Summary: Week Five Discipleship Journal

Reflecting on chapter fourteen of Barbara Brown Taylor’s book “The Preaching Life”, I gained great insight into the understanding of imagination, and its relationship to conscious reality. Taylor, in this autobiographical insight of her life as an Episcopal Priest and Preacher, presents the reader with the challenge of understanding the concept of imagination, as perceived through the eyes of children versus the lack of imagination in adults. . Moreover, it is a comparison and contrast to the imagination, as it is perceived, applied, and evaluated through the eyes of adults. Possibilities are what children perceive through imagination, where as adults often see problematic probabilities. Her scenarios about children’s play and discovery are a reminder that followers of Christ need to redirect their thoughts and actions toward the positives of life, and avoid the negatives.

I feel that it is more important than ever that we, as believers in Jesus Christ, put it all out there on the line. We should be telling everyone what the saving grace of God can do for them. We already talked last week about when you experience Jesus, you can’t help but love and it is our job to get that word out there to everyone. So why are there so many Christians who don’t do it? In 1991 authors James Patterson and Peter Kim took on the task of surveying America about several different topics. The results were given in their book entitled “The Day America Told the Truth.” In the chapter dealing with America’s religious beliefs they stated that 90% percent of the people questioned said that they believed in God. Yet they also discovered

When we think of evangelism, we tend to have a few big names, like Billy Graham, D L Moody, George Whitefield, and John Sung. Our mindset immediately goes to “They are powerful Christians used by God, but I am just a common believer”. Later we will arrive at a conclusion: I can never be good at evangelism. Gradually, we lost the courage to even trying evangelism.

I serve the Disciples of Christ Denomination (DOC) by planning and carrying out all events for youth belonging to DOC churches in Georgia. Our biggest event is a retreat in St. Simons that reaches around 300 high school and middle school students. Our planning takes place during weekend retreats at our regional camp site.

In their book, The Great Commission to Worship, Vernon Whaley and David Wheeler takes an in depth look at commandment from Jesus for His followers to go out and spread the Good News of salvation. Today’s Christian seems to have a misconception about their role in evangelism. As the authors stated, “many times in Scripture it appears

Christians are commanded in the Bible to take the gospel into all the world. God desires that all people know Him. However, since He is in heaven and not on the earth now, it is up to His people to show others the way to Him. Much of that testimony for Christ is through the way Christians lives are lived. It is well known that

This class has been such a blessing to my life, and it is an honor to create this discipleship strategy for my future ministry. It is the job of the leader of the church to evaluate the spiritual growth of the church, and one of the ways to do this is by measuring expansion growth. This is a tricky subject because there are a lot of ways to define growth. There is transfer growth, which is the swapping of church members from a different congregation. This type of growth is good, but not the best type of growth. While many churches want to see their numbers increase, creating a church that takes away people from surrounding churches is not an ideal term for growth, because no new life change is happening. Tender growth is where people begin

    When I started reading this passage, I always thought that the text was clear and so were the boundaries of the text.  As I’m reading this, I just see how the before and after parables set-up “The Calling Of The First Disciples.”  When I reread this parable I feel like something deeper just sticks out at me.  I love how Jesus is trying to reveal himself in a simple parable as, “Take a leap of faith and take your boat deeper with me for deeper blessings.”  The surrounding parables are both on healing, I feel like that, it just shows how people who don’t “know” Jesus still will call him Master (vs 5) and will follow him into the deep.  In this passage, miracles, teachings and discipleships outline

As being part of God’s true people, I partake in the Abrahamic blessings. I am no longer of the world, God is my judge and I was called to spread the gospel (4:19-20). I need to share the gift of salvation and opportunity to repent and forgiveness of sin which was given to me by God to others. God confirms the first century Christian with the filling of the Holy Spirit and they spoke boldly (4:31). All people are lost without Jesus (11:17-18; 10:43), there is a great need for Christians to evangelize the good news. I am responsible as a steward of God to proclaim the good news to those around me and nothing can hinder God’s plan

life it is your whole life. It is a sense of being with God. It is not

At the mention of the word "disciple", the image most people conjure up is that of a faithful pupil, a person more than willing to follow the teachings of their leader without question. However, the early disciples didn’t always conform to this stereotype. In fact, they sometimes showed a complete lack of faith, finding it extremely hard to accept Jesus’ word in their hearts.

To proclaim the message of Jesus Christ is vital to an organic catechesis. As catechists, it is our vocation to bring others to know of the personal relationship that God is seeking to have with each one of them. A relationship in any facet of the human life requires conversation through both listening and responding. Our catechesis should be no different. As Pope Francis states in Evangelii Gaudium, “It is the message capable of responding to the desire for the infinite which abides in every human heart” (EG 165). As we actively listen to the word of God, we should be “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37) in the same way as those who heard Peter’s Pentecost speech as he boldly proclaimed the kerygma.

The concept of discipleship can most likely be traced back to the beginning of time. It is comparable to a form of apprenticeship. In its simplest form, discipleship can be defined as the act of learning to become like someone by being under the influence of another. However, when one explores Biblical discipleship the rules change. It is certain that discipleship was a part of Jewish culture. However, Jesus and his chosen twelve model the most accurate Biblical form of discipleship.

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

In Ministry I’ve learned that telling the truth does not matter if nobody hears the truth. And I learned that in order for people to hear truth from you, you have to be connected to them. Not a single Old Testament prophet hailed from Babylon. They were all the children of some crazy shepherd who happened through your village during last year 's drought. And I also learned that you can 't always tell the whole truth at one time. It makes people gag and they spit it out. You have to say things in ways that gain a hearing. That is part of the responsibility of proclamation.