Focus on Reproduction, Student Workbook, SW12

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F O C U S O N R E P R O D U C T I O N

Planting Urban Churches Sowing

Welcome in the strong name of Jesus Christ! After your reading, study, discussion, and application of the materials in this lesson, you will be able to: • Recite and defend with Scripture the most significant concept in urban evangelism today: the principle of oikos , or household evangelism, including the idea of an oikos as that web of common kinship relationships, friendships, and associations that make up a person’s larger social circle. • List out clearly the more difficult challenges involved in urban evangelism (including broken family units, economic underdevelopment, alienation and loneliness, drug abuse, violence, housing shortages, and general despair). • Demonstrate the concept of oikos in the NT, and explain how this concept was critical in the early church’s conception of penetrating larger social units with the Gospel. • Explore the relationship of oikos to identity as members of the family of God, and examine the significance of the relationship of oikos to evangelism and church planting in the New Testament. • Detail the kind of oikos relationships (i.e., that web of common kinship relationships, friendships, and associations that make up a person’s larger social circle) that exist in our urban communities, and how critical this concept is for penetrating the circle of influence of city residents today. • Articulate the central benefits for oikos evangelism in the city, and relate these strategies to our evangelistic methods as we launch incarnationally into the community with the Gospel.

Lesson Objectives

2

You and Your Household

Devotion

Acts 16.19-34 - But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. [20] And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. [21] They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” [22] The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the