Grace Fellowship’s experience with Fermatas in Brazil and fellowship with S.H.O.R. Ministries  in the U.S. — and our goal to minister to pastors — led to Grace Fellowship’s first Pastoral Couples Retreat August 22-24. It was facilitated by our board member, Dr. Dan Riley (and his wife, Kathy). The couples had three days and two nights in Pigeon Forge, TN for rest, fellowship, and confidential share & prayer. The first night Dr. Charles Solomon greeted them and Dan gave his Exchanged Life testimony. The second night, after supper together, Dr. John Woodward gave a PowerPoint summary teaching on the centrality of the cross for victory and ministry.

Dan writes, “I really believe we’re on the front of something that’s different from anything I see being done for pastors and wives. I hope this can be the beginning of an expanded ministry to leaders who I think will not only embrace the abundant life, but learn how to effectively share that in the places of influence they occupy. We learned from this launch and will be able to have an even better experience next time.”

A ministry that offers a discounted weekly cabin for pastoral couples is Harvest Ministries. We pray this retreat model will develop into a pattern of fruitful ministry in the years to come!

“Living the D-Life means living a lifestyle of discipleship. Think about it. What if you could successfully equip everyone in your ministry to live a life of discipleship? What if those in your ministry embraced discipleship as a way of life instead of a program?

“This is the purpose of D-Life. When you sign up for D-Life, you place at everyone’s fingertips the power to live a life of discipleship. The Bible and the D-Life Web App are the only tools needed to equip leaders to lead and to multiply D-Groups. D-Groups are discipleship groups of 3 to 8 people that can meet anytime and anywhere. Content on the D-Life Web App includes four years of annual Bible reading plans, weekly study guides for each D-Group, and excellent leadership resources for equipping leaders…”

from: http://livingthedlife.com/

Dr. Mark Virkler’s books emphasize the value and technique of listening prayer. His course on Living Naturally Supernatural is based on his personal journey from performance – based Christian life and ministry to a grace awakening of his identity in Christ. Here is part of his testimony…

The LIE: “I live” and I focus on attacking the darkness of sin

I began my Christian life trying to be holy by keeping God’s commands, and I discovered it was a dead-end street. First, I couldn’t keep the law (Rom. 7:14-25; Gal. 2:16, 3:21-24, 6:13), and when I failed to keep it, I felt condemnation. It’s like focusing on getting darkness out of a room by swatting at it. It just doesn’t work.

Since it is clear in Scripture that there is no condemnation to those who live in Christ(Rom. 8:1), I realized I was doing something wrong, because I had guilt and condemnation within me a lot of the time. I needed to step out of my “self-consciousness” and discover what it meant to “be in Christ” or to be Christ-conscious. The Bible said this was the key to overcoming condemnation.

I needed to stop picturing myself as a self-contained unit, and adopt the four pictures the New Testament provides for me (a vessel, a temple, a branch and a body – with Christ as the head). In each of these pictures, I am hollow, designed to be filled with and energized by another. I am not a self-contained unit. So it’s time to change my picturing. When I picture reality the way God has designed it, life works. Picturing error messes life up! A picture is worth a thousand words. They are extremely powerful in moving my life forward in Christ or backward into self, sin, and ultimate demonization.

The TRUTH: “Christ lives through me” and I radiate His light

Paul says he is dead and no longer alive. Instead, Christ is living His life out through him (Gal. 2:20). This is a new reality which I need to picture if I want life to work.

When I need to love the unlovable, I simply smile, picture Jesus alive in me, and say, “Thank You, Jesus, for living within and releasing Your love, mercy and compassion out through me. I receive Your life flow and release You to this person” (1 Cor. 6:17; Acts 2:25; Ps. 16:8).

So I’m not looking at myself, or a biblical law which commands me to love, or the weakness of my flesh to keep this law of love. Instead, I am looking at Christ, Who is joined to me. What is He doing? What is He saying? What are His emotions toward this person? Once received (which can be done in moments), I then say “Yes, Lord” to what He has revealed to me, and I do what Jesus is doing. I am NOW radiating Christ’s life into the situation.

So instead of trying to perfectly keep laws, I seek to release a Person Who lives within me. My one and only goal is to see Him present and communicate with Him, receiving His perspective, wisdom, creativity, solutions, anointing and power. These come as I tune to the flow of His indwelling river, the Holy Spirit. I live a supernatural life. I abide in Christ. This is the New Covenant. This is the Christian lifestyle.

The Reality of the New Covenant is Living by the Spirit

This course is offered through Communion with God Ministries.

An introduction to “Becoming a Disciple-Maker’s”
Life-to-Life process

Most of us are familiar with the term discipleship. “Becoming a Disciple-Maker’s” ministry focuses on a more descriptive term, disciple-making. What sets these two terms, discipleship and disciple-making apart? 

Discipleship typically describes traditional Christian education in general

Disciple-making describes effective Christian follow up by establishing a one-to-one discipling process at your church. A group of more mature believers are selected and trained to become equipped Disciple-Makers. When a new Christian or new member joins your church, they are offered a friendship with one of these trained Disciple-Makers. They meet one-to-one once per week, usually for coffee, breakfast, lunch, or dinner for about 1 ½ hours and learn to develop spiritual growth skills. The goal is for each new Christian to establish a friendship – become a self-feeder from the Word of God – grow spiritually – and then share their faith with others resulting in spiritual multiplication!

Chuck out their web site and tool kit here: https://disciple-maker.org/home/

As Pastors and ministry leaders, we tend to identify ourselves by our role and title. But even when these circumstances are good, this identity is changeable and insecure. Instead, we need to more fully discover and appropriate our new, spiritual, unshakeable identity in Christ. Rose Publishing produces a pamphlet: “Who I Am in Christ: 14 Keys to Understanding Your Identity in Christ.” Here is a sample in PDF: Rose Bible eCharts WhoIAm 14Keys

As we preach from the Bible, especially the Old Testament, we need to uses bridges to reach the hearts of the congregation:

*The bridge from the original language to English (translation)
*The bridge from ancient culture to modern culture (contextualization)
*The bridge from old covenant to new covenant (interpretation)
*The bridge from from doctrine to practice (application)

A book that helps sensitize us to the need to orient all biblical preaching and studies to be presented in a Christ-centered way is this volume published by Cru:

One Story, by Tim Henderson and Tom Sperlich

“All of Scripture is telling one story. It’s a story about Jesus and our need for Him. The great story is comprised of many little stories found throughout the Old and New Testament narratives, and it is reinforced in the law, poetry, prophecy, and epistles. Every passage in some way draws our attention to our fallenness and Christ’s solution to our fallenness. St. Augustine said, “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old Testament and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New Testament.”

“In the One Story Guidebook you’ll learn how to study various genres of Scripture “Christocentrically.” A genre is a category of composition that has its own style or form and therefore its own rules of interpretation…

For details and ordering information visit Cru here.
-JBW

One of the features of the deeperChristian e-newsletter is the quote section:
Men are God’’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.
– EM Bounds

I am afraid of only one thing—that I should become a grain of wheat not willing to die.
– Young Missionary Girl (as told by Corrie ten Boom)

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.
– CS Lewis

Our Guilty Silence suggests that one of the main reasons for our silence is because we lack either a thorough knowledge of the Gospel or a conviction about its truth or both. There can be no evangelism without an evangelist, no mission without a message.
– John Stott  from Our Guilty Silence

Not to be daily mortifying sin, is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who hath furnished us with a principle (and means) of doing it.
– John Owen  from The Mortification of Sin

A true leader must have enough backbone to stand alone—even when the crowd wants to take the easy road home. A true leader cannot be dependent on companionship for his or her security, but must learn to trust in God alone.
– Leslie Ludy from When God Writes Your Life Story

One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do no constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.
– AW Tozer

You can subscribe to the e-newsletter here and search their quote archive here.

From ChurchLeaders.com:

Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Overscheduled. If this sounds familiar, then this free Sermon Series from Bill Hybels is for you. We’ve put together some awesome resources — and they’re free. So dig in!

Complete MP3s
Sermon Transcripts (for those of us who like to read)
Simplify Chapter 1: Moving From Exhausted to Energized

Download now