Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

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T H E O L O G Y O F T H E C H U R C H

The Church as Witness

Welcome to the Mentor’s Guide for Lesson 3, The Church as Witness . The overall focus of this particular lesson of this Theology of the Church module is to enable your students to understand the various dimensions of the Church in its witness to Christ and his Kingdom. We begin this lesson by paying attention to some of the most significant aspects of the doctrine of election as it applies to Jesus Christ as the Elect Servant of God. In Jesus Christ, God has elected for himself a Savior and Lord through whom he revealed himself to the world, and redeemed a people for himself. The righteous are elected by virtue of their union with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, by faith. We will also consider specifically how God’s election relates both to his chosen people Israel as well as to the Church. Using God’s selection of Israel and the Church as a conceptual backdrop, we will then consider briefly the relationship of God’s election of individual believers “in Christ,” that is, in connection to Christ as they cling to him by faith. The second segment of this lesson focuses upon the Great Commission, the mandate that Jesus has given to the Church of this age to bear witness to him and the kingdom promise through faith in his shed blood. In that segment we will see how the Great Commission provides an overall outline for the Church’s threefold witness in the world to make disciples. We’ll consider how the Church fulfills Christ’s commission by obeying Jesus’ call to evangelize the lost, by baptizing new believers in Christ (incorporating them as members into the Church), and by teaching true converts to obey all that Christ has commanded them. The Church is called to engage in this effort until the end of the age, and Jesus has promised never to forsake us as we obey his command to make disciples worldwide. Notice in the objectives that these aims are clearly stated, and you ought to emphasize them throughout the lesson, during your discussions and interaction with the students. As has been stated before, there is no way to overestimate the importance of staying centered on the objectives as you proceed through the data and phases of the lesson. As we concentrate on these objectives, we will use every phase of our teaching and all of the information shared in the lesson to help our students understand and internalize these objectives for the sake of teaching others. We will reap what we sow here. The more time you spend understanding the objectives and leading your students to understand and attain them, the better your fruit will be for your teaching sessions specifically, and the Capstone modules generally. 1 Page 79

Lesson Introduction