Archive for Bible study

Teacher’s New Year Prayer

By Mark Miller · Comments (0)
Sunday, February 27th, 2022

My Mother went to her heavenly home on February 27, 2016. She taught an Adult Sunday School Class at First Baptist Church Lexington, Tennessee for fifty-two years. Here is a poem that she wrote entitled “A Teacher’s New Year Prayer.”

Give Us, dear Lord, throughout the New Year
A sense of your presence each day
May we trust that you are here with us
And will be each step of the way.


Help us, dear Lord, to be patient and kind
When things seem to go the wrong way
May we seek your wisdom in each circumstance
And trust you to guide what we say.


Bless us, dear Lord, with your Spirit of Love
Give us love for each student we teach
And may in our lives they see Jesus
And in us see His love and His peace.


Thank you, dear Lord, for the privilege we have
Of knowledge and truth to impart
May we make a difference in lives this year
As we teach from our head and our heart.


Nell Miller

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Categories : Sunday School
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Top Tips for Men’s Ministry

By Brad Delaughter · Comments (2)
Thursday, February 24th, 2022

For many churches men’s ministry is either non-existent or the ministry consists of quarterly breakfasts and an annual cookout. I have talked with pastors and leaders from normative size churches, medium, and large churches, and all struggle to some degree with launching or sustaining a vibrant men’s ministry. Why is this the case? What makes men’s ministry so different and subsequently difficult from the rest of the ministries of the church? I have wrestled with this question, read blogs, went to trainings, and scoured books to find the answer. The answer is simpler than we might expect. Men’s ministry seems so difficult because we make it more complex than needed.

For a successful men’s ministry, a ministry that glorifies Christ, strengthens the body, and engages people, it needs to have at least three components.

Events
Yes, men like to do things. I know this may rub some of us practitioners the wrong way, but events are fun, and they allow people to connect in ways they cannot connect in a formal church setting. We are not trying to win men to an event. No event should be a stand-alone ministry. Each event should serve to connect men to the DNA of the church.

Groups
As men get older, they tend to isolate themselves more. Find ways to plug men into groups. This can be done many ways, but make sure that within these groups, men can share their lives honestly, have the confidence of confidentiality, and the opportunity to pray with one another.

Projects
Finally, a successful men’s ministry will include some type of project at some point during the year. The project can be anything from building a wheelchair ramp to helping with VBS. Projects allow men to come together and serve alongside one another. As men serve beside one another with a shared goal, a bond is created and strengthened that draws men to one another and to Christ.

Remember, there is no need to put so much pressure on yourself or your ministry. Simple is better. Get your team together and brainstorm how these ideas can be put into place in your ministry.

Written By Brad Delaughter, First Baptist Church De Soto, MO

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Categories : Sunday School
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Learning About or Knowing God?

By Doug Dees · Comments (0)
Wednesday, August 15th, 2018

“The word became text and dwelt among us.” That is not the way it reads. He became flesh. And yet so much of the time, I catch myself wanting to get to know the “written word” more than the “living word”. I want to study a book instead of getting to know the author. I am not discouraging people from reading the written word; just the opposite in fact. The more I have grown over the years, God has shown me that He wants me to get to know Him, not just know about Him. I start with the written Word to get to know the Word.
In the past I have approached God as the One who had something to teach me. Which is not wrong. But Jesus was more than a teacher. God wants more than for me to ‘learn’ something. He wants me to know Him. He is not just a teacher or principle.

Interesting. When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment, He always states the same thing. He knew exactly what the Father wanted. It was always “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” In Mark 12 He adds strength. And in Luke 10, the lawyer who asked Him the question positioned strength in the middle. But in all of the passages Jesus starts with heart. Mind is third. So why do we start, and many times get stuck, with mind. Because it is easier to know something and turn it into a principle, than it is to know someone who wants to change us and guide us.

So, given all this, the first thing we should look for as we read the Bible devotionally is; “How does this help me to draw near to God?” The second like it is, “How does He want to draw near to me?” James tells us that God wants us to “draw near to Him”. The first one – How do we draw near to Him? That answer is: do not treat Him is a principal or a text, treat Him as a person. God the Father is the first person of the Trinity. And He wants us to draw near to Him. The second is like it: “He will draw near to you.” How has God drawn near to you? Have you ever sensed Him deeply at work in your heart and your life? And you wondered what that feeling was? And you asked yourself, “I wonder if someone is praying for me now to have peace?” I asked for prayer for peace in this situation, but I sense more than peace. That is Him, not just His attribute. In Philippians 4 we see “the peace of God” as we request it and turn our anxiety over to Him. But then as we dwell on things as He would, the “God of peace” shows up. Not just a principle or the attribute of peace, but God Himself.

Doug Dees
Executive Pastor
First Baptist Church of Moore, Oklahoma

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Categories : Bible Study, Disciplemaking, Sunday School
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Who is a Disciple?

By Mark Yoakum · Comments (0)
Monday, August 6th, 2018

As there is a lot of discussion about disciplemaking in today’s church culture, there is probably no bigger discussion that happens than “Who is a Disciple?”. In simple terms, it is someone who is like Jesus. He walks with God, talks to God and has God’s purpose in his heart and mind. Many discipleship programs start with the fact that a person must first accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. The focus then is on baptism and the basic Christian disciplines: reading the Bible, prayer, personal worship, corporate worship, scripture memory and meditating on the Word of God. Few of them focus on finding the person’s spiritual giftedness or finding a place of ministry that correlates to that giftedness.

There was a consensus for many that if someone was a baptized Christian, walked with God in the basic spiritual disciplines and found a spiritual ministry that the person was a full disciple. I contend that many discipleship programs have been short sighted in not going back to the simple terms we discussed earlier, “Be like Jesus”. Jesus did one more thing, He shared the gospel with non-believers and He made disciples. I think that Jesus wants a disciple of His to be like Him. In fact, in one of His last instructions about making disciples, He stated, “Teaching them to observe” found in:

Matthew 28:18-20 (NASB)
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

So a “Disciple of Jesus” is someone who observes all the teachings of Jesus including the instruction in Matthew 28. A true disciple makes disciples.

The ultimate goal of a peach tree is not to just produce peaches. It is to produce peaches that fall and begin other peach trees that produce peaches that produce other peach trees. The same is true for disciples. A true disciple produces disciples that produce disciples that produce disciples.

“Who is a Disciple?” Look to see the disciples you have produced. If you have not produced any then you are not a disciple.

Dr. Mark Yoakum is the Director of Church Ministries for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and believes the Great Commission is serious about going and making disciples.

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Categories : Bible Study, Disciplemaking, Learning, Ministry
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Make Every Bible Study Evangelistic

By David Bond · Comments (0)
Monday, August 21st, 2017

Perhaps one of the reasons why Sunday School has lost its evangelistic effectiveness is because many groups have decreased their efforts in making each group meeting increasingly more evangelistic. One way to do this is by learning to teach with the gospel always in mind.

Every lesson can be evangelistic because every part of God’s word points us to some aspect of the gospel. One helpful tool has sometimes been referred to as the “Gospel Grid”:

Creation

Fall
Redemption 

Restoration

Use this simple grid to think about how your teaching time best reflects one or more of these aspects of the Gospel:

Creation – What does this teach us about the power, authority, and holiness of God? What do we learn about His design and desire for a special relationship with people?

Fall – What might this passage teach us about how this relationship with God was broken? How does this passage picture or address the consequences of brokenness and separation from God?

Redemption – How did God, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, provide a way for what has been lost to be found again?

Restoration – How does this passage teach or remind us about the coming day when everything will be made new again? What hope does this offer and what urgency does this require? How can experience a foretaste of this today?

This simple grid may help you give each lesson an evangelistic element that leads people to Christ.

David Bond is a Sunday School/Small Group consultant at the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Facebook – @DavidBond
Twitter – @DavidTBond
Instagram – @DavidTBond

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Categories : 31 Ideas of Outreach & Evangelism, Evangelism, Outreach/Evangelism
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