Follow Me

Posted by Steve Rice
on July 3, 2008 – 6:14 pm
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PerksThis evening I’m sitting in a great little espresso bar in Black Mountain, North Carolina called Perks. The next time you’re in town, stop by, give a shoutout to Peter (the owner), and have a coffee or smoothie in a really cool environment surrounded by the Black Mountain Range.

While ordering up a delicious hazlenut coffee, Peter told me his shop is “all about Christ.” My heart was stirred as he shared how he served on the foreign mission field and how God led him and his wife to Black Mountain. God told them to “follow Him” there and they did so.

One of my heroes in the faith, Dr. Henry Blackaby, shared the same message yesterday at Ridgecrest. He said that a true disciple is defined simply as “a follower of Jesus.” Jesus told the first disciples to follow him and He tells us the same thing today.

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him.  Mark 1:17-18

Dr. Blackaby added new insight when he tied Jesus’ message of repentance to His message about following Him. Here are a few of the points that he made during his the sermon:

  • In addition to asking people to turn from their sin, Jesus asked them to turn away from following their own ways and follow Him.
  • A true disciple should utilize the power of the cross, the power of the resurrection, and the power of Pentecost in his life.
  • A disciple’s life should be a life of intimate fellowship with God.

Dr. Blackaby also shared an interesting (biblical) definition of eternal life. He read and explained the following passage:

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  John 17:3

He explained that eternal life is not defined as living eternally in a place called Heaven; eternal life is simply knowing God. Of course, one of the fringe benefits of knowing God is Heaven, but far better than all of that is simply knowing God. The Apostle Paul seemed to agree when he wrote:

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  Phippians 3:8

Prayer: Lord, help us to know you intimately, love you passionately, and follow you unquestionably.

Filed under Discipleship, Personal Journey, Preaching, Spiritual Growth |

Conditions of Discipleship

Posted by Steve Rice
on July 1, 2008 – 11:04 am
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Ridgecrest.DennisThis week I am teaching at Ridgecrest National Conference Center as a part of LifeWay’s Discipleship Week. Pictured here is Dennis Rogers, Discipleship & Family Ministries’ Specialist from the Georgia Baptist Convention. This week, in the main discipleship session, we are taking a close look at a newly published LifeWay tool, Discipleship: Stepping-Stones to Developing your Church’s Strategy.

This morning Dennis talked about the following four conditions of discipleship from the Stepping Stones resource:

  • Discipleship is rooted in relationship. Obviously, discipleship is rooted in a relationship with Jesus, but it also is rooted in relationships with other disciples. In these relationships, we encourage, teach, mentor, love, correct….whatever is needed to continue spiritual growth.
  • Discipleship expresses itself in purpose. Following Christ implies that we are no longer doing “our own thing,” instead, we are doing those things that God prepared for us to do. God has a purpose for each of His followers.
  • The call to follow Jesus is lifelong. Being a disciple of Jesus is an exciting, sometimes up-and-down, lifelong journey. God walks with us through every season and event in our life.
  • Following Jesus is more important than material gain. No accomplishment on earth is greater than being a true disciple of Jesus. As disciples, we should be willing to give up anything that keeps us from following Jesus and becoming like Him.

Stay tune for additional updates throughout this week from Ridgecrest, but I have to run and teach an assimilation session right now. I might even grab a little lunch before class.

Filed under Discipleship, Mentoring, Spiritual Growth, Uncategorized |

Food Show Mania

Posted by Steve Rice
on June 24, 2008 – 8:25 pm
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Top ChefRecently, I’ve developed a casual interest in a variety of television cooking shows. Ironically, I can’t cook much of anything–I specialize in eating. Oh, I can serve a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich along with a decent pot of coffee, but that’s about it. I’m not sure why I enjoy these shows, but it may have something to do with my competitive spirit. The competition-based cooking shows like Top Chef are the ones I really like to watch.

Although I am no cook, I recently noticed that cooking and spiritual growth has something in common . . . .

You have to start with good ingredients!

Good ingredients are paramount if the food is going to be great. Chefs talk about the key role ingredients play on these shows all the time. The same is true in spiritual growth. Believers must have the ingredients in their lives that lead to growth. We refer to these as spiritual disciplines. Lots of lists of spiritual disciplines exists, but here is mine: 

  • Reading the Bible
  • Praying to the Lord
  • Fellowshipping with other believers
  • Sharing your faith
  • Ministering to others
  • Walking with Christ

In upcoming posts, I will examine each of these more closely. The following posts will also help in these areas:

Filed under Discipleship, Personal Journey, Spiritual Growth |

State Discipleship Leaders Meet

Posted by Steve Rice
on June 17, 2008 – 1:18 pm
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Jay JohnstonThis week I am meeting with the Southeast Discipleship Leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention in Atlanta. Jay Johnston, LifeWay’s Director of Evangelism and Discipleship, is meeting with us today. We are discussing how to help our churches become more effective in making disciples and producing spiritually mature followers of Christ. 

One of the tools we designed last year is called Discipleship: Stepping-Stones to Developing Your Church’s Strategy. This tool can be downloaded and printed from the LifeWay site. LifeWay has a number of other good tools that can be found on their discipleship page. For an introduction to these tools, see my post Helpful Discipleship Tools.

Filed under Church Growth, Discipleship, Resources |

Searcy Speaks

Posted by Steve Rice
on June 13, 2008 – 10:17 am
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Searcy.2The last few days, Nelson Searcy has been answering assimilation questions on his blog, Church Leader Insights. These posts are a MUST READ if you are seeking to improve in the area of assimilation. Searcy’s posts include answers to the following questions:

  1. What do you say to get people to fill out their Connection Cards?
  2. Do you do a newcomer’s reception?
  3. Do guests have to hand their Connection Cards in to someone in exchange for the free gift?
  4. How do you measure your Connection Card completion rate?
  5. How do you get both husband and wife to fill out a Connection Card?

I recently featured Searcy’s excellent assimmilation book, Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church here on my blog. Be sure to get your own copy of his book and check out these recent posts:

I also recently purchased The Systems Seminar Package from Church Leader Insights and I recommend it to any church. The package includes the following:

  • The Worship Planning Seminar
  • The Evangelism Seminar
  • The Assimilation Seminar
  • The Small Groups Seminar
  • The Stewardship Seminar
  • The Strategy Seminar

One other note of recommendation. I had a little trouble with a download from Church Leader Insights. When I called to talk to them about the problem, they were extremely gracious and generous in correcting the problem. No wonder their ministry and church is growing!!!

Filed under Assimilation, Church Growth, New Member Classes, Resources |

The Power of Sunday School

Posted by Steve Rice
on June 12, 2008 – 1:27 pm
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Sunday SchoolRobert Raikes is known to be the father of the Sunday School movement. He believed that education was an effective tool to battle moral decline and determined to develop an experimental school to test his theory. Initially, he was legally barred from developing the school until England passed the Enabling Act in 1779. In 1780 he enlisted children from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds of Gloucester, England to be involved in his first Sunday School.

In 1785, two years after Great Britain had declared the thirteen original colonies a free and independent nation, the first Sunday School was started on this side of the Atlantic. William Elliott arranged to have the white boys and girls instructed in the Bible every Sabbath afternoon in his home. The Negro slaves were taught at another hour. In 1801 the school was transferred to the Burton-Oak Grove Methodist Church in Virginia and Elliott became its first superintendent.

Southern Baptists incorporated the Sunday School into their denomination in 1857. The greatest period of growth for Southern Baptist churches came between 1940-1960 which paralleled the growth of the Sunday School ministry in the local churches. Over the last quarter of the twentieth century Sunday School enrollment flattened among Southern Baptists and drastically declined in most denominations. This decline was traced to a decreased emphasis on evangelism in Sunday School and to an increased emphasis on the believer. During this time Southern Baptists continued to be leaders in providing Bible study curriculum materials for the Sunday School teaching ministries.

Thom Rainer’s study, Effective Evangelistic Churches, indicated that Sunday School can still play a major role in the growth and ministry of the church. I believe a church can benefit greatly by focusing on the five purposes of the church intentionally through the Sunday School. As a part of my doctoral ministry project at Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary, I led my church to focus on evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, worship, and ministry. Sunday School is an awesome place to focus on the Biblical purposes of the church. My project was called Incorporating Life Groups Into the Sunday School for Evangelism, Assimilation, and Care.

For more help with Sunday School, please see . . . .

Filed under Assimilation, Church Growth, Discipleship, Spiritual Growth, Sunday School |

Relationships Matter

Posted by Steve Rice
on June 9, 2008 – 10:06 am
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FriendsIn his book, Concentric Circles of Concern, Dr. Oscar Thompson says that the most important word in the English language, apart from proper nouns, is the word “RELATIONSHIP”! I believe his statement is true in a number of areas related to the church.

  • Evangelism. Although I am not opposed to just about any kind a genuine evangelism, relational evangelism is the most effective. In a recent study, Dr. Gary McIntosh discovered that 84% said that “talking to a friend or a family member” was what influenced them most in their desire to come to Christ. We should “shake the family tree” when it comes to praying for the lost and sharing our faith. God has ordained that we be in relationship with certain persons because they are members of our family, classmates at school, neighbors, co-workers, etc. Therefore, it is our responsibility and privilege to share Christ with them. Don’t forget, this study shows that if we have an established relationship with an unsaved person, we have the highest potential to influence them toward Christ.
  • Assimilation. Relationships are the glue that causes people to stick to a church. People are not merely looking for a friendly church; they are looking to make friends at church. If a person has 6-8 friends in a church after six months, they will stay with the church. In contrast, if a person only has 2-3 friends in a church after six months, they will almost certainly fall away from that church.
  • Discipleship. Jesus made disciples by developing mentoring relationships and by doing life together with His followers. They ate together, sailed together, walked together, and learned together. For Jesus, disciple-making was a life-long journey to which he gave his time and effort.

I have written quite a bit along these lines. Here are some other entries that may be of help:

Filed under Assimilation, Church Growth, Discipleship, Preaching, Uncategorized |

McIntosh Study: The Importance of Preaching

Posted by Steve Rice
on June 3, 2008 – 10:27 am
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PreachingI recently hosted, Dr. Gary McIntosh at the Kentucky Baptist Convention building for a conference that discussed assimilation principles taken from his book, Beyond the First Visit. Fortunately, while he was here, Dr. McIntosh unveiled the findings of a recent national survey he conducted. I’m going to discuss some of the findings of his study in a few of my upcoming posts.

Today, let’s examine the paramount role the pastor plays in reaching and keeping people in a local church. Consider these findings:

  • 90% of respondents said that the pastor’s preaching influenced their decision to attend a particular church.
  • When asked to rank the order of reasons why they chose to attend their church, the preaching of the pastor ranked #1.

To examine the specifics of the pastor’s role, the survey asked, “What factors of the pastor’s ministry influenced your choice of this church?” Here are their responses listed in the order of their ranking:

  1. Preaching that teaches and applies to my life.
  2. Athenticity of the pastor.
  3. Pastor’s convictions.
  4. Pastor’s leadership skills.

This study confirmed what most of us already suspected–the pastor plays a pivotal role in the growth of a local church. Somewhat surprising was the overwhelming importance of preaching.

Filed under Assimilation, Church Growth, Discipleship, Preaching |

Chick-Fil-A Church

Posted by Steve Rice
on May 28, 2008 – 9:21 pm
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Cow.3The average church could learn a lot from Chick-fil-A. Last night my family dropped by for a casual dinner. As usual, we had a wonderful experience. Good food, great service, fair prices! Their mission statement is simple, “Be America’s Best Quick-Service Restaurant!” The founder, Truett Cathy, may well have fulfilled that statement.

THINGS THAT CHICK-FIL-A DID RIGHT:

  • Clean and neat. The restaurant was well landscaped, clean, and bright. The atmosphere made me comfortable and relaxed from the beginning.
  • Friendly, prompt service. The gentleman that took our order made eye contact, smiled, welcomed us, and processed our order perfectly.
  • Generous. Condiments were available at the condiment station and we were trusted to get the amount we needed. A whole basket of delicious mints were available for the taking. (Note: I only took one.)
  • Great product. Of course, the main reason we went to the restaurant was to eat. As usual, their food was hot, tasty, neatly packaged, and delivered with a smile.
  • Customer-oriented. After my meal, I walked to the counter to get a refill of their delicious sweet tea. At that particular moment everyone was busy, but a gentleman who was wiping off a table saw me and quickly came up and said, “Sir, could I get you a refill.” I really don’t think it was his job to refill my tea, but he left what he was doing to serve a customer. After I thanked him, he said, “It’s my pleasure sir.” I’m sorry, but that was just flat impressive!

I’m not going to bother trying to make an application to the church because I think the application is obvious. I repeat, the average church could learn a lot from Chick-fil-A.

Filed under Assimilation, Church Growth, Miscellaneous, Personal Journey |

What A Day! What A Guy!

Posted by Steve Rice
on May 22, 2008 – 9:53 pm
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McIntosh.RiceHere’s a picture of Dr. Gary L. McIntosh and yours truly from our event today in Louisville, Kentucky. You will not meet a nicer guy than Dr. McIntosh.  We had a great turnout and Dr. McIntosh hit a homerun just as expected!

Be sure to pick up a copy of his latest assimilation book, Beyond the First Visit, and check out his website, McIntosh Church Growth Network. In the coming days, I’ll be sharing some of the helpful teaching from his conference. Be sure to check back!

Filed under Assimilation, Church Growth, New Member Classes, Resources |

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