My Philosophy Of Small Groups Essay

I currently attend and work at a church with 2000+ regular attendees. We currently have over 40 small groups that meet on a weekly basis. Small groups are at the core of what we do. Beginning at age 3, we believe that the small group is THE place to grow more like Jesus and practice the “one anothers” with one another.

Thompson presents a very convicting treatise on the significance of relationships in the Christian witness. This book causes the reader to examine their own relationships, as well as their lifestyle, in order to evaluate the degree of the reflection of Christ in their incarnational witness. Through his systematic process of self-examination and relational observation, combined with intercessory prayer and discipleship ministry, Thompson offers a simple, yet profound method of using personal relationships to share the gospel of Christ with family, friends, coworkers, and complete strangers. He expounds on the principle that mankind is a relational being, created to fellowship with God and other humans, to develop his approach to personal evangelism and, equally important, follow-up

Discipleship is about engaging in the Word, following and obeying Jesus and going out to make disciples. An essential element in being a disciple is to be open to learning, to be teachable. It is a mindset to be continuously adopted and cultivated. For us to disciple others, we must be a better disciple ourselves. When making disciples, we are instructing others to be willing to be a discoverer. It applies to both spiritual growth as well as personal development, openness to new techniques, ideas and methods in all aspects of life. Our spiritual learning comes from delving into His

So discipleship can be summed up; to follow, to learn, to preach, to believe, to serve. All factors are

The Art of Personal Evangelism: Sharing Jesus in a changing culture By Will McRaney, Jr. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Academic, 2003, 268 pp., $19.99 paper.

     What is groupthink? There is a simple definition for it, but is it truly that simple? The term groupthink refers to the inclination of group members to have the same opinions and beliefs; it frequently leads to mistakes. It often occurs without an individual being aware of it. Conflict is considered to be a harmful element when related to groups, but conflict is good when considering groupthink because it helps to eliminate the existence of a groupthink. The explanation sounds simple enough, but it is more complex than the description given.

of the members were given and we were asked to finish a project on a

The church is in need of major renovation when it comes to making disciples. The concept of making disciples to follow the Lord Jesus Christ seems completely foreign to the church today. In order to achieve the desired goal of making disciples for Christ, training others to go out and proclaim gospel, and helping others to train people to disciple one another, one needs to go back to foundation of the Word of God. It is in God’s Word where multiple examples are found of how to make disciples to follow Jesus Christ. It is my desire to see more people in the church have a passion for discipleship. Therefore, this paper will examine in detail how to make disciples in a ministry context. This will be accomplished by examining the 5 V’s of discipleship—vision, values, views, vehicles, and verifiers. It is my purpose to examine each area in order to have a detailed plan of discipleship that will be used in my own ministry context to make disciples for Christ. I hope that this plan can and will be used to train others in the church to make disciples, and disciple one another, for the glory of God.

Paul David Tripp says, “Personal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ, so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get "fixed." It involves exposing hurt, lost, and confused people to God's glory, so that they give up their pursuit of their own glory and live for his.” Supervised ministry has allowed me to work with others with the hope of connecting others to Christ on a personal level. In this paper I would like to reflect on the ministry assignments I was given over the past few months and talk about

Discipleship starts with the heart, it is to have Christ at the center, to have His love, His Holy Spirit fill you, and guide you. To have Christ as the centrality

At the “Great Commission” Seminary, it is impossible to deny the fact that everyone is called to make disciples as they are going into the world. Every month, if not every week, I am reminded that I am called to go and make disciples of the people that have never heard the name of Jesus. Currently, I reached out to a woman in a Jewish Synagogue and had a gospel conversation, and I plan to go back to minister to her and to those around her by the end of the month. I work at a paint store, and I try to direct my words to talk about the gospel through at my work in a way that is natural to my job. I do not inorganically foce the conversation in this direction, but instead gently show these men and women what I do and why I am here. This has led to an hour-long conversation with one customer about the gospel, and I even had the privilege to invite a customer to church for Easter. Understanding my surroundings and engaging people with a gospel is interesting is an easy and fun way for me to incorporate the gospel

The need to affiliate with others and to be accepted by them is hypothesized to be as basic to our psychological well being as hunger and thirst are to our physical well being (Raviester and Leary, 1995). (Meeting, Liking, and Becoming Acquainted, SPT Reader P. 50) One doesn’t begin to realize how important social interaction is until it is gone. Each individual seeks some sort of relationship throughout his or her lives, even as an infant. Relationships are looked as a bond between two individuals, but it is not limited between those two. People all have the need to affiliate, but not all people are the same and differ in the strength of their need for affiliation. When meeting new people in a small group

As people, when confronted with a problem where a solution must be found, our ideal situation is to come up with the best possible one. To do this, we ideally gather the most knowledgeable, intelligent individuals into a group and attempt to derive the best solution to the problem. With the collection of these people, one would think that finding the best possible answer to the problem would be a rather simple task. However, what has happened in many situations is the complete opposite. Rather than finding the best possible solutions, many ideal, cohesive groups arrive at the worst possible answer largely due to problems in communication within the group. This is what we call the radical theory of

Relational. The ministry of Jesus was focused on people and meeting their needs. Spending time with others, both individually and through corporate gatherings, is modeled throughout the Bible. Fellowship with other believers in small groups allows individuals to forge relationships and develop accountability at some level. These deeper bonds demonstrate to others their love for God and others by loving God’s Law, obeying it by God’s grace, and allowing it to lead to Jesus Christ for transformation into His image.

I will demonstrate that the knowledge I have obtained through life experience, formal training and internship has equipped me to meet the course objectives listed for MBTS class U-CE405: Making Disciples CCC. In my early twenties, after a yearlong process of reading my Bible, I became a born again Christian. What followed was a tremendous journey filled with unbelief, discouragement and culminating finally with true faith. A year later the Lord called me into full time ministry, so in the fall of I995 I enrolled at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO. During my time at BBC, I not only learned of the deficiencies of most people’s view of discipleship, but I began a long journey in realizing my own.