Kingdom Living (Part 2): Participatory w/ Walter Kim
Cara: In 2026, the GC podcast is shifting to a new format with two miniseries released throughout the year rather than monthly episodes. This change is going to allow us to go deeper into meaningful conversations that support our shared journey of Kingdom Living. In the first half of the year, we’re excited to launch the series with Reverend Dr. Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and the keynote speaker for the 2026 denominational celebration. In this series, Dr. Kim joins me to explore what it means to live as citizens of God’s kingdom in today’s world, faithful to Christ, formed in community, and engaged in mission. So, stay tuned for this rich and timely series.
Hello folks, and welcome to GC Podcast. I’m your host, Cara Garrity, and this podcast is dedicated to best ministry practices in the context of GCI churches. This is the second episode of our miniseries on Kingdom Living, and joining us once again is Reverend Dr. Walter Kim. Walter, thank you so much for joining us for the second part of this miniseries.
[00:01:17] Walter: Glad to be here.
[00:01:19] Cara: And I am very eager to jump into this next episode. We’re going to be exploring the element of kingdom living that is, that we could describe as participatory, of joining Jesus in what he’s doing and stepping into active discipleship by recognizing and joining in his ongoing work. And so, I just want to start us off with this conversation with what does it even mean to join Jesus and what he’s doing, and what ongoing work are we invited to participate in?
[00:01:55] Walter: Yeah. I think one of the incredibly important lessons that we need to be keeping in mind is that it’s not my ministry for Jesus. It’s Jesus’ ministry that I join.
[00:02:08] Cara: Yes.
[00:02:09] Walter: And that God’s purposes extend beyond that, beyond us, and even beyond the church. I think God has and is and continues to be at work. And I think the opening prayer in Colossians that all things hold together in him, in Jesus. And peppered throughout, we get these throughout the Scripture, we get these insights that God’s constantly at work. I think of Melchizedek, that strange figure in Genesis, right? He shows up out of nowhere. He blesses Abraham. And then the book of Hebrews picks up on that story and says that Melchizedek was a better, higher priesthood than even Aaron’s, that Jesus is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Who is this Melchizedek? I’m like, where did he come from? Where did he go after he departs the scene? Like we don’t know this story, but the lesson for me out of this is that while we have a lot told to us about Abraham, about the work of God’s people, about the church, we get these snapshots that God is actually at work all over the place beyond our field of vision.
And Melchizedek comes in just for a moment into our field of vision representing God’s work in this world, and then he goes out doing who knows what, but whatever it is that he did was so important that God later in Hebrews would guide the author of Hebrews to say Jesus was a high priest of the order of Melchizedek. It was like that important. To me the huge lesson about that is God is on the move doing things all over — not just the world, the cosmos — holding every atom and molecule together, and we get to join him in what he is doing in the cosmos. And that’s extraordinary. These snapshots that we get, I think are a humbling reminder.
Yeah. But also an inspiring reminder. Humbling in the sense that who am I that I get to participate in this cosmic ministry, that even right now in the heavenly realms that we don’t see there is a spiritual battle. Who am I to be a part of something so big? It’s humbling.
But it’s also inspiring that no matter how menial it feels, how mundane it feels that what you are doing in ministry, writing that email, filling out that form, calling back that person, visiting your neighbor with the casserole, preparing for your small, no matter how mundane it feels, you are actually involved in a cosmic ministry and you get a chance to find yourself in that big picture. It is both humbling and inspiring to recognize that we participate in what God is doing.
[00:05:37] Cara: Yes. Thank you. And, yeah, I agree. Humbling and inspiring. And I’d never thought about having that, I guess learning from Melchizedek. And I really like that idea of like outside of our window of vision that God’s doing things. I think that is a really cool way to think about that because God’s not limited by what we see.
And I think sometimes when we think about participating in his ministry, first off what you first mentioned is sometimes we think it’s our ministry, and so that’s quite limiting, right? But then even beyond that, I think we often limit what we think God’s doing or his ongoing work to what we can see, what we’re able to discern. But he’s doing all kinds of things all over the place, a cosmic ministry. I really love that. And that it’s just incredible to think about that.
And one of the things I personally love is that means sometimes we see him in places and doing things that we wouldn’t expect. And I think that, yeah, it is just incredible to think about how vast his ongoing work is, and what it means, and how humbling and inspiring it is that we get to be invited into a small piece of that. And that it’s not our piece. It’s not something that our objectives or what we want to see happen, but that it’s we’re being invited into what he’s doing. So, yes. Thank you for that.
[00:07:34] Walter: Yeah.
[00:07:35] Cara: Appreciate that. And I’m wondering, because you touched on the idea that it’s not our ministry and that it’s a humbling and inspiring experience even when things feel mundane, when we look at ministry as participation.
And so, I’m wondering a little bit more, what difference does participatory discipleship make for us as disciples, as the church for our neighbors. What difference does it make when we look at discipleship as participation instead of maybe other kind of ways to approach it or think about it?
[00:08:17] Walter: Yeah. This language or participation, I love it because it does several things. One, it reminds us that ministry is active. The word participate requires activity. You are doing something together. And again, as in our last episode, we referred to Jesus sending out folks and pairs and looking for our Timothys, looking for encouragers.
This notion of participatory ministry is this notion that we are called to do things together as the party of Christ and we need the entire body of Christ to represent the body of Christ, right? If we’re missing a part, a hand or a foot or some aspect, then the world is missing a chance to see something about who Jesus is that requires a full participation.
So, we have a particular calling. We might be keenly interested in justice or evangelism or service or teaching or a hospitality or care for children or care for elder, and we might do all of that really well. But that’s only a part of who Jesus is.
If we want people to have a full view of who Jesus is, then we need to have a participatory ministry that says I want to be as faithful and as excellent to what aspect of Jesus that, and kingdom life that, I am called to portray to you. But if you are left with the impression that’s the only thing God cares about, or that’s the only thing that God’s doing in this world, then you’re going to actually have a very impoverished view of who God is.
So that’s the second thing. Not only is participatory ministry action oriented. Participatory ministry is comprehensive. It is more comprehensive because it’s a constant reminder that if our goal is not just to give people a great view of what we do for Jesus, but a great view at what Jesus is seeking to do in the world, then by definition we need to be a part of something that points to other types of work and ministry. Otherwise, they are not going to get a full picture of the good news of Jesus, much less a full picture of Jesus himself.
The last thing about participatory ministry is it’s super humbling when you have to negotiate how you will accomplish something. And that’s deeply, oftentimes challenging, because you’re going to have to compromise. You’re going to have to work with someone else’s plan. You’re going have to have the curiosity, humility to learn from others, maybe even have your own ideas nixed. And so, it’s character forming. There’s in participatory ministry, there’s something deeply character forming as well.
So, I love this language that you’re using here in terms of kingdom ministry, kingdom life calling as participatory because it reminds us, it’s action oriented. It invites us to have people look at a bigger picture. And it’s also character forming because we have to humbly work with someone else.
[00:12:03] Cara: Yes. Thank you. And I think for me, one of the things that really jumps out is this idea that it requires us to look at the more comprehensive kind of picture of how we’re all participating in different ways and how that reflects that more robust image of what God’s doing and who he is.
And it’s not just a look at this one way of participation, but look at all these body parts that are participating together in this one work of Christ. I really appreciate that aspect of what you shared as well, because it can be easy, right, to get into our little niche and be like this is ministry. This is the most important aspect.
But if we’re talking about participation, it’s what are all of the ways that God’s calling us to participate in the ongoing work that he’s doing that might be outside of our window of vision. And when you are focused on a certain aspect of ministry that God has called you into that doesn’t mean that he’s not working in other spaces and places. Just because we have tunnel vision doesn’t mean that’s the only place that he is. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that. I really appreciate that.
And that aspect of it being active, I’m wondering what are some of the practices that can help us cultivate that active participation in kingdom living?
[00:13:50] Walter: I think we sometimes overestimate what our training can do and underestimate what people’s learning process can be if they just are sent out to try something.
I think about evangelism. I remember just early on, after I became a Christian, I had this kind of pretty radical transformation in high school. I became a Christian and then went away to this retreat and really had this outpouring of God’s Spirit upon my life. It was transformative — went into this retreat one way left, completely transformed. But I had no category for what just happened to me, and I didn’t really have any training.
But I remember coming back from this retreat, I was so overwhelmed by the joy of discovering Jesus that I was playing tennis with my tennis partner before the school year was starting. And just in the middle of our practice session, I stopped. I put down my racket and went to the other side of court and just listen, I need to tell you something about what just happened to my life.
And I realized looking back now, like I’m sure the gospel presentation that I made no sense and probably had a good bit of heresy thrown in because I had no training. I had a lot of passion. And what I got from that is, I’m so glad that I just had just did it rather than just say I can’t do this unless I read a certain number of books or get a certain number of training or …. No, hear me clearly training, reading, like all that’s good. We should have training programs on how to share our faith just as an example in this.
But sometimes we overestimate that if we just train people they’ll go do that and underestimate the passion of just experience. And what I experienced there actually led me to a journey of saying maybe I actually should read something to help me explain this better.
But I think it was important that it often happened in that way. And again, Jesus does that. He like calls people to himself and sends them out and does all sorts of stuff, and then he debriefs them and then says, okay, let me explain what this really is about and it’s this dance of experience and explanation that is often really important about participation.
Again. Yes. Get training, read books, go to seminars. But in the end, training will never replace passion, never replace experience, never replace the connection that you would get with someone as you’re trying to share your faith or trying to serve. And you’re going to realize, gosh, I need some help in this.
And then you go get the help. You’re, like, going to be so much more motivated. And this is where I, again, this idea of go do stuff together that we talked about last time.
Here’s a great opportunity. You, as a leader might be more trained than the person you’re bringing. One of the best ways to convince a person that they need training is to bring them with you and expose them to a situation that is so faith stretching that they begin to realize, the person begins to realize, I’m not really equipped for this.
But they wouldn’t know this unless they experienced something. And so, it’s a wonderful occasion for us to say, can we put ourselves in faith stretching moments to make us realize that we actually need more instruction rather than instruct people and hope that they will get inspired by that instruction to go do the thing.
Sometimes it’s better. Maybe most times it’s better because frankly, this is how children grow up. They experience something and then the parents help explain what just happened. I think discipleship often is like that. We go experience something and then we make sense of it through instruction.
[00:18:33] Cara: Yeah, it’s like participation can be our learning ground as disciples. And I think that that feels really profound because I think often we can be in context that are very like cognitive, that we have to wait until we understand things the right way or that we have to wait till we have all the right answers before we can do something that’s that overestimating of training I think that you speak about, and I think that at least in some of my experience, that part of that is this fear of oh, I will mess up. I have to wait until I know everything.
But maybe it’s okay to learn along the way. Maybe that’s part of the human experience. Maybe that is what we see in biblical accounts, and maybe there is something humbling about that as well, because if we rely only on our own understanding and expertise, maybe then it becomes about what we know and what we can understand, not about what we’re learning from one another and from God in the midst of this participation. So yeah, I think participation as that learning grounds is, that’s profound.
[00:20:07] Walter: When kids learn to walk — when my kids were learning to walk — I have two kids — when they were learning to walk, I didn’t look at them and as they were wobbling across the room, taking really fitful steps, falling down, I didn’t look at them and say, oh my goodness, I’m so embarrassed of you. Like, why can’t you get this better?
I celebrated it. And I think we need to recover something of this. You’re always going to be an amateur. You’re always going to be a toddler in the kingdom of God. In ministry, there’s nothing more humbling than the recognition that you’re never going to become the perfect expert, flawless in your performance the moment you get there. Oh my. May the Lord may humble you by putting you in a new faith stretching environment.
So much of this is the recognition that we need the grace of God. We are toddlers all learning to walk. We’re going to fall and that’s okay. We’re going to stumble. We’re not going have all the answers. And this is where we need to recognize this imagery that we are children of God. We are children of God. He calls us his children.
I think there’s something really important about accepting that. Again, I’m not encouraging us to have immature character and immature relationships, but I am encouraging us to say let’s put ourselves in situations where it’s okay to stumble because how else are you going learn how to walk?
I’m so glad my kids did not wait to learn how to walk until they went through a 10-week training program on walking. They just tried to walk. And in ministry again, yes, let’s train. But there’s no replacement for actually just trying stuff and then cheering one another on with the grace of being able to say, it’s okay to fail. Let’s, learn together.
[00:22:23] Cara: Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that comes to mind when I think about this, like, participatory element of kingdom living is this, maybe, I don’t know what word I want to use for it, but this way of maybe experiencing or approaching church community of faith expression, whatever you want to, word do you want to put to it that’s maybe a little bit more passive? Or sometimes we hear the word like consumption, right? Maybe very individualistic where you just show up to a very well put together church service and then you just you show up for that hour and a half and then you go home and then you do it again the next week. And that’s kind of it. That’s what your participation in discipleship looks like.
And so, I think about that in contrast to this kind of dynamic participation, skinning your knees as you’re learning and you’re growing with one another and with God that we’ve been talking about.
So, I’m, curious what thoughts you might have for us as we maybe encounter in our communities or even sometimes battle within ourselves this maybe temptation to have this like consumptive kind of faith where we just want to come take stuff and then go home and let it be about just like, all right, I’m going to consume this, and then that’s it, and then come back and consume some more, and then that’s it.
[00:24:04] Walter: Yeah. We have become a culture in which consumption is a default way of living. And convenience, I would add that, right? It’s not just consumption. It’s consumption combined with convenience that leads to a sense of passivity, right? Now we can consume, but we can consume at a click of the mouse and we can purchase things.
We don’t even have to go into our car and go to that thing called the mall and walk up and down different shops to find the sale that we are looking for. We don’t need to cut coupons. So even in our consumption, we have reduced it to clickable things, and even in the consumption of religious material, we don’t have to go to church, we can just go online. We don’t physically have to join. We could just be a part of a Facebook group. Again, I want to say there are ways in which these things can be used, so I’m not …
[00:25:10] Cara: Yes.
[00:25:10] Walter: … denigrating the fact that we can use technology really well. But I am saying that if we already live in a consumeristic culture, that’s our default setting that has now been coupled with a convenience culture. So, I have to consume, but I want that consumption now, the most convenient means possible, that for it to be the default setting of our discipleship is to be expected. If this is the bulk of our life, then why should we be surprised that we import this into how we think about our spiritual life, our life in the church?
And so, it’s an uphill battle. It’s a discipleship issue to get out of this consumerist mentality, this passive mentality. But once again there is this interesting moment that we’re in culturally, that even this consumerist notion is being challenged. Like it’s enough. Younger generations now have this interesting backlash to social media and a desire to perhaps be embodied. I was reading an article recently of how some students are responding to the banning of cell phones in their schools. And yeah. Okay. For the first several weeks it was like, oh, I can’t believe they’re banning these. But then students saying, thank you, and now I actually have to talk to people in the lunchroom. Now I am engaging with others around me. It’s like helping me see the world in a whole new way. Yes.
Cara: Yeah.
Walter: Yes. And there are ways that, in which I think within our churches, people might want this more than you realize. If they were invited to participate in something and actually experience something, not be preached at and told, oh, you should get out there, but just invited into experiencing something, I think that could be transformational.
There was a moment, I’ll give you a very tangible example as a younger Christian. I was invited — and I learned hospitality in a way that reading no book could ever do — to a dinner event hosted by someone at which there was, let’s say, someone from the other side of the tracks that was invited to that dinner, a person that struggled with homelessness. And I thought, wow, what am I experiencing here? I’m experiencing a vision of a of discipleship that is just a way of life in which this host is expressing hospitality to me personally, but actually making me engage in ways that I would not have in any other context in a conversation that humanized this person.
[00:28:24] Cara: Yeah.
[00:28:25] Walter: I could not look at someone who was homeless in the same way. That is participatory. That was an invitation. I wasn’t given a manual ahead of time. I wasn’t trained. I just was exposed. That exposure led to an experience. That experience led to a desire for equipping.
And, that’s where I would really encourage us to think about ways in which we can be inviting people to these types of experiences in our transformation. And, to think about not just lamenting consumerism, preaching against it, providing statistics, but providing an experience that makes non-consumerism so compelling. Why would I wish to live any other way than a way that’s disengaged?
[00:29:20] Cara: Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate all the insights that you’ve shared with us on our episode focusing on the participatory aspect of Kingdom Living. And as we prepare to close out our episode I want to invite you to pray for our church leaders and members and community members, neighbors as we seek to be transformed into more of a participatory people.
[00:29:51] Walter: Yes.
Lord Jesus, you said, go, and heavenly Father, you sent and Spirit you move people even now throughout the world to serve you in sacrificial ways, and you invite us not merely as individual followers of Jesus to service, but as communities, as churches, as small groups, as friends in Christ. And Lord, we want to heed your call to go, to make, and to be present in this world in the name of Jesus. Amen.
[00:30:42] Cara: Amen.
Thank you, folks, and until next time, keep on living and sharing the gospel. Thanks for listening. We would love to hear from you. Email us@infoatgci.org. We hope to see you at the 2026 denominational celebration in Texas from July 23rd to July 26th, 2026. Visit us at gci.org/dc26 for more information and to register.