Month: January 2018

Categories
Christian Living

Elimination: The Skill of Eliminating Distractions is Important

The Skill of Elimination – removing the things from your life that are negatively affecting your spiritual growth.

(And again, Facebook automation now only provides an excerpt, and so those FBers who want the full article will have to follow the link to my website. The best alternative would be to sign up for the email which sends the full article directly to your inbox. You can do that by clicking here.

photo of erasers to remind us use the skill of elimination
What Do You Need To Erase From Your Life?

Now back to the skill of elimination.

Continuing with the idea of the last few posts on discipleship, I want to remind you that Discipleship & Disciple-Making are key commands of Jesus.

You know that the 2 Greatest Commandments are:
    1. Love God with all you have, and
    2. Love others as yourself.

The way we are to accomplish these 2 commands is through obedience to the Great Commission, which Jesus stated as: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”

Therefore, if this is Jesus’ Commission to us, then we each need to have an answer for how we are obeying it. We should be able to answer these two questions:
    Who is discipling me? and
    Who am I discipling?

Who is intentionally helping you to grow in love and obedience to Jesus?
Who are you intentionally helping to do the same?

In Robby Gallaty’s book, Rediscovering Discipleship, he shares a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Gallaty goes on to say that this kind of evaluation is very difficult because it removes what you want and reveals what God wants. And we know that God wants us to be discipled and be discipling others. Therefore, this means that some of us may need to think seriously about eliminating some activities in our lives so that we can experience the very best that Jesus wants for us.

We need to develop the skill of elimination and continually ask ourselves:
What do I need to eliminate from my life to be obedient to Jesus in the area of being discipled and being a disciple-maker?

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Categories
Ramblings

Errors and Minor Inconveniences: I Apologize

As often happens in life, I find that things are not quite as easy as I had hoped. In re-starting my posts, some things have changed with the tools I use to publish posts. I fixed the error that occurred with my email recipients, but in a similar way, Facebook is now only giving an excerpt and a link, not the full article like it used to do. I’m looking for a fix, but until I find one, it means that any Facebook followers who want to see the full article will have to follow the link to my website. I apologize for the inconvenience! The best alternative if you want to get the full article without having to follow the link would be to sign up for the email which sends the full article directly to your inbox. You can do that by clicking here.

And if you have been on this journey with me for the past few years, you are probably asking yourself: when will his posting taper off? Will it be in one week or two? You may be surprised! You’ll get at least 52 this year, and here’s how I know for sure…

While I have had some difficulty in the past finding time to post regularly, this year I decided I would not post anything until I got at least 52 posts ready! And so that’s what I did. I plan to send out two a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays), which will take us through one-half of the year.

When did I find time to put together 52 posts at once? Well, it was during my sinus infection that kept me at home for several days around Christmas. (And yes, I did write many of them while on medicine! I tell you this so you can give me some grace on the weird ones!) If we get to the end of 52 posts and then they suddenly stop, then just pray that I get another sinus infection to crank out another set! Just kidding – please don’t pray that for anybody!

Categories
Prayer

Transparency – Where Do You Need the Most Prayer Right Now?

In my previous post, I mentioned to you that our Disciple-Groups started with personal prayer needs and that doing so required transparency on our part.
image of man kneeling in prayer - reminding us also of our need for transparency
Even so, sometimes we don’t quite know where to start. Therefore, we use the following guide to help us share personal prayer needs.

The reason I’m sharing them with you, is that these are not just good for giving others information on how to pray for you, but it can also give you guidance on how to pray for yourself. Read through them one time, and then go back through them praying for each one that applies to your life.

For which of these items do you need the most prayer right now?
     a. Your relationship with God?
             i. Personal Daily Bible Reading
             ii. Personal Prayer Life
             iii. Personal Purity

     b. Your relationship with your spouse?
             i. Face-to-Face Time together
             ii. Prayer/devotional time together (other than meals & family devotions)

     c. Your relationship with your children?
             i. Prayer/devotional time together (other than meals)
             ii. Walking and talking time together

     d. Your relationship with your coworkers?
             i. Workplace Pastor Role
             ii. Planting Seeds of the Gospel to those who work around you

We also ask that each person will share how God is leading them, and the following questions can help provide you ways to answer. These can provide you with additional guidance on how to pray for yourself, and how to ask others to pray for you.How would you answer each one?
     a. What good habit or character trait do you feel God wants to form in your life?
        And how have you taken specific steps to develop that habit?
     b. How are you leading your family to be closer to the Lord?
     c. As a “workplace pastor,” how are you leading your coworkers to be closer to the Lord?
     d. What is God presently telling you to do & what are you doing about it?
     e. How have you turned a conversation toward Christ since our last meeting?
     f. How has the Bible shaped the way you think and live since our last meeting?
     g. What opportunities did God give you to serve others since our last meeting?
     h. How have you received a specific answer to a prayer since our last meeting?

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Categories
Prayer

Sharing Personal Prayer Needs with Others is Important

In my previous post, I shared the commitments of our FBC Newton Discipleship-Groups. Along with those commitments, what actually happens when the group meets? One important aspect is sharing personal prayer needs.

By Personal Prayer Needs, we mean prayer requests that you have for yourself or for your immediate family (as in the people who live in the house with you). Most of us are good at sharing the prayer needs of other people around us, but we are seldom transparent about what we need prayer for the most in our own lives. Being honest and transparent in this way takes trust. That trust is more easy to develop in a small D-group than in a Sunday School class of 12 people.

We believe that prayer is effective at changing lives, and so we ask for Personal Prayer Needs and then we take the time to pray together for one another.

Are you sharing personal prayer needs with anyone in your life? Or do you keep all of those to yourself?

praying hands symbolizing the need for prayer, but also encouraging personal prayer needs being shared with others
Who Can You Get To Join You In Praying For Your Personal Prayer Needs?

In conjunction with these prayer needs, we then ask for each person to share what God has been teaching them through their Bible reading. This is where we share what we have written down that God has been teaching us. This could be something challenging, helpful, interesting, or difficult from your Bible reading. Again, these are also often a form of prayer needs, as someone might say, “As I was reading this passage about controlling the tongue, God pointed out to me to watch how I talk to my wife. I have been pretty harsh lately.” This becomes an additional transparent prayer need that we can pray for as a group.

As we read God’s Word, we ask each person to ask: “What applications can I find in the passage to help me live for Christ more consistently?”

One way you can do this is to use C.A.S.E. to find application points. As you read the Bible, look for:

    C – Commands to obey
    A – Attitudes to change
    S – Sins to avoid or confess
    E – Examples to follow

Then we pray to end our meeting, asking God to help us apply something specific that we have discussed/discovered in our meeting.

As I wrote previously, I will say again: You need this in your life!
You need to be discipled by others and you need to be discipling others.
That is the calling on your life to “Go and make disciples” that Jesus commanded of you.

Are you reading your Bible with a view toward how to apply it to your life? The Bible gives us clear application of how to live in a way to bring glory to our great God.

Who do you have in your life that you are able to share personal prayer needs with? Who do you know is truly committed to praying for you? Who can you ask to pray for you regarding the applications you are gaining from your Bible reading? There are people out there who are willing to be in a group with you to do this. If you aren’t sure who they are, begin praying now that God will point them out to you, and then invite those two or three people to start a group with you.

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Categories
Christian Living

Embracing a Discipleship Commitment for Your Spiritual Growth

Part of the reason that I struggled with writing for my website in 2017 was my involvement in several discipleship groups during the year. At FBC Newton, we have been focused on developing these groups (D-Groups), and they have been my priority, so anything extra was relegated to the back-burner. But as the original groups have now split into multiple new groups, my time commitments are not quite as taxing as they were, and so I now have a bit more time to write. These D-groups have been a blessing to me, and I wanted to share with you the commitments of the groups, because I think they are important commitments for every Christian to embrace.

Each group consist of 3-5 people of the same gender who meet together regularly to

  • Pray for one another.
  • Discuss how to live out the teachings of Jesus.
  • Sharpen one another in Christian living.
  • Hold each other accountable in their Christian walk.

    • Don’t each of us need these things in our lives to aid us in our Christian discipleship?

    “But that means you are asking me to add something extra to my schedule. Do you know how busy I am?”

    I know, we are all extremely busy. But…

    Do you not have time for something extra if it will help you grow significantly with Jesus Christ?
    If your answer is “No, I do not,” then that may mean that you need to give something else up.

    a pocketwatch to symbolize the need to make time for discipleship
    Will You Make Time For Discipleship This Year?

    Commitments to one of our Discipleship Group Include:

  • Meeting with your group regularly.
  • Reading at least 1 chapter of the Bible each day, Monday thru Friday.
  • Writing down what God is teaching you through your reading.
  • Sharing during the group.
  • And the final commitment is that at the end of no more than 2 years, the group will divide to start at least one additional group to do the same thing again with more people.


    • That’s It. Pretty simple commitments. Read God’s Word every day and get together with others to tell them how God is transforming you through it.

    So, if you know that the Great Commission of Jesus commands you to “Go and Make Disciples,” then how are you being obedient to His command?
            Who is discipling you?
            Who are you discipling?

    If you do not have a clear answer to these final questions, then something needs to change in your life to make space for obedience to a key command of Jesus!

    And let me just say… You can do this!

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