• IF you are NOT doing this, you should NOT plant!

- Are people hearing about your church from you and your people living as missionaries?

False assumptions of discipleship
- Evangelism is separate from Discipleship
- Discipleship is about learning the Bible alone
o We need to include character!
- The Gospel is not central to discipleship

DISCIPLESHIP

1. Discipleship always includes proclaiming Him

How am I going to proclaim Him consistently?

• Speak to the Heart idols of people
• Is Jesus central to the text?
• How am I going to be held accountable to this?
• How are you proclaiming Christ to YOUR people, not others?

2. Planting discipleship-driven churches includes these: Proclaim, admonish, and teach

• Proclaim: This is the General proclamation of the Gospel and Biblical authority
• Admonish: Verbal confrontation to bring about change
• Teaching: Anything that relates to instruction

A question you should always be asking yourself and your planting team:

• How am I going to do these things⎯ALL of them?

Concluding thought:

“Present every man in Christ”: Means to be always maturing until the day of Jesus Christ’s return.

Maturity in Christ means your awareness of God’s holiness, as well as your own flesh and sinfulness, is continually growing.

Everyone ought to be growing in maturity because of a deeper appreciation of Jesus. Therefore, “How am I going to shape this Biblical view of maturity to my people?” ought to be always a driving question.

Live it out!



Okay people, does this help you? Let me know.

—Jonathan

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And I suppose it couldn’t come on a better day.

Last week, as you saw for yourself, I left a post up all week long in honor of Charlie Matthews. He will be missed by many, but I know he’s experiencing something beyond what he ever thought Heaven to be. Last week was rough in many ways, but I’m glad it’s a new week and I’m looking forward to it.

I am excited in particular about Tuesday and Wednesday because I get to go to the Acts 29 Bootcamp in Louisville, KY! I am really blessed to be able to do this. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time now. A little while ago, I thought I was going to be in the process of starting a new church. Things weren’t falling into place just right and I decided to not “make” anything happen and just be patient. Actually, I had about 10 people who were ready to start meeting, so I had a good size core group to start. The situation was complicated, though, and I think it was best for me to just chill for a little while.

I still hope that God gives me the opportunity to plant.

I believe the best way to get the Gospel of Jesus in to any area is to take it there. While I think outreaches to different neighborhoods are important, this is not what I mean. I mean planting, or stationing, the Gospel in that neighborhood. Live in it. Start the church in it. Do work in it. Saturate it with your presence and show the culture there that you care, that the Church cares about it.

This bootcamp in Louisville will not make me a church planter, and neither will getting a degree in ministry. God makes church planters. What I think God will use this for in my life is to convict me of error, encourage me in my calling, and help train me in that calling. When it comes time God will make it happen. I am really encouraged and excited for a friend of mine who is getting assessed as a church planter in Middletown, Ohio.

Until then, I sit patiently like a child waiting to get out of time-out.

I love ministry and I love helping people “get” it. I love seeing people grow in Christ. I love seeing people connect with God. I love to see people heal. I love seeing people understand the Scriptures. I love it. I love to ask the question, “So, what do you think God has been teaching you lately?” The wonderful thing is that you don’t have to be a church leader to do this stuff. But to be a church planter, I think, part of it means helping other people be able to do this stuff. And I love that too.

What’s your calling? Do you know what your calling is? Where do you think God may be leading you? And most of all, what do you think God is teaching you lately?

—Jonathan

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Especially when you’re used to sleeping until 9!

Well, at least that’s about what my sleep schedule has been the past 5-6 months or so. You see, many of you know I have been looking for work (since February!) and that I have had a very difficult time trying to find it. Recently, I’ve been going through an interview process with a furniture installation company. They install furniture for commercial businesses.

I’m really not wanting this kind of job, but it’s better than coal mining! Hopefully this will be temporary. To share a little about me, I’m still going to school at Cincinnati Christian University, and my hopes there are in future ministry work (church planting), and writing. But these things are future events yet to happen. As for now, I have to provide for my family, and if that means installing furniture, that’s what it will be.

I’m not getting any younger.

And I certainly do not want to continue working for things I have no desire or passion for. So I intend to make the best of this opportunity and work hard at getting another one—another opportunity, that is.

What I do know for sure is that God has a plan for my life, and when I see no more of this world, it won’t matter anyway, because I’ll be with Him in Glory. And what a day it will be!

Until then, learning how to balance seems to be the pervading task. Thank you Lord for my new job!

What are you waiting on? What is it that you have to balance through while hoping for your future goal?

—Jonathan

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