Journey of Youth Ministry and Effective Leadership

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest, Robert Watson, comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights he shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Robert Watson, Teaching Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church, one of the fastest-growing churches in the U.S. With over two decades at Sun Valley, Robert has seen thousands take steps toward Jesus and is passionate about helping new believers grow in uncomplicated, practical faith.

Is your church making it easy for new believers to follow Jesus? In this episode, Robert shares how Sun Valley breaks down barriers to discipleship, creates clear next steps, and equips people to live out their faith in real relationships.

• Removing barriers for new believers. // Many new Christians struggle with church “insider language” and cultural assumptions that can make faith feel inaccessible. Sun Valley intentionally explains biblical basics—like chapters and verses, or the difference between Old and New Testament—to ensure guests and new believers feel included. This approach doesn’t alienate mature believers; instead, it fosters a culture where everyone can invite friends knowing they’ll be understood and welcomed.
• Simplifying without watering down. // Pastors can unintentionally overcomplicate teaching by focusing on academic discoveries or niche theological debates that don’t serve most attendees. Keep the main thing the main thing—offering practical, actionable truths while giving seasoned believers a “bone to chew on” for deeper thought. This balance helps churches disciple people at every stage without overwhelming newcomers.
• Creating moments of decision. // Robert emphasizes the importance of “line in the sand” moments—clear invitations for people to say “yes” to following Jesus. Drawing from Jesus’ ministry pattern of “come and see” and “follow me,” Sun Valley uses high-attendance weekends and special events to present the gospel and call for commitment. Baptisms, held five times a year, provide a public step of faith and an opportunity to connect people into the life of the church.
• Relationship and responsibility. // Long-term discipleship happens best in the context of relationships and shared responsibility. At Sun Valley, new believers are encouraged to join small groups and serving teams. Serving not only builds community but also engages people in mission—helping them grow by using their gifts to serve others. For many, serving feels like a more accessible first step than joining a small group, especially for those unfamiliar with church culture.
• Simply Following Jesus. // Robert’s new book, Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith, distills foundational truths for new believers into a practical, accessible guide. Given to every adult and high schooler baptized at Sun Valley, the book starts with a clear presentation of the gospel, explores the habits Jesus modeled, and shows how to live out faith through healthy relationships. The goal is not to overwhelm with “to-dos,” but to invite people into rhythms that help them experience God’s grace daily.
• Pursuing new believers. // Robert urges churches not to assume new Christians will naturally integrate into church life. Instead, proactively pursue them through personal connection and follow-up. Early faith is a fragile time, and intentional relational investment can help new believers remain rooted and growing.

To learn more about Sun Valley Community Church, visit sunvalleycc.com. You can find Simply Following Jesus at Amazon, Baker Books, or Barnes & Noble.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You’re going to be rewarded. Today is a fantastic conversation around an area that I know that many of our churches wrestle with, and we want to try to give you some practical steps, some kind of resources to move forward today.

Rich Birch — This is one of those episodes you’re going to want action on when we get to the end of it. Excited to have Robert Watson with us. He is a teaching pastor at Sun Valley Community Church. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, if I’m counting correctly, seven locations in Arizona. He speaks at camps and conferences across the country, trains communicators both locally and internationally. He’s also written a new book that we’re going to get a chance to talk about today. Robert, welcome to the podcast. So glad that you’re here.

Robert Watson — Rich, thank you so much. It’s a huge honor to be here and and join you on the podcast. And yeah, I’m excited about what we’re talking about as well.

Rich Birch — No, this is on this is our honor. Thanks so much for for taking time to be with us. Why don’t you share a little bit about your journey to come to Sun Valley? Maybe tell us a little bit about Sun Valley, kind of what led you to this this point. Talk about your current role. Kind of give us the Robert story.

Robert Watson — Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I felt called into youth ministry when I was a student and my life had kind of blown up and there were people in the church world that kind of opened up their their lives to me, and it made a radical difference. And so I thought, okay, maybe God’s calling me to to be a youth pastor. And I’ll try to do this—you know, some, sometimes pastors can talk a little bit too long when they tell stories—so I’ll try and do this as condensed as I can.

Rich Birch — It’s okay. It’s okay.

Robert Watson — But basically, I was as I was going into college and going to Bible college and thinking about seminary and all of the things, I started thinking about who has you know, just great legacy in ministry. And I looked around kind of the East Valley. I’m from Arizona. And so the East Valley of Arizona, and there were a handful of youth pastors that had a massive impact.

Robert Watson — And I said, okay, what is it that they all have in common? And the answer was absolutely nothing. They were all totally different. Like some were great organizational leaders. Some were really good communicators. Some could just, they knew how to, how to attract people. People they were fun to be around, but they were all so different except for every single one of them had longevity in ministry.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — And so I decided, okay, that’s going to be part of my strategy is I want to, I want to find a church that’s not just a job. I want to find a church that this would be my church community. This would be a place I could invite friends and family and neighbors and not be cringing when they walked in. And so I, again, long story medium, I got a phone call from Sun Valley Community Church and they said, Hey, we know you love where you’re at.

Robert Watson — (I didn’t. They didn’t know that. I was actually going to go into banking.) And they said, would you consider taking on a youth pastor role out at Sun Valley? And so I went to the church service and I walked in and this was 20, over 21 years ago now, almost 22 years ago. And I walked in and I went, there’s just something about this place. I’m going to go to this church, even if I don’t work here.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Robert Watson — And I did. I ended up taking that job and I still feel that way about Sun Valley. When you walk into Sun Valley, there’s something about it. God’s anointing is on it. The Holy Spirit is working. People are being loved in Jesus name.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Robert Watson — And we see a lot of people meet Jesus in that environment.

Robert Watson — And so I just committed to, yeah those days when you get tired and you’re like, maybe I should do something else, just to stick with it and and to work through conflict with people, get to the other side of it. And I found that’s been so rewarding just to stick with it long term. And so that’s how, so it’s actually my first ever full-time job…

Rich Birch — Oh nice – love it.

Robert Watson — …and I’ve been on staff now going on 22nd year.

Rich Birch — So good. I love that. I love the idea of longevity. You know one of the things that we’ve said in other contexts from like a church growth point of view, one of the telltale signs of a church that gets to multiple thousand people is the senior leadership team has is going into or is in their third decade.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Like they they’ve been at this for a long time.

Robert Watson — Yep.

Rich Birch — And so I think we often, you know, we think of those churches that just seem to explode out of the box, but that’s just not normative.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And I love what Sun Valley’s done. It’s a great church. If you’re if you’re not tracking with Sun Valley friends, you really should. Doing all kinds of things right. And today we want to talk kind of specifically around as people take steps towards Jesus. Sun Valley, your ministry, is known for people who are are actually coming to faith, which is amazing. It shouldn’t be like a rare thing in churches, but unfortunately it is sometimes. I said that, you didn’t say that.

Rich Birch — So we want to talk through some of that today. Every church leader wants to see people take meaningful steps in following Jesus. From your experience, what are some common barriers that but new believers, people who are just starting to follow Jesus face when they’re starting out in their faith.

Robert Watson — Yeah, there’s there’s this secret language in the church world that we don’t realize we pick up. If you’ve grown up around church, there’s so many things, and we use acronyms, we use letters, we’ll refer to things like, oh, VBS or whatever. And people are like, what in the world are they talking about?

Robert Watson — Even when we open up the Bible, we’re like, what are the big numbers and what are the little numbers? Like, we we forget if you grew up around church, which a lot of people that are in church ministry, they they grew up around it or they’re somewhat familiar with it. We don’t realize how foreign some of the language and the thought process when we start singing songs about the blood and people are like, what are we…

Rich Birch — What are you talking about?

Robert Watson — What is this place? Why are we singing? You know? And so one of the things that that we’ve tried to be intentional about, of making it really easy to understand what we’re talking about. Like we’re still going to open up the Bible, but we’ll explain, hey, the big numbers, those are chapters. The little numbers, those are verses.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Robert Watson — And these are just tools to help us find different things in the Bible, because the Bible is actually a collection of books. Like we we do the same kind of introduction anytime we talk about Old Testament, New Testament. What is the Old Testament? What is the New Testament? And so we’ve found that by giving kind of those easy steps to understanding, one, it doesn’t make our church dumber.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — Like people aren’t, you know, that grew up around church or people that have their their doctorates, they’re not sitting back going, I can’t believe they’re explaining this. We’re creating a culture where they know they can bring their non-Christian friend and they’re not going to feel alienated. They’re going to understand. But we’re going to get into what does the Bible actually say? What is the meat of it? But we’re going to do it in a way that we can take everybody on that journey with us.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I yeah, I think sometimes there’s this false dichotomy in churches where it’s like on one side are like the like trivia driven churches where it’s like they think like, hey, if we just get people understanding all kinds of trivia about the Bible, that’s somehow the goal. And that’s not the goal. That’s the goal is is discipleship, actually seeing people grow. And so we’ve got to take people from where they are to where we want them to be.

Robert Watson — That’s right.

Rich Birch — Let’s double click on that. What are some other ways you’ve seen kind of this over complexity, this kind of like our way of making things more complex than they should be as it relates to kind of um following Jesus that we might be not aware of – there’s like a forest for the trees thing, if we’ve grown up in the church.

Robert Watson — Yeah, I think because a lot of times the voices that we listen to, first of all, are our own. And so if I’m a pastor and I’m putting together a sermon and I’ve done this sermon before and I’ve done you know I’ve done something on this passage before, I get excited about discovering new things when I when I’m preparing a message.

Robert Watson — I get excited about a new book that I just read. Or I get excited about this new archaeological discovery. And we found this manuscript here and it actually matches that. So those are things that I get fired up about. And I’m like, oh, man, this would be great fodder for this message coming up this this next weekend. Or this would be great content. And instead of listening to those, or my friends that are you know church people or other pastors, we get excited about things that sometimes are confusing.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — And it’s a new it’s a new conversation that started in the academia world, and it’s things we want to engage in. It’s just not helpful, especially for the person that doesn’t have that framework.

Robert Watson — And so for me, I think one of the reasons why we do make things a little overly complex is because we’re just excited about a new thought, even though we’ve been growing in our understanding of the Bible for decades. And it’s been layer by layer. We’ve been building kind of this foundation of our understanding. We have to remember, most 99.9% of the people who are, you know, in church on a weekend, they don’t have that same background and foundation.

Robert Watson — And so it’s, it’s important once again to go, okay, what is actually practical here and what is helpful? And I’m all for Bible studies. So don’t, don’t hear that I’m, I’m not a fan of…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Robert Watson — …you know, go read N.T. Wright, go study your, you know, do your commentary stuff and all of that. I’m, I love doing that. I get excited about that because I think God’s word is incredible and it’s full of so many deep truths, but sometimes the deepest truths are the obvious ones that we should do something that are very practical, that are very simple. Those to me are the deepest things. The other stuff is just interesting. It’s fun. It’s it’s exciting.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Robert Watson — And one of the terms, we have a a mentor, Chad, who’s our lead pastor. He and I have been working together. He got hired on just two months after I did. So we’ve been in this long run together. And we have a mentor who’s now a retired older gentleman. And he always says, sometimes when it comes to church people in the church, you got to remember every message, give the dog a bone.

Robert Watson — And what he what do he means by that is is people who’ve been around it for a while, they want something interesting, thoughtful to chew on. But once you give that to them and they can gnaw on that bone for a while, you’re good. Like you can actually now go back to the simple message and and the preaching.

Robert Watson — And so we try to do that when we whenever we present, that there’s something that the church person goes, I never thought of it that way, or I never heard it explained quite that clearly or from that angle, or that was a new thought on that that old idea. And and and we just make it really practical from there.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. ah You had a a friend, a mentor of mine who said, you got to put the cookies on the bottom shelf, like make the main thing the main thing.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Like, how do we ensure that we don’t make things more complex than they need to be? And then also there’s there’s a profound thought there, friends. It applies to so many areas of leadership that I don’t want you to miss, which is we’re not the target for what we’re working with as a leader in all areas, you are, you’re leading. And so you’re in a different place. And so it’s not about impressing you or impressing, you know, your friends who are at the same spot. You’ve got to think about where are people at? You know, that’s why they’re called sheep. We have to lead them. You know, we’re called to be shepherds to move them from where they are to a more desired future.

Rich Birch — Well, at Sun Valley, ah let’s double click on this, kind of keep digging into this idea. You know, you see thousands of people come to faith every year and and we want to learn from that. What have you learned about helping people move from that initial decision? So let’s say they’ve decided to say, hey, I want to follow Jesus into a growing active relationship with Jesus. We we want to move people from that kind of like, hey, I feel something. I had this initial experience into an active growing relationship. What are you doing to to help see that happen?

Robert Watson — Yeah, that’s a great question. So there’s there’s a few things that we see Jesus do in his his ministry, and and I want to cover them real quickly because I do think it is important. If you want to know how to help people who say yes to Jesus, you got to have a line in the sand moment where you invite them to say yes to following Jesus.

Robert Watson — And so if you look at if you look at like John and you look at the ministry of Jesus, it kind of had four parts to it. So there was come and see, which is woman at the well. Jesus has this interaction. She goes to the whole village and says, hey, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could it be this is this is the Messiah? Come and see.

Robert Watson — Follow me. There are line in the sand moments where Jesus gives a hard teaching and he says, are you in or are you out? So he draws in a crowd and and then there’s a line in the sand. Are you following me? Are you just here because I multiplied fish and loaves and that that was impressive and you guys followed me around Galilee and you want to see it again?

Robert Watson — So “come and see” and “follow me”. Those are things that we can do up front on stage. That’s kind of one on many. But then there’s there’s “be with me” and “remain in me” are kind of the the next stages.

Robert Watson — And those things only happen in the context of conversation and close up and community. And so at best as a upfront communicator, the the best that I can do is you know, the big crowd moments, the come and see, and then a line in the sand, follow me. But I do think the more we invite people to say yes to following Jesus, the more people we will see say yes to following Jesus.

Rich Birch — For sure.

Robert Watson — I think sometimes we’re just waiting for that to happen organically. And it’s okay on a big weekend when we have like coming up soon, we’re going to have a big weekend with a lot of guests because we’re back to school in Arizona and it’s one of our highest attended weekends of the year. And so we’re going to do a line in the sand moment because people invite friends…

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — …we do some fun stuff and we’ll go, Hey, this is what Jesus did for you. And if you want to put your trust in him, he’s already said yes to you. If you’d be willing to say yes to his invitation, he’ll transform your life. And here’s how he does that and invite them to say yes. And we’ll have, you know, hundreds of people go, I’m in.

That’s good.

Robert Watson — And then we do baptisms five times a year, which is, again, this is now a public profession of that that inward decision. And from there, our goal is if we can get people into real relationship and then also give them real responsibility.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — Because if if they have real relationship, meaning there’s somebody who knows their name, there’s somebody who knows when they’re there, when they’re not there, they know what’s going on in their world. They know what’s most important to them that week because they got this big thing going on. It’s impossible to do that from stage one on many. And so that’s why we push things like small groups. We push things like serving because it’s one thing to go, okay, I’m going to show up. But if you say, hey can you, we’re doing small group at my house. Can you bring the soda or whatever? And, and I’m, now I have responsibility.

Robert Watson — Now, if I don’t show up, like the group’s not going to have any Dr. Pepper, like I can’t do that to them.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — And so there’s any time we can get people into that, that relationship and responsibility, now they’re into kind of the life of the church.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — And the goal of “remain in me” is that as they, as they start serving others, they start to experience more of Jesus, no longer just in their head of like, okay, I’m getting knowledge. Now I’m practically serving others.

Robert Watson — And if you think about in your own story, Rich, and if I think about my own story, one of the times we’ve grown the most in our relationship with Jesus is when we really started using the gifts that he’s given us to serve other people.

Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Yep.

Robert Watson — That’s Jesus, when he washes the disciples’ feet, he doesn’t say, I’ve given you a a really good teaching. You should go teach other people. He goes, I set you an example. Go do this, and you’ll be blessed if you do it. And he’s he’s telling us there’s something about serving others that’s kind of that that deeper level of understanding who Jesus is, and that’s his invitation to us.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yep. yeah I love that. This is the thing we’ve seen. So I’ve seen in multiple contexts where on the like, I would say and maybe on the like church assimilation side, which is I realize is kind of connected to what we’re talking about, but it’s it like slightly different where, but it’s, it’s a related, it rhymes, that I’ve really seen I would say post COVID, like in the last five years, churches shift to a lot more, like we always want people into teams and You know, and or on, you know, on groups or sorry, on teams and in groups, you want to see them do both of those things.

Rich Birch — But there has been, I would say, a stronger emphasis ah around getting people plugged into helping somehow. That there’s been like, hey, there’s a there’s an inherent understanding that people need to be a part of the mission. That’s actually a part of what discipleship is like. What is that?

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I know this is a little bit off from what we said we were going talk about, but tell me a little bit more what that looks like at Sun Valley. Because I think that is, I think this is definitely a trend we have seen. I’ve seen it echo in other other contexts. What’s that look like for you guys? As someone takes a step toward Jesus, you’re trying to say, hey, we want to help you actually plug in and and get connected, not just a learning phase, but like a doing phase as well. What’s that look like?

Robert Watson — Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think a lot of times, especially you get a bunch of us executives together and we want a nice linear path, right? We want to we want to map it all out.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — It’s going to look really good on a whiteboard.

Rich Birch — It’s going to be great on the whiteboard. Exactly.

Robert Watson — Yep. They’re going to go from here to here to here.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Robert Watson — That’s just not how humanity works. People are messy.

Rich Birch — That’s true.

Robert Watson — People are in process. And so there needs to be, I think, a a willingness and an openness to go, okay, it depends on the person…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Robert Watson — …and and what is best for this individual might not be that they follow this exact assimilation track. And so I think the reason why probably you’re noticing and sensing more of an emphasis on plugging people into serving, because the things that you get out of like a small group or some churches, they’ll do, you know, more of the like Sunday school model or whatever.

Robert Watson — When you plug somebody into serving, you kind of get all the good things that come from being in a group thrown into that. So if you’re, if you have a team, that’s a solid team, you have your coaches, your mentors on that team. Usually you’re teaching some kind of content and to kind of go back to even the premise of this conversation, the deep truths of Scripture, we’re teaching in our elementary school.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — We’re teaching these things in our with our students.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Robert Watson — The deep things of of Scripture, they’re accessible to everybody. And so even if you’re not in this context where it’s geared directly towards you, the content’s there, the relationship’s there. You have real responsibility. Kids are asking you questions.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — And you’re having your leader huddle before the service starts or you’re hanging out afterwards.

Robert Watson — I was just on a mission trip with 43. It was a high school mission trip. And me and the other leaders on that trip, man, we built great connections. We’re going to one of, they live far away. We’re going to their house next Sunday with our family because we just built these connections serving students together.

Robert Watson — And I do think there’s a lot of that that naturally happens. I think in some people’s minds, though, they’re like, I’m not ready to serve yet. But for some, that’s before they ever go sit in somebody’s house and like knock on the door of somebody’s house…

Rich Birch — Yes.

…and go sit in the living room and talk about their feelings.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — I invited—this is a funny story—I invited my next door neighbors in our previous house. They had just given their lives to Jesus. They came to Sun Valley, said yes to following Jesus. We had baptized them. And I was like, hey, we do Bible study at my house. We do the small group, you should come over. And they walked in and they saw a circle of chairs. And I saw them look at this circle of chairs like, what kind of a cult am I walking into right now?

Rich Birch — That’s true.

Robert Watson — And everybody’s sitting down in these chairs and nobody, there’s no alcohol. So for my, so I say all of this for my neighbors, they’re like, who does this? Like they, they understood a party.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Robert Watson — They knew that you hang out at parties. People have drinks, you bring them food. It’s a potluck. Sitting in a circle in a living room talking about your feelings was very scary for my neighbors.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — But then when I was like, Hey, do you guys want to, we go a hour early before service and we we serve. They’re like, yeah, we’re in. And they were more than willing to jump in and serve.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — For them, that felt like that is the right next step for them.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — And so I was just reminded, oh yeah, I’m so used to this. For the rest of the world, sometimes this looks a little weird what we do and we just it’s normal.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s a good insight for sure. And, and yeah, there’s something about asking people, they can kind of picture what the serving thing looks like. They can picture, Hey, this is what those first steps look like, but, but we don’t have a lot of kind of dynamic equivalents of the, like you say, sit in a circle and, it goes in all kinds of crazy directions.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Well, you’ve written a book. I want to make sure people pick up copies.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — My bias is just right out there, friends. I think you should be buying copies of these with your team and maybe even as a resource as a church. It’s called “Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith”. This a huge deal. What led you? What was the kind of spark that led you to write this book?

Robert Watson — Yeah. So because of the the context of our church and the number of individuals that that we’ve seen say yes to following Jesus and just in massive numbers, and it’s overwhelming for them because they don’t know, okay, what do you do first? Where do you start? How do how do you really get this thing? Like I’m all in, they hear the gospel, they’re excited about following Jesus, and they’re just kind of: now what? And, and, and so to go, well, you know, we do this class couple times a year, you know, you can join us for that.

Robert Watson — And and so we just decided, what if we gave them a resource that really took, cause we’ll talk about all the things that are in, in the book that I wrote. We’ll talk about that over the course of a couple of years. Like what if we took really the foundational pieces, we put it together in one resource and we gave it just as a gift to people.

Robert Watson — And so we’ve started now, we, we do baptisms five times a year. And now whenever somebody gets baptized, if they’re a high schooler or an adult, we give them a copy of this book.

Rich Birch — So good.

Robert Watson — And it really lays out, it starts with the gospel, because I think where a lot of people are confused, and this is Christians and non-Christians, is understanding the gospel.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — Is understanding that we are this is not a works salvation. We’re not trying to earn something. We’re not trying to earn back something, that this is a gift from God. And so really understanding the foundation of the gospel and and that it is because God loves us that he’s invited us into this relationship. It’s not if we do these things, then he will love us. No, God loves you no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what’s been done to you. So it really starts with kind of laying that foundation.

Robert Watson — And I think it’s important if you grew up in church like I did, you know, you have to keep coming back to the gospel again and again and be reminded of it again and again.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. It’s true.

Robert Watson — And so really wanted to start with that foundation, understanding who is Jesus, the nature of God’s love for us. So that’s kind of the the beginning, which is a little bit theological. But I try to make it a simple as as possible. And I’m stealing that idea from Jesus who said, hey, all the law, all the prophets, let me take the whole Jewish scriptures and let me sum sum it up for you.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — It’s love the Lord your God with all your heart heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And when Jesus does that, that to me is kind of the the model, the example. Okay, can we take these big truths that, I mean, you and I, we could get in a room and we could unpack verse by verse and we would love it. And it would be brilliant and beautiful and wonderful. And Jesus goes, okay, but also let me just sum it up and simplify it for you.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Robert Watson — So that’s, that’s kind of that first part. So simple foundation. And looking at what are the habits that Jesus modeled and that Jesus taught. Because if you look at the early church, you had a lot of people that that were illiterate. You had a lot of people that they didn’t understand all the Jewish scriptures and everything, but they understood the example that Jesus set and that his disciples are going, here’s what Jesus did. Follow me as I follow Jesus. This is what this looks like practically.

Robert Watson — And there are some habits. There are things that Jesus expects us to do, like spending time with him in prayer, you know spending time in relationship with others. And then the third part of the book is just simple relationships.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — It’s how do you take this foundation of the gospel, these habits that Jesus modeled, and apply it into your relationships? Because at the end of the day, the Bible, it’s it’s a relational book. It’s a book about how to have right relationship with God and right relationship with the people around us, which again, to back to where Jesus says, all the law, all the prophets hang on these two commands.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Robert Watson — And the and the first is like the second, it’s love God, love people.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I want to dive into that a little bit, but but let me give a little hearty endorsement. I really do think that this resource could be, I think is is fitting in a great spot when I was going through it, I thought the same thing that that you said there, man, this would be so fantastic for people that are getting baptized, for people that are taking that first step. Maybe someone’s you know, just had some sort of encounter at something like Alpha and they’re like, hey, they’re looking for something next. Like, what is that? Is that resource?

Rich Birch — But I want double clip click on the simple relationships part. So reflecting on my own early discipleship experience when I first became a Christian, I feel like there was that tension of like, the gospel is a free gift and you don’t need to do anything, earn anything. And then immediately the discipleship went into, and then here are things you should do.

Robert Watson — yeah

Rich Birch — Here are, do this, read that, all that. And you don’t handle it like that in the habit section at all. I love the way you frame it, but but I think early discipleship can kind of land in that way. Like it’s a free gift. Now here’s 10 things you’ve got to do.

Robert Watson — That’s right. Yeah.

Rich Birch — This relationship part I found as an interesting nuance. Unpack that a little bit more.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Why was that in there as a, or why do you see that as a critical piece, ah kind of an an an initial conversation someone should be having around their faith?

Robert Watson — Yeah, I think because there are there are things that are disciplines in following Jesus, but they’re not disciplines in the sense of like, oh, I got to do this difficult thing because it’s the secret handshake that gets me in, you know.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Robert Watson — Or it’s the I’m climbing this proverbial mountain. They’re just new ways to experience God’s grace.

Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.

Robert Watson — And so when there’s habits, the habits are actually invitations. It’s not you you ought to and you should, and and we feel like we’re just guilted into, I need to read my Bible more. I need to pray more. These are open invitations that God has provided these ways for us to experience His grace each and every day.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — And it’d be transformed by His grace each and every day. And so even just that that little different way of looking at it. It’s an invitation and it’s not one that God’s forcing upon you. It’s open to you. It’s available to you. And what, what I’ve experienced when I’ve stepped into that invitation. it’s scary in my mind, but it’s so rewarding in actual practice.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — Like it’s usually just in my head space. I’m like, oh man, I’m gonna read my Bible every day. Now I genuinely, and I’ve been reading my Bible for a long time. I genuinely enjoy starting off my day. I have I use the Bible app now because I have a streak counter and I’m a little bit competitive. And so I can be like, oh man, I’m on this many days in a row.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Robert Watson — And I use that and I and I just go, okay, Holy Spirit, what do you wanna speak to me this morning? And I’ll start reading through ah a passage. Sometimes I’ll get through a whole chapter, sometimes just a section. And I walk away and it’s like, it’s recalibrated my day.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Robert Watson — And and my day now is it’s pointed in a right direction. I’ve experienced God’s grace. Sometimes I get a little whisper from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I’m just groggy and I did it and I move on, but I’m experiencing God’s grace in new ways by doing that.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — And so that’s, I think that’s the important thing for any new believer to understand. God is not trying to like force you. He doesn’t want to rob you. He actually comes to to give. He comes to to share in his grace, to share in his love. And anytime he asks us to do something, it’s ultimately for our good. And it’s an invitation, not a, hey, I’m going to make you do this thing because now you you obey every every word that I say. No, it’s an invitation to to experience his grace in new ways.

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. This is a fantastic resource. And have you seen, you know, any impact as, it’s been used at Sun Valley or maybe in some other context, maybe a story or two of like, you know, how it’s been particularly effective or been, you know, a tool in the hands of somebody who’s taken some next steps, some early steps towards Jesus.

Robert Watson — Yeah, it’s, it’s always, it’s always fascinating to me. I just, as a, as an author, as a writer, I never know, like, hey, is this good? Is this helpful?

Rich Birch — Right. That’s true. Yes.

Robert Watson — Is this you know is this going to is this going to resonate with somebody? I don’t know.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Robert Watson — And I’m always amazed at how God has has used these resources in in different ways. This one in particular. So the book’s only been out for a couple months now. And I there was an older gentleman who actually…he was being forced into retirement. And so his job, his time, his whole company was kind of disbanding and he was being forced into early retirement, but he was going to throw a retirement party for all his fellow employees. And this is not, these these employees are far from Jesus. And he goes, Hey, I read your book. And as kind of my last parting gift, I want to give it as a resource. You know, can I come by with a box of these books and you sign it?

Robert Watson — And so at his retirement party, he gave, you know how like at kids’ birthday parties, they get the little bag of candy when they leave, they get the little door prize.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Robert Watson — He had my book there. And so I just wrote little notes about how how much God loves these individuals and prayed over them. And he handed them out as kind of a, hey, I would love for you to have what I have. And it’s this relationship with Jesus. And this this book will actually help you understand what it is. And and so he gave that out. I thought, man, what a cool evangelism tool.

Robert Watson — And for this person, you know, and his kind of last is probably the last time these people all be in a room together. And he thought, hey, this is a great opportunity to maybe share the gospel with with my coworkers one last time.

Rich Birch — That’s cool. That’s so cool. I love that. Well, if there’s a pastor that’s listening in that that wants to better serve people who are taking early steps, outside of buying copies of your book, because I want them to do that. But outside of that, what’s one thing you know you could encourage them to take kind of an early step they could take, maybe even the next month, to try to help those people who are taking early steps in their relationship with Jesus? What’s one kind of practical advice you give to them?

Robert Watson — Yeah, I do think because so much of following Jesus has lived out in the context of relationships, what I what I think it’s important for all churches, especially large churches, and I know a lot of the people who listen on your podcast here, they’re churches over a thousand. It’s easy for people to become numbers in all of that.

Robert Watson — And the reminder that every number has a name, every name has a story, every story matters to God. The the more we can get those stories, one, and think in front of our staff to remind our our staff, hey, these are real people. These are people that you know. These are people that you’ve been in conversation with. The more we can get those names, those stories in front of our staff.

Robert Watson — And I would just say for those new believers, especially when somebody says yes to Jesus, Don’t just hope that they kind of naturally assimilate. Have some way that you pursue those individuals.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — Let them know that they’re seen. Let them know that they’re known. Go out of your way because for some people, it’s going to take several times of saying, hey, we should grab coffee. Hey, we should hang out.

Rich Birch — Right.

Robert Watson — Let me hear your story before they say yes to that. I think those are people worth pursuing. And I think, too, if you look at you know the parable that Jesus gave, when that seed’s planted, there’s a lot of things. That soil can be rocky, can be thorny. The enemy can come snatch that away. I think it’s a fragile time in those early stages of a new believer that if ever there’s a time for us to go out of our way to relationally connect and pursue, that that is the time to do it.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Love that. I yeah when I first became a christian when i was a student there was a guy youth leader in my church that he like jumped on it, and which was amazing and like we met every week for a year. Which when I look back on that this guy, Rick Peet, incredible leader in my life.

Rich Birch — You know, I look back on that man, the impact that that had on me because he took the he took the kind of first step there. He was the first mover in that relationship. Hey, let’s let’s get together. Let’s talk about it. that’s that’s That’s fantastic.

Robert Watson — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Well, we want to make sure people pick up copies of your book. Again, it’s “Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith”. I’m assuming people can get it at Amazon. That’s usually where good books are sold.

Robert Watson — Yep.

Rich Birch — It’s always a funny question to ask.

Robert Watson — Amazon, Baker Books.

Rich Birch — Where do people get books? You know, that kind of thing.

Robert Watson — Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Birch — And where else do we want to send them?

Robert Watson — All those places, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Baker Books – usually they run some kind of a discount off their website. That’s the book publisher. And so usually they have some good deals run in there as well.

Rich Birch — Great. Well, just as we wrap up today, any kind of final parting words you’d have for people that are listening in today?

Robert Watson — I would, oh man, I would just say enjoy the journey. I think there’s so much…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — …joy that comes from following Jesus. Like when I think about all the things I could be involved in, in my life and all of that, when I get to hear somebody taking, not, not just you know intellectually, I’ve got this new information and I’m believing it, but they take something and apply it.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Robert Watson — And they experience the transformation and they experience a strengthening of their relationships. Jesus said that we would be known by the quality of our relationships, our loved one for another is how he he says it. And so when I see people that are new in faith experiencing forgiveness for the first time, or experiencing the the gift of listening to others and asking good, thoughtful questions and and something starts to come alive in them, I just, as a pastor, what more can you ask for than than seeing and life change?

Robert Watson — And so the the relational life change, being around that, like constantly celebrating those stories, sharing those stories, being excited about that, I find no greater joy than to see people genuinely following Jesus.

Rich Birch — That’s good

Robert Watson — And ah so I don’t know if that is the right closing thought, but yeah.

Rich Birch — No, it’s wonderful. It’s great. It’s good.

Robert Watson — Rich, thank you so much.

Rich Birch — Well, I appreciate being on the podcast today. Where can we send people if they want to track with you or track with the church online?

Robert Watson — Yeah. So Sun Valley Community Church is the name of our church. We’re in Arizona, sunvalleycc.com. And then we’re on you know Instagram and all of that. And I think mine is just robertsvcc is my Instagram. But yeah, you can you can look up us look us up online. And if there’s  anything that anybody has questions about, you can reach out to me. You can find me through the the website, whatever, and I’d be I’d be happy to follow up with you.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much. Thanks for being on the podcast today.

Robert Watson — Thanks, Rich.