8/25 Deacon Meeting

Prayer Requests

Jimmy Rooks - Recovering from Surgery. Diagnosed with cancer. Will follow up with a doctor this week to find out all the details

Fred Peck - Moved in at Durham. Had 8 doctors appointments on Thursday. Friday began a two day 10 hour chemo therapy. Today had a 5 hour chemo and will continue to have chemo through Tuesday., Will have a full body radiation on Tuesday. His son David will have injections, starting yesterday through Tuesday, to stimulate stem cells. Cells are harvested on Wednesday and Thursday is transplant day. Praying for no sickness during this process.

Blake Taylor - Pet Scan last Thursday was good. Lymphoma is shrinking. They did find a spot on his small intestine that they will check out. He is in chemo treatment number 5 and in the recovery week.

Mary Jo Tyer - having upcoming tests to determine the source of dizziness

Derek & Julia Harrelson - helping transition Mr Ricky to Jesus

Bryce Harrelson - some improvement in his throat. As long as he does his exercises he improves. Praying for movement to avoid other invasive medical procedures

Sandra Harris - Director of Pender Christian Resources - started a project and feels like she is under spiritual attack.

Afghan Dari, Persian Farci, Jains - praying for these unreached people groups

Nabiyumu - A mostly muslim village in Uganda that we supplied the funds to build a well for them.

Disciple Making - Dr. Chuck Lawless

? If you could name someone from your past that was most influential in helping your discipleship journey, who would it be?

? Who is it in your life today that in ten years will include you on their list of most influential people?

?What part of your life lasts if the Lord calls you home today?

Steps for Disciple-making

1st Level of Disciple-making: Come and See

John 1:35–39 (ESV)

35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples,

36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

The simplest thing you can do is to invite someone to a meal

2nd Level of Disciple-making: Calling

Mark 1:16–20 (ESV)

16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”

18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.

20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

? What is it about your walk with the Lord that would cause others to want to walk with you?

If your Christianity is stale and mundane, people aren’t going to want to walk with you.

The time to level up your commitment

You’ve asked someone to go to lunch, or go to the store

Target Inviting - asking someone to go to Target with you

more life discussions happen on the way to somewhere than anywhere else

Now it’s time to understand who they are and to get to know them

Potential Mentees are like UUPGs

In order for a missionary to understand how to share the gospel with a UUPG

when they come in contact with them

they have to understand what?

Context, family, culture, all of that

It’s the same concept with a new disciple

we should get to know all about a person before we can apply gospel truths

because we don’t know how t apply what they need to their situation

and we don’t really know what they need until we know them

3rd Level of Disciple-making: Appointing

Mark 3:13–15 (ESV)

13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.

14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach

15 and have authority to cast out demons.

Two points to understand this

Why was Jesus on the mountain?

Luke 6:12 (ESV)

12 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.

#1 - Jesus prayed before he called the 12

We must start in prayer with God

Otherwise we will choose people like us and people we like

If God calls us to someone, we can always fall back on that calling if things don’t go well

God may call us to invest in someone who will stab us in the back

Jesus knew what each of these apostles would do and yet he still invested in them, including Judas

This is God’s calling for us to make disciples, so it should be God’s choice who we mentor

#2 We are called to Jesus first, then to the other stuff He equips us for

Notice what were the things in Mark 3:13-15 that they were going to do?

The first was be with Jesus

then preaching and authority to send out demons

My challenge to us is to begin praying about someone that we can disciple

We are commanded to do it

we only need to take that person to their next step, not all the way to maturity

and we only have to be one step ahead of them

Old Business

Deacon Nominations

Deacon nominations are coming up soon.

The constitution no longer has a requirement that there be a certain amount of deacons per membership.

Current active members is 149 or about 87 households

We currently have 9 active deacons

Rolling off this year is Jason, Joe & Mike

2 more deacons would give each about 11 families to take care of plus homebound

Does anyone have anyone they would like to bring to the attention of the group?

I want to recommend James Cotten & Steve Mathis

Lord’s Supper

Next Sunday - September 1

IF we are OK doing the same as we have the past two times.

I’d like to have myself and Mike on one side

Luke and one other deacon on the other.

We won’t do the lifting of the cloth if that’s acceptable.

New Business

Communications Changes

We are currently changing to Subsplash and that will help some. The goal is to roll out a new website and app by end of September.

We will also have new streaming equipment installed (hopefully) by then.

I spoke to Chris and we were wondering about ways to communicate emergency prayer needs and funerals better

Sunday Evenings

I’m going to change the format of the Sunday evening services

I thought about moving it to 1 1/2 hours. Thoughts?

We would have prayer sheets that are handed out with the requests written on them.

We would sing a little more, and divide the prayer times up during the service.

Prayer times would be people praying to themselves with about 5 minutes of music underneath.

Nativity

Would like to set up a nativity after Thanksgiving this year.

cutout figures through most of the season and closer to Christmas we would have live actors in their places.

Next Meeting is September 22 following the church service or 4PM.