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ReNEW Class Materials

Downloads Front Page Spiritual Health

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Back in 2001, I developed a concept for an annually recurring class that I would teach in my church every January as a refresher course in church membership to prepare for our “Recommitment Sunday” in the first week of February.

The class I taught in January 2002 contained a great deal of information on my personal philosophy of ministry as well as basic information on membership in our church. Therefore, there is a good amount of material in this edition of the class that is not transferable. However, there remains much that can be gleaned and applied to any church situation.

The following year, I changed the class significantly to focus more on reviewing our core values in the context of table discussions rather than large class lecture. In this format, it is much more transferable to other contexts.

In this above zip file, I include both editions of the class material in MS Word format as well as a PowerPoint file for the original edition.

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LWL 101: Living a Life of Worship

101: A Life of Worship Core Values Downloads Front Page Spiritual Health

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Explanation:

According to Jesus, the greatest command in all the Bible is this:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

In other words, the most important thing for people to work on in their lives is to cultivate a deep love for God that permeates every aspect of their lives. This kind of love is a love that puts God first above everything else. Ultimately, that’s the foundation point of the spiritual life. It’s a life that acknowledges God’s supremacy over everything.

That’s what we mean by “worship.”

Here’s a sample page from the teacher’s edition of the curriculum:

LWL 101 sample page

Recommended Reading:

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Life Worth Living

Core Values Front Page Life Worth Living Spiritual Health

The spiritual growth curriculum that I’ve been developing for the past four years is a series of classes called “Life Worth Living.”

The classes are based on the four core commitments of the spiritual life arranged in logical order:

    <li>Worship: God is number one in my life.</li>
<li>Community: I need others as much as they need me.</li>
<li>Growth: Once I stop growing I start dying.</li>
<li>Ministry: I find fulfillment in giving of myself for the sake of others.</li>

More will be coming soon…

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Win XP Autodial problem fixed

Front Page Geekery

I’ve been frustrated for a few weeks now about a “feature” of Windows XP. It automatically dials a network connection whenever it thinks I want it.

I have DSL at home and a motorola router, but I also have a VPN connection set up on my home computer so that I can dial in to my office computer from home. The problem has been that when I’m at home browsing the Internet (or not), my computer will randomly attempt to connect to my office computer which is totally unnecessary!

I haven’t had any luck finding the solution (Yes, I did click “never dial a connection” in my Internet Explorer / Control Panel Connection Settings); that is, I hadn’t found any luck until now. And get this, my problem was solved by Microsoft Knowledge Base Article #316530! Who would have thought my problem would be solved on Microsoft’s own website!

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People use my materials!?

Front Page Spiritual Health

Today, I got a note from a fellow pastor in Canada who is using some of my materials in his church’s membership process. He’s using a class I developed called ReNEW which is a comprehensive class to introduce baby Christians and reorient believers to the realities of God’s will for life in the local church.

If you are interested, I hope to be posting some materials here soon, but until then, just send me a note, and I’ll tell you what I’ve put together so far.

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Seven Minutes with God

Front Page Spiritual Health VIP

Would you like to boost your spiritual growth? Would you like to get into a regular habit of Bible reading and prayer?

Well, of course you do, but you probably are thinking that you don’t have enough time to do any of that. Here’s a little solution for you. For some time now, I’ve been familiar with a little method of Bible study called “Seven Minutes a Day with God.”

Here are the details…

  • 1/2 Prayer for guidance (Psalm 143:8)
  • 4 Reading the Bible (Psalm 119:18)
  • 2-1/2 Prayer
    Adoration (I Chronicles 29:11)
    Confession (I John 1:9)
    Thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:20)
    Supplication (Matthew 7:7)
  • = 7 minutes

I have found this to be a great method to begin a good habit, but there’s one more thing I’d encourage you to do. During the reading time, don’t just read the Bible for four minutes. Read the Bible and take some notes in a notebook. You might want to read the Bible for two minutes and then write in a notebook for the other two.

Also, don’t just pray your prayers in your mind. Write them down in a journal or at the very least keep a written list of your current prayer requests. Also, make sure you review the prayer list and write down the ways that God has been answering your prayers!

Only seven minutes for a stronger spiritual life? You can do it!

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Close to God

Front Page Spiritual Health

I’ve just been re-energized in my spiritual life! Only a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling depressed and really down in many ways, but that all changed when I went to the Midwest Baptist Conference’s Leadership Retreat in Champaign, Illinois.

The first night there, I was challenged by a message by Jim Botts about how Jesus wants us to get out there and tell other people about him. I’ve been frustrated that my church hasn’t been doing that very effectively, and so I was really moved by his message. However, when I tried to talk with my wife about it, something wasn’t clicking with my thought process.

We actually had an argument about it!

But then, the next night, God brought clarity to me through the second main speaker of the retreat. Gary Rohrmayer of Midwest Church Planting and Your Journey Resources said in his first main point that “the practice of spiritual disciplines is directly related to hearing God’s voice.”

It was like one of those revelations where you hear something that you’ve known for a long time but haven’t really gotten from your head down into your heart, you know? I got a strong sense that my ministry was more about my personal connection with God than any other methodology I could implement in a church. It was a complete release! Now, not only was I freed from the pressure of performance and efforts to coerce people to share their faith with others, but I was also given something tangible and simple that I could work on–my own spiritual condition!

This might not seem much to you, but it was a revelation for me, and I’m so grateful to God that he gave it to me.

I hope your relationship with God is profound and significant this week.

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My First Blog

Front Page

Well, I have finally succumbed to the world of blogging. I hope that anyone who reads this will be enriched by whatever I have to say, and that most of all, people will receive the wonderful blessing of knowing God personally.

I can’t think of anything more important than developing a close personal relationship with God, so that is the primary goal of this blog. My thoughts on our spiritual growth!

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025-02 — Too Hot to Handle

025 A Fresh Start With Jesus Front Page Podcasts

Mark 1:40-3:12

What do you think of Jesus? If he were here right now, what would you expect him to do? To say? The problem is that Jesus is never limited by our expectations. He is an outside-the-box kind of person, and he’s just too much for some to handle. Listen up to see if Jesus is too hot for YOU to handle.


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