>Gospel in Life // Coming March 2010

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Gospel in Life is an intensive survey course exploring how the gospel changes our hearts, brings us into community, and is lived out in the world.  This eight-session small group course includes a DVD of Timothy Keller’s teaching for each session as well as a detailed study guide which features Bible studies, discussion questions, quotations from literary sources, and home study work. It is designed for both lay people and ministers and will be available in March 2010.

Table of Contents
Week 1: City – The World That Is
Week 2: Heart – Three Ways to Live
Week 3: Idolatry – The Sin Beneath The Sin
Week 4: Community – The Clue To Change
Week 5: Witness – An Alternate City
Week 6: Work – Cultivating The Garden
Week 7: Justice – A People For Others
Week 8: Eternity – The World That Is To Come

View a Sample Home Study

HT: Redeemer City to City

>Missional Training for Small Group Leaders

>Ed Stetzer recently posted the video from his one day missional small community training in Oklahoma City. Great stuff … check it out.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6241475&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Missional Small Communities from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

HT: Missional Communities

>Pitfalls in the Pursuit of Gospel Community, Part1

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By Steve Timmis

Dual Fidelity

Evangelicals are called to a dual fidelity: faithfulness to the gospel word and faithfulness to the gospel community. The gospel word creates the gospel community; the gospel community displays and declares the gospel word.

In the contemporary scene, people and movements tend towards polarization on this issue. It’s often those who are solid on the gospel word who are flabby on gospel community. Likewise, those who elevate community tend to downplay the word.

But there are dangers facing those of us who want to be true to that dual fidelity. As we move towards the nurture and development of vibrant and attractive gospel communities, we must avoid certain pitfalls to prevent us from damaging a truly good thing.

In a series of short blogs, I’ll highlight some of these pitfalls. The aim is not to scare us away from gospel community, but to make it even sweeter when we get into it.

Pitfall #1 The Gospel Saves… Not Community

In the first chapter of Romans, Paul gives a summary of the gospel (Rom. 1:3-4), which he then later (Rom. 1:16) describes as the power of God for the salvation of those who believe. The gospel that saves is the proclamation that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, is the risen Lord of the world. It is a summons to the whole world to submit to him.

Every time Paul preached Christ crucified and risen, he did so confidently and expectantly because he knew that was the means by which God saved his people.

If the gospel saves because it is God’s ordained method of rescuing the lost, then:

• You and I don’t
• Methods and personalities don’t
• Structures and systems don’t

Inquiring Minds…

Our danger comes not through actively rejecting the gospel, but in terms of our assumptions being demonstrated by our practice. What we can’t do is let our focus on community (as important as that is) lull us into thinking that all we need to do is expose people to it, and hey presto, they’re with us.

That might happen of course, but it won’t mean they’re Christians. According to Peter, it is our corporate life that invites people to ask for the reason for the hope that we have (1 Pe.3:15). There has to be something inexplicable about our gospel community that causes people to inquire. We then have the opportunity to speak the gospel word, for it is through that, and that alone, that God saves.

HT: Resurgence

Tired of Pressing Play?

Are you tired of pressing play at church or in your small group? I am. It seems that every Sunday School class, youth gathering, and small group meeting involves watching a video curriculum and then discussing what was presented. Don’t get me wrong, the curriculum is always Bible-based and is typically very well done, but nonetheless, it’s just starting to really get to me. We are meant to be students of God’s Word, not consumers; and my concern is that pressing play all the time just makes it all too easy for most of us.

Read more here.

HT: Christian Striver

>Are You Tired of Pressing Play?

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Are you tired of pressing play at church or in your small group? I am. It seems that every Sunday School class, youth gathering, and small group meeting involves watching a video curriculum and then discussing what was presented. Don’t get me wrong, the curriculum is always Bible-based and is typically very well done, but nonetheless, it’s just starting to really get to me. We are meant to be students of God’s Word, not consumers; and my concern is that pressing play all the time just makes it all too easy for most of us. Often the curriculum is great because it was created by someone who did the work of studying God’s word and applying it in a way so that others can connect with it in a meaningful way. There’s nothing wrong with that, but who do you suppose did the most growing – the one who studied God’s Word or the one who consumed someone’s interpretation of God’s Word? Who do you suppose connected in a more meaningful way with God – the one with his nose in the Bible or the one with the remote in his hand? I don’t have a problem with using a boxed curriculum once in awhile, but for far too many it’s become a habit that has led to laziness (do we even know how to do a Bible study anymore?). I’m going to put down the remote for a while and do a little studying of my own.