From Faith Pulpit. Read Part 1: Seek God Earnestly.
In the midst of this life’s wilderness, everyone thinks; in the arid regions of the wilderness, thoughts sometimes scream. In these times, we must learn what captivates the thoughts of our brothers and sisters. We must help them not only to give themselves to learning more about their God, but also to capturing their thoughts with the truth of God that they know and are learning.
From Faith Pulpit, Winter 2016-2017. Used with permission.
In the July/August issue of The Baptist Bulletin, Dr. Jeff Newman published an article titled “Dependence in the Wilderness.” In that article, Dr. Newman explored Psalm 63 and its implications for growth during difficult circumstances. This article builds on this previous work by applying the Biblical concepts to discipleship ministries. For a more thorough study of these concepts, refer to his book, Dependence in the Wilderness (Regular Baptist Press, 2015).
“For a man who maintained a prolific remote ministry through his letters, Paul repeatedly sounds discontent with the remote, impersonal medium.” - 9 Marks
Leadership development is one of those things that churches frequently talk about but rarely plan for or actually do. According to Ephesians 4:12-16, every church is responsible to train its members for gospel-advancing, church-building ministry. But how do we do that? Below is an example of the process our church uses to develop leaders for ministry:
The Three Step Process of Ministry Leadership Development at Community of Grace
God calls every believer to teach His Word to others at a grassroots level. To motivate and equip them to do this, He provides pastors. These are responsible to “hold nothing back,” devoting themselves to ministry in two venues: public gatherings and private settings (Acts 20:20). While both settings are necessary, it seems that prevailing Western models favor public gatherings over more personal settings. Perhaps this imbalance hinders our efforts to engage people in ministry.
“This majority of Christians is less likely to say it is very important to see progress in their spiritual life (30% say progress is important vs. 54% of those who don’t consider their faith private), less likely to say their faith is very important in their life today (45% vs. 66% agree strongly) and less likely to have weekly time with God (51% vs. 66%).” - Barna
“Latest report on Christian persecution finds Nigeria has 4 in 5 martyrs, China has 3 in 5 church attacks, and Afghanistan is now worse than North Korea.” - CToday
“MIT Technology Review recently showed that troll farms had reached over 140 million users on Facebook before the 2020 election. A troll farm is an organized group of users (or even bots) who intentionally craft content to exploit division and sow discord in society.” - C.Leaders
“A critical look at what could be responsible for believers’ inability to withstand calamities of life is traceable to “bread and butter messages” in churches today. Sound doctrines are rarely preached and many Christians have been weakened by rosy messages that only make Christians focus on how to find solutions to the challenges of life through God.
Reposted from Rooted Thinking.
This is the last of three articles exploring these truths:
