Ministry for Dummies | Associate Pastor Chad Erickson

well praise the lord everyone so great to be worshipping with you in god's house today is anybody glad to be in the house of the lord i believe you when you say that there's just something about coming together with god's wonderful people and worshiping together amen with a great congregation of first apostolic give honor to our senior pastor our first lady who we got to hear from this morning and i know that they're blessing the church there in walnut mississippi and i know uh 50 years is uh quite commemorative and we congratulate them for that and for that time it's a great church pastor clay hall is one of the funniest people i know and if you know if you know pastor hall you know what i'm talking about he just when i served in the youth department many many years ago in the organization he was one of the youth presidents when i was our general secretary at the time general youth secretary and uh he he was the one that kept our meetings entertained all the time and just took over from his late father and doing a great work there we miss our first first lady and our senior pastor today give honor to the hammonds to the carpenters to my wife what a great ministry team we have in this church we have sunday school teachers that are right now taking our children into small groups and are training them are disciplining our children anybody thankful for sunday school teachers who study throughout the week and prepare to disciple your children and my children got such an incredible youth staff and children's ministries and uh if i get started i'm gonna have to go on and on i i think we have in the neighborhood of about 200 to 250 uh staff members that come together during our staff meetings and if i get if i get started on one ministry or another i'll be here all day but thank you for pouring into the families of this church today i want you to turn your bible to matthew chapter 25 and verse 23 and while you are turning there um we we love a brand new couple in this church the millsaps we love them so much i'm looking for you you're right here close by me i know i just talked to you there you are uh brother sister millsaps it's been so great to get to know you and great to have you part of our family here first apostolic and uh brother sir millsaps came with a note and this note and i pardoned i don't have glasses on i can't i can't read my own writing no less anybody else is writing um but he wrote down here i can make out that he's written down friends people he's worked with pastors in the community that he knows that have passed this year and maybe even this week from covent 19. and uh brothers to millsaps we're going to be praying i'm going to take this listed in my prayer time and we're going to be praying over your friends and let's just remember we have a lot to pray for in our community alone this this sickness as much as we want it to pass it's here and until it does let's just ask god for protection upon us upon our families upon our community upon our country upon our president upon the leadership of this great country let's just ask god that he will in our prayer time in our daily time before the lord let's remember these needs in jesus name matthew 25 and 23 says his lord said unto him well done good and faithful servant thou hast been faithful over a few things i will make thee ruler over many things enter thou into the joy of thy lord i want to read from another translation they can keep that one up on the screen but this one kind of makes it a little bit clearer because a lot of times when you read statements such as enter thou into the joy of the lord that that can push your mind directly into heaven like you've won your race and enter in but that's not exactly what this means let me read it from another translation the master said well done my good and faithful servant you have been faithful in handling this small amount so now i will give you many more responsibilities and the last line is simply this let's celebrate together the joy enter to the joy of the lord let's celebrate together one more verse in your hearing before i have you be seated colossians 1 and 28 says whom we preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect or this word means mature in christ jesus once again we preach preaching jesus warning every man in teaching every man in all the wisdom that we have received that we may present every man mature in christ jesus i'm going to read this title to you and it may raise some eyebrows and i don't know how much you're going to pray after i read it but but it's going to make sense here in a moment but i'm simply going to teach today and maybe preach for a little while ministry for dummies ministry for dummies let's try to pray put your bibles down father we love you lord we're so grateful to be in your kingdom to be in your house to be the body of christ lord i i'm thankful lord god that i am in the presence of worshipers i'm in the presence of workers of helpers lord of ministers lord god who are doing everything in their ability lord god to reach those that are around them lord i i pray today lord god that i can convey to them what you have spoken into my heart lord the ministry that is needed in this church lord god the ministry that must be developed in every single person in this congregation lord i pray that you'd help me today anoint me today minister through me today i pray all this in jesus name and everyone said amen you may be seated oh the four dummies books some of y'all saw me bring these up and you knew what it was from from 100 yards away you knew exactly what i had in my in my hand these yellow yellow and black books they're they're going on celebrating i believe it's right around 30 years i believe in 2021 they will celebrate their 30th year anniversary when they came out with their first for dummies book and i remember i remember seeing these but they're often in the library or cds the bookstore and i was a little offended at it i'll be honest with you i remember thinking i mean come on there had to be a better way to communicate with the reader than to call them dummies but but i want you to know i did a little research they have over 2500 of these individual books now on individual subjects they've sold millions of these books and they add somewhere around 200 new for dummies books a year so apparently somebody knows what they're doing and i need to get over my offense but but it's very simple what they're trying to do with these for dummies books is is they want the amateur to feel confident enough to either do the job that they're faced with or at least understand the process of a procedure all right for instance i i went to the store that i knew would have these books at it no it will walmart might have them but all these have them and i knew that ollies would have them and ali's had a bunch of them i i was looking through i actually just grabbed a handful about to walk out and one of them was betting on horse races for dummies i thought i don't want the church to see that one i did flip through it though but trust me it's not worth it it's not worth it um but i got a few here i did pick out a few one of those one of them is is energy investing for dummies and lord have mercy they've got 340 pages about energy investing they've got preventing and reversing heart disease for dummies that's a good one probably another about 400 pages there and then they have one here that i found that i was kind of interested in customer experience for dummies i thought that that's interesting i it's another about 340 pages of of of literature there and i got i got to thinking to myself got to thinking you know if i didn't go to college for this subject i'm probably not going to read 340 pages about this subject and maybe that's why they're calling me a dummy because i probably won't read about it i'll probably just get the youtube video and watch about a 10 minute youtube video and get all i need brother manfred that's all i need 10 minutes youtube get all the answers let me tell you something youtube you can fix anything with youtube i don't know there's some things that i'd rather just pay for you know i'm saying there's some things there's some things i would just rather pay people that know what they're doing to do but these four these four dummies books are all about helping people to truly understand a specific uh subject and um and i began actually to read through some of them and i'll be honest with you um i got lost pretty quickly but but maybe if you are just if you're super educated maybe you can take this 340 page book and maybe you can get something out of it but but i do want to be honest with you today and tell you that i have been a real dummy when it comes to my perception of what true ministry looks like and i want to spend i don't know about 30 minutes or so and i want to talk to us about where jesus himself was an example to us on how to minister and it doesn't look exactly like the american church looks can i give us a nod in here the 21st century church their view on church is quite a bit off from what the apostles view of church was matter of fact i got some i got some pictures i just went online and grabbed a few pictures and i don't have copyrights for these so hopefully i won't get in trouble for showing these but if my team can put these pictures up the 21st century church was influenced a whole lot by what you are about to see on the screen right now and you say brother erickson we're not we're not of the catholicism belief that's not who we are and i realize that but as you look at these photos you can kind of see where even the protestant group the groups that reformed out of the catholic church still held to some of the traditions still held on to things and believe me i'm not calling us protestant we are not a protestant church the pentecostal movement is not protestant we didn't come out of the catholic church we came out of the day of pentecost in acts chapter 2. that was that was our foundation that's where we began that's where the church started we don't claim don't look back through history and try to follow it through the denominal world into the catholic church into the church of rome don't try to follow that's not where we were we we we're on our very own path from the day of pentecost but you can see from these pictures and they can scroll for about maybe another two minutes or so i'm going to talk about but you can see that over time tradition has found its way and moved into the american church if you will because if you think about the the early church that the newfound christian religion was doing the best they could to distance themselves from anything that looked like that because the religious pharisees i'm going to give you a little bit of history the religious pharisees the sadducees dressed very similar to this fashion the very people who are trying to look the part of ministers on the outside were the ones who were persecuting the early christians and the last thing that the early christians would want to do would be identify with or or where what some of these men are wearing and and these are are called miters upon the head or or i might give this as an italian word but but it's it's zakato or zachato and these are the hats and these are what they're wearing on the head the early church they wanted nothing to do with this look the early christians and the last thing that the church wanted to identify with was what they were wearing and how they were having church you could take those those pictures off the screen but you you'll be able to see that that over time as the catholic church and as it reformed and as uh separatists broke off in different religious denominations they would bring with them pieces of where they came from i'm not preaching against churches with steeples i'm not preaching against churches with pews i'm not preaching against i'm not even preaching against if the elders and the ministers sit up on the platform many of those things were traditions that were pulled in through the church of rome they're they're pulled in through the third century and i'm not saying that all traditions wrong i'm not saying that there's not good traditions that we can follow i believe there's nothing wrong with honoring people there's nothing wrong with having a platform that elevates to honor there's nothing wrong with those things there's nothing wrong with having a beautiful place of worship where we can come together i thank god for a sound system i thank god for patent pews i thank god that there is a steeple in the church that signifies that we are a christian church matter of fact if you go out of the country i've told you this before but if you go into places like lebanon in the middle east you thank god for every steeple you see in the air because you feel comfort knowing that those people believe in jesus christ and him crucified they might they might not have full truth but you're you're thankful at least you're in the same religion if you will so i'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a church set up on a hill that has a lighted steeple that people from all across the community can see i love i love coming over the hill uh even across a 321 coming up the hill i could see the i could see the lit up steeple at night i love i love that miles and miles away be able to see coming coming down from 411 and being miles away and seeing the lit steeple i love that because that's shining in our community that's saying there's a church there's there's a place of refuge there's a there's a house of prayer that you can go and you can attend and you can find comfort in that's a beautiful thing but at the same time of these traditions that came down that were maybe good traditions there were also other traditions that were not found in the book of acts these 20 21st century traditions these american church traditions that do not look the way that jesus ever intended his church to look well if you're like me growing up it just felt natural you you felt like there was the preacher and there was the saints right you you either had one two either the ministry or you had the saints and this this was very this was pulled in from the third century this is pulled in this is pulled in from the bishops and in the uh the council of nicaea and all these different things where you have these bishops who would sit up on these big thrones and you'd have all the people who would come and would would come kiss their rings and they would come down and they would bow down before them obviously we understand this was not bible but at the same time as i said this was pulled into the 21st century church to all the sudden it was ministry was defined as somebody behind a pulpit with a microphone and saints were defined as people who sat in pews and looked toward the person teaching with the microphone and you're considered good saints if you follow the instructions that you were taught we're considered good saints if we obey the word of god that was preached over the pulpit and it was it was considered a good minister if he could preach well or if he could exalt well or if he could communicate with his audience well but the more that i delve into the idea of what jesus was trying to do in the gospels and what he was trying to push forward throughout the book of acts and into the epistles the more i realized that we have far too many traditions that we have to change the way we think the very paradigm very definition of ministry must be changed for the people of god because god didn't call anybody to just be a saint the reason why there's churches of 70 people on every corner of any town usa is because one person is trying to do all the ministry that's why and let me tell you something one person can only influence so many people so i'm here to tell you if a church isn't growing it's because that one person has influenced everybody that they can influence and now there's just going to be a revolving door in and out in and out of if it's 50 people 70 people 80 people i promise if you drive down this road in any direction if you go down 411 in any direction 321 in any direction you're going to come upon church after church after church that never got beyond the one person the preacher in the saints but i believe i i just believe in this place today if we can go beyond the thought process of one man or two men or four men and everybody else if we could get beyond that thought process of what true ministry is i promise you we are gonna blow the lid off of this sanctuary we're not gonna have enough room in this place to house the people of god that are going to want to come into this place so how do we do that the pew cannot look to the platform to grow the body of christ or change the direction of souls that are around you we all must get involved and make a difference in the lives of people that only we can touch there are people all over this city that chad erickson kenneth carpenter zach hammond nolan carpenter that none of our pastoral staff will ever meet see get to know and you work with them every day of the week you you are rubbing shoulders with people every day of the week and god is calling a people i'm going to go into it here in a moment but god is calling a people to open up their spiritual eyes and look around them and see a lost in a dying world not for just co-workers not just as it seems that they are but as living souls who have got to have a destiny of eternity and it's up to you and i to make sure that destiny is the destiny that god called them into ephesians 4 and 11 very familiar passage says and he gave some apostles in some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers and let me stop here because what do you think about when you read this verse it's probably the same thing that i thought about growing up my whole life i saw people like raymond woodward coming to preach for us and he starts talking about pastors and prophets and and apostles and and evangelists i'm thinking of of j.h osborne's and i'm thinking of bishop billy mccools i'm thinking of of reverend kenny carpenter's on the road as an evangelist those are the thoughts that go through my mind but let me stop here because when you read this verse when you read this verse it's not referring to preachers who have visited ephesus this is a letter to the church in a list this is not because of the times this is not general ministry conference this is not some this is not some great conference that paul's getting up before and preaching to preachers he's preaching to the saints he's preaching to the people in the church and i want to read it and please understand i hope you don't have a problem with other translations because so many times you can get as you study the word of god and you cross-reference translations you can get a better handle on the word of god but i want you to look through the lens of the early church not having a platform in a pulpit all right i want to read this to you i want you to read with me but i want you to look through the lens not as the american 21st century church with the platform and the pulpit and the microphone and the preacher chairs don't don't don't look at it through that lens look at it through the lens of a church meeting together in a home with people in a church who have gathered in a home who are packed out inside of this home and they are reading this letter from paul and verse 11 says some of us have been given special ability as apostles to others he has given the gift of being able to preach well some have special ability in winning people to christ helping them to trust in him as their savior still others have a gift for caring for people for god's people as a shepherd does his sheep leading and teaching them in the ways of god verse 12 says why is it that he gives us these special abilities to do certain things best it is that god's people will be equipped to do better work for him building up the church the body of christ to a position of strength and maturity until finally we all believe alike about our salvation and about our savior jesus christ and all become full grown or mature in the lord yes to the point of being filled full with christ i love this right here this letter to the ephesians he's preaching to them and he's telling them listen right here in this room are evangelists i'm not talking about date books and business cards and travel trailers that's what i'm not talking about that we got to understand what a true evangelist is now oh an evangelist might have a travel trailer they might travel across the country they might preach in a whole bunch of churches throughout the year they might but an evangelist might also go to a workplace and preach this same gospel that the guy with the travel trailer preaches up here you might take this same bible in this same gospel and you might go into your break room during lunch time and you might open the word of god and preach the very same thing that they preach at this pulpit you can take as an evangelist of the word of god listen i'm preaching to somebody winning souls for god and being a witness is far more than just inviting them to church it's far more than just telling that you got this awesome 150 voice choir that you got to come to my church and hear you got to come to hear my my pastor preach he man when he preaches it's amazing he's the general superintendent of a whole of a whole organization and you it's so much more than that it's more than kids ministry and youth ministry it's far more than a christian school in a daycare when you are a true soul winner when you're an evangelist you will take on the role of an evangelist and you'll step out and preach the word of god to anybody you can preach to if they'll listen to you you'll preach to them that's what an evangelist does oh real brother sir jeter by the way good to see you brother jude are you looking so good i'm so glad to have you out of the hospital and back in the house of god with us are we thankful our elders back home in the house of god with us but a true event the look of a true evangelist he don't need a platform man i remember hearing stories back in the day they'd be in the middle of a city mall and then they would step up onto one of those center center median planter things and they would just start preaching the word of god they would go downtown they would step up on a park bench and begin to preach the word of god didn't need a microphone didn't need a sound system did it need a light they didn't need a card in their wall that told them that they're a minister oh my god that'll preach for a minute they just had something that was burning within them shut up in their bones that they could not hold back and keep to themselves called an evangelist what's what's a apostle i'll tell you what apostle is it's anybody who takes the word of god to four nations we call them missionaries we we call them mysteries but let me tell you something we have four nations right here in maryland we have neighborhoods who are filled with people that barely speak our language from all parts of the world from the south from the east from the west all parts of the world are coming into blount county we can have apostles i believe we have apostles that are all out throughout scattered throughout this whole congregation of people who say i'm willing to go into every language every kindred every tongue i'll go i'll go whatever neighborhood it needs to go i'll learn how to speak if it's japanese i'll get with the sister masa and i'll learn some japanese what is it what why do we have to be called in certain ways in our minds as if we put a fleece out before the lord and god unless you unless you write my calling in the clouds god's looking i'm saying the need is the call lost people who are dying what more do you need what kind of call do you need what do i got to say to you if there's people living in your block in your neighborhood in your apartment complex and they don't know jesus what kind of calling do we need that's why paul said i'm talking about apostles i'm talking about people that'll go into foreign places you don't even maybe know the language real well and you'll start to spread the word of god and you'll start to to preach doctrine and preach a great plan of salvation he said i need evangelists i i need people who will get in with everything they are and just preach in like you've never preached it before he said i need you to equip the saints equip the people around you equip those there must be a maturing of the body of christ that's all paul is doing he's telling us the importance of the body of christ he said in order to be a complete body that's filled with the spirit of christ when it's filled with the holy ghost we've got to do the role and the calling we've been given to do apostle prophet what's the prophet i'll tell you a prophet is someone who proclaims the gospel someone who's not here to listen for the voice of god and then speak what they hear don't don't get caught up don't don't get caught listen i believe in end time prophecy i believe it's needed we got to know what's going on we got we got to be ready for the end i agree 100 but don't get into this whole idea that a prophet is somebody that comes to the church and they tell me what my social security number is you know they they tell me you know here you've had a test right here let's just be straight you've had a test you know you've got a mass in your body having somebody come in here and telling you you've got a mass in your body that's impressive and that glorifies that man i get it but you already knew you had a mass in your body okay so so don't get don't get so far into the idea that that a prophet is just somebody who comes in here and tells you like pastor always says tells you what you ate for breakfast okay that's not a true prophet hears from the lord and tells you something you need to hear from god a true prophet hears just like the prophets of old all throughout the old testament think about jonah god told jonah what to say jonah was like i don't think i'm gonna do it and bad things happen to jonah and finally jonah turned around and said you know what if it's either being in this fish or or obeying the voice of god i think i'm gonna go oh boy the voice of god i'm gonna go to nineveh i'm gonna share exactly what god told me to share with him that's what a true prophet a true prophet just shares with people what god has spoken into their lives but i believe i don't believe again i don't believe you have to have a card in your wallet i don't think you have to have a membership to a ministerial organization i believe right in this place just like paul was talking to the church in ephesus and he was telling them i believe right here i i believe right here there's apostles and right here there's prophets and right here there's evangelists and right here there's pastors and shepherds and teachers it's the body of christ what did the body of christ do when christ was on earth it took the spirit of god where it needed to go the flesh of god christ jesus the body what did that body do it went into places such as samaria i must needs go through samaria that body took him places it took the spirit of god god in flesh to minister to people who didn't think that they were worthy to minister to so we as the body of christ we got to wake up and realize we're not saints on a pew god help us get past that mentality we're not saints on a pew we are made to reach we're made to go we're compelled to to fulfill the great commission would you simply go and baptize and teach and tell people about the doctrine of jesus christ as i began to study and please allow me to make a shameless plug for our connect groups that are launching next weekend and this our connect groups is really what has me thinking about this subject and totally rethinking the way that i've always my paradigm has totally shifted from ministry of a few to ministry of all because i began to think about people who are starting to sign up for groups and thank you for all of you that are signed up for groups listen groups are so much more than just fellowship food and a bible study home if that's all if that's all groups were we wouldn't even have them so much more than that we are discipling people to be disciple makers that's what care groups that's what that's what our connect groups are all about we have got to disciple people to become disciple makers when you when you get it when you get into a connect group come on it's not always just about you now listen if you've got needs in your life then we've all got needs in our lives it's a great place to bring your need before a small body of people who can who can listen and who can pray for you and who can take your needs before the lord it's awesome there's nothing like it it's a great way to be ministered to but i promise you that is not what we had in mind when we developed our care groups and that's not what jesus had in mind when he developed his care group for the title he had 12 in his care group hit 12. i'm getting so far ahead of myself but i don't even care he had 12 members people that he called into his group and said i want to mentor you i want you to i want you to be my disciples which simply means i want to speak into your life i want to train you and develop you i want to put a teaching into your mind that you have never heard before but when i get done putting a teaching into your mind you're not just going to go back to fishing you're not just going to go back to tax collecting you're not just going to go back and do what you've always done all of a sudden you're going to be sent matter of fact the three things that our groups must do is deliver the word of god we've got to disciple people and then we've got to deploy those people to disciple more people so jesus and think about this think about this so many times we see ministry as microphones and preaching in front of hundreds going to nyc and preaching in front of thousands do you know how many times in your bible was jesus trying to get away from the crowd he would preach but then he'd be like hey guys anybody got a boat i've got to get out of here right he was always looking for the quickest easiest way out but you know what he did every time he pulled a small group together and he started explaining to his small group what the crowd never understood and jesus taught us right there he taught us the ministry doesn't happen listen we will never go without preaching in a pulpit because you know all this is right here this is all the small groups coming together in corporate worship that's what this is right here just to be honest with you we'll never go without corporate worship we got to have corporate worship corporate prayer we that's where faith comes in that's that's what the holy ghost falls people get filled with the holy ghost because you've got so much faith that's just moving through this place we can't live without that but when it comes to discipling people jesus always said here here boys come over here now i know i know that i taught all these pharisees all these religious leaders and all these people that came to hear me i know i taught them in parables and they're walking away shaking their head but what did you think that i meant when i said that i don't want to give it away but this is what small groups do jesus said what what did you get out of that of course a lot of times his disciples were like oh jesus i'm not really sure what you meant but this is what i got out and jesus was like no no no this is what i meant the rich young ruler or the man who didn't bring enough talents back or he would start to explain everything that he preached he began to explain over and over he would just he'd get his care group together so we see even with jesus in order in making disciples and i look out today and i wonder who are you discipling who would you call someone in your just just where you live in your walk that you can name a name and say i disciple this person because it's so important that each one of us have somebody that we disciple matter of fact even jesus had three out of his small group that he would pull aside peter james and john come over here i gotta talk about something over here right come on go with me we're gonna go to prayer peter james and john come on you're my you're my three boys i'm i'm and i'm mentoring you a little bit more than the others but brother claiborne there's even one beyond that because then he had peter jesus whenever he would name disciples he would always name peter first peter was his first he was his first call simon the fisherman and jesus would pull simon aside and he had conversations with simon that he probably didn't have with anybody else in his care group but this is this is what i want us and i'm so far beyond where i wanted to be right now but this is what i'm trying to get into our minds there's a movement that is beginning and i believe it's a movement that's going to be revival like we've never had revival before it's called the disciple making movement and i know you probably heard the conference remember we had to cancel this year because of covet and we reschedule it for the end of august beginning of september next year and a lot of people think that the movement is just a conference it's not it's a conference about the movement because as soon as we can get the paradigm of not just this local church but i'm talking about churches all across this country and all across this world as soon as we can get the shift of paradigm to make people understand that ministry is everybody the callings of god are for every believer signs shall follow them that preach these signs shall follow them to believe it's for the believer jesus never meant to start a little group of preachers and have a preacher's conference and have some kind of revival or a missionary fast he said i want all my believers to realize that they've got to be disciple makers they can't just be disciples it's not good enough just to learn you've got to repeat and you've got to go out and you've got to share the very things that you've been taught and so we're making a cry out we're making a cry out to our organization to every organization every oneness organization please join the movement the movement always begins the grassroots that's what growth is it's in the grassroots we we can't grow a movement from the top down and we can't grow a church from the top down it doesn't matter who's in the pulpit doesn't matter how good of a personality they have doesn't matter how much of a people person they have and we got the best of the best it doesn't matter though it's got to grow from the grassroots because i've already said it we don't pastor carpenter he's not living where you're living he's not working where you're working he's not going to school where you're going to school and unless we from the grassroots realize that people around us are in need oh my god if we could ever realize the needs that are all around us every day we don't even see them people cover them up people try to hide the hurt that they're in people are going through divorces people are losing children family members are dying there's all kinds of stuff going on in people's life and they try to disguise it and hide it and if we could ever have the holy ghost perception to realize that we are the only hope they have to bring in them to jesus christ to giving them an answer oh jesus is the answer for the world today but it's going to take the grassroots of people who are rubbing shoulders with those people first corinthians 12 27 says now he are the body of christ and members in particular i want to break this path passage down from another translation because if we're the body of christ we've got to do the job of the body verse 27 says ye are christ's body that's who you are you must never forget this only as you accept your part of their body does your part mean anything you're familiar with some of the parts that god has formed in his church which is his body apostles prophets teachers miracle workers this is a different letter healers helpers organizers those who pray in tongues but it's obvious by now isn't it that christ's church is a complete body and not a gigantic unidimensional body part of some sort it's not all apostle it's not all prophet it's not all miracle worker it's not all healer it's not all prayer in tongues not all interpretation of tongues and yet some of you keep competing for so-called important parts that good sounds like the 21st century church competing for what we view as the important parts give me a microphone preacher come on pastor put me in come on coach put me in man i think this right here has discouraged more people i believe more ministries have been discouraged over this dumb thing right here speaking of dumb give me my i want a solo i want to preach discipleship is one-on-one discipleship happens in small groups if i sound like a broken record that's okay because i understand that we learn through repetition and i'm going to keep on saying it until i go blue and matter of fact as ours is our as our care groups and and our connect groups begin to develop you're going to hear over and over and over again because i fear there's somebody out there there's somebody out there that just just has this this attitude that i believe paul was just addressing where it's like i'm not going to go to a care group we're just going to sit in a circle and sing kumbaya i've got better things to do with my time i feel like i'm preaching to somebody today i want to be an eyeball think i'm going to be a little toe oh no not me what do they say it's a little toe that gives balance a lot of people are out of balance because they're trying to be something they're not and wouldn't be nice if if the little toe wanted to be a little toe it would keep the body balanced anybody ever had is it vertigo where you lose your balance if you've ever had that they say that's horrible man you're just walking everything's going good and all sudden just you just can't even i thank god that the body of christ is made up of every part that helps the other part to function thank god for our thumbs we'd have thumbs pastor ham was telling us the other night in his message he said you could you couldn't take hold of nothing all kinds of animals you see animals all the time they just have these little sloths and stuff oh man i hope that doesn't make the internet i always got to watch what i do because got chased with camera in here but you but you got animals and if they can't grab hold of things there's only certain things that a body can do unless every organ and every part of the body is functioning properly but when it is functioning properly man great things can take place great buildings can be erected people people can do great things as long as the members of their body are doing what they were made to do so here is i'm almost done so here is a disciple making for dummies tip because here now we have i believe there's people in this room and this is a point that i want to make because i believe there's people in this room who are trying to disciple people and maybe you are discipling people but i begin to read as is the more i've got ready for our groups to begin i i've read more and more and something that i read was this disciple people here's a tip disciple people on how god has made them and not how you want them to be help them to become what god has called them to be so the first question i have is what are they good at already god is not going to call someone to a ministry that he's not already given them a skill set to perform all right or at least become the process maybe now i'm not saying that that preachers are unbelievable they start preaching a study school teacher or great teachers when they start teaching there might be time when that happens or or if you're witnessing on the job you know there's a few times when you're to get tongue tied and and people are going to look at you you're going to turn red and you'll be like uh never mind i gotta go find out what that verse really means i've been quoting that wrong the whole time you know i've been in situations like that and i'm not saying that you won't develop into a ministry but i believe somewhere along the way that you've already got in you and the person you are discipling already has in them what god is beginning to call them towards i'll prove it to you simon peter and his brother andrew the first two disciples that are called what are they they're fishermen jesus said okay i can disciple fishermen in matthew 4 and 18 it says in jesus walking by the sea of galilee saw two brethren simon called peter andrew's brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishers they were fishermen and he said unto them follow me and i will make you fishers of men he didn't say and i will make you a good singer or i'll make you a children's worker no he said if you're a fisherman you've already got sk you've already got the understanding of a fisherman you understand what it takes you go out early in the morning before the sun rises you already have your nets prepared and i've been i've been watching i've been watching videos youtube videos of a fisherman catching fish not with fishing poles i'm talking about with nets where they're cut catching thousands of fish at a time it's the most amazing thing to watch as their nets go out and as they know how to throw nets in a certain way for the same stevens i'm looking at you i remember you doing it man we were fishing there at the damn about 10 15 years ago and then brother sammy he had his we had to have some bait to put on our lines and then he had this awesome net and he knew just exactly how to throw it out pulled it back in i thought what is he doing pulls it back in it's full of little fish these fishermen they understand what it takes to throw out the net what it takes to bring it back in what it takes to harvest the fish to to take them to the market to sell them and jesus was in his mind thinking i can disciple that because they already understand all these steps on how to catch fish i'll teach them how to catch men i'll teach them how to go out and be a witness and instead of drawing fish into a net they'll draw all men unto me and the same thing with us god help us our preaching and all of our care group leaders you're going to have people in your care group every person is not going to have the same ministry and thank god for that and we got to be able to understand what ministry and what calling peoples on people's lives and so we don't try to move them into a place that god has never called them into but god can help them to realize what their calling is through their mentor i always want to add value to people because jesus always added value to people i preached about this how long ago but the church is so much more than just an altar where people get the holy ghost that's a start that's the beginning that's a birth but it's not a graduation that's just the beginning of it we get them here in the altar but then from that point on we've got to start discipling we got to start adding value to people's life and so that marriages are strengthened so families are strengthened everything about the person when they walk out of here when they get into a discipleship a care group when they get into one of our connect groups something ought to be able to click on their mind to say these people are trying to add value to my life because that's what jesus every single person he added value to her life there wasn't one healing he performed whether whether it was a miracle of changing water into wine in saving somebody's marriage i don't know whatever it was he was always adding value to people healing people raising people up people that had lame uh limbs he would straighten and he would pull them up and people who were dead raise them back come on somebody there ain't no more adding value to a person than bringing them back to life and so we as i begin to study the greatest care group leader ever jesus christ i begin to see i've got to add value to people's life i got to continually be trying to lift people up continue trying to help people trying to get them in a better place trying to get them in a place where they can serve god in a stronger way but don't look at your age or your education or your pedigree maybe your lack of pedigree is as an excuse you make why you can't be a disciple maker make excuse why you can't minister look at mcdonald's i don't believe that anybody under the age of 10 years old in this room would raise your hand and say the mcdonald's burger is the best burger you've ever eaten is the best burger in the world y'all the mcdonald's franchise has sold more burgers than any other franchise ever dreamed of selling how it wasn't because of the product if ever in case five guys would be selling more burgers or what's that cool do that goes in and i don't know drives i don't know i can't remember his name he's got a great burger joint whatever whatever his name is but it's all about understanding how to work with what you've been given mcdonald's they're like you know what if we want to sell burgers we're gonna have to draw kids in here we're gonna have to we're gonna have to cause kids to drive their parents crazy for a happy meal mom and dad we gotta go to the tunnels because they got to play now i'm so sick and tired of burgers and fries but you know what you do to keep your young ones from driving you crazy you go to mcdonald's or you go to chick-fil-a now hey lord for the holy ghost when i said that it closed on sunday um but you just got to know and we we found out with chick-fil-a that they don't have the best spicy chicken sandwich they say don't talk about politics or chicken sandwiches in church i don't know why no they did the whole thing and believe it or not the other company the non-christian company might have had a better chicken sandwich but you know who sells more chick-fil-a because they know how to market what they have it may not be the best and i'm not saying it's not i'm just saying that's what they said so all you that work for chick-fil-a i love you calm down be seated but i'm simply saying it's brilliant when a company may not have the best of the best but they do whatever they have to do with what they have to be the most successful and that's all i'm saying for us as a people of god we may not have the degrees we think we need we may not have the our father wasn't a pastor preacher of angel's prophet yada yada yada it wasn't all that stuff and and you can't you can't look back over your lineage and talk about my great grandfather and great great and great great you can't talk about don't even know who they are but if you could take with what god has given you and disciple people and just mold people people so let me tell you something this church i said at the beginning this church will not be able to contain the people that are going to come into this place and it's going to happen from the grassroots it's going to happen i'm telling you right now it's going to happen from connect groups i'm telling you right now we've got a great church and we've got a powerful body of people here but this does not it's not even the tip of the iceberg to what god is going to do in maryville when these connect groups get on fire for god because we're not gonna we're not gonna look and see and get up here and say we've got 225 people in connect groups come on everybody put your hands together oh no no i want to get up here and say we've got 225 connect groups that's how we need to measure no no more is it well the saints are participating thank the lord no no no no the saints are leading and care groups are splitting into multiple pieces and there's groups down here and groups starting here and groups aren't here and leaders have been trained up in this group that are starting a group over here until this whole county is on fire with people who are saying just give me a bible and give me somebody who will listen to me preach and i'll be an evangelist i'll be a prophet i'll be an apostle our pastor this church needs what are called under shepherds you maybe see that i'm almost done musicians come this church needs under shepherds and that's what we have trained our care group leaders to be we're not worried there's not a fear we're not worried about churches starting we're not worried about that because we understand that if you go into your home and you bring 12 15 17 people into your home very much like jesus did and you begin to share with them the only gospel that will save their soul we just believe as those groups begin to grow and those groups begin to mature and as those disciples realize in their minds not only am i a disciple but i can become a disciple maker oh we got to have it but it's all going to take stand your feet with me it's all going to take the people of god realizing who they are and what they've been called to be and what they've been called to do have mercy i want you to bow your head and close your eyes i i just want you to imagine with me come on let's all become dreamers just for a moment help me dream help me dream i don't know we have we have somewhere in the neighborhood of i don't know maybe 20 somewhere around 20 connect groups right now each of those connect groups they probably have eight to ten couples are our hyphen groups they probably have 15 20 students in them each how awesome would it be seven or eight or nine couples all of a sudden became about 12 to 15 couples and we couldn't fit them in houses anymore and we didn't have rooms in the church big enough to house them but inside of those groups we were raising up such great mature disciples that they said oh i've got a living room and i i can see 12 people in my living room what would it be like if that if that one split into two that's why they're originally called cell groups because cells when cells grow they split what would it be like then now now that one group is now two groups and then those two groups then they they begin to grow and then there's four groups and those four groups now are our 16 groups and then 16 groups and it just keeps on multiply not adding but it becomes multiplication and we come together on a sunday and now no longer is it i've got to go find my but now it becomes like it was in 1723 when we began to get to church two hours early because we just wanted a seat come on i'm dreaming right now some of you that might scare some of you have to lose your seat and not get to sit where you want to sit but but god have mercy on you and convict you this morning to help you to realize if we could ever oh my god i'm ready to put some riser seating in this place and seat another 700 800 people on top of what we already see i'm ready come on somebody i'm really have to fill the choir loft again i'm ready for the quiet after open on sunday night because we don't have enough room for them in the house if we could ever realize our calling and understand what jesus intended for his disciples it was never to enjoy the teachings and to go home with lifted spirits was that his intention was always take what i teach you and tell somebody somebody else what you've learned today come on somebody in this place i want to end this service by singing this song the team's going to help me sing this song but i believe that people in this place have been called to be a part of the body of christ and whatever you've called to be is the most important thing that you could ever be for the body we could not we could not need you to be anything else than what god has called you to be more than anything lord call us to be disciple makers though there might be a whole a lot of different ways that we can disciple people but god help us to be disciple makers sing this with me in the end the servicing i will be what you called me to be all if your voice is yes we gotta have a passion i say i don't think it's any accident that brother schilling has come forward this morning we've had many conversations and brother schilling told me just the other day he said you know what i've had a lot of questions and a lot of ministry doors i thought were going to open didn't open like i thought they would and he said i just just kept on doing what i knew to do and it wasn't but a few weeks ago that god began to speak into his life he has a passion for end time prophecy and end time revival he called pastor carpenter he said pastor carpenter would it be okay if i opened up my home he said i know people in the community matter of fact i know one of the people he's working on he's one of the owners of the restaurant that we both frequent regularly he said i want to take him i want to take him golfing we're going to talk about god while we golf he said i want to bring him in my home we're going to talk about end time prophecy he said whatever way i can get them in to share the salvation message he said would it be okay if i did that pastor said absolutely because this is what i'm preaching about this morning people who say i don't have to have a microphone in order to be a minister i can go play a round of golf and talk about the goodness of god and how god has changed my life i can ride on a motorcycle we got a brand new family brother thompson you and brother darian need to hook up with brandon family he said he said does anybody ride bikes in your church anybody ride motorcycles in your church i said oh yes they do listen there's so much ministry that can take place it does not have to be in a microphone it could be on a golf course it could be in your kitchen some of your ladies are great cooks and you might have a neighbor that wants to learn how to come on you got to just impart into people's lives and as you're imparting whether it's cooking skills whether it's golfing whether it's playing basketball we uh we have a group of boys that like to play basketball and they invite all their their friends from from the city whatever it is just continually work continually sow into people's lives brother schilling thank you for making that a ministry god help us one more time i will be what you call me to be i says is one more time every hand lifted sing it one more time with me come on i want you to think of ways ways you can disciple people come on right now as you're singing just allow ways that you can discipleship is and that's what i'll be come on somebody just wave your hands that's the lord and the way my friend to say yes lord i say yes whatever it is yes i'll see you slow yes lord come on clap your hands today if you're in agreement with the word of god come on if you're in agreement with the great disciple maker jesus christ come on clap your hands unto the lord thank you lord thank you lord thank you lord amen and amen i want to dismiss first and you just remain standing but i want to dismiss those that would like to be dismissed early for for separation purposes i do ask you this sisters sarah stafford will be in the lobby come on i'm calling you you say i don't have a need that's not the point the point is we need you we need disciple makers go to the lobby sign up for our connect groups i promise you it will change your life there's no better feeling than a disciple somebody and watch their life changed and rearranged for the lord amen god bless you in jesus name amen be dismissed before the lord we'll see you tonight 5 30 prayer