I first met Brad Waggoner in the early 1990's. Diane and I had moved from Harrisburg, PA to Dayton, Ohio in July, 1991...actually Centerville, a suburb of Dayton. On the recommendation of a friend in our church in Harrisburg, we visited Far Hills Baptist Church soon after we settled in to our apartment.
Brad was on staff at Far Hills. If memory serves correctly, he was the Education Pastor at that time (though I'm not exactly sure of his title). His bio says that he was the Executive Pastor, but I think that may have happened after I met him.
Brad is simply an awesome individual. He lights up any room that he goes into. He's always smiling, often laughing, and consistently making others laugh with him. The smile that you see in the picture is the smile that's most always on his face. He's from Wyoming and I think he has a bit of cowboy in him. He went to Kansas State and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
His CV is a mile long. After serving at our church he taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY and was the Dean of the School of Leadership and Church Ministry. He's taught at several universities, served at several churches, and is an author. He's currently the Executive Advisory Officer at LifeWay in Nashville after having served as LifeWay's Executive Vice President and COO from 2010 - 2020 and in other roles at LifeWay prior to that.
But to me, he's my friend Brad.
From the time I first met Brad, I noticed he was easily approachable. I approached him in late 1993 following my attendance at a Promise Keepers conference in Boulder, Colorado. At that conference, Howard Hendricks' talk A Mandate for Mentoring birthed in me the unquenchable desire to have a formal mentor or discipler in my life. Everything up to that point had been informal (sort of, but I'll get to that later...in other blog posts).
We already had a friendship from church, but when I decided to pursue a formal discipleship relationship with someone and tried to find someone to disciple me, I thought I should talk to Brad. I made an appointment and went to his office one day and asked him if he'd help find someone in the church to disciple me.
"Sure, I'd be happy to disciple you," was his reply.
He must not have heard me correctly. I was just looking for help. I knew with his role at the church he'd be far to busy and was probably already discipling other people.
I clarified. "No, I want you to help me find someone."
His reply was that he'd heard what I said, but that he wanted to disciple me.
I couldn't pass that up and readily agreed. I asked him what the process was, and he recommended that we simply work through the study Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. There was no hurry, we'd work at our own pace.
Thus began many, many months of us meeting weekly for breakfast at Bob Evans and walking through the study. Note: It's a 12-week study. We took many, many more than 12 weeks to get through it. We talked about the study and what we were learning each week. And it was never about finding the right answer for a blank in the book, it was about the underlying lesson. Sometimes he'd disagree with what was in the workbook and we'd discuss that and dig into our Bible. We talked about life. He talked about personal evangelism and the things he was doing to invest in his neighbor. We talked about church. He began to open the curtain a little bit into church leadership and what it meant to serve on staff at a local church. Looking back I can see that interested me.
Our friendship deepened and we had many conversations after that study had ended. I can remember that he called me over to his house to share news that our pastor had resigned and helped me process that. I think he was processing it also. I admired him as he worked to keep our church together when we were between pastors. I grieved a little when he ended up leaving and taking a job at Southern Seminary.
I've kept up with him from a distance through the years. Diane and I and friends Kevin & Kelly Brown dropped in on Brad and his wife Patti once when we were traveling through Nashville and had a great visit. A few years ago I was thrilled to be able to meet him for breakfast in Nashville one morning when I was there at a conference. He hasn't changed. Everyone in the restaurant knew him and called him by name.
When I count my life's blessings, that fact that mine and Brad's paths crossed back in the early 1990's is one of them.
So...what did I learn from Brad and my discipleship relationship with him that I can pass on to anyone who might be reading this and is interested in discipleship?
1. It's about the relationship as much as it is about any formal process or study. Nothing against Experiencing God, in fact it's an AWESOME study and I highly recommend it. But the discipleship occurred through the relationship. As you are being discipled by or discipling someone, don't focus as much on checking off the to-do list as much as you focus on building the relationship.
2. Don't be afraid to approach someone that you admire and ask them to disciple you. In fact, I highly recommend that. Be proactive about finding a discipler. As you're looking for someone to build into your life look for a life that has the Christ-like qualities that you admire. When you approach them, just ask if they'd be willing to share what they are learning with you. You don't even have to use the word "disciple". Sometimes that intimidates people.
3. Be willing to disciple someone. Especially if you are approached and asked to. That, being asked by someone to disciple them, probably means that person has been looking at your life and they see some Christ-like quality in you that they admire and want to improve in their own life.
4. Though there are many different philosophies about discipleship relationships out there, my own view is that different kinds can work. For Brad and I it worked meeting weekly and working through a workbook together. I didn't follow him around in his life. Neither of us had the time for that. For other people, that kind of life-on-life relationship is what works. That's OK too. Let's keep it simple. You need someone discipling you. You need to be discipling someone. Relentlessly make it happen.
Remember that as Christ Followers we are mandated to make disciples. It's the Great Commission. Look it up.
Thanks Brad! You have no idea how much the Lord worked through you to change my life. I'm forever grateful.
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Note: Blog entries in the Heroes & Mentors Section are about, by and large, my disciplers. These are people that I look up to and have learned from in many ways during my journey. They are all truly a blessing from the Lord.
My hope and prayer in spotlighting them is in no way to put them on a pedestal...or to say that I am a wonderful person because I've been the beneficiary of their mentoring. Rather, I want to use them as examples of how people can invest in others and fulfill The Great Commission, and hopefully encourage the reader to both look for a discipler and be a discipler of others.
Remember Jesus' mandate...Make Disciples.
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