Another Step Forward: Equipping the Saints and Growing Them Into Maturity
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1. Understanding how we got where we are.
1. Understanding how we got where we are.
A. Why do churches have Sunday School?
A. Why do churches have Sunday School?
It started as a literary school for the poor.
Began in 1780 during the industrial revolution in Britain.
Kids were working in factories and couldn’t go to school.
Thus they couldn’t read and advance themselves.
The work week was Monday - Saturday.
Anglican - Robert Raikes was a key promoter of it.
Visiting a friend outside his hometown of Gloucester, England, Raikes observed local children cursing, gambling, and fighting.
Often credited with starting it, but he found someone else doing it and started promoting it locally.
Hannah Ball and Thomas King had already started them.
Robert Raikes published a newspaper article in the paper he owned on Nov. 3, 1783 explaining in detail what his Sunday School was.
By the next year the number of attenders had grown to 1000 students.
A nondenominational Sunday School Society was founded in England in 1785. This Society purchased textbooks and offered funding for the establishment and development of Sunday schools. Eventually it would help produce over 3000 Sunday schools.
The kids would attend from 10:30-5:30.
It’s purpose was not to teach the Bible, but to teach kids to read and write.
It sometimes met in churches because they were available but not always.
It soon spread to America and quickly became popular.
A Sunday school was held in Virginia in 1785 and by the 1790s the idea had spread to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Rhode Island.
By mid 19th century Sunday School attendance was a near universal aspect of childhood even if parents did not attend church.
Though the Bible was used as a textbook for learning.
The kids would learn to write by copying out of it.
One eyewitness account of Raikes may help explain his drive to help underprivileged children: a man who lived in the area remembered this about Raikes: “An excellent man. I think of him with gratitude and mention his name with respect almost bordering on admiration. Oft have I seen him walking to church at seven in the morning followed by at least 100 children, who, but for him, might have lived and died in ignorance.”
Today Sunday School is often seen as the primary means of discipleship.
We have learned that disciple-making cannot be bound to classroom.
We see it as an opportunity to learn at a deeper level.
In a more interactive setting.
It gives others an opportunity to exercise the gifts God has given them.
B. Why do churches have Sunday evening gatherings?
B. Why do churches have Sunday evening gatherings?
The history of Sunday evening church services is difficult to track.
Here are some historical tidbits I found…
Some have said that they started when electricity was introduced.
Churches were among the first buildings to have electricity.
People would gather where the lights were so they started hosting services.
The services grew during the agricultural phase of our history. Farmers had to work their land six days a week. But, on Sunday, they would have come to a morning service, then have dinner on the grounds, and then have a second later afternoon services before returning home.
During World War II, many men and women worked seven-day weeks to meet the production needs of the war. The Sunday evening service allowed them to attend worship since they couldn’t come on Sunday morning. Thus the service time grew in popularity.
We could trace Sunday evening back to Acts.
On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered.
And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.
B. Why do churches have Sunday evening gatherings?
B. Why do churches have Sunday evening gatherings?
The Jews observed Sabbath on Saturday.
The Christians were beginning to meet on Sunday but they worked on Sundays.
They were meeting after a workday.
There was no Sunday morning service.
In fact - the service we hold the tightest didn’t seem to exist in the early church.
C. Why do churches have midweek gatherings?
C. Why do churches have midweek gatherings?
Even less is known about how these services got started.
It seems they started as simple prayer gatherings.
Then Bible study was added.
Many churches now have a full service.
Kids and youth programs were added to this time at some point.
Research shows that less than half the congregation shows up for these services.
D. What do we do with this information?
D. What do we do with this information?
The Bible is silent on much of how the church looks.
It is silent on what time to meet.
It is silent on how many times to meet.
It is silent on the order of service.
There is a ton of freedom and grace given when it comes to gathering.
Much of what we hold close is man made tradition.
Let’s look at what we know the Bible says:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,
D. What do we do with this information?
D. What do we do with this information?
There are some non-negotiables.
Regular gathering.
Worshiping God corporately.
Encouraging each other.
Singing together.
Praying together.
Learning together.
Equipping the saints.
One Sunday gathering.
Everything else should be seen as a negotiable.
Or disposable.
Done in seasons.
We should be able to look at the church’s schedule over a year and say: what works best for us?
What are the best ways to accomplish the things God has for the church?
What if…
We found a different time to equip and had Sunday evenings free?
We started gathering for prayer at a different time and had more people attending?
We didn’t have Sunday School?
I’m asking you to think through “why?”
2. What the next step looks like for First Baptist HC.
2. What the next step looks like for First Baptist HC.
This gives us opportunity to apply what we learned over the past couple of weeks.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,
for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
Equipping.
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
We want to fill in what is lacking in your lives so you can be the most skillful disciple-makers possible.
We learned that every Christian should be able to teach someone else.
Equipping is giving you the tools to do that.
We are not teaching simply to give you more biblical knowledge.
For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.
For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
I want to see the good hand of God on your life and on this church.
Study it.
Do it.
Teach it.
Serving
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
A. Equipping, serving, and fellowshipping blocks.
Over abounding in the work of the Lord.
Being over abundant in serving God.
There is incredible value in serving together as a church.
Serving each other.
Serving our community.
Fellowshipping
(Acts 2) they were together daily and had all things in common.
Doing life together.
B. These blocks will last no more than eight weeks.
B. These blocks will last no more than eight weeks.
September-October | A Beginner’s Guide to Bible Study
November | Homosexuality and gender issues
December | Serve together and eat together
January-February | Church History
March-April | Biblical Friendship (Small group format)
May-June | Introduction to Biblical Counseling
3. Why this model?
3. Why this model?
A. Helps prevent boredom.
A. Helps prevent boredom.
B. Helps us teach the whole counsel of God.
B. Helps us teach the whole counsel of God.
for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
C. Allows us to have more teachers.
C. Allows us to have more teachers.
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
D. Helps us better equip the saints.
D. Helps us better equip the saints.
E. It gives more opportunity to jump into a class.
E. It gives more opportunity to jump into a class.