here I was a pretty strange kid wrestling with darkness and God sent someone older, wiser, and mature in the Lord. He gave them eyes of faith to see a boy that needed someone to stand in the gap, to stand between the living and the dead in my life. He called me to this other place. Before I knew it, he invented a discipleship program at the school I was going to and put me in the class.
He went to the administration to make sure I got in the class. By eighth grade, I was teaching in the chapel for 600 1st-6th graders. I was teaching about this Jesus that I was getting to know, but I was teaching under the supervision of someone who was helping me know that Jesus, as I was teaching Him.
Gina:
It’s interesting because I was raised in a denomination that put out salvation as: you say the prayer, you receive Jesus, old things are passed away, behold everything’s new, you’re done. There was zero patience or understanding if someone was walking or wrestling through something. The Gospel is not a one and done.
Now that doesn’t mean that God can’t come in and bring miraculous transformation, healing, and freedom. Those things do happen, and can happen. But the Gospel is this layered process of mining and revealing and healing. Then we receive a little bit of this freedom and this healing. And then when we’re ready, in His kindness, in His loving care, He brings us down to the next layer.
Discipleship is this mining of getting down to the wellspring. It’s going down another layer of rock, another layer of stuff, another layer of things that are hiding and covering up what Jesus really paid for us to access. That’s not to say that it’s this weird obstacle course that we have to engage in to receive.
But a lot of people don’t fully access the freedom Christ died for, because they stop at the first layer. It’s like, “Jesus, my sins are forgiven. Thank the Lord. I’m going to heaven someday. I’m just gonna hunker down and life is hard and it sucks. And I’m gonna keep in my destructive patterns. But I’m gonna keep going to church on Sundays. It’s exhausting and I’ll never get out of this vicious cycle.”
So Justin, you had this opportunity for this person in your life to identify you and come alongside you and not let you stay there, but help you go farther, and help you continue to mine through that.
Justin:
He was always putting in front of me opportunities to discover my identity as a son, and in the other aspects of my faith. For example: you have the gift to teach, you have the gift to lead. He was putting me in places where I had a contribution to make, even though I wasn’t qualified to make that contribution. I wasn’t given a title. I was discovering and understanding my gifts, which are much more powerful than any title someone would give you.
I was put in these positions to do that. To what you were saying earlier, I think you’re born again to an imperishable seed, says Peter. But then Paul uses this concept of growing up into your salvation. I share this when I officiate a wedding. Standing at the altar and I say to the couple in front of the whole congregation.
I say “Today, you’ll turn around and walk down the aisle and you’ll have this new title, married and will say words like one flesh.” And though they are married. And though they are one flesh, it takes time for the bachelor and the bachelorette to die off in a sense. To see the world through the new lens.
They’re given a title of “married” that they now have to grow up into. And salvation is you’ve been given the title because God now sees you through Jesus’ righteousness. It’s credited to you. You walk in Jesus’ righteousness. That’s sealed. It says when you believed, that you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
But as you’re walking out and growing up into the fullness of what it means to follow Jesus, you have to see it as a process of formation. And to not see it that way means that you believe the greatest work of God was to just guarantee your eternal security in the place that doesn’t burn so much.
Gina:
I want to take a moment to let this sink in. Jesus died for more than you getting a ticket to heaven someday. He died to have a relationship, for you to be reconciled back to the Father. And then through that reconciliation to be transformed.
Justin:
The greater picture is not just salvation, but its restoration, redemption, and then its ministry. It’s not just for you. You were so that others could as well. Because who did God say was His chosen instrument to reach the Gentiles? A man whose name was Saul and is now Paul. And He says “You are My chosen instrument.”
And in that same way we are those who are now “the called”. It’s so that others through us might come to know and have connection with a God who can give them that new title as well. But then it’s our job also to walk with them as the Spirit causes this transformation that we call formation, which the Bible describes having Christ formed in us.
God loved me and was so kind to me that He let a mentor come into my life and walk with me. He wanted Christ formed in me and my context wasn’t just salvation. My context was that I need Christ formed in me. I want others to have Christ formed in them. And that meant that everything, based on that context, had to be a conversation. Everything was a conversation. And that’s the power that I was able to see through having a mentor.
Presence VS Performance
Gina:
You made a statement earlier when you talked about your mentor giving you the opportunity to use these gifts when you were so not qualified to. So he’s, in a sense, risked by giving you a platform and giving you a voice and giving you the freedom to fail.
Justin:
He was mature enough to define maturity as it should be. Let the little ones mess up and care for them as their rabbi, if you will.
Gina:
How many young ones, and by young ones I’m saying in the faith so it doesn’t necessarily mean age, it means maturity in Christ, or how long they’ve known the Lord, how many people are out there that are in need of those that are mature to be willing to love and step out and mentor and lead.
And by leading, I do not mean controlling, micromanaging, condemning, nor accusing, but empowering and trusting, and then standing beside them when they succeed and when they fail. That’s something that you and I work hard to do, but it’s something that’s difficult to do. Because we need to create an environment that’s safe for people to learn.
Jesus gave His disciples that room. How do we, in the church, give people that space and that room to grow, to discover, like you said, to grow up into their identity, but not just to grow up into it, to grow into believing it. To grow into understanding it and to fully own it and receive it. And that’s not going to happen if we don’t allow them to explore the studio space, as it were.
Justin:
I say the things out loud that I really believe. I keep the things to myself that I don’t really believe. I live things loudly that I believe. I don’t live the things that I’m still undecided on. And when I’m put in an environment where that’s welcomed, where I can try on the future version of Justin, the good future version of Justin, and I do that underneath the authority of someone who models presence, not performance. And let’s just be honest, those are very different. I could unpack that a thousand different ways.
But the reality is this mentor saw me and modeled presence by being there when I succeeded, which was far less than the times he was there for me when I failed, because I was learning about the gifts that I had and learning who he said, God says I was. And that’s hard to get when I’m stuck in this cave of doubt, self-worth, all these other things that we sort of grow with that we make idols out of.
This mentor put me in an environment where he modeled presence, and presence was the only thing that took the desire away from me to perform. I didn’t need to perform because he was always there. I played pretty competitive soccer growing up. My son knows that. He’s on the field with his high level soccer team and he’s running down the field and he gets the ball and he loses it and he looks at me immediately, happens every time.
What’s behind my eyes, performance or presence? If it’s presence, he’s going to be receiving everything that’s good, noble, honorable, praiseworthy, trustworthy. He’s going to find safety for his identity to expand as a player on the field. If it’s performance, he’s going to hang his head in shame and strive for perfection.
He’s going to prove his worth and then he’s going to build his entire world based on that. And that takes a lot of time to unbuild when he gets older. I don’t always do this perfect, because there’s a little bit of performance in me when I’m watching my son play soccer. But I fight to be about presence instead of performance.
And I was taught that by my mentors sitting over me, letting me do things that I should have never been given the opportunity to do. And you know me well, Gina, my life is a story about being given the opportunity to do things that at this age and this time, my life, I should have never been given the opportunity to do.
So I recognized through my mentors that God is throwing me into the deep end more often than not. My willingness to say yes, isn’t based on my performance, it’s based on me knowing that He’ll be with me no matter what. It’s kind of emotional to talk about because it’s so true in my experience, walking with God. But that’s my context rewritten by the One who gave it all life and breath.
Gina:
This was such a rich conversation and we covered so many deep things in such a short amount of time. And I don’t want you to leave this conversation without sitting for a moment and really considering a couple of things. Who speaks into your life? Do you have people in your life that are pouring into you that are like Justin’s mentor was modeling presence rather than performance?
Someone, as he said, whose presence gives opportunities for you to discover even deeper your identity in Christ and for you to discover the gifts that God’s given you. Someone who stands with you when you succeed and stands with you when you fail and loves you the same regardless. Do you have someone like that in your life?
My second question is, are you that person to somebody because you should be? I just want to encourage all of us to take a moment and realize and recognize that this hectic, chaotic life of going, going, going, and achieving, achieving, achieving, in social media and how we look like is not what spiritual community is about.
We’ve been invited into relationship with Jesus. And through that relationship, we’re being invited to be transformed and to grow up into that identity, and then take others along with us. We are designed for community. I want you to look, who are the people that are pouring into you and have influence in your life.
Maybe you need to change who you are allowing to have influence in your life. And then who are the people that you need to be pouring into, to model presence, not performance, to be there when they succeed and when they fail and to point them to Jesus.
Justin is the worship pastor of New Community Church in Vista, CA
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