Discussion Questions?
- What are our gifts and how are we using them?
- Are you committed to your beliefs and ministries or do you just show up?
- Are you hiding your gifts so that you won't be asked to commit?
- Do you recognize the service you see in others and encourage it?
- Are you offended when leaders within your circle step up and lead? How do you know their intentions and guidance are right?
- How do you feel about the idea of paid/vocational staff members in churches? How does their role and obligation to serve others differ from yours?
- What do you do when they blow it? What do you expect others to do when you blow it?
- When it comes to churches... How big is too big and what happens with small?
- We need each other in community. Our continuing ministry is built upon our wiring for service and love to one another. Each of us has a role to play... We cannot play one anothers' roles as we are each specific, beloved children of God.
- Faith and its associated works is associated directly with sacrifice and suffering. We must be fearless, gentle and reverent as we ACT not just speak about the love of Christ. This means holding one another accountable, celebrating successes and openly discussing failures. The community succeeds or fails together and all its members share the burden.
- Leadership positions in a faith community are a tremendous responsibility and burden. Not an opportunity to showcase and build yourself up. Service to a life community is just that.. It is a life of humility and service..
NOTES on ORGANIC CHURCHES and response article on Out of UR.
BOOK LINK: Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens - Neil Cole
This feels right to me.. our evangelism becomes about gentleness, reverence, and accountability to each other through deeper personal relationships with one another.. both inside and outside of the "institution". Evangelism becomes a part of who we are every day, in everything that we do.. it is NOT a task to be checked off... Our life community becomes about transforming both our own lives as well as those around us through Being, Loving, and Serving.. Repeatedly!!!
http://www.outofur.com/archives/2010/05/defending_organ_1.html
1. Make disciples, not organizations, and let Jesus build the church out of changed lives. A disciple is one who follows Christ and learns at his feet. Allow them to learn to follow Jesus. They will make mistakes along the way, but that is how we all learn. Protecting people from mistakes is to keep them from learning.
2. Lower the bar on how church is done and raise the bar on what it means to be a disciple. Look to invest in what’s proven rather than in potential. As people are faithful with small obedience present them with the opportunity for more. Start slower and smaller and let the growth generate by reproducing new life, rather than trying to grow something too quickly through attraction.
3. Life Transformation Groups (LTGs) are a simple method of empowering ordinary people, even brand new Christians, to connect to God’s word and obey without creating a dependency upon others who will tell them what to think and do. When the disciples are connected to Christ and following him, then the church that is gathered is strong and able to stand on its own without the unhealthy dependency that Mr. Hofmeister felt was needed. In an LTG people are reading a lot of Scripture repetitively and in context. They are also accountable to one another for confessing their sin weekly. Finally, they are identifying and praying for the souls of lost friends that need Jesus as well. I can trust people who are in such a relationship, and in a church made up of such people has the strength to grow, reproduce, and endure. (Search & Rescue is a book that explains how LTGs work and why.)
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1 Peter 4:7-5:5
The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.
8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10 Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. 11 Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
Suffering as a Christian
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice in so far as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even as a mischief-maker. 16 Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name. 17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And "If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinners?"19 Therefore, let those suffering in accordance with God's will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator, while continuing to do good.
Tending the Flock of God
5:1 Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you 2 to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it--not for sordid gain but eagerly.
3 Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away. 5 In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
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