How Effective Are Your Small Groups?

Church small groups usually start with excitement and momentum but after a year or two can turn into an inwardly focused and dull experience. That’s not everyone’s experience, but it is common.

Small groups are a good idea though. Jesus had a small group. The book of Acts is filled with home gatherings. We know that a Sunday worship gathering is not enough by itself to help people grow in maturity. Therefore, some other type of smaller accountability groups are a necessity.

Here are some common problems with traditional church small groups:

• They are too small. If you only allow 12 people in a group, it means average attendance is 6-8. This is unhelpful mainly because its awkward for anyone new.
• They never end. Unless you go to another church, or risk offending people, you are stuck in it forever.
• They promise intimate friendships. This promise is dangerous because it’s not true most of the time. Real friendship cannot be prescribed.
• They are not easy to join. If  a list of groups/leaders is provided to the congregation, a new person is still not empowered to know how to join a compatible/suitable group.
• They don’t usually multiply. Some groups grow, but most do not. A group that doesn’t grow becomes focused on maintenance issues and stagnates.

So, what’s the solution? In a book titled Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups, Nelson Searcy details a semester based small group structure that helps tackle the drawbacks to traditional groups.

At this point you probably have a lot of questions about how a semester based system can effectively provide pastoral care for people. That’s a natural question, and it’s answered well in the book. The benefits of the system far out way these concerns. In fact, the level of attendance, commitment, care, multiplication and personal growth is significantly higher in the Activate system than traditional care groups. Because of this, a non-denominational church in Chicago is planning to implement the system this year.

If you aren’t sure about checking out this approach to small groups, then download this free PDF summary, it will give you enough information to get your head around how the system works. It is not a replacement for the book though.

If you want to take your disciple making efforts to the next level. If you want ALL your groups to naturally multiply. If you want new people to more quickly find there way into a small group, then take a good look at Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups.

ESV Large Print Bible

Is your eyesight demanding that you invest in an ESV Large Print Bible? Perhaps a relative or friend is in this situation? Are you tired of searching for your glasses or just too proud to wear them? You or someone else could REALLY benefit from this Bible …

Either way, you are privileged to have the truly incredible option of the ESV Large Print Bible. The majority of previous customers have given this popular version 5 stars! But why?

Along with the obvious advantage of the ESV translation, the following benefits have been reported:

• The font avoids a harsh bolding and delivers a crisp and highly legible experience.
• The ESV Large Print Bible uses a 12.75-point type. See ESV Large Print text sample.
• The quality is excellent which makes it a good option for regular use.
• The price is right.
• The size isn’t so big that you can’t also effectively use it at home and at church.
• Many customers commented that they considered switching to use this version exclusively.
• The concordance also makes the ESV Large Print Bible a smart purchase.

The demand for large print Bibles is truly surprising. Recent popularity has given wider permission to the Christian world to invest in one. And why not? Straining at the text of a regular sized Bible or always having to scramble around for your glasses are not habits to continue with. After all, these type’s of difficulty only add to the chances of not reading, studying and enjoying the Bible.

An ESV Large Print Bible solves this problem and of course does so with the benefits of an excellent translation. If you enjoy regular Bible reading and even use Bible commentaries in your devotional or study times, this really is a super addition to your arsenal of tools to assist in your spiritual growth.

The cost really is not bad either and there are a few different options to choose from. Make a smart decision today and invest in a Bible that will truly make your devotionals and church experience the joy it should be.

Invest in an ESV Large Print Bible >>>

ESV Thinline

I’m not sure how it happened but last week someone mailed me an ESV Thinline Bible. I specifically got the Chestnut Diamond Design version. I’ve been REALLY wanting a new Bible to preach with and the ESV Thinline is EXACTLY what I wanted. The fact that I got it for free was a wonderful surprise.

To be honest I was getting tired with the thickness of my NASB and I wanted something with a sharp looking cover, and I was wanting to preach from an ESV. This is especially because I recently got an ESV Study Bible (also for free). I also was beginning to dislike the gold ‘Holy Bible’ text format on the front. Of course there is nothing wrong with gold lettering, but somehow it doesn’t really reflect my style. The ESV Thinline still has a gold trim, but hey, one step at a time!

Here is why the ESV Thinline is AWESOME:

• It’s less than 7/8″ thick! Yeah I know, super thin. It looks so sharp and feels like I’m holding a normal sized book :)
• Full-color maps in the back.
• 9.5-point type, which for me is the perfect size. See an ESV Thinline text sample here.
• Amazing fabric cover.
• It came with a case.

I’ve preached with it a couple of times now and I absolutely love it. I’m no longer holding a brick in front of the church and I have added some contemporary sophistication. It’s not going to start a revival any time soon but does mean I feel a little more comfortable.

Why not consider getting an ESV Thinline.

How Do You Make Disciples?

At eatJesus.com we have pointed out before that church culture has extremes — attenders and elitists. The tragedy is that neither may actually know Christ.

There are the attenders, we call them spooners, who never grow in their desire to know Jesus for themselves. The skill of devotion is ignored and spiritual responsibility abdicated. They rarely ever read the Bible themselves. They simply show up on Sundays and let their mouths hang open so that the preacher guy can fill them with information and mesmerize them for a while. Don’t get us wrong, we are not against effective preaching nor the gathering of Christ followers on a weekly basis — we are simply talking about disciple making here.

Then, there are the religious elite. They are serious about Bible knowledge and church function. They never miss a meeting and feel bad if they don’t memorize enough scripture and are constantly testing their abilities against those around them. Success is found in achievement and keeping up appearances is important. They are modern day pharisee’s, especially because they accuse others of being legalistic.

What can be done about this? How do you make disciples?

The church has been designed by God as the primary vehicle to produce mature believers. The saints (all Christians) are to be equipped through various giftings given to people within the Christian community (Eph 4). When we operate within the framework of what Christ is doing, he is the gift giver, then we have a structure for disciple making. What apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching Christians are you currently being equipped by? If you are not being exposed to the equipping gifts of Christ then how do you plan on growing? Or, are you ignoring what Christ has given?

Training by people with these giftings is the key. Equipping is the answer to the problem. We need less information, classrooms and events. We need more contexts for the gifts to be relationally used. Handouts and videos will not help. We need people connecting with people. Trainers with trainee’s. Real life situations rather than academic environments. We need the gifts of Christ (people w/ Eph 4 gifts) to engage the saints in training.

Church culture has prized the teacher and pastor to the extent that teaching and pastoring now dominate our leadership. We need more apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic gifts (people) to off-set the imbalance. Many of these people have left church environments and joined parachurch ministries to fulfill and use their giftings. Being removed from a new testament style disciple making context is another reason we have created the spooner and elitists extremes.

Planting churches is one of the best ways to fix this problem. Start again, and again, and again. Start over and grow these gifts, attract them in, provide an environment to let them work together. If you want to make disciples then start a new church and let the gifts that Jesus has given to the church equip the people for ministry.

ESV Study Bible Review

Looking for an ESV Study Bible review that gives you the quick facts and cuts out the fluff? A review that condenses the myriad of others? Here you go …

Strengths: ESV Study Bible Review

1. Multiple edition styles to suit your personal design and color preferences.
2. The ESV guarantee. If you find a defect get a replacement of equal or greater value.
3. Smyth sewn binding. Considered the most durable binding process. A hard Bible to break or wear out! Allows Bible to lay open, very useful for long study times. This was verified by many customers.
4. The ESV Study Bible is thicker and heavier than previous study bibles. Makes you feel like you’ve made a good investment.
5. The ink is nice and dark and the font size is very easy to read.
6. Fabulous full-color illustrations and maps unlike many grayscale study Bibles. A very impressive touch.
7. Purchasing customers receive free access to a complete online edition with the ability to write notes and perform searches — speeding up study time. However, many have commented that they don’t use this feature much.
   
   
8. Comprehensive introductions to each book.
9. Study notes are incredibly extensive and use significant portions of each page, being also printed slightly smaller than the Bible text. Overall format is similar to the NIV Study Bible.
10. The outline titles of each book (as listed in the intros) are paragraph highlighted as they appear throughout the notes allowing the reader to quickly identify a primary outline transition.
11. Secondary points in the outlines are simply highlighted behind the text as they appear in the notes. Again, this allows the reader the ability to follow the whole outline without referring back to the intro.
12. Contributors to the study notes are made up of a spectrum of trusted scholars in Evangelicalism.
13. On the most part it allows for differences in theological convictions through the careful wording of controversial topics. In many places it gives multiple views and lets you make a decision based on the Words of scripture.

Weaknesses: ESV Study Bible Review

1. Study notes mainly focus on explanation and almost never on application making this a more suited Bible for leaders. Learning to live the truth of scripture is the goal of studying the Bible. New Christians might be overloaded with information and distracted from walking out faith. This could be a downside to most study bibles.
2. The study notes in some places can be partial and light compared to other works on those passages. It must be noted that no single work can cover everything.
3. Some claim that the description of it’s doctrinal position as “classical evangelical orthodoxy, in the historic stream of the Reformation” is not totally accurate. It has been claimed that the ESV Study Bible leans more towards Calvinism. But, we’ll leave that up to you to decide. Either way, it’s a smaller and less significant point when considering the breadth of information.

Conclusion

After considering an ESV Study Bible review it is important to think about what your personal needs are in a study bible and balance that with your theological convictions.

In the end, this is truly a great resource, and anyone who makes an investment in an ESV Study Bible has made a good decision and should not be disappointed.

Buy an ESV Study Bible today

Too Many Bibles?

In their book “God is Back,” Economist journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge describe the plethora of Bible versions now available:

“Thomas Nelson, the Nashville-based Bible firm, publishes sixty editions of the Bible every year. The Good Book now comes in every color of the rainbow, including the colors of your college. There are Bibles for every category of humanity, from “seekers” to cowboys, from brides to barmen. The African American Jubilee Bible contains over three hundred pages on the black religious experience. There is an outdoor Bible with laminated paper and a camouflage Bible for use in war zones. There are Bibles for family prayers, Bibles for personal devotion, Bibles for the theologically minded, with historical details, Bibles with commentaries by celebrated Evangelicals. The “hundred-minute Bible” summarizes the Good Book for the time starved.”

Annual Bible sales are worth in the region of $500 million. Over a hundred million Bibles are sold or given away every year and there are more than 500 English translations of the Bible. Yet despite the existence of all these Bibles the extent of Bible knowledge is shockingly low. A Gallup survey found that in the US fewer than half the population (who have an average of four Bibles sitting on their bookshelves) can name the first book of the Bible and 12 percent think that Noah was married to Joan of Arc!

It as if Bible publishers have carpet bombed the world with the Word of God, but with as little helpful impact as was achieved by the use of napalm in Vietnam.

Bible publishing is big business, and owning the ‘right’ Bible has often become just one more segment of our consumerist culture. It amuses and saddens me when leading conservative evangelical bloggers post excitedly about the latest edition of the ESV or the ESV Study Bible to hit the shelves – as if it contained anything new! What difference does the color of your cover make to the state of your soul? What does it matter if it is leather or card? How do we end up being both so fashion-conscious about our Bibles and so religious about them?

The translation of the Bible into many languages and its ready availability throughout most of the world has been one of the great triumphs of the post-Reformation period. But making the Bible just another aspect of our individualistic, sentimentalized, consumerist culture has been a great tragedy. The Bible only really makes sense when it is read and applied in Christian community. It is inspired by the community of the Trinity, written by men who were part of the community of the faithful and is intended to instruct and guide the Church. It should not be used as a kind of fortune cookie – a religious lucky dip for the individual believer to extract out of context ‘promises’ which serve only to reinforce the individualistic, materialistic dream of Western culture.

Never mind the cover. Eat the content.

Does Good Doctrine Save Us?

Most pastors who ascribe to reformed theology (myself included) are very clear that we are not saved by “good works”, but I am not sure that we are convinced that we are not saved by good doctrine…at least not in practice. We are very careful not to tell people you need to do the right things so God will love you, but I am wondering if we are not unknowingly telling people they have to think a certain way for God to love them?

What got me asking this question is my recent study of the Passover meal found in Exodus 12. You know the story: God sends Moses to tell Pharaoh to “Let My people go!” Pharaoh refuses, so God sends a series of plagues – boils, frogs, darkness, etc. After nine of these plagues, Pharaoh still says no, so God decides to kill everyone firstborn…all of them. Now God comes to Moses and gives him a plan of salvation, which was to kill a lamb, paint the blood of that lamb on their doorpost and eat the meat for dinner than night. God would then send the “Destroyer” that night to kill every firstborn of every household unless there was blood on the doorpost of that home. Now what’s interesting for us to give serious thought to is that the “Destroyer” did not care if it was an Egyptian home or a Hebrew home. He gave no credence to race, color, or economic status. He didn’t care how good of a person you were and he didn’t even care what your theology was. The only thing he cared about was whether or not there was blood on the doorpost. In other words, there was either a dead son or a dead lamb in every household.

In our preaching, teaching and presentation of the gospel, we must never lose sight that at the heart of Christianity, is not good behavior nor is it even good doctrine. At the heart of Christianity is the substitute death of an innocent lamb.