Category Archives: RESOURCES

Posted on

How to Tell the Gospel Story

Let me ask a question. When was the last time you told someone the story of Jesus Christ? Can you remember?

how to share the gospel story

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash

A disciple’s desire is to joyfully spread the good news of Jesus with others. Yet many followers of Jesus struggle to share the gospel story on a regular basis. Why? Since the gospel has the power to restore people to a right relationship with God, it encounters the most spiritual resistance of any story. Satan wants to stamp it out before we share it with other people. But as disciples of Jesus, we have no excuse to keep God’s good news to ourselves. We must push past the enemy’s resistance and our own inhibitions so we can proclaim the good news even more boldly to a world that’s literally dying to hear.

 

In this post, I’ll offer 3 strategies to help you spread the gospel story with confidence.

Posted on

How to Lead Small Group Devotions at Home or Remotely

https://vimeo.com/400742936

Over the years two of the greatest highlights in my life have been 1) leading morning devotions with my family before school, and 2) leading small groups of students in the city and the wilderness to study the Bible in order to help them get to know Jesus and grow as a disciple.

A TOOL FOR PARENTS AND SMALL GROUP LEADERS 

If you are a parent who wants to have a tool for leading devotions in your home, this is for you. If you are a Small Group leader looking for a way to effectively lead your group either in person or remotely through Zoom, this tool will help.
Below is my “PALS 10 Minute Devotional” format. It’s designed for a short devotional but of course, could be expanded to a longer Bible Study format.
lead small group devotions

P – PRIME the pump

I usually come up with some sort of question to help everyone open up. Similar to that rush you get when you take your first few drinks of coffee in the morning, sometimes it takes a little somethin’ to wake up your group. So you may want to ask a question first to prime the pump (below I’ll give examples of each of these parts of the study).

A – ALIGN with God’s heart

To get hearts engaged, ask a question that helps the group realize how much we are like the person in the passage. Most of us are encouraged by reminders that we are more “like” other people than we are “different” from them. When we realize how similar we are to other people it gives us hope and compassion.

L – LEARN the meaning of the text

Next, read a short passage together and discuss a couple of questions that help us understand the meaning of the text. You’ll need to invest some time to write good questions. If you’d like to learn more about how I write well-crafted questions that create good open discussion you can read my post, 5 Bible Study Tools to Improve Your Small Group Meetings | The VISION Inductive Study Method. This resource goes into more depth but I use the same principles and techniques to come up with 1-2 good questions for my PALS 10 Minute Devotionals.

S- SERVE your friends

What does it really matter if a group learns something cool from the Bible and then makes no effort to be salt and light to their school or at work? So here we need to get to an action step. Simply ask a question or present a challenge to the group to talk about ways we can serve others better. Don’t be shy about encouraging bold action steps with groups of Believers or non-believers. Serving can get our hearts engaged with God whether you are a Believer or non-believer.

SAMPLE: PALS 10 MINUTE DEVO on Mark 2:1-12

P – PRIME the pump

  • Before we jump into this study, “What is one of the hardest things about being a student?” Or depending on the group you could just rephrase it to say, “What is one of the hardest things about being a student, a single, a parent, grandparent, etc.?

A – ALIGN with God’s heart

  • Read together the passage of Scripture: Mark 2:1-12

  • Do you think that you are more like the paralytic or more different than him? What are some things that all of us have in common with the paralytic?

L – LEARN the meaning of the text

  • What are some reasons why Jesus might have spoken to the paralyzed man about sin before dealing with his physical need?
  • Is forgiveness of sin a need you have experienced in your own life?
  • Why is it sometimes hard to confess our sin and seek forgiveness from God?

S – SERVE your friends

  • Do you extend forgiveness to people who sin against you as freely as Jesus extended forgiveness to the guy in this story?
  • How would it change the culture of your school (or workplace, neighborhood, etc.) if you were as forgiving as Jesus was to this guy?
  • Invite everyone to pray together and either confess their sin openly or in the quietness of their hearts so that we can get up and walk in the freedom of forgiveness like the paralytic.
Posted on

God’s Amazing Design for the Parent-Child Relationship | Colossians 3:20-21

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. – John C. Maxwell

Talking about parenting

Becky and I on a retreat in Northern California

Recently, my wife, Becky and I took a much needed retreat to Northern California with some friends to talk about life, marriage, leadership, and parenting. I talk alot about the need for retreat… and it was time to practice what I preach.

As a parent, and a leader in youth ministry development, I see a real need for encouragement from God’s Word on how to pursue God’s design for the parent-child relationship. The Apostle Paul offers some simple but life-changing instruction in Colossians that is probably drawn from his understanding of Exodus 20:12 which is the a commandment directed specifically toward the parent-child relationship: God instructs children:

“ ‘Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.”(Exodus 20:12 )

This is the one commandment that is coupled with a direct blessing. All of the commandments are equally important, yet for some reason God adds a special blessing and motivation for following this commandment. Why? I think it is probably because FAMILY is the foundation of society. If we get this wrong, society will erode at break-neck speed. If we get the Parent-Child relationship wrong, patterns will get established that could govern the rest of our lives… and effect all of those other institutions God has ordained.

Posted on

Good Relationships (in a Sinful World) Require Conflict Resolution Skills – Joshua 22

Conflict Resolution

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine

Have you have had what you thought was a really great idea that in the end went horribly wrong? I share a story of one of my personal examples in the link below to my recent sermon on conflict resolution… Joshua 22 is a profound story that shows how three tribes of Israel had what they thought was a “Great Idea” but because of lack of communication, a colossal conflict was started amongst the other 9 the tribes of Israel.

Conflict resolution is not just a skill for counselors. If we want good relationships in a sinful world, we all have to learn how to resolve conflict. I recently taught on conflict resolution and thought I’d pass the link for you to listen along.

What You Will Learn about Conflict Resolution Skills By Listening to this Sermon:

  • The incredible context behind an epic conflict that almost began a civil war among Israel (Joshua 22)
  • Joshua 22 gives us a formula for conflict resolution that lawyers and professional peace-makers still use today.
  • An easy memory tool called, “CHESS” that you can use to diffuse and resolve conflicts successfully
      1. C: Who are the characters/people involved in the conflict?
      2. H: Historical relationships (what is the history behind the relationships in the conflict?
      3. E:  What is the flow of the Events to see where the problem arose?
      4. S: Sides (There are always two side’s of the story … if you want to be a peacemaker and relationship builder you need to realize there is always two sides to a story).
      5. S: State the problem clearly.  Joshua clearly states the problem and resources to resolve the problem. He the relevant issues, what made the problem blow up, etc. Then Joshua explained what resources the people had to deal with the problem to resolve the conflict (they had the Law of Moses, and the authority of the priests to look into the matter). [1]
  • How, “Conflict + Resolution = Intimacy”
  • How the Church today can re-learn conflict resolution skills to advance the Gospel more effectively

Click here to LISTEN TO MY TALK ON CONFLICT RESOLUTION FROM JOSHUA 22

You may also enjoy another recent sermon from “Joshua 7: Achan’s Sin | the Human Story”

Please pass this post along to a friend who might benefit from it. Thanks!

[1] The case-writing principles developed in this post were inspired by the following case-study tool for missiology: 7 Steps to Making a Case Study into a Learning Tool
Posted on

If Jesus isn’t Who He said He was, the World has No Hope | 10 Reasons

I recently had the privilege of sharing the Gospel with a young man in a foreign country who grew up in a family that taught that the way to God is only through believing the message of a different book than the Bible. After sharing the Gospel with him for a couple of hours I pleaded with him to take my Bible and read the story of Jesus for himself to see how different his story is from this other religious book.

Jesus brings hope

Although he listened intently to everything that I told him about Jesus and seemed to want to believe it… he would not accept my Bible because he said that his father would disown him or kill him if he came home with it. This is where my mind went: