OPBC will be using three teaching platforms as an opportunity to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
Beginning this Sunday night -The bi-monthly Sunday night series “Discipleship Training: How to Help People Change.”
The year-long NANC training beginning October 2011 at Christian Family Chapel.
A new home fellowship group taught by Pastor Brian entitled “How People Change.” The new home fellowship will be added to the other three in two months when we rotate groups.
We understand that although the entire church body will be greatly changed and challenged by the NANC training, all will probably not go through the entire NANC training program (the phases of the NANC training program were outlined in the March 6 pm service and in a follow-up e-mail to the church). We desire to equip the entire body for the work of the ministry (evangelism and discipleship) by providing several different opportunities for discipleship training (listed above). I am excited about the new opportunities we have to grow and change together. What can you do?
Read “Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands” by Paul Tripp.
Begin attending the bi-monthly Sunday night services beginning this Sunday night. If you cannot attend the services, they will be recorded and uploaded to the church website. If you do not have internet access, please ask the servant in the sound booth for a CD copy of the Sunday night messages that you miss.
Read, review, and discuss how to practice the sermon notes I will send out for the PM services.
Read the following introduction to the series:
The following are excerpts from Paul Tripp’s book recommended above:
I am persuaded that the church today has many more consumers than committed participants. For most of us, church is merely an event we attend or an organization we belong to. We do not see Christ’s Church as a calling that shapes our entire life. But consider this: we could never hire enough paid staff to meet the ministry needs of the average local church. The “passive body that pays the professionals” culture of the modern evangelical church must be forsaken for the ministry model God has so wisely ordained (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Sin alters every thought, word, desire, and deed. It created a world of double-mindedness and mixed motives, self-worship and self-absorption. People desire to be served, but they dislike serving. They crave control and nurture delusions of self-sufficiency. They forget their Creator, but worship His creation. Rather than loving people and using things to express it, people love things and use people to get them.
The primary battle today is fought and won in human hearts. People do not need mere principles or a system or redemption. People need a Redeemer named Jesus Christ. God has a huge toolbox for change and His principal tools are His Word and people. The adoption into the family of God was also a call to ministry, a call to be a part of the good work of the kingdom.
In personal ministry, I want to bring more than a heart of compassion, a willingness to listen, and a commitment to help bear someone’s burden. Though these are the sweet fruit of Christian love, I want to offer more. I want to bring the heart-changing truths of Scripture to people in the midst of their situations and relationships. Personal ministry is about loving and helping people, but in a way that includes bringing them God’s Word. It is true that there is more informal ministry than formal ministry in any given week. We should examine our counsel and advice we give in the million informal moments of everyday life. Why would teachers spend hours preparing to teach while we offer important personal direction without a second thought? We easily forget that God uses the little interactions of the day to apply the transforming power of Scripture to people’s hearts. We forget that God’s Word is our primary tool of change. Often, we come up with a little personal wisdom and personal experience and let the words fly. God is placing people next to people to create a system of intricate interdependencies and has ordained what we are to give each other in those relationships.
We need much more than practical advice on how to do the right thing in a particular situation. We need a message big enough to overcome our natural human instinct to live for our own glory, pursue our own happiness, and forget that our lives are much, much bigger than this little moment of life. Every day, in some way, we buy the lies of autonomy and self-sufficiency, worshiping the creation rather than its Creator.
As we know, life is all about Christ. There is one stage and it belongs to Christ. Any attempt to put ourselves in His place puts us in a war with Him. It is an intensely vertical war, a fight for divine glory, a plot to take the very position of God that people fight with every day. It is the drama that lies behind every sad earthly drama. Sin has made us glory robbers. We do not suffer well, because suffering interferes with our glory. We do not find relationships easy, because others compete with us for glory. We do not serve well, because in our quest for glory, we want to be served.
The central work of God’s kingdom is change. God accomplishes this work as the Holy Spirit empowers people to bring His Word to others. We bring more than solutions, strategies, principles, and commands. We bring the greatest story ever told - the story of the Redeemer. This is the work of the kingdom of God: people in the hands of the Redeemer, daily functioning as his tools of lasting change.
Looking forward to us all learning how to help one another grow and change!
Pastor Brian
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