Chuck Lenhart Class Response

All I really have to say about yesterday’s class is wow! Chuck did so well at explaining what he thought discipleship and evangelism are about. I seriously was blown away with everything he was saying and I took pages and pages of notes.

One thing that jumped out to me during him speaking was when he quoted Habakkuk 2:2-3 2 Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. I remember when Lance first talked to us about this verse at the beginning of this year, but instead of using the word revelation we used the word vision. That word to me changed the whole outlook on what it was I was trying to write down for my future. & a few weeks ago in prayer when Lance had us write down what we thought our 5-10 year vision for our lives God really began speaking to me about what exactly he’s called me into for my future. As I began to focus more strongly on my calling and what the type of people God has called me to it made me thinking about a lot of stuff in my life that I needed to change to get to that place.

Something that he said yesterday that helped me to remember why God has called me into what I’m supposed to do is “we aren’t called to our ministry for us; it’s for the people who we will be reaching.” That was something I honestly hadn’t thought about. I know that God has a unique calling on my life that a lot of other people don’t have, but I never thought about the type of people I’d be reaching.

Something that I thought about too while he was talking was how he said if you want an overabundance of blessing in your life and for your ministry you have to be willing to give abundantly to your ministry. I’m not talking about money only, I’m talking about love and time and patience. Sometimes things don’t work out in the timing we expect them too, but we have to be willing to be patient for God to work it out in His timing not ours. I’ve learned that it’s the most important thing to be willing to sacrifice your life to be dedicated to your calling and if you do it makes your work so much easier and so much more of a blessing to God.

God has such an amazing purpose for my life and has very unique and special people he wants me to reach. I know that the callings God has on my life to start a hair salon ministry and to be a part of a church plant, is because I can relate with a lot of people who are in that category. God has called me to help people who just want to feel beautiful and feel good about them. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for both those things J

Ack Ackerman Response

I really enjoyed listening to Ack talk in this video. I think partially because I have a passion for men and also women who are dealing with the junk that he is helping them get out of. In the past I thought God was calling me to reach out to them, but i think it’s more that God has given me a humble heart for them. Maybe one day in the future he might have me do something, but I know now isn’t the time.

I love how he runs his program and how he’s very straight with the guys. He tells them that if they aren’t there to get help then they are wasting space for someone who could be there. It’s harsh, but it’s what they need to hear sometimes for them to get knocked over the head a few times. He has a system that works for him and it’s not everyone’s type of system, but what I notice is he gives them grace and God’s love and if they aren’t willing to accept it, he says then why are you even here.

You can tell his passion is in this just by listening to his testimony. I think that’s a huge reason why God called him to the mission to start the men’s home. He saw firsthand what these guys are seeing and doing and he’s an example of what God can do as long as you let him in to change all the junk you’re involved with. I love how you can see how God has changed him just by listening to him talk about his passion for the group he’s working with. God has allowed him to be such a leader through all the crap he’s been through.

I think something that is really important that was probably my favorite thing he said was the only help he needs is from the Holy Spirit. That is probably the most important thing that you need to have a successful ministry.  I believe that the Holy Spirit is the only thing we need to guide us and help us along the way. We only need the guidance from him to be able to walk in a life that is something of honor and glory.

God has such a purpose for our lives and I think that’s the point Ack is trying to get across to the men he is leading. I think that is a key thing in ministry that when we are leading people we need to be able to remind them that God has a plan for our lives and has such a purpose that all we have to do is listen to the Holy Spirit and have him guide us along the way.

I really enjoyed listening to him and learning more about how ministry worked in a program like the one he is running. I found it all very interesting and I love the way he leads the people around him. He’s such a great leader and you can really tell he is someone who follows after the Holy Spirit’s leading in his life and I really like getting to see that first hand. 

Mark Chester Response

Something I learned in class yesterday is that we are all talented people in some way. The way Mark described it is there are 10 talent people in the world along with 5 talents and some with just one. We all have some type of talent and some more than others. But, one of the most important thing that he talked about was how he only had the 10 talents in the area of his life that mattered the most, his family.

I believe keeping your family first in ministry is the hardest, but most important thing in your life. You need that balance in your life where you can just go off and be with them and lead them in the ways they are expecting you to lead.

I know me personally, obviously I’m not married nor do I have children, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see these things now and start preparing for them in my future. God’s been speaking to me a lot about my future family and honestly I’m so excited about it. To be a wife and a mom, this might sound silly, but it’s honestly one of my passions in life and it is already the most important thing in the world to me. God has recently been speaking to me about how involved I need to be within my ministry and my family, but I also know my family will be a big part of my ministry. (:

One thing I think is so important about ministry is that you take a day off to just rest and forget about work. Have a full Sabbath day where you do nothing, but relax and hang out with your family. The time you get to just be you for a day and not worry about work is probably the most important time to a leader within ministry. I know personally I love that we have off every Friday for school; it’s so great to just be able to relax and not worry about anything. I try not to allow myself to do any type of school work. But, I know sometimes just like everyone else I get distracted and I get caught up in a million different little things during my Sabbath that I get stressed out and by the next day I feel like I didn’t even get a chance to relax and rest. But, I know in my future ministry the Sabbath day is something I’ll be longing for and be in need of.

I enjoyed his class, and I really liked his talk about the talents. I learned through this to keep family first and honor your Sabbath day. Two very important things in life if we want to be successful in ministry I believe. (:

Ps- little side note I love the way they call the small groups throughout the church, mini churches and each leader of them they call the mini church pastor. That adds such a special touch to each person leading. It makes it seem more personal I think.. I just thought it was cute. Whoever came up with that was smart. (: 

Discipleship book review

“Discipleship ranks as God’s top priority.” God looks at this as something so important that he wants us to be willing to follow in his sons footsteps, because Jesus practices discipleship just like we have to. If we don’t have discipline in our lives to want to follow after God and be a disciple of Christ then our lives don’t really amount to us and aren’t very structured at all. I really liked when the author talked about how “there is no biblical evidence for a separation of Christian from disciple” they work together. If we are followers of Christ we are called to be disciples. God has called us to be disciples and to go out and preach his word to the unbelievers.

Something that the book said that caught my eye was “You might never feel at home in structure, but when you make peace with it, you’ll learn to embrace its value.” When I thought about this for a minute I started to think about Master’s Commission. This is talking about having structure and discipline in our lives and how it’s what we need to have to be a better Christian, and sometimes that can be frustrating and challenging to follow after God with trying to follow a structured plan. In Master’s we have rules and boundaries that we aren’t allowed to cross, sometimes I don’t understand them, but at the end of the day I realize that they are there to help guide me into a better person and more importantly a better Christian. I might be going crazy over some small thing that I have to follow in GMC, but it could be something that down the road God shows me that it was the most important thing for me, because of what he’s going to call me into one day.

Without discipleship in our lives we would be lost as Christians and we wouldn’t be fully following after God if we aren’t willing to go out and do the hard things and be the disciple God called us to be. Being a disciple is a big step in our lives, but once we walk into that pattern in life we can see the greater change in our lives. You can’t have Christianity without discipleship it’s like taking Christ out of Christianity, like it says in the book. One of the verses it used in the book that I really liked to help describe this better was, Luke 6:46-49…which says.. ”Why  do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it as well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.” I love how this verse talks about taking what God says into practice and actually going after it and striving for it and if we do that we will be firm in God’s truth and his power.

It talks about in how we’ve started to make disciple-making optional within the church. Which to me is sad, it talked about how every week we go to church and do the same thing as everyone else and sit in the same row and talk to the same people. We aren’t people who are out taking chances to reach the people who really need reached within the church. I think honestly that we as Christians have just become lazy when it comes to reaching out to God’s people sometimes. We’re called to go out and make disciples of all men…I think sometimes we forget or avoid that that’s part of our job description.

“When God calls us, he invites us to die. And ironically, we’ll never be more alive.” It says in the bible that when we are going after God and following him, we are supposed to die to ourselves and strive for more of God in our lives by taking up our cross and following after his calling on our lives. He has a will and a way for us we just have to be able to say yes to following after it and trusting in God. We just have to be able to surrender whole heartedly to him. When we live for him and not things of this world or even ourselves we will see how we’ve never felt more alive in our lives. It’s about sacrifice.

This book taught me a lot about discipleship and it’s probably a book I could go back and read a few more times over because I feel like there is more things that I can find in it that I missed reading the first time. This put me into a new perspective of what discipleship is really. I’m very happy that I saw it in a different view point than what I had thought for so long. (:


I read 85% of the book

Andy Landers Response

Just for the record so everyone knows I completely went blank at the end of class trying to remember Andy’s name and for some reason and I put it in my documents as “Jim’s notes”….I obviously wasn’t thinking yesterday when I wrote it out.(:

Anyways......

I really enjoyed the thing he talked about the I + A = T. That really spoke to me about a lot when he was talking about how often we go into a really good service and can feel God and know God is speaking to us about a lot and we take a ton of notes, but when it comes to the end of the night we still leave the same. Because we are taking it in, but we aren’t applying it to our lives and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us in anyway. I have done this so often in so many ways, but it’s something that you don’t ever really hear teaching on and you don’t think about it too often because you think oh well I’m sure I’m doing everything right when in all honesty…you’re missing the whole big picture.  I think this is something that as a future ministry leader is very important to allow your life to be open to what God is trying to speak into my life and also allow him to change me with what I’m hearing.

I loved when he said that discipleship is more effective in a one on one setting. I have thought this so many times, people are more willing to open up when they are one on one with you more than they are in a big group. It’s about a connection with someone that you build. You build someone’s trust and their respect when you are willing to ask them tough questions and be their accountability in situations in life. I really liked this especially since we are starting our one on one groups with the GMC girls for our AC times. I’m so excited to see what God allows to happen in those times alone with the girls, because I really felt like God was talking to me a lot about what those are going to look like with whoever I get to meet with. (:

One of the other things that really got to me was how in ministry sometimes we have to do the hard things and we have to actually talk to fellow Christians who are struggling with things and we see them falling in sin and as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ we have to go to them and confront them about their sins. It’s not a bad thing that we confront them because it’s helping them get out of their sins and back to God and focus them more on what their calling is and not so much the things they are dealing with.

I really enjoyed this class and learned a lot about discipleship looks in different ways. I’m very thankful for this class and for what God has been speaking to me through all the people who have come in. (:

Unchurched Friend #1

Female, age- between 40-50

1. What's the reason why you don't attend church regularly?
    -Because they ask for money all the time, which I don't have.

2. Have you ever been involved in any church or beliefs in the past?
    -Yes..

3. Do you notice anything different about Christians who go to church today? Why or why not?
    -No, because I believe that Christians do worse things than people who don't go to church.

4. Do you actually see going to church as something of value to you or other people?
   - Yes.

5. Why do you think so many people don't go to church?
   -Because people don't like to have things preached at them.

6. Did you ever feel unwelcome or like you didn't fit in when you walked into a church?
   -Yes.

7. If the church could do one thing for you, what would it be?
   -Help me to become more out going in some way.

8.Would you ever consider trying to go to a different church than you were used to in the past? Why or why not?
   - Yes. Maybe at a different church the preacher could preach the message differently so that i can understand it.

9. If there was something you could change about a church today, what would it be?
   -I would change the way the Preacher preaches straight from the Bible. I'd want it to be more practical to me and I want it to be taught to me in a way that I can understand it. Reading it straight from the Bible doesn't help me to understand.

10. If you could describe in your own words in a short sentence how would you describe God to me?
   -I believe he's there, but i don't like to have him preached down my throat all the time and have him forced on me.

When I was doing my unchurched friend interview, I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the lady I interviewed. She’s a sweet lady, but she is also very bitter and has a lot of problems with people and herself. She was willing to do the interview right away and I asked her the questions and she was all set and ready to go with answers for every question. Some of the answers she gave kind of shocked me in a way and I wasn’t expecting some of those answers at all. For instance the one about “Do you think Christians are different from ordinary people?” & her response automatically was to literally laugh in my face and say “Absolutely not, I believe Christians do worse things than people who don’t go to church.” I was almost crushed by that statement in a way, because I know from her viewpoint that’s all she saw, but in all reality I saw a glimpse of what she was saying was right in some Christians today. My first thought to cross my mind after she said that was what is it that I can do as a Christian to prove they aren’t all like that. Then when we got down to my last question for her she was getting pretty intense in a way, because I said in the beginning that it was going to be easy and not hard. So, when we got to the last question about describing God in your own words she just looked at me and laughed and said I thought you said this was easy. I think she would have gone deeper on it, but didn’t know how to word it. All her answers were good, and I was impressed with all of them. I really did learn a lot about her and people who don’t go to church after doing this interview because some of the stuff she said I would have never guessed that anyone would have thought about the church. One of the things that I did absolutely love about it though was she was very willing to say I wish in some way the church could show me how to be more outgoing with other people. That made me think well if she wants to get that from a church and nowhere else I think we’re doing something right. But, overall I was very happy with this interview and it taught me a lot.