Resourcing

The Bible never envisions disciples who don’t make disciples. It never pictures or presents a situation where one two, three, or even a percentage of the church are the ones doing most of the work of the kingdom, and everyone else stands back, and watches. It shows elders leading and teaching, and equipping all the saints for mission. We are told that God gave different leaders with different gifts “to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”. The more we know God’s word, the more we sense this.

This summer, I started getting requests, please give us resources for evangelism, and in light of that, we crafted the fall Bible studies around this need. In addition to the Bible studies, I want to tell you about two other outreach training resources that I would like to invite you to be part of.

The First is a Missional Church Learning Experience (MCLE) that the Boston Southwest association will be hosting. What is an MCLE? Basically, it’s a group of churches gathering together to form a learning community to ask what God is saying to the Church today, and how can we best serve God on mission in this rapidly changing culture in a group context. The Boston Southwest Association is bringing in Glynis Lavar (the ABC’s lone missional thinker of note- as best I can tell) for three training sessions to help us think through how we can begin to impact our community as a church that is living on mission for God. We have been asked by the Association to put together a team of people who are interested in exploring the future of Christian faith in America, who will take what they have learned, and begin to help the church implement the things they are learning. The commitment that is required is that you be willing to set aside the 16th of November, the 8th of March, and 28th of June 2014, the dates Glynis Lavar is coming to lead the workshops. If you are interested in learning more about the MCLE, email me, or check out the ABC's MCLE page.  

 

The other thing that I would like to mention is coming up quickly. On the 27th of October, Roger Haber, one of the pastors in the area, will be coming to put on a workshop for the Billy Graham My Hope training at 6:30 at the parsonage. What is My Hope? It’s a national outreach program being run by the Billy Graham association, and we are participating. What we are looking for is people who are willing to do what Matthew did. He invited some people over to meet Jesus. The idea is that you invite people over, have a great meal with them, show a video presentation by Billy Graham, share how you came to Christ, answer questions and have a conversation about the gospel, and invite your friends to know Christ. The Billy Graham Association is launching the outreach in November. For more information, check out the video, email me, or check out Billy Graham's My Hope Page.