Process – Part 2

 

After a non-believer is exposed to the gospel or a believer is exposed to the reality of their personal responsibility for their walk with God, assuming the non-believer choses to trust Christ and the believer accepts the responsibility for their relationship with Christ what does one do in the process of equipping them in the work of service?

Note, in Ephesians 4:11 – 16 (here at Bible Gateway), it says “He gave some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, FOR (this is a structural marker telling us the purpose for which “He gave” those leaders – emphasis added) the equipping of the saints FOR the work of service, TO (another structural marker that also indicates purpose, you could read it “in order to”) the building up of the body of Christ.”  This is so important.  Think about that for a moment.  In a lot of cases we expect the leaders of the church to do the work of service, after all by tradition, training, and job description, that is what we expect.  But, if we take this passage seriously, if they are not equipping the members of the church to do the work of service, the ministry, they are not doing what the Lord expects.  Ponder that.  How does that inform or alter your view of your leadership or what you expect out of your membership in your church?

The next word in the process is “Engage”.  How do we engage a new believer or a believer who has embraced their responsibility for their relationship with Christ?  What do they need to know?  I asked this question of a group of leaders in another country, I asked what one coming to Christ out of their culture would need to know to begin a strong relationship with Christ.  Here are the topics that they felt were important:

Who is Christ	The Attitude of a Believer	Testimony
What is Sin	Marriage	Prayer
How to Grow in Faith	Parenting	Spiritual Gifts
Love	Believers and the World	Word of God
Grace	Different Religions	Devotional/Quiet Time
The Trinity	Gospel	Baptism
Spiritual Warfare	Church	Work in the Church
The Second Coming	Bible Study	Renew One’s Mind
	Prayer for Him

There are a LOT of good things on that list, emphasis on LOT.  Without going into detail about the culture, I suggested that we focus on a shorter list which included some of their ideas, while explaining why these were important basics, they eagerly agreed to this:

How to Pray	How to Share Your Testimony
How to Have a Devotion or Quiet Time	Scripture Memory
How to do Basic Bible Study	The Lordship of Christ
How to Get the Most out of Christian Meetings	Assurance of Salvation

We spent the rest of our time together working on packages that would motivate a person in each of these areas, get them started in the discipline, keep them going in that discipline, and help us determine when it was theirs.

The point of this story is that leaders need to give guidance on what is important in what order.  In what is critical to engage a new or newly responsible believer.  The original list has important topics.  However, the pared down list are good first steps, prerequisites needed in order to tackle the longer list.

Need to press pause.  We will expand this a bit in the next post.  Let me know your thoughts.