The Real December

I wrote my last month's post and titled it for December, but it was actually for November...my bad yo.

December was fun and Christmas was great! Katie and I did so many Christmas-y things.

Here are things I learned in December:

How Focused is Your Ministry Strategy? (Christian Surfers Conference)

• Mission: make disciples who can make disciples (the Great Commission)
• Have a laser focus on this
• Motive: love God and love people (the Great Commandment)
• Model: Jesus - Luke 6:40
• Means: Holy Spirit Power (an acronym from last month's post)
• Method: 4 challenges of Jesus
• Come and See (John 1): for seekers - just show up!
• Jesus used scriptures to explain why He was the Messiah
• Follow Me: for believers - Jesus invested in a few.
• New believers just need love.
• Follow Me, I'll make you fishers of me: Train a few to reach the masses
• Jesus took his disciples on 6 mission trips
• These people need to experience God working through them
• This is where the church fails a lot in disciple-making -- need to depend on the Holy Spirit to get out of the second stage
• Go and bear much fruit: just as He was sent, He sends us.
• Making disciples
• Romans 8 - a father to his family (prays, protects, speaks [prophet], priest)
• We don't need more leaders, we need more disciple-makers!
• Win, build, equip, multiply :: Seeker, new believer, worker, friend
• 1 John 2:6 - Walk as Jesus walked
• Dead people can't find life, we need to go to them.

 Fruit in Scripture (Christian Surfers Conference)

1. Character
2. Conduct
3. Converts

Barriers to fruit (coincides with 4-stages thing above/ chair metaphor):

• 1 to 2: sin
• 2 to 3: stuff (difference between "fruit" and "more fruit")
• God prunes "so you can bear more fruit," not because He is mad
• We get pruned right before the harvest
• Often good things get pruned to make way for the best things (in a vineyard, the gardener usually prunes 30-40% of the grapes so the remaining ones will be better -- a few good ones instead of a bunch of mediocre ones)
• #1 killer of fruitful disciple-makers is bitterness from pruning
• 3 to 4: satisfaction

Being a Successful Rebuilder (Seacoast Church)

• Pray fervently
• Plan dilligently
• hope is not a plan
• a dream without a plan is a never-ending nightmare
• Act courageously
• the root of the word "courage" is "heart"
• Making a Plan:
• Think it through
• Decide what you want
• Set a deadline
• goal without a deadline is like a pipe dream
• Anticipate problems
• Count the cost
• Be read and ask God!

 Turning a Dream into Reality (Seacoast Church)

• Understanding the facts
• your resources
• difficulties you face
• Plan
• Everyone (the team) needs to be involved
• Sometimes the highest calling is the lowest task
• Don't ask God to tell you what to do, but rather wisdom to discern what to do.
  

 See Change (Seacoast Church)

1. Do not be afraid
2. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome
3. Fight for your brothers, daughters, wives, sons and homes (a clear mission)
4. Community support

I love that italicized line about asking God for wisdom instead of just telling us what to do. The guy preaching cited that it's just like parenting -- nobody wants their kids to just ask them what to do all the time, but rather to think for themselves. Why would God want us to stay in a juvenile state, when we can grow up in discernment?

And, for fun, here is the best movie I've ever made, freshly uploaded to the internet:

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