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Mar
2
E Leader , F Leader , Jay Fennell

Engage Middle Tennessee: What Is It and Why?

By Jay Fennell

The Middle Tennessee Initiative (MTI) is a vision that God has given our church to reach Middle Tennessee for Christ. Daily we’re learning how lost and hopeless our community truly is, and we know that the only way for our neighbors, coworkers, colleagues, acquaintances and friends to be found and have hope is through the gospel. Our obligation and opportunity is to do whatever we can to push back darkness and introduce people to the light of Christ.
In light of MTI, Engage Middle Tennessee (April 23) is a half-day event where LIFE Groups from all campuses engage the Middle Tennessee community through acts of service in the areas of poverty, education and healthcare, and all for the sake of developing relationships and sharing the gospel. The beauty of this opportunity is that it mobilizes and deploys our LIFE Groups into the community as an army of Christ-followers, serving shoulder to shoulder to meet needs and love people unconditionally. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate the gospel as we engage in acts of service and share the gospel as we talk with people and hear their stories.
This day is designed to be a day that would become a catalyst for ongoing outward ministry for LIFE Groups, where groups would develop relationships and participate regularly in mission initiatives outside the walls of their classrooms or living rooms.
What mission opportunities will be available on April 23?

  • A BBC ministry partner: Perhaps your group would like to connect with one of our church’s ministry partners and support them in the work they are doing in Middle Tennessee.
  • A current mission initiative partnership: Perhaps your group already has a relationship with a mission organization or person or family, and your group might choose to continue working with them on April 23.
  • Choose your own adventure: Perhaps your group would prefer to think creatively and prayerfully and discover a need that your group could meet uniquely. In what way could your group serve a neighborhood, community, family or person for the sake of the Gospel on April 23? 

What do you need to do in preparation for Saturday, April 23?

  1. Determine whether your LIFE Group will participate.
  2. Complete the Engage Middle Tennessee online registration form.
  3. Begin promoting to group members.
  4. Determine how your group will participate on April 23.
  5. Appoint someone to be the point person for mobilizing and planning your group’s involvement (E Leader).
  6. If you are “choosing your own adventure,” be sure to communicate with your campus discipleship minister what you are doing so he/she can assist you.

 

Feb
25
F Leader

Modeling Christ-likeness

By Paul Wilkinson

Our goal as LIFE Group and Focus Study leaders is to be disciplers such that we guide, direct, and influence our people toward Christ-likeness. One way to understand Christ-likeness is that the words and deeds of Jesus flow naturally out of us. Jesus and Paul give us a strong principle of what it means to live in such a way before our people.
I am trained as a philosopher. In modern times, philosophy can get a bad rap as some completely abstract, impractical enterprise. In some ways, philosophy can become that. But originally, or at least for Western philosophy since Socrates (470-399 BC), philosophy was about seeking the good life. What are virtues? What is the Good? How do we live well? In order to do this, groups of people would follow around these sages to ask questions and, essentially, copy their lives. The same can be said of the Jewish Rabbis. Individuals learned from them by living their lives with them.
Jesus and Paul epitomize this approach. In John 5:19, Jesus says, “I assure you: The Son is not able to do anything on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing.” And Paul makes a parallel argument to the Church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 4:15-6, “For you can have 10,000 instructors in Christ, but you can’t have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me,” and 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ.” The general principle seems to be that the leader emulates his/her authority. Jesus, though equal in nature to the Father, freely subordinated His will to Father’s will. Paul imitated Jesus and encouraged the Church at Corinth to do the same.
I would suggest that the same principle applies for us as leaders today. We feed our souls with the Scripture, prayer, fasting, etc., so that we do only those things we see Jesus, Paul, and others faithful in the Scriptures doing. We do those things through the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling us, convicting us, and guiding us. And we must now adopt the mentality that those that God has called us to shepherd should do those things they see us doing. For that reason, feeding your soul and remaining obedient to Jesus’ commands become even more paramount. In that way, the words and deeds of Christ will naturally flow out of you, and as your people see that life modeled, they too will begin to live like Christ.