Cody Chester: Pioneering Church Planting with Launch 10X
In this episode of the Mission Control Podcast, we sit down with Cody Chester, the lead pastor of the first church plant of Launch 10X. Cody shares his incredible journey from being First Baptist Melbourne’s first church planting resident to pioneering a vibrant community of faith in southern Brevard county. Tune in to hear how Cody navigates the challenges of bi-vocational ministry, building gospel community, and balancing family life, all while embracing change and answering the call to make disciples.
Highlights:
- Cody’s transition from Texas to Palm Bay
- The role of community in church planting
- Embracing change and flexibility in ministry
- Balancing family, business, and church planting
- Impacting lives through adoption and faith
- Insights into bi-vocational church planting
- Navigating the challenges and rewards of making disciples
- Pioneering with Launch 10X: Cody’s church planting journey
Don’t miss this episode packed with valuable insights on church planting, community building, and the faith-filled journey god has brought Cody on.
Resources:
– “Is God Calling Me?” by Jeff Iorg- A recommended read on embracing God’s calling.
Connect with Us:
– Visit our website at launchme.church
– Follow us on Facebook & Instagram at @FBCMel.
– Send us your thoughts and questions at info@fbcmel.org.
Support the Show:
– Share this episode with your friends and family who might be interested in international missions and faith journeys.
Transcript:
Amanda Levy:
So Cody, where does God currently have you in mission right now in your life?
Cody Chester:
Right now we are serving down in Palm Bay. We just planted Christ Community Church about a year and a half ago, and so I serve as the lead planter there alongside our team, Aaron Copeland, who is our associate, and Dario Siri, who is our worship and youth.
Amanda Levy:
How did you’re our first church plant in this launch 10 Next initiative. How did all of that kind of come together?
Cody Chester:
Yeah, it was a really long story span, about 10 years. And God first called my wife Kristen and I to plant a church in October, 2010 at a missions conference in our church in Springfield, Missouri. We had met with a church planting missionary in the Philippines named Greg Lyons, and he laid out his vision and we kind of caught onto that vision and our original goal was to go there, but God had other plans because of health issues. We ended up not going, and then just for the next eight years we served at a church in Texas in a variety of different roles. And in June of 2018, we just felt God saying, now is the time to go and do this thing you’ve been planning for or preparing for all of these years. And so we actually narrowed down a few different areas where we felt God might lead us to plant, and this was one of those areas. And so in 2018, me and Krista and our kids came down for six weeks and just lived here and just got to experience life here, fell in love, and this is where God led us. And so originally 2010 through a missionary named Greg Lyons. And then just we felt that call and the affirmation from several people in our lives that it was time to step out and plant the church and came here. And actually while we were here on sabbatical, we met Aaron still through a mutual friend. So
Amanda Levy:
You originally came to Florida while you’re on sabbatical in Texas? Yes. Okay.
Cody Chester:
Yep. And had never heard of First Baptist Melbourne. Never heard of Aaron
Amanda Levy:
Still. What was your connection to Florida?
Cody Chester:
So my in-laws are in Florida and they connected us or told us about First Baptist and their desire to plant churches. They were told by a mutual friend. They told us, we reached out to Aaron still while we were here and had lunch with him and hung out with his family. And we went back to Texas for about a year and just kept in touch and just worked it out. And we moved down here without any promises. We didn’t know we would be the first church planters for First Baptist. We didn’t know. We had no job, we had no place to live. We just loaded everything up in a U-Haul and drove down and the Lord just worked it all out in his time.
Amanda Levy:
So wait, sorry. I’m getting it all straight in my brain. So you were working at a church in Texas. Were you also working at that church in Missouri? At what point did you come into vocational ministry?
Cody Chester:
A lot of changes there. Yes. No, you’re good. So our church in Missouri was while we were in seminary. Oh, okay. So I did an internship at that church while we were there. And then in January, 2012, we moved back to Texas where I’m from, to my home church where we were supposed to stay for six months and then go to the Philippines and then
Amanda Levy:
Go to the Philippines
Cody Chester:
And six months turned into eight years. And so
Amanda Levy:
Yeah, small difference.
Cody Chester:
Yeah. Yeah, we cut it close.
Amanda Levy:
Okay, cool. So when you went to seminary, did you always feel like it was international missions or was it through your time in Missouri that Yeah,
Cody Chester:
Definitely through my time in Missouri. My desire was to be a pastor church planting. I’m not even sure that I’d heard of church planting at that time and definitely did not want to go overseas. Gotcha. But
Amanda Levy:
What did you think you were doing then?
Cody Chester:
Yeah, I mean, I just thought I was preparing to be a pastor. There’s nothing wrong with that. It would be all good. I would get some small church straight out of seminary and be good, but God had different plans and it didn’t work out to where we could go to the Philippines, like I said, because of health issues. But God really used that missionary to introduce us to church planting and God used him to lay that desire on our heart. And so definitely a divine appointment in meeting him.
Amanda Levy:
Okay. So you have a wife and some kids. Tell us a little bit about your family.
Cody Chester:
So my wife’s name is Kristen. We have been married for, hope I get this right, 12 years.
Amanda Levy:
So that would be 2011.
Cody Chester:
11, yeah. 2011. We just celebrated 12 years. And so we met at church, we went to the same school. I was in grad school, she was in undergrad, but we actually met at church the day I joined the church. This blonde girl comes through the line and smiled at me and I was like, yep, she likes me. So a few months later we were dating and was
Amanda Levy:
This in Missouri?
Cody Chester:
It was in Missouri. It was in Springfield, Missouri. So we’ve been married for 12 years. We have two kids, Owen, who just turned 11 last week, and Amelia, who will turn eight next month. We have a sixth grader and a second grader and all of the chaos that goes with that, we’re actually in the process also of adopting two kids.
Amanda Levy:
Oh, I didn’t know
Cody Chester:
That. We are about halfway through our process, and so we’re hoping that within just a month or so that they’ll get to move in with us and we can work towards
Amanda Levy:
Finalizing, it’s going to be aside, but are we talking international,
Cody Chester:
Domestic? No, so they are domestic, so they’re actually here. So we’ve met them, we’ve spent time with them. They were actually at our house yesterday trying to help us adjust to life with four kids. They’ll be altogether, the kids will be four years old, six years old, eight years old, and 11 year
Amanda Levy:
Old. Okay. Nice little stair steps,
Cody Chester:
A little stair steps, but very rowdy. So we crashed last night after we took them back to their home. But yeah, it’s just for us, it’s just something that God laid on our hearts a long time ago and our kids are to that age where we felt like we could do that. And actually since they’ll be the older two, they’ll be the influencers and things like that. And so they’re excited. They’re on board. Everybody gets along really well. It’ll just, it’ll be a big change with planting a church and doubling our family size there.
Amanda Levy:
I didn’t know that about you. We also have adopted, so that’s cool. That’s awesome. How is Christ community going? I just totally blanked and it was there. Christ community. How’s the church going?
Cody Chester:
It’s going really well. It’s been really probably the best season of ministry for me. Everybody, as we’re preparing to plant, we hear everybody speaking of the stress and things and it is stressful. It is difficult, but it’s been just a really great journey, a lot of fun. God put together an amazing core team when we launched just a wide range of ages and backgrounds and gifts and abilities, talents, things like that. And so when we launched, we just had a well-rounded team to carry out the ministries of the church. And it’s just gone really, really well over the last year and a half, a few ups and downs and things like that, which are to be expected in any church, but God is just really working in our people. And so we are seeing tremendous spiritual growth in the people in our membership. People are growing and God is really preparing our people, I believe, to really effectively reach South Brevard. And so the community has been difficult. It’s just such a large community and it’s just so dispersed. And so that’s been a little bit different. I’m from a small town in Texas where everybody knows everybody and everybody knows your business and things like that. And so just definitely a different culture here than what I’m accustomed to. But God has given us a great group of people of influence and that really know the area, that love, the area, that love what we’re doing in South Brevard. And so that’s been really good.
Amanda Levy:
That’s awesome. So you have been our first church planning resident. Can you speak into what that process was like for you? What value you got from it or what drew you to the whole first out of Melbourne program?
Cody Chester:
So as far as, I think what drew us here and the value that there is are the same. And that is I am very introverted, and so I’m not outgoing by nature. Anytime I am outgoing, it’s definitely forced, right? I’m building up the courage to do it. And so what I really, really loved about First Baptist Church planting program is that it’s not just a husband and wife going to a different city by themselves and just starting from scratch. You’ve got this entire church behind you, you’ve got this great group of elders behind you and to give advice and to help, and you’ve got the training program that goes in with it. And so we were able to train while we lived here. We were able to train to reach the community that we were going to plant in. And so that was incredibly valuable. And so just the support system of just the church saying, Hey, not only do we want to prepare you, but we want to equip you with a team. And Pastor Scott told us you can talk to anybody you want except for Megan. Right, I remember that. Yes. And they can go, you can take them.
Amanda Levy:
Megan is his wife, by the way. Yeah,
Cody Chester:
Megan Wilson. You can take them with you. And we had that freedom to do that. And the way it worked out, I mean, God just drew all of these people in from First Baptist, a few from other churches in the area. Some moved from the other side of the country like two weeks before we solidified our core team and just jumped straight in. So we’d never met them before, never heard of them before, but they heard of us, and so they jumped in. And so just the value of it is just the support system that you have behind you. We still meet with Aaron still all the time, meet with Pastor Scott weekly. Anytime we need advice or anything, if it’s I guest services, we can always go to Scott Terry. If it’s community, we can always go to Doug Graphics. I bombard your email all the time. And so just the support system there, it’s very, very beneficial. And I believe that it’s that support system that will set not only Christ’s community, but also five 11 and the other churches that are going to follow. That’s what will set us up for success is having that established church behind us and really every person in First Baptist that is praying for us and offering to help in whatever way they can.
Amanda Levy:
I’m trying to think of how I can phrase what is in my head as a question and it just isn’t. I think one thing that’s been unique and cool to see that I’m not sure a lot of people have even realized is in terms of what we’re studying as a church, y’all are studying the same thing right alongside for Baptist Melbourne. Can you speak into some of the way that works?
Cody Chester:
Yeah. So most of the time we’re together. We did our own series over the summer while Pastor Scott
Amanda Levy:
Was, when you did do Flip This House with us, I didn’t
Cody Chester:
Do flip This house. I we’re not moving, so I didn’t moving into a new building. So I didn’t really feel like it pertained to us. We did focus on worship, we just went a different route with it. But we did the Ephesians studies together. We did the Christmas series together last year. We did the Joshua series earlier this year. We’re doing Titus together now, and that’s been really beneficial. I know Pastor Scott’s heart behind it is as church planters we are, or both of us that are here now. We’re both. And so the time that it takes to study and craft a sermon that’s really helped a lot by this process. And so we get to meet with Scott every Wednesday. We meet with Pastor Scott.
Amanda Levy:
Do you meet as a whole team? Is Matt also there
Cody Chester:
With you? So for the first year it was just me and Scott now as the three of us together. And his desire is to help us with the study and things like that so that when we leave there on Wednesday, we’re as equipped as we can be to go back and write our own sermons. Cool. And so basically the way that it works is Monday and Tuesday we all do our own study, but then we meet Wednesday and flesh out these ideas, talk about maybe if there’s a difficult passage that we’re working through. And he really just helps a lot in helping us kind of work through that because he’s put in the study we’ve had kind of divided time on,
Amanda Levy:
There’s almost like a collaborative spirit of that. But also I would think iron sharpens iron moment comes from that. Absolutely.
Cody Chester:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve gone into those meetings thinking, okay, well this is the direction I’m going to go. And walked out of them like, okay, maybe I better look at this again. Maybe it’s a different one. And what I really appreciate is it’s got, again, going back to that support system, but also the freedom and the flexibility that I’m going, I’m leaving that meeting on Wednesday and I’m writing your own sermon for the people at Christ Community Church, not taking what God has laid on Scott’s heart for First Baptist and making it fit there, but having the flexibility and the freedom to go and do that while having the support system in place.
Amanda Levy:
Yeah, I think it’s also cool to think of right now the three church plants. We have all been local to the Space Coast, so it is kind of cool to think about the power of so many people in one area studying the same general text of from scripture. That’s awesome. Absolutely. But with catered to what makes sense in their context, that’s cool.
Cody Chester:
Right, absolutely.
Amanda Levy:
What roadblocks have you faced and how has God used them
Cody Chester:
In general or in church planting,
Amanda Levy:
However you want to take that.
Cody Chester:
Alright. Yeah, I mean just different roadblocks. I mean, our ministry in Texas, I somewhat joke and I’m somewhat serious, but it really prepared us for church planting. It was
Amanda Levy:
What were you doing in Texas?
Cody Chester:
So in Texas, I went there as a missions intern for six
Amanda Levy:
Months,
Cody Chester:
For my six months became junior high pastor, then lead youth pastor, and then associate pastor rather. So just
Amanda Levy:
The general and
Cody Chester:
Then interim pastor.
Amanda Levy:
Gotcha.
Cody Chester:
And just whatever need was there, we stepped into that. And so at one point I was still facilitating the youth, the administration of the church and was interim pastor. That’s a lot.
Amanda Levy:
How big of a church was this?
Cody Chester:
So at that time it was about 200, 2 50 somewhere. That’s a lot
Amanda Levy:
Of responsibility.
Cody Chester:
It was fun to say the least. I worked a lot. We probably, we started having some issues where our kids were asking why I was gone so much and when I was going to be home and stuff like that. So I mean, at one point I was working about 80, 85 hours a week. That’s hard. They’re in bed, they’re little, so they’re in bed early. And so that was difficult. I mean, it was a season that we needed to step up into that position and facilitate that. And God really used that season, which was difficult to prepare us for the stressors of bivocational church planting for sure. And so our church in Texas really prepared us a lot, phenomenal people. We love the people still keep in touch with them all the time, some of ’em daily, but just the different situations that unfolded there, just very difficult and really prepared us for that.
I mean, as far as church planting here, there’s not been any major roadblocks. I mean, ministry is difficult in general. We have experienced some things that we didn’t think we would. I thought looking at church planting, I thought it would be all reaching out to people and sharing the gospel. And it’s actually been much more shepherding and helping individuals and families through really, really difficult areas. And so my perspective on what church planting would be had to shift very quickly because what I had prepared for and built up in my head, yes, we still do those things, but shepherding has taken a much more front seat than other things that I thought would take that front seat. So yeah, I think that those would be primarily our church in Texas. Some of the bumps that we hit there would be the primary roadblocks that we’ve hit in ministry in our personal lives. We’ve been very, very fortunate and God has always just really provided for us. And in most cases he’s done that through his people. Just these unexpected grace gifts that people have done, whether that’s just meeting our needs or helping with the kids and things like that. And so we’ve been very blessed. The difficult seasons have all taught us very valuable lessons for our future.
Amanda Levy:
So is this the first time you’ve done bi-vocational in your time of ministry? What’s been
Cody Chester:
Like? I’ve always been full-time at the church, and so it took a lot of getting used to, because I’d done things a certain way for so long, I’m somewhat of a creature of habit. And so building in building a routine and a schedule that works around another job was interesting. So I actually just transitioned out of the job that I got when we came here. And now I’m transitioning, I’m going to remain by vocational, but I’m actually working on starting my own business on the side. And so to supplement church planting income. And so now once I finally got adjusted to, okay, I’m halftime here, halftime at the church, now I’m having to transition to now I’m starting my own business and both places the schedule is totally up to me and how do I do that? How do I navigate that? So that’s kind of what I’m navigating right now is, okay, what does it look like to put as much into the church as I can but still get this business up and running? And so changing routines has proven to be very difficult for me. I’m not that great at it, but for me, having accountability, so I’m going to craft out a schedule what my week will look like and give it to the other Aaron Copeland, our associate pastor, give it to our deacons, maybe give it to Aaron still, and just a group of guys that can hold me accountable like, okay, did you actually get up at five and get started and do this?
Amanda Levy:
Five is a rough wake up,
Cody Chester:
Get up. I have to get up at five. I have to get started. But did you meet your goals as far as what you laid out in your routine? And so for me that accountability is huge.
Amanda Levy:
When did you start that transition to starting your own business?
Cody Chester:
So I went, my last day at my job was the end of June. And so we went on vacation, got back from vacation, spent a couple of weeks kind getting things in order that had been neglected. We’re in the middle of a home remodel.
Amanda Levy:
You just like to do everything all at once is what I’m hearing. We’re going to adopt two children, we’re going to start a business, we’re going to start a church. It’s great.
Cody Chester:
I got to be busy.
Amanda Levy:
You’re like, I was doing 80 to 85 hours in Texas.
Cody Chester:
My wife somewhat pokes fun at me because I don’t sit still well, but
Amanda Levy:
I’m picking up on that.
Cody Chester:
But trying to get the home remodeled done, especially before these other kids move in. And so we’ve got just small detailed things left. And so that’s almost done off of our plates. So now within the last week, I’m putting more emphasis into getting this business up the ground. I’ve got what
Amanda Levy:
Kind of business is
Cody Chester:
It? So it’s going to be really fun. It’s bookkeeping. So digital bookkeeping, Hey,
Amanda Levy:
There’s a need for
Cody Chester:
That. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I went to my undergrad, my bachelor’s is in business administration. I have a little bit of an emphasis in finance, and so it’s just something that’s always interested me. It’s digital. I can do it from home. I don’t have to go
Amanda Levy:
Into, can do it whenever.
Cody Chester:
I can do it at midnight if I want to after the kids go to bed and things like that. So I’m working right now on getting certifications and stuff like that because as soon as I finished my undergrad, I jumped straight into seminary. So never did anything to that. But I’m hoping to be able to use it to help small businesses, maybe even small churches and things like that, that maybe can’t afford
Amanda Levy:
Their own full-time, their own full-time
Cody Chester:
Bookkeeper, and do it as a way to help and as a way to bless people hopefully in Palm Bay, hopefully for small businesses in our community, and even use that as a way to reach out to people
Amanda Levy:
As a way to even build more connections and meet new people. Yeah,
Cody Chester:
Absolutely. That’s cool. Absolutely. Yeah. And so with that, I’m going to join the Chamber of Commerce and things like that and hopefully build some connections on the business front, but
Amanda Levy:
Specifically
Cody Chester:
For the church. Yeah,
Amanda Levy:
It’s kind of a two in one. Yeah,
Cody Chester:
Absolutely.
Amanda Levy:
It’s a reason to be there too. That’s cool. Absolutely. I’m trying to think, was the motivation for starting that also one to provide, obviously, but was there a little bit of motivation for how I you could get more into the community?
Cody Chester:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so the job I had before worked for a great Christian company, very flexible with my church planting schedule, but I was in a shop all day, and so I was by myself, which can be good. I did a lot of listening to different sermons, different things, a lot of time just reflecting on my own study for my sermons and things like that. But I was kind of isolated. And so with this, it gives me the flexibility to provide, it gives me a much more flexible schedule, but also I get to just be around people more, which is difficult for me. But with being introverted, but I mean, it’s also kind of necessary if you’re a church
Amanda Levy:
Plant, if you’re introverted, you almost have to put yourself in positions to force you into those.
Cody Chester:
Absolutely. And usually I’m that guy that sits awkwardly in the corner. I can relate, but I’ll warm up over time. So yeah, I mean definitely to provide, to supplement that income, but also the flexibility that it offers is just, I can’t get that anywhere else. Yeah,
Amanda Levy:
Sure.
Cody Chester:
Flexibility for our family, flexibility for the church. It’s kind of what we’re after there.
Amanda Levy:
Is there a Palm Bay Chamber of Commerce?
Cody Chester:
There is. I passed by the office on Us one, and so thats I on US one. That’s when I found it. Where
Amanda Levy:
On us one?
Cody Chester:
Yeah. Oh gosh. In Palm Bay
Amanda Levy:
On US one. Palm Bay is, if you’re not familiar with the area, Palm Bay is huge. And I think one thing that makes it interesting is Brevard County is just kind of correct me. I mean, you’ve been here less than I have, but I haven’t been here a long time either. Brevard County is just kind of this conglomerate of lots of different areas. And then Palm Bay is just a huge, basically residential. There’s not a whole, am I speaking wrong? There’s not a whole lot of business. Mostly houses. So when an event comes to connection points and community gathering, what’s interesting to me about Palm Bay is I feel like most people, I’m a Palm Bay resident, leave Palm Bay for it, so we come up to Melbourne for things. Absolutely. So the idea of a Palm Bay Chamber of Commerce is just intriguing to me.
Cody Chester:
Yeah. Yeah. I’m not sure how big it is, except we haven’t joined it yet. It’s one of my short-term goals is to do that, but they are there. They are functional, and so definitely looking forward to jumping into that. And yeah,
Amanda Levy:
I’m excited to watch this from afar and see how it breaks
Cody Chester:
Out. Yeah, it’ll be interesting, Cody trying to interact with strangers.
Amanda Levy:
What are you looking forward to in the next season of life? Or what excites you about ministry in the next season?
Cody Chester:
Yeah, I’m just really excited about just where we’re headed as a church. What we see when we look at Palm Bay, and you kind of mentioned it while ago that it’s just this massive area. There’s not a lot of community centers, there’s not a lot of community in general. People do have to drive up to Melbourne or West Melbourne or something like that. So one of the things that our goal is, is to provide a place of community. Our culture is so individualistic, we like to just do our own thing, go home, unplug, or our sense of community is online. And so we live lives that are around a lot of people, but not with a lot of people. And so one of the things that we’re really looking forward to is just being able to provide that place of community in Palm Bay, south Brevard.
And one of the things that we hear about from a lot of people that come in and join us is the sense of community. It is the family feel, and that’s just really what our culture in general is missing. But what we feel is definitely lacking in Palm Bay just because of how quickly it’s growing and just as far as the things to do and the community center’s just not there. And so we’re really excited about being able to plug people into that community because one of our beliefs is that it’s in gospel community that we were created to thrive. And so if we want our neighbors to thrive, it is in the context of gospel community. And so that’s what we’re really excited about happening there. Our family is really excited about growing. We talk regularly about the difficulties that are going to come with adopting two more kids, both younger than our kids and mom and dad’s. Time is going to be now split between four kids instead of two kids. We’re navigate that the best we can, but we have asked our kids for just grace as we go through this process. We’re really excited about that, getting that going, getting our family just complete. We’ve always wanted four kids.
We’re there at this point. And so we’re really excited about that, having that feeling. As much as we love Owen and Amelia and always knowing that there were more kids to come for various reasons, it just hadn’t happened. And so having these kids complete that is really exciting for our entire family. Yeah,
Amanda Levy:
That’s awesome. I guess it’s not an aside, was adoption always something you were interested in?
Cody Chester:
Yeah, I mean, to some level definitely. It’s something that we’ve talked about our entire marriage, it became more of a reality for us. Before our daughter, Amelia was born, we started having some trouble with pregnancies and things like that. God blessed us with Amelia. But after her, we just kind of agreed that because of the struggles that my wife was going through physically with pregnancies, with the emotional toil and things like that, that maybe we just needed to thank God for these two beautiful kids that we have who are phenomenal kids, by the way. And just there are these kids that need good loving homes and maybe that’s the direction we go. And so it took a more realistic term for us about eight years ago. I mean, AMIA is almost eight. And so we stopped. We no longer put emphasis on having biological, biological children and focus on adoption.
And we started the process back in November thinking it would take a couple of years, and by the time we get through the introductory process, we get our home study done and things like that. They’re like, Hey, we have these two kids for you. You’re like, I’m like, okay. So a few years went to a few months. But yeah, I mean, it’s just kind of been our hearts for all these years. But we agreed because doing public adoption, and so we just agreed to wait until our kids were old enough that one, they’re the older kids.
Amanda Levy:
There’s a whole lot. Yeah,
Cody Chester:
Absolutely. And they have taken these two younger kids just under their wings and have been phenomenal with them. So we’re very thankful
Amanda Levy:
For that. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Okay. What advice would you have for someone who’s trying to discern their calling in their life?
Cody Chester:
Yeah, I mean, I was not the greatest at this. I actually ran from that calling for a while. My life goal, my entire life was to just be as rich as I could be. And so
Amanda Levy:
I can see how vocational ministry
Cody Chester:
Doesn’t. That didn’t exactly align. God definitely changed my heart in a major way, but probably my senior year of college. So I was almost done. And my senior year of college, God started sensing that call into ministry and just really was not interested. And for me it was God used a man named Charles Wright. Our church in Texas had a bus ministry, and we served on that bus ministry together. And one morning it was just me, him and his wife on the bus, and he was driving. I was sitting in the seat behind him, and I’m hoping we were stopped at a stop sign or a red light. I don’t remember. Because he looked in the mirror and looked right at me,
Amanda Levy:
Right to your soul
Cody Chester:
And just said, when are you going to stop running?
Amanda Levy:
I was,
Cody Chester:
What in the world are you talking about? He said, God is calling you into ministry and you’re running from him. And I was like, who have you been talking to? How did you know this? But I mean, God just used him. And so I think if it’s someone that is trying to discern their calling, maybe Phil, God leading them into ministry. I mean, I think one of the best things to do is obviously you want to pray, right? You want to seek the Lord and get clarity from him. But also for me, even whenever we were leaving Texas to church plan, it was other men or women in our lives that knew us well, that loved the Lord, that seek the Lord with every fiber of their being, speaking truth into our life. And so if it’s someone that is walking through that, I mean, obviously I would say pray, but also talk to the Godly people in your life who love you, who are for you, who you trust, listen to the Lord and just say, this is what I’m feeling.
What do you think? And just receive that. And so God primarily used other people in my life. And so from my own personal experience, I would just say, open up to your pastor, open up to one of your pastors. Open up to just a godly influence in your life, and go from there. For me, after I had that conversation with Charles, I went and talked to the man who was at the time our youth pastor, and he kind of affirmed the same thing, but he encouraged me to go talk to our senior pastor. And I went and talked to the senior pastor who also affirmed the same thing. And so I had these three men in my life, one of which was just unsolicited advice, saying it’s time. And then when we were leaving Texas, Kristen and I felt that it was time to go. And then three different men in the church, all of which I respect and admire greatly came to us individually over the span of probably a month. And one of them just broke down in tears, very good friend of mine and said, we know God is leading you away. You should follow God. And just all three conversations were like that. And we’re like, okay, this is
Amanda Levy:
God. The affirmation is clear.
Cody Chester:
Yeah. It’s time to step out into what God is calling us to do. So
Amanda Levy:
That’s awesome. Okay. Finally, what advice would you have for someone who’s feeling the call to make disciples here and everywhere for the glory of God?
Cody Chester:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think first off, I think that that is a calling that we all have as believers that’s directly attached to our great commission that the Lord has given us. And so I do believe that we are all called to go and make disciples. I believe that maybe a great first step, if it’s not something that you’ve necessarily done before, is again, find a person of influence that you trust that is actively engaged in making disciples and learn from them, sit under their teaching, their leadership, watch what they do, and then begin to practice it. One of the ways that we tried to prepare when I was a youth pastor, we tried to prepare our students in Texas, was that we would have a discipleship relationship with them for a period of time, maybe six months or a year. And then we would just encourage them to begin to replicate what we had done with them, with someone else.
And so it kind of goes back to that old adage, which we used this past week in Titus chapter two, but there’s an element of things that can be taught, and there’s an element of things that can be caught. And so we would do the teaching, we would model, and we would encourage them to then go and do the same. And so I would encourage people that are maybe kind of on that ground floor of stepping into this call that God has placed on all of our lives to be discipled themselves by a good quality discipler, and then begin to replicate what you’ve seen there.
Amanda Levy:
Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us this morning. I didn’t feel like it was awkward at all. Good. You did great, Cody. Good.
Cody Chester:
Alright. Well thank you very much.
Amanda Levy:
I wish you lots of success with this new business.
Cody Chester:
Thank you. I definitely appreciate it.