47² Overflow Episode: What Does Discipleship Look Like Today?

Watch the full video version here: https://youtu.be/yaVLfnZeuv0

In this overflow episode, we’re continuing the conversation on discipleship, but from a different angle: what happens when we move beyond formal programs and step into authentic, everyday discipleship. We talk about how real discipleship is less about signing up for a church class and more about faith, spiritual growth, and becoming a lifelong learner with Jesus.

We share personal experiences with traditional discipleship structures and how some of them helped for a season, but also where they fell short. Our goal is to help you see that you don’t need a formal label or a big program to be discipled. Discipleship is about authenticity, personal connection with God, and letting Him shape your life over time.

In this discussion, we talk about:

- How discipleship impacts personal and spiritual growth
- Why you don’t need “official” or formal discipleship to grow in your faith
- Challenging traditional views of discipleship that focus only on structure
- The importance of authenticity and being honest with God and others
- How community and informal gatherings can be powerful for spiritual development
- What it means to live with a learner’s mindset in your walk with Jesus
- Why lifelong learning is a spiritual discipline, not just a personality trait

We also dig into the heart behind all of this: staying real. Inauthenticity has many faces, and we talk about how easy it is to perform, to pretend, or to hide behind church activity instead of letting God disciple us at the heart level.

Our hope is that this overflow episode complements the main discipleship conversation by reminding you that you can be a true disciple of Jesus in whatever season you’re in, without waiting for the “perfect” structure or program. Authentic discipleship is about walking closely with Him, staying open to growth, and being willing to keep learning for the rest of your life.

With love,

Hope & Nikki

📝 Share your takeaway or prayer request: https://www.equip39.com/podcast

Episode Transcript

Hope Mangiafico (00:00)
Girl, you added the generation thing at the end and that opened a whole nother can of worms in my head. I didn't even think about discipleship changing. I mean, we talked about it a little bit with like in your home.

Nikki Humphrey (00:14)
Yeah.

Hope Mangiafico (00:15)
But I didn't even think about that compared to like outward like service and other people, you know? That was good.

Nikki Humphrey (00:24)
It is, it's, yeah.

Discipleship changes everything.

Hope Mangiafico (00:29)
Well, it does, and I didn't talk about this in the episode, but...

How do I, I wanna say this respectfully.

It changes everything and...

I knew that and I know that my direct connection with the Father through Jesus and Holy Spirit is everything. But I'll tell you that I have allowed, and we've talked about this briefly in the episode, formality to still almost diminish the discipleship elsewhere. So the reason I'm even saying this, and I hope that it comes out correctly.

is I love, love, love the church we attend. When we first started attending, they offered discipleship.

Knowing what I know, was like, yes, I need that. I applied. There was an application. And once they matched you with somebody, I started exchanging back and forth. And you had to, required to meet once a week. You had questions you had to answer and do something else. And Sean was like, Hope, you don't need that. But I was like,

But it's discipleship, isn't this what discipleship looks like?

Nikki Humphrey (01:46)
Yes!

Hope Mangiafico (01:49)
And so that I was on this again pendulum of confusion of like, I signed up for discipleship. It's got the name. I should do this. But Sean's right. Like I don't need this. It's too formal. I'm also, I need a little bit more freedom in how I study because of my history of doing, I mean, I'm such a good academic student. Give me the film, the blanks. Give me the short answers all day.

I'll give you 45 paragraphs for one short answer. And Sean called it out. And then what sucked is I had already got the momentum going with this lady and I had to say, I was wrong. I can't do it.

But that's an amazing demonstration of what I thought discipleship looked like. And I think God uses the church for that. There are people that have been abundantly blessed by it, but it was not for me. And I had to then unlearn what I thought discipleship was. I legitimately thought it was that formality that we deconstructed today.

Nikki Humphrey (03:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hope Mangiafico (03:05)
And I had to undo my boo boo.

That would have been miserable.

Nikki Humphrey (03:09)
Yes.

And you wouldn't have got, I mean, you might've gotten some fruit from it, but it wouldn't. Yeah.

Hope Mangiafico (03:14)
My heart wouldn't have been there

because it was again a formality.

So I had to give that, like I said, didn't want to be disrespectful to my church because I love how my church teaches and what they do. But it's just, it was too good of an example not to give. If anything, I was the one at fault.

Nikki Humphrey (03:35)
Yeah

Hope Mangiafico (03:35)
Have you ever done anything formal that was considered discipleship that was more, more formal?

Nikki Humphrey (03:44)
Yes. Yes. Early on in my church walk when I was a real baby, baby Christian. And you know, everybody's like pushing like small groups and this and small group. gotta do the small, and small groups are great. I love it. I love a good small group, but it was way too over my head. Like what they were studying and everybody was at least,

Hope Mangiafico (03:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. Hmm.

Nikki Humphrey (04:12)
20 to 30 years older than me, which I don't care. Like I can learn from everybody. And I think sometimes that's great to have a huge age gap because they have so much knowledge. But it was just, I was just like faking it the whole time. Like we'd be in Bible study and it was homework heavy. And I wasn't understanding it. I was trying to complete the task and I was trying to like

check in with, I think we had like mentor pairs or something.

I mean, here I am in this Bible study and I'm just like faking my way through it.

Hope Mangiafico (04:46)
That's so funny. But you know, I think a lot of people do that. I joined a Bible study type thing and it was they assign you groups.

and you break up and you answer these questions that were your homework. I was the only one that ever did the questions. Didn't mean I was better, to be honest. Because it was pulling on my strength of giving long answers. They were all short answer questions. But I answered all of the questions. Everyone else had their papers are blank.

Nikki Humphrey (05:11)
Yes.

Hope Mangiafico (05:27)
At the time, I thought I was, you know, too good for all these people because at least I did the homework. You guys, comparison is absolutely of the enemy. But I was just as kind of faking it because I was doing what was my strength outside of real strength, right? Outside of heart posture. So we have both ends where, like, Nikki's story, people are just faking it and showing up because they're supposed to and they are confused or they don't

care, it's not a priority. And then you got people like me that gobbled it up.

because I could tell you who Jesus talked to in the reading that we did. It was Peter, you know? I could do that. So it's just really interesting. I guess I'm saying all that because inauthenticity or fakeness has a lot of different faces and be careful of judging other people and yourself thinking you're one way or another because in reality you're really not.

Nikki Humphrey (06:27)
Yes.

and don't think discipleship needs to look a certain way. ⁓

Hope Mangiafico (06:31)
No.

Yeah, exactly. What you gave an example, this one I just gave again, they had this formality that can be used, but it's not always the answer for each individual.

I need just blank pages and to go to town with the Lord. That's what I've learned. Which is, is that a coincidence? Probably not. I have to be blank.

Nikki Humphrey (06:55)
And sometimes

you can do it that way or sometimes just grabbing coffee with somebody who you know is having a hard time and be like, hey, you want to go grab a cup of coffee and talk and just, it doesn't have to be one way or the other.

Hope Mangiafico (07:00)
See

Yeah, the gathering with others, exactly. There's no specifics on how you do that with your, with, I guess, outside of the church, for example. It's just being in each other's presence. That's really where two or three are gathered, right? Holy Spirit is there and it's that simple.

actually.

I'm excited. like that being a disciple is simply being a learner. And I like how unprofessional the word learner sounds. So I just want to be a learner. And he gave me, while we were talking on the episode, that comparison to entrepreneurship and running a business. And I was like, dang, that's so good.

because your girl will learn all day to make sure that I can figure out how to make money to learn a new skill set. So I need to be a learner of the most important resource that I've ever been given in my entire life.

Let's be learners.

Nikki Humphrey (08:13)
Amen.

47² Overflow Episode: What Does Discipleship Look Like Today?

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