Confrontation and Repentance

In a couple of weeks, our children’s Sunday School classes are going to host a rally to celebrate the fifth Sunday of this month. On fifth Sundays at our church, our adult Sunday School classes all meet up in the sanctuary for a Fifth Sunday Rally. We encourage and challenge all of the classes to reach out to the community before the next fifth Sunday and do some kind of ministry that draws in new people. We discover some creative ideas as each class shares an experience. We are going to launch the same plan among our children. After our Bible lesson, the kids are going to break up into small groups and stuff Trunk or Treat bags with information about our church and Gospel tracts. These bags will be used during our major outreach on October 31. I am so excited to see the children serve in their own capacity. Before we do the service project, we are going to study II Corinthians 7:8-12. I want to share that message with you here in this article.

Created for the glory of God

I am preparing our lesson for Connects Groups this week at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. Over the previous three years, our church walked through the entire Bible, cover to cover. Two weeks ago, we began the process again. Our first two lessons covered Genesis 1-2. In lesson two, we discovered that mankind was created in the image of God. This week, we are going to discover what it means to live for the glory of God. Many Bible teachers have taught many lessons over the years about the importance of each person living for the glory of God. Living for the glory of God sounds very pleasant, and it is, yet, if you think about it, what does that actually mean? Do average people understand what that means in a practical sense? How do we make this tangible? The answer is found in Psalm 96 as well as in II Corinthians 4. Let’s discover these truths together.

Embracing the Gospel in deceptive times

In the past few years, we have a new term in our vocabulary. You probably hear and read it daily. It is the phrase, “fake news“. It’s a new term but the idea behind it has been around since sin entered the world. The Apostle Paul had to confront fake news almost 2,000 years ago in his second epistle to the church in Corinth. This week, at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we are going to study II Corinthians 11 where we will discover how the Apostle Paul dealt with the fake news of his day. This lesson will give us much insight into how we can confront fake news today. People have always been easily deceived and our enemy, the Devil, loves to use fake news tactics to deceive us today, especially when it comes to spiritual teachings. As I mentioned earlier, fake news has been around forever. There is a pattern to fake news and we will discover that pattern as we examine Paul’s letter.

The Urgency of the Gospel

I was trained by some of the best disciple makers in the world and, as they were investing in me, they invested the idea of the urgency of the Gospel. As I have grown in my faith by walking with the Lord, and as I have grown in the ministry, I have noticed that there are many “brothers” and “sisters” in Christ who have a much different philosophy of ministry than the one I was taught. Part of that includes a lack of urgency when it comes to making disciples and getting the Gospel out to the lost and dying world. I would like to examine the Scriptures and focus on the idea of the urgency of making disciples because the days are evil.

Covenant, Lesson 11: Living in the light of the New Covenant

Well, it is hard for me to believe that we are on lesson 11 of Covenant, the final lesson of the manual. This has been such a rewarding study for me and for all of those who have taken the class. I am a little sad that it is almost over, but, at the same time, I am excited to begin Titus in January. If you have been with us from the beginning, here is a little reminder of our previous lessons.

1. Covenant Lesson 1
2. Covenant Lesson 2
3. Covenant Lesson 3
4. Covenant Lesson 4
5. Covenant Lesson 5
6. Covenant Lesson 6
7. No article
8. Covenant Lesson 8
9. Covenant Lesson 9
10. Covenant Lesson 10

Principles of Leadership from II Corinthians (2)

In our last article on this subject, we saw some good principles of leadership, specifically how a good leader uses every situation to serve the people which he leads. Just as a recap;

1. Communication is important.
2. He is comforted by God so that he can comfort those he leads.
3. He is a servant leader in all that he does.

How to have an impact in the lives of others

Elena and I are preparing to teach a lesson this Saturday night at another church’s youth group. We want to encourage them to be good students of the Scriptures and apply what they learn so that they can have a positive impact in society, especially in the lives of their classmates. As Christians, we are called to change the world because that is what our Savior did. He calls us to be like Him. He calls us to be salt and light in this world. The essence of these two things is to overcome darkness and decay. Sin causes individual lives as well as society as a whole to decay and believers are called to stop it. Darkness keeps people ignorant of where they are and where they are going. That is what sin does to people. It deceives them into not understanding how they are destroying their own lives and the lives of others. As light in this world, we are to drive out the darkness and show people the reality of sin, stopping it in its tracks. This lesson is going to teach us how to do that.