Increasing Your Capacity to Receive God's Love

Gary DeLashmutt

1 John 4:7-21

God's will for our lives is to grow in our ability to give out sacrificial love. As our capacity of receiving God's love increases, we are able to increase our ability to give His love out to others. This process begins with understanding the lengths of God's love for us, drawing continuously from His love, and learning how to reflect and meditate on how to move towards others in love. Living out of God's love is a key feature of growing Christians.

Walking in Love

Gary DeLashmutt

1 John 2:3-11

Walking in a lifestyle of sacrificial love is a priority within the Christian life. Loving others deepens our intimacy with God as He guides us, assures us, gives us peace, and develops a more confident prayer life for others. Love is the culmination of God's commandments, and God provided the resources to love radically through giving His Holy Spirit which enables us to love all types of people the way Jesus did.

Jonathan: Spiritual Friendships

Dennis McCallum

2 Samuel 1:15-17

Through the friendship between David and Jonathan (Saul's son), we get a clear picture of spiritual friendship. Each man was loyal to God first, and this allowed them the ability to develop loyalty to one another knowing that they each desired to follow God. Jonathan knew that it was God's will for David to one day be king instead of him, despite being the sitting prince. He was determined to see God's will established even at his own expense. Though his father was jealous of David, Jonathan chose to love David as he loved himself, forsaking family and the throne.

Praying for your Home Group

Joel Comiskey

2 Samuel 1:15-17

Successful home groups are the result of diligence, which shows itself through prayer, evangelism, and community. Explore the different forms that diligence can take in several church examples and the ways that it will consistently be the same.

Making the Transition, Traditional to Home Group-Centered Ministry

Gilbert Lennox

2 Samuel 1:15-17

Transitions from traditional to group-centered ministry are gradual and intentional. Looking at a church who has attempted this kind of environment several times, consider the steps that a church needs to take in order to create a revolution like this. Some of the steps include support, vision, leadership training, and fighting disappointment.

A Flexible Framework for Personal Discipleship

Gary DeLashmutt

2 Samuel 1:15-17

Discipleship is a personal, ethical, and strategic relationship where mature members help to lead less mature members to maturity and continue in multiplication of groups. Discipleship focuses on developing four areas: study, counsel, coaching, and prayer. Alternately, shepherding is a more general relationship that can help someone become a worker for God, eventually leading to discipleship if that person does grow spiritually. Both focus on the continual development of Christians.

Working with At-Risk Youth

Scott Arnold

2 Samuel 1:15-17

The Bible commands believers to look after the poor and deprived. An at-risk teen is a youth whose environment or behaviors have a high correlation to substantially negative future life choices. Because of all of the factors that go into bringing a teen to this point, the gospel message we bring needs to be holistic, focusing on trust, relationships, stability, and building hope.

Lifestyle Evangelism

John Rue

Connie Rue

2 Samuel 1:15-17

Lifestyle evangelism means focusing on other people's eternities. Believers do this by freely distributing God's love and living as people under grace; only then are they able to distribute the same grace and love. This kind of lifestyle will radically impact every area of our lives, relationships, and community.

Being About What Really Matters Most

Jim Leffel

1 Corinthians 13:1-7

The center of Christian spirituality is love. As our most basic need, God has promised to meet our need for love so that we can be empowered to give His love to others. Experiencing love is found through giving ourselves to others for their good, producing real joy. Biblical love is centered around God's grace and is: committed, excited for others' success, and able to extend radical forgiveness based on God's forgiveness towards us.