The Gospel-Centered Life: Small Group Curriculum

In my twenty-two years as a Christian, I have seen preachers beg “Christians” to give to no avail.  I will never do this because my begging can’t help anyone understand the gospel enough to understand why they are in sin.  But instead, my heart is compelled to boldly proclaim that the non-giver of God’s money doesn’t love Jesus but instead loves “their” money.

Here’s what’s crazy… Preachers all across America know that “Christians” love to worship money more than Jesus but instead of telling them that they are in sin they have conjured up a “prosperity gospel” that’s not the gospel.  And because they love money, we have entire movements of deceived people selling an empty promise. John Piper hits it right on the nail.

For the record, I hate the prosperity gospel because Jesus hates false teachers. In these lean economic times, trust the “gospel” and pursue satisfaction in Jesus, even if you have to suffer through this period of time. I’d love to hear your take on this “false gospel.” Please share.

Every time we as leaders go through a seminar it reminds us of why we feel so privileged to serve in this way.

We met from 9-3:00pm:

Getting to know each other;

• understanding partnership and why it’s critical in this age of “meaningless joining” of churches;
• what is the history, mission and vision of the church;
• where are we going long term as a church;
• what’s the gospel and missional living;
• what we believe and are united around;
• what is the male and female distinction in lieu of a culture in a gender crisis;
• how we are governed as a church, and;
• what we believe about stewardship and church discipline.

All five of the people present at the seminar bring so much passion to Wellspring. They have passion for entrepreneurship among women, theater and spiritual formation, creativity and drama, counseling and encouragment and for people to learn how to study the Bible. We are looking forward to how God is going to use each one of them.

Keep us in prayer as we continue to trust Jesus to build His church with His people.

Let’s start praying about how God may want to use us in our community.

I was tired. Tired and numb. That’s how I felt as I made my way to the Greensboro Coliseum with 15 other women from the Wellspring Community of family and friends.

We joined 11,000 other women who were anticipating hearing God speak.

What is His will for my life? How come life is so hard? Why are my desires unfulfilled? Why can’t I hear God’s voice? How do I know God really loves me? Why would God even be concerned about me? Will I ever have true peace? Will my marriage ever be healed? Why am I still single? Why am I married? Will my family ever be whole again?

Those are just some of the questions we asked ourselves – some aloud and some in our hearts – as we sat in that Coliseum at the Deeper Still conference waiting expectantly for God to use Kay Arthur, Priscilla Shirer, and Beth Moore to speak to us. And speak He did. He answered all of our questions with an overwhelming “I am sovereign and I love you.” Oh, how sweet to hear those words spoken! How sweeter to believe them!

Sometimes we look for elaborate, outrageous, I-can’t-believe-He-did-that answers from God, and sometimes He answers that way. But most of the time, He answers us quite simply through His Word. As dynamic as Kay, Priscilla and Beth are, they will be the first to tell you that they are nothing apart from Jesus Christ. We take all of our longings and unfulfilled desires to many places looking for satisfaction. But what we learned those two days in that Coliseum is that genuine satisfaction comes from Jesus Christ alone. We found out that we were asking the wrong questions. We were focusing on what was lacking instead of the riches we already have and have had since the day we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. So instead of asking, “Why are my desires unfulfilled?” We should be asking, “Are my desires in line with what God already revealed in His Word?” Instead of asking, “Why can’t I hear God’s voice?” We should be asking, “How often am I reading God’s Word to hear what He has to say?”

We realized that the first set of questions focused on a lacking God. But the second set of questions reminds us that we are the ones lacking and in desperate need of our perfect Savior, who sacrificed everything so that we may live! We found out that truth and belief work together and that we can dream the big dreams God has for us because He said in His Word that He goes far beyond whatever we can ask or think! The question is this: Is your thinking right? Have you accepted Christ as your Savior? Do you read His love letter to you so that you can hear His voice? Are you drawing near to Him? Because that’s when He draws near to you. When we are in relationship with God, we learn to accept His sovereignty because, by faith, we have chosen to believe that God’s heart is always good toward us, despite our circumstances. He is perfect and we can trust Him not just because He loves us, but because He is love! What could be more fulfilling than that?

At Wellspring, we exist so that unfulfilled people find genuine satisfaction and life in Jesus Christ – that’s our mission. Are you on board?

After being somewhat skeptical prior to April 09 I have recently been blown away by the power of this “tool.”  Let me say it this way, “If TweetDeck could be my homepage on my PC, I would lock it in today.”  With that said, if anyone knows how to do it, let me know.

I am able to share, communicate, market, connect, cast vision, solicit prayer, encourage, etc… I can go on and on and on…

I’d love to know how Twitter is impacting you.

Here’s a cool article from Leonard Sweet. Check it out.

As it relates to the video below, you are going to absolutely pull a muscle in your stomach when you see my face when she shows me how to use Twitcam.  It’s new, has some quirks but overall is a great marketing medium.  This was a blast and we can’t wait to show off more.

If you are interested in participating and volunteering to serve in our Social Media Community, Click Here.

Enjoy!

Here’s what blew me away… My wife, Leslie, saw me and I could immediately tell that she was feeling what I had on.  Now, you know how I was feeling!  Aw’ shucks now… I knew what was about to come out of her mouth.  She said, “You look gooooood!”  “I reaaaally miss you wearing suits.”

I was blown away that simply wearing a suit would get that kind of response.

Heck, after that I wanted to wear suits everyday from that point on… What’s my point?  My wife noticed something about me and let me know how much she digged it.  This simple moment reminded me of how easy it is to take notice of your spouse and to offer encouragement to them based on what you see.  My wife blessed me and build me up.  I don’t know what your spouse looks good in but pay attention to everything they display before you.  It will go a long way in your marriage.  Word of advice – Go put on a suit!!!!!

In an attempt to solidify our counter-attack against the lies we tend to believe, I’ve listed several passages that led me to the truth shared in this message.  I hope it helps you.

LIES ABOUT GOD

1) God always holds back the good stuff from me - Satan tends to twist the truth in order to misrepresent God to us so that we believe lies and then act on them (Genesis 3:1-13; John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 4:4)

2) If God really loved me I would have what I need – Because we don’t get what we want, we lean towards believing that God doesn’t want the best for us.  Satan attempted to convince Eve that God was holding back something that she needed (Genesis 3:4-6; 2 Corinthians 2:2).  However, God knows what we need before we ask him (Matthew 6:8).  When we think of our salvation we know that God predestined and called us to himself before we were brought into existence (Romans 8:28-30).

3)  God doesn’t know all that I desire – Because we don’t have what we want we buy into the lie that God could care less about our desires.  However, God knows our evil desires and our desires that come from Him (Psalm 139: 23, 24; Psalm 37:3; Psalm 145:19).

4)  God is undependable like all other men in my life - Somehow we have allowed relational scars of past relationships with men (ie., fathers) to skew our perception of God (Deuteronomy 1:30, 31; 32:6; Psalm 103:13).  How do we free ourselves from these lies?  Getting to know Jesus is key (Hebrews 1:3), the Faithful One (Deuteronomy 32:4).

5)  I can gain a deeper relationship with God without reading His Word – We are deceived to think that we can know a “knowable” God without reading His Word.  We see this throughout our post-Christian world as “Christ followers” declare to be “Christians” but know nothing about the God of the Bible (Colossians 1:9; 1 Timothy 2:3; 2 Timothy 3:15, 16).

LIES ABOUT BEING A CHRISTIAN

1)  I am a growing Christian even though I rarely read my Bible – When God’s Word becomes optional in the life of a Christian they become stagnant, dry and cold.  Not reading Scripture has led to a crisis of biblical illiteracy and luke-warm Christianity that is ignorant of Christ (John 5:39, 40; Acts 18:28).  When we don’t have a true knowledge of Christ, we add no value to the kingdom of God (Revelations 3:16).

2)  It’s ok if I live my life without depending on Jesus for everything - When we seek to live a life partially depending on Jesus for certain things and ourselves for the “rest” we are not allowing Jesus to be Lord of our lives (Genesis 15:6; Proverbs 3:5, 6; Romans 10:9).

3)  God doesn’t want me to sacrifice what pleases me – We have bought into the idol of comfort and have worked hard to put ourselves in a position to never sacrifice our own comfort for the kingdom (1 John 3:17).  We have Christ’s life of sacrifice as a model for sacrifice (Luke 14:27; John 3:16; John 13).

4)  If what I was doing was wrong God wouldn’t be blessing me (secret sins) – We oftentimes believe the lie that there will be no consequences for our sins.  We believe that God’s silence and blessing is our approval to continue in sin.  But God is compassionate and gracious, desiring us to repent (Psalm 103:8, 10; Romans 2:4; Acts 13:18).

LIES ABOUT SIN

1)  God will not judge my sin – This lie deceives us into believing that Jesus will not judge sin; however, he will (Psalm 7:11; Psalm 37:28; Colossians 3:6).  God’s heart is for people to repent of sin and turn to him by faith (Acts 17:30).

2)  My sins aren’t really that bad compared to other people – We believe this lie by becoming self-righteous, using other people as our gauge for sin instead of the holiness of God (Isaiah 5:21).  Because we don’t hold dear to the righteousness of God, we create our own righteousness (Romans 10:3).  How dare we look at someone else’s sin when we have our own sin to repent of (Matthew 7:1-5).

3)  God will never forgive me for something I’ve done that no one knows – Our sin lies to us and attempts to convince us that God hasn’t forgiven us (i.e., abortion, poor decisions, etc).  What pop psychology advocates is that a person needs to forgive themselves in order to be set free from condemnation.  However, Scripture teaches that freedom is only in accepting Christ’s forgiveness (Romans 8:1; Ephesians 1:6; Colossians 2:13-15).

4)  I will never be able to get free from this sin controlling me – We believe the lie that we will always be in bondage to sin.  When Christ died he freed us from the power of sin (Romans 6:1-14).

LIES ABOUT MARRIAGE

1)  My spouse is designed to meet all of my needs – Because we believe this lie, we make our spouses all  sufficient.  God didn’t create Adam and Eve not to need God.  He made Adam to lead, govern and have dominion over the earth.  He created Eve to help Adam.  If all of our needs in marriage could be met through our spouse it would be in opposition to Exodus 20:3.  What we gain satisfaction from, we tend to worship (Jeremiah 2:13).  All our needs are met by God (Psalm 103).

2)  I have to have a wife or husband in order to be happy - When we look at the first marriage in Genesis we see that God didn’t provide Eve to make Adam happy.  God provided Eve to help Adam accomplish the purposes and plans of God (Genesis 2).  Idolatry is worshiping what we find pleasure in outside of God.

3)  It’s ok for us to enjoy porn together – It goes without saying that pornography is evil and demonic.  It defiles the marriage bed of the presence and glory of God.  The marriage bed is honorable and undefiled designed for one husband and one wife who are married ( Hebrews 13:4).  Couples who have porn videos playing while having sexual intercourse are sinning against God (1 Corinthians 6:18).

LIES ABOUT WOMEN

1)  Being a keeper of the home is not a woman’s most important contribution to her family – Feminism is seeking to take the woman’s heart away from her home and onto something else that is opposed to God’s desire for her.  Eve’s contribution was that she was Adam’s helper (Genesis 2).  Based on her relational design being the mother of all living she nurtured, managed, and supported her husband.  However, she circumvented that role when she took the initiative in the family and engaged in a discussion with Satan (Genesis 3).  In our modern context, a man is called to provide for his family and the wife is called to nurture and manage the home.  This doesn’t mean that a women has to stay home but that her heart is committed to her home (Proverbs 31).

2)  I never have to temporarily sacrifice my dreams for the sake of my husband and family - Feminism preaches independence, ambition and dreams at the expense of her family and husband.  The problem is that many Christian women are buying into their message.  A wife could be called or asked to temporarily sacrifice to please her husband (1 Corinthians 7:33).  When a women believes this lie, she selfishly thinks about herself only, possibly pursuing her dreams without helping her husband by keeping and managing the home (Ephesians 5; Titus 2:3-5).  This pressure on the household could cause the husband to become overly domestic (Genesis 2:15; Ephesians 5:23-33).

3)  Submission to my husband is about inferiority – Submission is willfully surrenduring yourself under your husband’s leadership out of obedience to God (Ephesians 5:22).  Submission is about safety and protection.  What is currently taking place in homes across America is the sad reality of women who are leading their husbands (Genesis 3).  Women are taking all the initiative, making all the decisions and manipulating their husbands to get their way.  Instead of men taking the initiative and possibly making a decision for the sake of their families, men are passively responding to their wives initiative.  However, men are responsible for the direction of the family (Genesis 3:8; Ephesians 5; 1 Peter 3).  If a man is allowing his wife to lead him he needs to repent.

4)  Men can’t be trusted – Women who have been hurt by jacked up men sometimes see men in general as non-trustworthy (Job 2:9).  Like Job’s wife sometimes our emotional pain can diminish our faith in God.  Because God is our Father, sometimes our earthly fathers don’t represent the trustworthy headship of God (1 Thessalonians 2:11, 12).  If you are a women who is struggling with this lie, seek counseling and ask God to help you allow yourself to be protected by trustworthy men.

Here’s the awesome news – Jesus died a death that we should have so that we wouldn’t have to act on the lies of our enemy.

I pray that this has been a blessing to you as you depend on the truth of Jesus Christ.

- The Doctrine of God by Herman Bavinck

- Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem

- The Mystery of the Holy Spirit by R.C. Sproul

- Christian Beliefs by Wayne & Elliott Grudem

- Knowing God by J.I. Packer

These resources are definitely for the “over-achiever” but I know they’ll bless you.

This week, we are moving forward discussing the work of the Holy Spirit.

Facebook Worm

Who is answering your questions about life, God, marriage, sexuality, abortion, gambling, the Trinity, suffering, etc?  Oftentimes, we never ask that one question that if answered would catapult our faith in God.

I know when I was new to the faith or even like now, “semi-old” in the faith, I didn’t have a forum in which to ask what I felt were legitimate questions.  You see, many of us have questions but no one to turn to that can answer them…

Can you imagine a person going to church for 10-15 years and never know that Jesus is God?  Well, that’s why we are presenting this opportunity.  People are responding and we are organizing the questions.

Do you have questions that you need answers to?  Then submit them to us if you live in Charlotte or don’t live in Charlotte… We’ll answer them.  But here’s the caviate – you must live out the answer.  Don’t ask us a question that if answered won’t cause you to love Jesus more.  We aren’t seeking to be a “Bible Answer Man.”  We are seeking to give you Biblical and theological answers that would assist you in falling deeper in love with Jesus.

Ask your questions, I’ll answer them with the truth… If you don’t mind truth then we’ll have a blast.  Relax, it won’t be like this…

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Within the past few weeks, I’ve been repenting over getting off track as a church.  After searching my own heart, I can see where we can miss it.  Guru books, what this church is doing, felt-needs, idols, everyone’s desires, spoiled people, lack of submission, busy schedules, fear, and consumerism, etc… etc… can cause a church to miss the whole purpose for which we gather.   Now don’t get me wrong, we get that JESUS is our central focus and preaching the gospel is our message but what about how the gospel inspires us to constantly pray for one another and  experience “one heart” community life?  And better yet, what about understanding the expectation that as a church we need to prepare to endure persecution?

It’s crazy… Has, “I’m going to pray for you” become something that we just say or is it really something we take time to do?  Are IPhones and Facebook accounts meeting felt needs so much that we’ve lost our fervor to just fall on our faces for one another?  Stuff is happening all around us that needs our fervent prayers.  What are we really devoted to?

What about gathering together for community life?  Has church been reduced to Sunday morning only?  What about doing life as the body of Christ?  What about getting into someone else’s life and being there for them?  What about having fun, eating food, studying the Word, asking questions and getting to know people?  Our church communities around the world should be drawing “thirsty”, hungry and malnourished people who are starving because they don’t know Jesus.  Our communities should be blessed because there’s a group of Christians gather in a house in a particular neighborhood… Man, that’s what I want.  I want to see the church living out loud for Jesus.

Don’t get me started talking about “enduring persecution.”  No one likes persecution.  But what a blessing – Acts is loaded with testimonies of the providence of God in the midst of suffering.  Listen to me, if suffering is being the church then we can’t deny that’s it’s coming.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  In the meantime, listen to the message on 3/1/09, it comes with a PPT that we followed during our time together.  Dig into Acts, find the church and let me know what you discover.

Early this morning while I was reading I noticed that I was holding my breath.  I wondered to myself, “How long have I been doing this?”  I couldn’t believe it… I asked myself, “Is this why sometimes I feel tension in my chest?”  Immediately, I began taking breaths, feeling normal again.  As I reflected on what was happening and what I was reading, I realized that I was so preoccupied with what I was reading that I stopped taking normal breaths.  What was I reading?  “Living the Cross-Centered Life” by C.J. Mahaney.

I thought to myself, now wouldn’t it be “plum” crazy if I fell out dead in this closet with no one expected to wake up for hours.  Now, before I went into a full blown panic attack, I caught myself having realized how laser focused I was on the book.  Between what C.J. and my own chest was saying I said, “Is this what we do as Christ followers?” Do we become so preoccupied with what’s right in front of us that we miss the most important facet of the Christian life?  Isn’t the cross, central to everything?  Isn’t that where our focus and attention should gaze?  Or should it be on “being good”, “going to church”, “not disobeying the 10 commandments”, or “dropping a dollar or two in the offering plates as it passes.”  What is the Christian life all about? I’ll tell you… it’s about the cross.  It’s not our performance of spiritual duties; it’s the cross that Jesus died on for our sins (Romans 5:8-10).  His cross should have been our cross.  We should have died and been sent to Hell but Jesus chose to die in our place.  “He who knew no sin, became sin that we may become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Jesus wiped the record of our sin away and gave us His righteousness.  We don’t deserve what Jesus did for us, that’s why it’s called “amazing grace.” We sing this song with “joy” because we are reminded that we didn’t do anything to deserve it.  What Jesus has done is the only basis of our forgiveness – not what we have done.

After getting up off the floor from reading I was more compelled than ever to make my affection a preoccupation with the cross (the place where Jesus died, being tortured like a common criminal so that I could be forgiven and accepted by God).  This reality has slowed me down today and has challenged me to make the “main thing” the main thing – the Cross of Jesus Christ (Romans 10:8-10).

Every time I breathe, guess what I’ll be thinking about?  That’s right, the cross.  What about you?  Every time you breathe, what are you going to be thinking about?  What are you preoccupied with?

Here’s a great post by Albert Mohler.

Let us know what you think.

We must respect the voice of America that was heard on November 4, 2008.  As an African American man, I celebrate Barak Obama on becoming the 1st African American President in this countries history.  I only wished my deceased father and mother were alive to see this historic moment.  Call it what you will, this man has had America engaged in a conversation of diversity, justice, hope and dreams that hasn’t happened at this magnitude since the foundation of this country.  Regardless of his views of inclusion and tolerance, we must all give him credit for his tenacity, consistency, call for unity and racial reconciliation, oratorical eloquence, technological savvy, intelligence and strategic exegesis of the perceived desires, needs and aspirations of so many in America. 

As Christians, we must allow the conversations of hope, dreams, equality and opportunity to lead people to their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ not in an “atoning king” for the sins of America.  My challenge to American Christians is to not spend our time “hating”, “criticizing” and arrogantly politicizing what cannot be altered from the history books but to preach the gospel to a thirsty culture that is ripe for the truth of Jesus Christ.