Connect Grow Serve
The Ministry Flow / Discipleship Process explained
CONNECT
Your faith journey begins with connecting with God in a way that allows you to believing he is who he is, making him the central part in every part of your life. This may take different forms for different people, but connecting with God essentially involves making him Lord of your life.
We know from the Bible that there are several gods and lords in all of our lives (1 Cor. 8:4-6). Connecting with God involves finding God in the different areas in our life where he may not be your Lord already. Connecting is the worship, the exposure, of one's self before God and adoring him as Lord over everything. It's the process of identifying God as the One that is more important than your health, your finances, your family, your job, even your hobbies or things that bring you the most enjoyment.
Making Jesus Lord of your life is something that not everyone "gets" in the same ways, nor does everyone perfect until Jesus comes. So we begin with the understanding that there's more to a person's life where Jesus isn't Lord.
Through the CGS process we help you to allow Jesus to become Lord over more and more of the areas in your life, making opportunities for you to find him and connect with him in transformational ways.
Jesus is Lord. It's all about Jesus!
John 14:6: "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"
GROW:
The key to connecting with Jesus more and more is learning to know Jesus deeper and deeper in an ongoing relationship with him. This is where growing in Christ comes in. It involves two aspects: studying the Bible and applying it to everyday life, and developing deep, authentic relationships with other Christians so that in community, we can find Christ together.
Christianity is more about something that happened, rather than a system or religion for living. The Bible isn't an instruction manual on how to live, it's the story of what happened and a counsel for how to get connected with that faith journey associated with making Jesus the Lord of your life. You've gotta read it. You've gotta be in it constantly. You've gotta trust it and listen to it. Because the story of God is there and understanding it more and more is the first step in becoming a follower of Jesus Christ, his disciple. The key to following Jesus more and more is learning to know Jesus deeper and deeper in an ongoing relationship with him.
However, understanding isn't the goal, it's the beginning. The process of weeding out all the areas in one's life where Jesus is not Lord is the pathway, the Christian journey. We call this discipleship-becoming like Jesus as his student. As Jesus was able to keep his Father above everything he did and submitted every area of his life to the Father, we are to seek the same as the goal of our discipleship.
In addition, you can hear the story of God through others. The second side of growing in your relationship with God is growing in your relationship with other Christians. They are the journalists that tell the current story of how God is moving. As you love others, helping to make Jesus the central aspect of their life, everything must revolve around the knowledge that no one has "arrived" at the goal quite yet, but everyone is on the pathway. As we trek this journey together, living authentic and realistic lives, our job is to encourage and to share with others the centralizing stories of Jesus Christ in our life. We desire to love our brothers and sisters, helping them find the best things for them as God intended in the beginning, though this sometimes requires humble correction and loving intervention when we see a brother or sister choosing things that are destructive to them and their relationship with God.
Proverbs 27:17: "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." The more you understand about God, the more central he will be to your life in all aspects.
Romans 12:9-21: "...Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. ...Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. ... Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ..."
SERVE
If God is Lord of all, the one and only God, how's come we have so many Christians ending up to be practicing polytheists? Alan Hirsch, in the book, the Forgotten Ways, offers the following reflection: "Isn't it interesting that most churchgoers report a radical disconnect between the God that rules Sunday to the gods that rule Monday? How many of us live as if there were different gods for every sphere of life? A god for work, another for family, a different one when we are at the movies, or one for our politics. No wonder the average churchgoer can't seem to make sense of it all. All this results from a failure to respond truly to the One God. This failure can be addressed only by a discipleship that responds by offering all the disparate elements of our lives back to God, thus unifying our lives under his lordship" (97).
If connecting with God is the worship, awareness, and adoration of God, and growing in Christ is the process of relating to God and others on a deeper level of intimacy, then serving God is about making a difference in the world around, helping bring about God's Kingdom as one used by Him. It's about putting God first and living under the rule and reign of God. It's about being about the things that God is about. It's about doing something to help others see that Jesus is Lord and should be central to their life as well.
The core of serving God entails keeping Jesus at the center of his own movement based on the commands he gave us to "go and make disciples" (Matthew 28) and to "love others as I have loved you" (John 13:34-35). Essentially, this means getting your hands and feet dirty and serving other people in a way that exemplifies the love of Christ and makes a difference in someone's life and in the community you live in.
Luke 6:46-49: "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. ..."
