Practice #1: Relationship #1 - September 5, 2010

Discipling Relationships
There’s No Place Like Home

Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (NIV)
 1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Christians can experience lasting discipleship in their homes by relying upon four key relationships that God created in families.

Heart Relationship
-   We cannot give what we do not possess
-   We are handing off a relationship with God to others
-   Our heart is the executive center of our very being
-   Focus on behavior can miss the heart entirely

Spontaneous Relationships
-   Jesus used teachable moments often
-   Teachable moments occur when hearts are open and curious
-   Spontaneous relationships have to be spotted and accessed
-   Quality relationships spring out of time spent together

Routine Relationships
-   Routines are not bad
-   Routines build life rhythms
-   Routines can serve as memorials
-   Routine investments outweigh crash courses in anything

Community Relationships
-   Discipling the generation that is yet to come
-   Supportive relationships reinforce faith
-   Supportive relationships provide alternate modeling
-   The church is God’s family – Generations


Questions to Ponder

1.  What relationships do I think are essential for me to grow as a follower of Christ?
2.  When I think of disciple making do I think more program, system, class, or way of life? Why?
3.  How could my “home” make one step to become more of a relational environment for making disciples?
4.  Which of the four relationships am I growing in? Which of the four am I struggling with?

Practice: Relationship 1.1 - September 6, 2009

Practice #1 – Relationship
What is Intentional, Spiritual Relationship?

Colossians 3:12-14 (New International Version)
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

What are the keys to spiritual relationship?

1. Encourage one another – toward spiritual realities.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 (New International Version)
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (New International Version)
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

God told Moses to encourage Joshua as the change of leadership happened…

Deuteronomy 1:38 (New International Version)
But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it.

Deuteronomy 3:28 (New International Version)
But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.

2. Serve one another – modeling Christ’s love.
Galatians 5:13-14 (New International Version)
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

James 1:27 (New International Version)
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

3. Protect one another – Pastoring those who need help.
John 13:34-35 (New International Version)
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

Romans 12:9-11 (New International Version)
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

James 2:15-17 (New International Version)
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

We Model Christ’s Love to the World in Our Relationships…

Ephesians 1:5-6 (New International Version)
He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.