The Ministry Of Jesus Christ

I had the privilege of interviewing Brian Bagwell for this project. He is, in my opinion, one of most humble, wisest man we have at Church of the Highlands. Once you get through a joke or two, the fruits of the spirit radiate from his personality. A man that I have the privilege to call my mentor and teacher. He is currently serving on staff at the Church of the Highlands as a Dream Team Coordinator. His shares the vision of the church which is passed down from our senior pastor, Chris Hodges. Evangelism is the definition of the church so to speak, Church of the Highlands stands behind the final authority of God’s word which is the bible. It is often said among the staff “we do not argue the essentials, but we can disagree the non essentials.” The church believes and acts in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, and helping people move through four steps our God has outlined in the Great Commission. Our Church exists to see people saved, delivered, redeemed, and fulfilled. This is accomplished with four systems that allow the people to move through the four steps. The first is weekend services to allow them to know God (saved), small groups to find freedom (delivered), growth track to discover purpose (redeemed), and dream team to be fulfilled and make a difference (fulfilled). This vision is how the church evangelizes (Bagwell). This vision is clear to all members of the church who call Church of the Highlands home, and even clear to people

In The Disciple Making Church: From Dry Bones to Spiritual Vitality, author Glenn McDonald addresses what he sees as the critical element missing from the modern Christian Church: discipleship. McDonald, who owns a Master of Divinity Degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, is the senior pastor at Zionsville Presbyterian Church, which was once a traditional large suburban church, in that it focused more on the needs of the church than the needs of the parishioners. In this book, McDonald discusses how he helped transform his church from a traditional church to a church that emphasizes discipleship.

My personal view of mission revolves around Servant Leadership or what can be better called “Incarnational leadership”. This is rooted in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, as “He took a towel” (John 13:2-5) and washed Peter’s feet. He was efficient with people, had goals in sight, but was also relational over being task-driven. This kind of leadership produces new churches filled with real purpose and motivation as people are called, appreciated, loved, encouraged, discipled, involved by mentoring and discipleship before they are deployed in ministry (Prov. 27:23; Mark 10:35-45; Luke 22:26; John 13:2-17; 1 Cor. 3- 4; Eph. 4:1-16; Col. 3:13; 1 Thess. 5:13-14; 1 Peter 3:8;

A number of models and methods were presented for a better explanation and questions to apply and imply in our understanding and our church. The authors attempted to break the missional code throughout the book within the North American context which can easily be used in other contexts as well. Ed Stetzer is serving at various capacities as an author, speaker, pastor, church planter and Christian Missiologist. He is the executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, and region director for Lausanne International. Moreover, Ed is known for his expertise in Missiology, speeches on cultural engagement, church planting,

Like John Pipers states at his closing remarks, “the purpose of this book has not been merely to inform you of the supremacy of God in missions, Rather, from start to finish we have sought to invite you to become more personally engaged in the cause of missions with a heartfelt, God-centered passion” (p. 263). His aim has not been to exalt the missionary but to exalt God and to exalt his mission. The precise nature of your engagement in the cause of missions will be different from that of any other person. Where you go as a missionary or stay as a sender is a secondary issue. The primary issue is that whatever you do, you do it for the glory of God (p.

While I was making these exciting discoveries for myself, I was still wondering how I was supposed to instill this willingness to search in others. Once again, Foster provided an answer, though it was not the answer I had hoped for. What I had found so satisfying about this book was that it clearly spelled out things for me to do in order to grow spiritually. Yes, God does the real transforming work within us, but the "Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us. "6

The theology of mission for the church is to reverence God in all our doing, to make an effort to glorify His name, by making disciple for Christ. The gospel records in (Jn 14:6, NASB), Jesus is the truth and the only way to the Father, and therefore, Christ is in need of us, just as we are in need of him, for the sake the eternal kingdom. Anderson states, “The church is the result of this mission to the world. But, at the same, the church is the agent of the mission as it proclaims and expounds this “gospel” and penetrates into the world in partnership with God’s mission to the world. The church, as the “missionary people of God,” connect gospel

In a kingdom way of looking at things, mission is not just about saving individual souls from hell, as important as that is. Mission is about proclaiming a holistic gospel of the kingdom of God in the tradition of Jesus (Mark 1:15) and Paul (Acts 28:31), both of whom preached healing that was spiritual, physical, emotional, and political. Thinking in kingdom of God terms will enable people to grasp the missionary implications of a key phrase of the Lord’s Prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done” (Matthew 6:10) (Gailey, Culbertson p

I desire to be part of a community that values creativity in how we partner with God in ministry, commitment to a particular people and place, and the necessary work to facilitate reconciliation between all people and God. Slow Church helped me to better articulate these ideas, but I am still learning how to lead others in living them out. As Smith and Pattison reminded me repeatedly through their book, these are all ordinary things, lived out in our day to day lives (Smith & Pattison, 2014, p. 223). It is my intention and my hope, by the grace of God, to keep practicing them for as long as I have

The first idea that stood out for me was about the initial conversion in connection to further discipleship. Dr. Sunquist reminds us that the goal of evangelism is not just the initial conversion but further transformation. The conversion is "the passageway to becoming a disciple" (325). Too often, the church focuses on the initial response to evangelism without a call to commitment, to becoming a real follower of Jesus. It is not enough to just announce the Kingdom of God, thinking that God will do the rest without our involvement. The church ought to proclaim the gospel, which leads to conversion, and to provide for discipleship, which leads to the spiritual transformation. Furthermore, even the initial response does not always happen just

In the Christian community, every single person plays an important role in making the community as safe and caring as possible. One of the most vital beliefs of a Christian is that we are all equal, so we when we are called to serve and help each other, we should obey. This call, although we may hear it at different times and see it in different ways, the call comes to everyone. We may have different understanding of the call, or we may even conflicting ideas of how to answer this call, but in the end, every single idea is important.

In the world of the Church there must be a mission to be captured. If it is not to go and spread the Gospel, what is the point of the church? The Missio Dei stands as a guide for the church. Describing the Church’s mission through Missio Dei requires a look at not only the Abrahamic Covenant and relationship between the church and missions, but the role of missions within the church as whole.

My personal mission theology is disciplining and proclaiming the pure word of God in the correct context to those that claim to be abiding in Jesus Christ. This includes pointing out and warning them against false doctrine and belief systems. Contrasting what the modern institutions preach about what it means to be a child of God against what scripture actually says it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

To understand “Mission Theology” we first have separate the two words. Mission is the vocation or calling of a religion organization, especially a Christian one, to go out into the world and spread its faith (Oxford Dictionaries). Theology is the study of God or the study of the nature of God and the relationship between the human and divine. In the textbook we use for class which is called “Introducing World Missions” we are told that the word “missions” (which ending with the letter “s”) is the word that is used to explain “the particular assignment of making disciples of all nations.” We have to understand that the word “mission” refers to everything the church does that indicates concerning the Kingdom of God. Mission Theology is known as God’s relationship in mission and how he develops his creation.

Many people don’t understand how important serving is. I have found that at some schools, serving is important and is required to graduate. Service is the action of helping or doing work for someone. Serving can help others learn more about the world and help them position into a mature adult. Although service is required sometimes, people should serve by choice. Service hours are designed to help students grow in a relationship with God as well as discovering new ways to serve and help others.