A Training in Ministry Course

A Training In Ministry Course

Welcome ToYour Ministry

Terry D. Powell

This 12-lesson course teaches the important truth
that God has called and gifted all believers for ministry,
and challenges them to get involved
in ministry in the church.

To purchase copies of this book,
or its Leader’s Guide, log on to:

TrainingInMinistry.com

or order dirctly from

TheBookPatch.com

Locate the title, then click on:

About the Author: Terry Powell is a professor of Bible and Christian education at Columbia International University and has written courses for such well-known Christian publishers as David C. Cook, Scripture Press, and Accent Publications.

Table of
Contents

For Study Leaders...... 4

The TIM Curriculum ...... 5

1 God’s Objectives for Life...... 7

2 God’s Plan for the Church...... 14

3 God’s Plan for Church Leaders ...... 22

4 You Have the Call of a Minister ...... 30

5 You Have the Title of a Minister ...... 36

6 You Have the Resources of a Minister ...... 43

7 How to “Mark” a Life for Christ ...... 49

8 The Ministry of Encouragement ...... 56

9 The Ministry of Intercession ...... 61

10 The Ministry of Evangelism ...... 67

11 Portrait of a Usable Person ...... 75

12 Use It or Lose It! ...... 79

For Study Leaders

Welcome to this opportunity to “make disciples”. Start by obtaining a copy of “Design Your Equipping Ministry” from the website: TrainingInMinistry.com. Chapter titles are:

What in the World is the Church Doing?
The Biblical Mandate to Equip
Lay Ministry in the Mirror of History
How to Implement Change
How Adults Learn Effectively
How to Lead Effective Discussions
How to Develop Your Equipping Ministry

Next, download the Leader’s Guide for this course, also from TrainingInMinistry.com (Note: several TIM courses do not yet have a Leader’s Guide. In this event, download one from another course to get general ideas for leading the group sessions).

As a Group Study Leader, you should carefully complete your own study of each lesson. The carefulness with which you prepare will be a role-model for your learners in your group.

Every TIM course incorporates a head, heart, and hands approach to learning. Head represents content to be learned, heart the application of this truth to one’s own life, and hands, involvement in ministry through using the course content.

Your Time Commitment

As the Group Study Leader, you should spend adequate time: 1) Preparing the workbook lesson—just as thoroughly as you expect your learners to prepare. 2) Reading the Leader’s Guide and marking those questions and other items you want to emphasize during the group session.

The Weekly Group Meeting

This 90 minute weekly meeting should feature a discussion of the lesson, focusing on integrative and application type questions found in the Leader’s Guide. It should consist of an hour of interaction with the lesson, as well as time for prayer and group fellowship.

Ministry Involvement

This ministry opportunity should be appropriate to the gifts and ministry experiences of each learner; result in their growth; and “build up” the Body of Christ.

Curriculum of TIM Courses

Training In Ministry courses will enable you to “equip the saints for the work of ministry and so build up the body of Christ.”

Grounding Courses

Christianity 101 is designed to disciple new Christians, either in small groups, or one-to-one. Application: Learners will lead another person through this course.

A Panorama of the Bible features easy-to-remember visuals for each of the 12 Bible periods. Learners will thrill to find that they can remember the major themes of Bible content and message. Application: With the aid of the Leader’s Guide, learners will lead another person, or a small group through this course.

Truth That Transforms will provide learners with a solid foundation in the major doctrines of Scripture, with an emphasis on practical applications. Application: Learners will, with the aid of the Leader’s Guide, lead another individual, or group of people through this course.

A Panorama of Christian History provides a “big picture” view of the Church from the 1st through the 20th century. It also emphasizes practical lessons we can apply to our own ministry. Application: Learners will teach this course to another person or group.

Growing Courses

Welcome to Your Ministry teaches the important truth that God has called and gifted all believers for ministry and challenges them to get involved in some basic ministries in the church. Application: Learners will commit to getting additional training for ministry, and getting involved in it.

How To Discover Your Spiritual Gifts will provide believers with a better understanding of which spiritual gifts they may have, and how to use their gifts in service for Christ. Application: A short-term assignment will be given, wherein learners use one of their gifts in an approved ministry.

Learning to Serve: Jesus As Role Model teaches the servant life-style of Jesus in many ministry related contexts, and helps learners put this into practice in their ministry. Application: Learners will be given a ministry role wherein they demonstrate the servant-leader style of Jesus.

Going Courses

Your Ministry of Prayer studies prayer in Scripture, and will help learners become involved in a significant ministry of prayer. Application: Participants will commit to a ministry of prayer as suggested in the course content.

Outreach as a Life-style will train lay people to develop friendships with people, leading to sharing Christ with them. Application: Learners will practice this personal evangelism approach in their lives of sharing their faith.

Your Ministry at Home provides practical principles in how to establish and maintain a truly Christian home. Application: Applying the principles week by week within the learner’s family, including being consistent in reading the weekly schedule of verses and journaling based on these verses.

Touching Tomorrow By Teaching Children is a superb tool to train more workers to serve in the exciting ministry of teaching children. Application: Teaming up with an experienced teacher as an assistant for one quarter or more.

Christianity in the Workplace relates faith to practical and ethical issues on the job. Its focus is how to be like Christ in the work world. Application: Learners will apply these biblical principles to their areas of work.

Contending For The Faith is a course on Christian apologetics, which will equip learners to defend and share their faith, especially among intellectual unbelievers. Application: Learners will engage in an effective ministry of defending and sharing their faith.

A Survey of the New Testamentis a 12-lesson survey of the New Testament. It includes outlines of each book, background information, and questions for individual study. Application: Learners will be able to lead Bible studies in any New Testament book.

How to Study the Biblewill give students an in-depth exposure to the inductive method of Bible study and help them develop their own outlines for leading Bible studies. Application: Based on their study, learners will lead 10 Bible studies in the book of Ephesians.

Your Ministry of Leadership will encourage, equip, and train Christian men and women for increased effectiveness in leadership. Application: Learners will demonstrate the skills taught in this course in an assigned ministry position.

Chapter 1

God’s Objectives
For Life

Go to a graveyard outside Lincoln, Kansas and you’ll see an unusual group of gravestones, erected by a man named Davis. When you delve into his personal history, you discover that he began working as a lowly hired hand. Over the years, though, by sheer determination and extreme frugality, he amassed a wallet-bulging fortune. You also find out that Mr. Davis’ preoccupation with wealth resulted in a neglect of people. Apparently, he had few friends. He was even emotionally distant from his wife’s family, who felt that she had married beneath her dignity. Their attitude embittered him. He vowed never to leave his relatives a penny.

When his wife died, Davis hired a sculptor to design an elaborate monument in her memory. The monument consists of a love seat showing Mr. Davis and his wife sitting together. The results so pleased him that he paid for another statue—this one showing him kneeling at his wife’s grave, placing a wreath on it. That was followed by a third monument showing his wife kneeling at his future gravesite. His monument-building binge continued until he’d spent more than a quarter of a million dollars!

He was often approached about worthwhile projects in the town or church that required financial aid. But he rarely gave to them. Most of his small fortune was invested in gravestones. At 92, Mr. Davis died a sour-hearted resident of the poorhouse.

Decades later, as you saunter through the graveyard, you notice an ironic fact: each monument he invested in is slowly sinking into the Kansas soil, a victim of neglect, vandalism and time. Inevitably, these temporal objects will follow him into the grave.

God’s Objectives

We’re instinctively repelled by such an eccentric expenditure of time and money. “What a waste!” we’re prone to cry. We think of loftier, less selfish pursuits, which could have enhanced the lives of countless people.

Yet Mr. Davis’ strange investment may reap dividends—if we let it serve as a stimulus for evaluating our lives. When is the last time you evaluated how you’re investing your life? Consider these soul-jarring questions:

What are God’s objectives for my life?

To what extent am I investing my life and God-given resources in eternal, rather than just temporal, matters?

What “monuments” do I want to leave behind when I die?

How we answer such questions is crucial—if we want to avoid Mr. Davis’ mistake. That’s why the initial lesson in this Welcome to Your Ministry course is titled “God’s Objectives For Life.” No matter what vocation to which God has called us, we want to latch onto His purposes for life on planet Earth. Unless we do, and adjust our priorities accordingly, we can’t fulfill the potential He has implanted in each of us. We’re prone to elevate our objectives above His, and to use entirely different criteria in determining success in life.

This initial lesson doesn’t deal with the issue of guidance, or God’s specific, individualized will for your life. Which job offer you accept, whom you marry, etc. are matters that require prayerful deliberation, but they’re outside the scope of this lesson. Instead, Lesson 1 puts the spotlight on broad, overarching objectives that are the same for everybody. If Mr. Davis had ordered his life and resources around the following objectives, he would have left more marks on lives, and fewer on marble.

First Things First

1.The Scripture verses that follow expose God’s primary objective for your life. Read them carefully, and list every word or phrase from these verses that reflect the desire of God’s heart in relation to man.

John 3:16-17______

______

John 17:3 ______

______

1 Timothy 2:1-6 ______

______

2 Peter 3:9 ______

______

2.What initiative, or work, on God’s part was required before this objective could be fulfilled? (To answer this, pick out specific words/phrases from the verses in #1 that show what God the Father or Jesus Christ has done for man. Then, for further clarification, look up Romans 5:6-8.

______

3. Look at John 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 3:9 again. Also examine Romans 10:9-10. What words or phrases from these verses reveal how we need to respond to God’s initiative?

______

4.What one word best summarizes this ultimate objective for your life?______

Sin has driven a wedge between every human being and God. But Jesus’ death and resurrection has removed that wedge. If we believe in the need for Christ’s sacrifice, and receive Him as Savior, we’re no longer in a cut-off-from-God state. We’re reconciled with our Maker. Before God’s other purposes for our lives can be fulfilled, it’s necessary to enter into a personal relationship with Him. Conversion, or salvation, is the entrance point for that on-going relationship.

Have you accepted God’s gift of salvation? If so, pause and thank Him for its provision. If not, is God preparing your heart to receive Christ right now? Jesus said, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). To put it another way, there’s no failure as disastrous as success without God.

Born to Grow

Jay Kesler, former President of Youth for Christ U.S.A., wrote a column in Campus Life magazine in which he points to God’s second objective for your life. “When you’re introduced to someone, you may go away with goose pimples of excitement, or you may feel “so what?’ But regardless of your feelings, you don’t ‘know’ that person . . . not yet, anyway. It’s the same with Christ. If you’ve accepted Him into your life, you’ve got the introduction, but there is a lot of growing to do in your relationship.”

1.What one word from this statement by Kesler summarizes God’s desire for every person after he is converted?

______

2.In his church-planting ministry, the Apostle Paul wasn’t content with merely the conversion of others. What else did he desire? (Read Colossians 1:28 and jot down your answer.)

______

Now put Romans 8:29, Galatians 4:19 and Ephesians 4:14-15 under your mental microscope. In what other ways did Paul describe this overarching objective that God has for every believer?

______

Just as one’s wedding day is only the start of an on-going commitment to another person, the salvation experience is merely the inauguration ceremony to a life-long relationship with Christ. God’s ultimate goal for every believer includes intimacy with Christ that produces maturity. In spheres of home, work, leisure activities—you name it—He wants the qualities of Jesus Christ to surface. Growth to maturity isn’t an automatic benefit distributed to every Christian, though. It’s a supernatural goal that requires daily, grace-motivated effort to tap into the Lord’s resources for godliness. On a day-by-day basis, we make choices that determine whether we remain a spiritual infant, or edge closer to spiritual adulthood.

Pause for a moment of reflection. Compare your current spiritual state with where you were spiritually one year ago. What seeds of growth have sprouted up during the past twelve months? (Describe these evidences below, and say a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord.)

______

On Purpose

A misconception that many people hold about Christianity is that it’s boring. They perceive that all the real action is in the world of business, or the arena of sports, or in some sort of free-wheeling, unconventional lifestyle. Their misconception, though, shows how little they know about Scripture. Some of the most hair-raising adventures ever recorded are found in the Bible. Few contemporary personalities lead lives as daring and zestful as folks like Abraham, David, Paul and Peter.

And the exciting news is that no believer in the will of God leads a boring existence. No siree! That’s because God’s purpose for every believer includes participation in His grand work in the world. Every Christian is to be involved in the adventure of serving the Lord, of making an impact for Him in his or her sphere of influence. When it’s lived authentically, Christianity is the farthest thing from boredom that I can imagine.

Crack open your Bible to John 15:5, 8, and 16, 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 and 1 Peter 2:9-10. What phrases from these verses emphasize that ‘ministry’ is one of God’s ultimate purposes for our lives?

______

Imagine—God wants to change the complexion of the world and redirect the course of human lives through you! Even Christians who aren’t called to earn their living in the ministry—and that’s the vast majority—are nonetheless called into God’s service. The biblical roots of this concept will be unearthed in future lessons of this course. Right now, we’re merely introducing it in correlation with the other fundamental objectives that God has for your life.

Let’s retrace our steps for a minute. In this initial lesson, you’ve learned that God has at least three foundational objectives for your life. These are objectives that depend upon God’s initiative and resources for fulfillment, yet that we can choose to adopt or to ignore.

He wants you to . . .

 Know Christ personally (experience a Person)

 Grow to maturity (experience a Process)

 Serve Him regularly (experience a Purpose)

Only a person committed to these ultimate objectives reaches his full potential. Such an individual views his earthly existence from the perspective of eternity. And he wants as many other persons as possible to choose the same objectives.