Engage, The First Step in a Discipleship Pathway

24_07_06 -Ep.320 - Run With Horses Podcast - Engage – Part One of the Discipleship Pathway

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Last week we began talking about a discipleship pathway for the church. Today we begin to break it down and consider the first step. What does it mean to Engage with your community?

Welcome to Run With Horses! My name is Norman and my goal is to help you thrive as a follower of Jesus. The spiritual life is both incredibly simple and potentially the most difficult part of your life. God invites you to live intentionally and on His mission. It’s very cool that we can do that together!

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HABITS - Thanksgiving
The Discipleship pathway is intended to help a church be intentional about helping people take steps toward Christ-likeness. However, individually each one of us has the same responsibility and opportunity to pursue that growth ourself. One thing that you can do personally to support a life of pursuing Jesus is work to develp new habits that make it easier to move forward.
Today I want to focus on Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is a habit that we all can and should develop and ingrain in our lives.
1 Thess. 5:16-18,

How? Make it easy and give yourself reminders. Memorize this verse or others like it.
One step at a time. This is a good place to start.

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A quick review:
What is as discipleship pathway? Simply put, an intentional plan to help followers of Jesus grow toward Christ-likeness. That word intentional is key.

MY WORKING DEFINITION OF CHURCH
A CHURCH is a group of followers of Jesus who worship Him in spirit and truth, humbly offering their lives as living sacrifices, together living out the mission of Jesus as His witnesses to the world, by sharing the gospel and making disciples through teaching obedience to His commands as they edify and EQUIP OTHERS to join them on His mission.

The discipleship pathway is an intentional plan to equip others to be on the mission of Jesus.

Don’t forget the goals of the pathway. Clear goals are important. What are the goals of a discipleship pathway?
a. self-feeding Christians
b. everyday missionaries
c. disciple-makers
d. pastors
e. new churches
f. all members of the church, shepherded well

First step in the Pathway.

ENGAGE, then CONNECT, EQUIP, RELEASE

ENGAGE - Everything is covered with the clear expectation of Intentional Engagement by all members of the church.

Actions by the Church, outside the four walls primarily.
* Community Engagement
Where and how are we involved in the community?
How does the church family encourage and support community activities and projects?

* Relationship Building
We seem to have lost the ability to build realtionships!
What does it take to make a new friend? Time and conversation.
Galatians 5:22-23, 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control.

* Evangelism – Gospel Conversations - built on relationships.
Not a rote prepackaged gospel conversation, although there is a time and place for those, but bringing your friends into your relationship with Jesus and sharing hwo the Gospel has impacted your life.

* Pre-Salvation – following up with those God is working in.
- Gospel review – How well do they understand what Jesus did on the cross?
- Christian Life Basics – How do you build a relationship with Jesus?
> Prayer
> Bible Reading
> Church Family
- Church Family – get to know relationally, invite your unbelieving friends into your church family network of friends
> Importance of–
> Purpose of – introduce the mission of Jesus

Equipping by the Church- support and training for engagement
1. Gospel Foundations. - grounded in God’s Word and His work in our life
a. salvation and faith – review and talk about your own life change comfortably
b. Jesus' finished work on the cross and the implications of that work, what Jesus did in and through you.
c. our new identity and all that means for life, who we are has changed and impacts everything!

2. First Steps in Gospel Ministry
a. my testimony – your story connected with God’s story
b. Three Circles gospel presentation
c. The Bridge gospel presentation

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DOCTRINE
July – God
August – Jesus
September – Holy Spirit

God is Omnipresent
Jeremiah 23:23-24,
Psalm 139:7-10,

Thanks for joining me again today! Stop and say a prayer for your church family today! I’d love to hear from you, write me at norman@runwithhorses.net or leave a comment on the Run With Horses Podcast facebook page. Take time today to pause and thank God for His work in your life and keep running.