Equip Fall 2014 blog:

Greetings Imago Dei Church! We’re excited to announce that we are about to begin our third year of our Equip training program. Equip is a discipleship training time that allows the Elders to get to know and begin equipping future leaders for roles that will take the gospel all over the world, and also to identify future Aspire interns. We will be developing a two-year curriculum with content including The Gospel, The Church, Missions, and Ethics—hitting on all of them each semester.

Equip typically meets four times over the course of a semester on Saturday mornings at a new time, from 8:15am-9:45am. Through this program, the church seeks to equip and train any aspiring church planters, pastors, missionaries (anyone involved in Going), growth group leaders, church planting teams, or anyone wanting futher equipping.

This fall, Equip will hold its first meeting on September 13th at the new 8:15-9:45 time slot at the IDC Building. Typically, we watch/listen to a sermon, or read an article, and interact with Scripture on our own time and then having come prepared, discuss the content with teaching and/or small groups.

For our September 13th meeting we will discuss:

The Gospel – Gospel Appropriation
Tim Keller, audio sermon: “Preaching the Gospel” (40 min.) http://theresurgence.com/2006/07/11/preaching-the-gospel
John Piper, audio clip: “The Morning I Heard the Voice of God” (11 min.)
Scripture: Galatians 2:11-14; 3:13

Here a few questions that will help you add to any discussion or your own growth:

• Give a brief summary of the content.
• Agreements? Disagreements?
• Why would IDC leadership want us to learn this?
• What are some implications for your future ministry (whatever context God has you in)?
• What will this look like in the life of the church (particularly IDC)?

Here are the tentative dates for this fall’s Equip meetings

• September 13th
• October 18th
• November 8th
• November 22nd

Covenant members and prospective members—be on the lookout for the content of each meeting. We will likely make it available through multiple channels, including a link on the website. If you are unsure about it, email equip@idcraleigh.com with any questions you may have. Also, childcare will be provided upon request (at least a week in advance by emailing jillian@idcraleigh.com) for children under age10. We look forward to growing alongside you. Grace and peace.

Mission 555
5 Networks. 5 People. 5 Tasks.

“Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:4)

This week we’re starting a series of sermons on reaching our city with the Gospel of Jesus, through network evangelism. The goal of the series is to encourage, equip, and inspire you to be more faithful at spreading the good news. Please know that we don’t intend to guilt trip you each week into doing something you hate doing. This series is actually designed to help you get started, taking small steps, in this important endeavor. We simply want to do more in this area than we are currently doing, and we think we have a biblical and faithful strategy for improvement. Further, we just don’t want this to be a series of sermons. The aim is to create a mindset, or a way of life, that helps you live with gospel intentionality.

(Our normal preaching pattern is to work through books of the Bible every Sunday, but the elders believe that this short series is very needed for our congregation at this time. Also realize that we will be expounding a text every week in the 555 series, just not from one book alone…. Starting in January, the plan is to go verse by verse through the book of Acts. We’re prepared to spend a year or more studying this book, and we’re eager to do it).

Typical approaches to evangelism in the past have either involved crusade evangelism, or cold-call evangelism (door-to-door visitation). While not depreciating these strategies, we believe that an approach that takes into account those in our networks has real potential for effectiveness, and also has a historical legacy behind it. For the early church grew, in large measure, through a web of relationships.

In Tim Keller’s Church Planting Manual, he recommends this approach and says the following:

There must be an atmosphere of expectation that every member will always have 2 to 4 people in the incubator, a force-field in which people are being prayed for, given literature, brought to church or other events.

We have added to Keller’s idea just a bit, and tried to think of five particular networks. Think about 2-5 people in each network. Think about praying, giving literature, inviting, serving, and actually speaking the gospel.

By giving you some tangible ways to interact with those in your network, we think everyone can be involved. You can at least pray for those in your networks. Surely, you can give a book or a Bible to someone in your networks. Perhaps you can give an invitor card to someone in your network, right? Hopefully, you can do all of this in the normal rhythm of your life. One may not have to necessarily add a new activity to an already busy schedule. This is a challenge to simply identify the people you see and know, and to live with gospel intentionality among them everyday.

So again, here’s the plan: 5 Networks. 5 people in those networks (as a goal). 5 tasks.

5 Networks
1. Familial Network: Family you have
2. Vocational Network: People you work with
3. Commercial Network: Businesses you frequent
4. Geographical Network: Neighbors you see
5. Relational Network: Friends you make (not necessarily neighbors). These can be cultivated through recreation or missional endeavors.

(Note: Not everyone will have the same amount of people in the networks. That’s fine. Think about identifying more people in the other networks).

5 Tasks
1. Pray for Them
2. Serve Them
3. Give Gospel-Centered Literature to Them
4. Invite Them
5. Speak the Gospel to Them

Below is our tentative sermon schedule. (Some of these texts are very tentative at this point). After the first sermon, we will spend two weeks on each of the 5 tasks.

1. Let Down Your Nets (Luke 5:1-11) ​​​​​​​ [Sept 14]
2. Task #1: Pray for Them …. That They May Be Saved (Rom 9:1-3; 10:1-21)​​​  [Sept 21]
3. Task #1: Pray for Them … Because God Answers Prayer (James 5:16-18; 1 Kings 18:36-40) ​ [Sept 28]
4. Task #2: Serve Them … With the Father’s Mercy (Luke 6:27-36)​  [Oct 5]
5. Task #2: Serve Them …. With Genuine Neighbor Love (Luke 10:25-37)​​​ ​ [Oct 12]
6. Task #3: Give Gospel-Centered Literature to Them … Because Truth Matters (Col 2:6-23) ​​ [Oct 19]
7. Task #3: Give Gospel Centered Literature to Them …. As You Contend for the Faith (Jude 1:1-4) ​ [Oct 26]
8. Task #4: Invite Them … To Your Parties and to Jesus’ Party (Luke 14:12-24 Part 1)​​​ [Nov 2]
9. Task #4: Invite Them … To Your Parties and to Jesus’ Party (Luke 14:12-24 Part 2)​​​ [Nov 9]
10. Task #5: Speak the Gospel to Them … Following the Pattern of Jesus (John 4)​​​  [Nov 16]
11. Task #5: Speak the Gospel to Them … As Christ’s Ambassador (2 Cor 5:11-21)​​​  [Nov 23]

As an added feature, our goal is to have a testimony each week, who is living out this vision in practical and encouraging ways. We will also be having a special time of prayer on the weekend of Sept 26-27. But please begin praying now. May the Lord add to our number daily those who are being saved (Acts 2:47).