The Equipping Ministry, Student Workbook, SW15

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T H E E Q U I P P I N G M I N I S T R Y

once a week for prayer, encouragement, and support, and to review the teaching of the previous week. The first few weeks the groups seemed to be working according to plan; the teens were communicating with each other, reviewing their Scripture memory verses, and growing together. However, when it was discovered that some teens had been caught lying about their whereabouts after class, the AG group they were in triggered a network of complaining, backbiting, and gossip that shocked and appalled the teacher. Rather than becoming groups of support and accountability, they became a new networks of blame shifting and backbiting. As a fellow teacher and leader of such a group, howwould you advise your friend to “fix” this broken system? A new pastor of a growing urban church has taken three years to acquaint himself with the people and systems within his new church. Now, feeling strongly the leading of the Lord, the pastor announces to the congregation his desire to release his people to a new level of significant contribution to the work of the ministry. Calling a special meeting with the teachers of the congregation, the pastor taught passionately Ephesians 4.11-16, challenging the teachers, whatever the age group, to reconceive themselves as equippers for the ministry, and ended his teaching with the statement: “Your job will now be to find ways to release the gifting of your students in order that they might enter more fully into the ministry God has for them. Every member of this church is a servant and a minister, even the children, and your role is to train them for the work of the ministry.” He promised them all the support, monies, and resources to carry out this new “vision of equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.” Rather than creating the revolution of love he thought it would, it had just the opposite reaction. Many teachers were excited, but many were also confused, and some even resigned. The pastor remains unbowed, however. How would you advise our dear brother to make his “revolution of equipping” a reality? Did he not wait long enough? Is he being too ambitious? How do you challenge teachers to see their role from a biblical point of view? Willing to Experiment

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Teaching as One-on-One Discipleship

A teacher of an adult learning class with a background in a Navigator-style of one-on-one mentoring and discipleship, wants to expose his members to the strength of one-on-one relationships. After all, he had been mentored for years by a