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

godly man in his previous church, and had grown deeper in Christ as a result. With the pastor’s permission, he has announced for several weeks his desire that every member of his class be in an assigned one-one-one relationship for encouragement, support, and mutual accountability. All of the members of his class have agreed to do it, meeting one-on-one with each other, men with men and women with women, for the sake of teaching and growth. Although he has the outward support of all the members of his class, some are concerned about the possibility of manipulation and micro-management in such pairs, and some think that such mentoring may be too ingrown. The teacher is convinced that responsible care for one another like this can greatly enhance the overall growth of the members, and speed up their equipping for ministry. What would your questions and advice be if you were a member of this class? To what extent ought we to connect the teaching ministry with discipling others in one-on-one relationships? Are such relationships a “good idea” to better equip members in the local church? The source and resource of the teaching ministry is the Holy Spirit, who alone chooses and selects those whom he desires for this important work. He selects prepared vessels who through discipline and spiritual brokenness have prepared themselves for the Spirit’s teaching ministry. These traits include the teachers’ faithfulness, teachableness, hunger and thirst for the Lord and his wisdom, their rigorous and disciplined obedience to the Word, their life focus upon the person of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom, and a passion to excel at the teaching craft. As with preaching, so the Holy Spirit oversees and influences the entire process of the teaching event, including dispensing gifts, insight, anointing, and making intercession for those who teach. The results of his influence in the teaching event is powerful: he enables the students to obey everything Jesus commanded, grow stable through the application of the truth, mature as disciples of Jesus, and grow so as to teach others to teach others. Three essential steps make up effective biblical teaching, i.e., in planning out, delivering the content, and making connection with the audience through the preached Word: establishing contact with the life situation of our audience, communicating content of the Word of God clearly and boldly, and making connections through disciplined application of the Word to our lives. We establish contact by paying careful attention to the culture and life situation of the students–their language, the ways in which they understand, process, and communicate ideas and truths. We communicate the Word of God effectively by

Restatement of the Lesson’s Thesis

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