Last week I taught at Paragon Church and we hosted a “Connection Group Fair” in an effort to motivate people to sign up for the small groups and connection groups. The teaching I gave is actually the culmination of much of these postings over the last months and touches on a very important “how” given to us by scripture.
To recap we had said, over the course of several posts (look for “Searching for Church” as the category to find them all), that Discipleship must include the following:
- The teachings of Christ accurately rendered as passed to us through the Apostles writings,
- marked by a lifestyle of Christian living (specifically one of faith and love with discipleship marked by helping making it as easy as possible for others to walk this life)
- focused on the goal of integrating all things (including our own lives) under Christ and our walking intimacy with Him,
- which necessitates being done in the midst of life, guided in its order and emphasis by our lives, rather than separate from it, and
- demonstrated by being with those we disciple.
Once can see from the list above, that discipleship can only occur in some sort of lifestyle community approach, and the teaching tonight not only mirrors this idea, but strengthens it with some new (to me) insights from scripture. As this teaching also happens to be a relevant framework for my Small Group Training Seminar for leaders, I thought I’d share it here as a resource for pastors and small group leaders. It’s a short 20 minute teaching. Use anything you hear in your own church or small group and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly. And of course, if you’d like to explore any of these ideas further, please contact me about further resources.
Give it a listen and pass it on for free. I hope it blesses and helps. If you think your church would benefit from a more thorough examination of these topics, please don’t hesitate to contact me and we can customize a plan for your church!