Equip

Praying the Lord’s Prayer as a Church

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Jesus taught us to pray in what we call the Lord’s Prayer.  Have you ever thought about how you can use this prayer as a template to teach your church how to pray? Here’s how Jesus taught His disciples to pray: 9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.10 Your kingdom come,your will be done,    on earth as it …

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How to Have An Effective Group

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Groups are important.  Whether you call them Gospel Groups, small groups, community groups, discipleship groups, Sunday School classes, Bible study groups, etc., the committed gathering of a smaller group of believers is essential to discipleship.

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Three Reminders for the Next Generation

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Parents want the best for their children.  Would you be willing to give the best to your children even if it included getting intentional and personal? Psalm 78:1-8 teaches that each generation needs to be reminded of 3 things: The Faithfulness of God The Frailties of the Past The Focus of the Future The Faithfulness of God The next generation …

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Discipleship Strategy for Your Family

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Within the family contains one of the greatest opportunities for discipleship and one of the greatest challenges for consistency. Your family members provide you the greatest opportunity to encourage and to discourage spiritual growth.

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God’s Plan for Your Family

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God’s plan for your family is not complex.  We make it that way, but it is truly simple.  This is the plan:

God wants to reconcile the world to Himself through Christ-following parents who disciple their own children to multiply gospel transformation to all people.     

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Jesus’ Prayer for His Church

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When Jesus spoke of His Church, He spoke of a people and not a building (Matt. 16:18).  We are not called to come to church but to be the Church. In John 17, we get insight into how Jesus prayed for the universal Church and how that applies to each expression of a local church.  Our hearts should be comforted …

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God’s Favorite Style of Church

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Every Christian has their favorite style of church.  We all tend to gravitate towards a type of church that meets our desired preferences.  Have you ever thought about God’s favorite style of church? God’s favorite style of church is a lifestyle church. Be the Church 01 – God’s Favorite Style of Church Jesus’ Great Commission provides a template for a …

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Pray Through Psalm 20

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Praying through the psalms is a process that keeps your prayer life fresh and your prayer requests specific.  Using God’s Word, you can articulate your prayers keeping in line with God’s will.  As you read, you take a phrase and flesh out ways to pray that scriptural truth. The method I use to pray through a daily psalm is to …

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How to Study the Gospel of Mark

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The Bible provides an incredible depiction of Jesus through four unique Gospels.  The Gospel of Mark emphasizes the need to follow Jesus immediately.  In order to study this book, let’s address the differences between the four Gospels and the unique nature of Mark’s Gospel.

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Multiply Churches

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The Multiply Initiative is our simple yet aggressive plan to multiply disciples.  As we make disciples within our own church, our prayer is that we will see growth in our church and in the churches we plant or replant.

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Multiply Yourself

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The Multiply Initiative is our simple yet aggressive plan to multiply disciples.  While we can multiply programs, events, services, and churches, the heart of strategy plan is when disciples begin to multiply themselves. If a new Christian simply replicated your life, would you be pleased with his or her maturity? PD 14 – Multiply Yourself Gathering Disciples Jesus first called …

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Multiply Disciples

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The Multiply Initiative is our simple yet aggressive plan to multiply disciples.  Our church is an established church with almost two centuries of discipleship work.  As we go forward during this time, we wanted to simplify our strategy as a church and clarify our expectations for our covenant members. The Great Commission Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, …

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Overcoming Temptation

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A critical element in discipleship is training someone how to overcome temptation.  While everyone is tempted, particular people are more prone to certain temptations than others.

In order to overcome temptation, let’s identify Satan’s strategy, Jesus’ success, and our steps needed to succeed.

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Silence, Solitude, and Sabbath

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In our fast-paced society and our continuously-loud distractions, our eyes, ears, bodies, minds, hearts, and souls need margin.

The disciplines of silence, solitude, and Sabbath are meant to provide renewal for the disciple.

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Fasting and Discipleship

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Fasting is an important and yet overlooked spiritual discipline.  While most disciplines encourage people to do something, fasting encourages people to do without something.

Fasting is the voluntary denial of physical food for spiritual purposes. 

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Prayer and Discipleship

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A personal prayer habit is vitally important in the life of a disciple maker.  Not only does it remind us of our dependence upon God for sanctification, but we must also model healthy prayer disciplines in our discipleship of others.

We learn how to pray by praying.

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Scripture Memory and Discipleship

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While reading Scripture is vitally important, oftentimes, we forget what we have read as soon as we have closed our Bibles.  The lost of art of meditating and memorizing Scripture is a key discipline in the life of the disciple.

We must discipline our minds to have the words of the Bible accessible even when a copy of the Bible is not available.

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Bible Study and Discipleship

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A key component in personal discipleship is the practice of spiritual disciplines.  Spiritual disciplines are not meant to make you more liked by Jesus but more like Jesus.  We discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness (1 Tim. 4:7).

No discipline is more important than regular Bible study because it encourages every other spiritual discipline.

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Discipleship in the New Testament

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[Guest Post by Bryce Staggs – Rocky Creek Pastoral Resident]

The writers of the New Testament show an importance in discipleship using the word “disciple” over 260 times and the word “Christian” only 3 times. We echo that discipleship is important, but do we know why it’s important, what we should teach, or how to do it?

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Discipleship in the Old Testament

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While the word, “discipleship,” is not found in the Old Testament, the concept is embedded from the very beginning.  God’s people were to pass on a legacy of faith to the following generations.

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Defining Discipleship

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We talk about making disciples, but do we know how to do it?  In this series of lessons on Personal Discipleship, let’s pray that we start obeying the biblical mandate regarding discipleship.

Before we can make a disciple, we need to figure out what one looks like.

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Interpreting Revelation

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The final book of the Bible is full of glorious promises and yet significant challenges.  While the entire Bible has interpretive challenges, none is so difficult as the Book of Revelation.  In our last session of hermeneutics, let us focus on how to be unashamed in our accurate study of this final book.

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Interpreting Acts

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The Book of Acts is a unique book in all of Scripture.  Being the only narrative-based book in the New Testament that isn’t a Gospel, extra hermeneutical precaution must be made.

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Interpreting the Gospels

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As we approach the New Testament, the first hermeneutical task is to learn how to study the Gospels.  The Gospels are the accounts written to portray the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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Interpreting the Prophets

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Interpreting the Old Testament prophets is an important hermeneutics’ skill.

While the prophets are historical literature, they are more like sermons commenting on the events than detailed reporting of the events.

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Interpreting the Writings

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The Writings section of the Old Testament is also referred to as the Wisdom Literature.  These books don’t fit naturally into the Law, History, or Prophets categories.  While these books are different, they each artistically teach the wisdom in keeping God’s Law.

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Interpreting the Law

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In our study of Hermeneutics, we come to one of the most difficult sections of Scripture to interpret – the Law.

Oftentimes, New Testament believers go too far in relation to the Law – either by expressing strict obedience to all types or by ignoring the commandments altogether as not applying to us.  We must find a healthy balance when it comes to interpreting this wonderful section of Scripture.

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The Importance of Context

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When it comes to reading Scripture, context is key.  

Too much of our current biblical study focuses on isolated verses and neglects the context of which the verses were originally written.

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The Interpretation of Translation

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In the 2nd week of our Hermeneutics course, we learned about “The Interpretation of Translation.”  The Bible in our possession has divisions of testaments, books, chapters and verses.  66 books are included and many religious books were left out.  In addition, the Bible was composed in 3 different languages, and a reading in English means that someone has already began the process of hermeneutics without us really thinking about it.

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The Task of Hermeneutics

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Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.  -2 Tim. 2:15

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