Adults

Posts about L Leader

Home / L Leader / Page 2
Jul
30
E Leader , F Leader , I Leader , L Leader

Celebration, Communication, Community

By Sarah Becky Spain, active member of the Oasis LIFE Group, a women’s group that meets on Sunday mornings at 9:30 and is led by Sarah Samuel.

The Oasis Class bulletin board is a way to celebrate, communicate, and share life within our class community. Practically speaking, it’s a space where we can purposefully and effectively share things of value with our group.
We want group members to be informed about key parts of our group, even if we can’t spend a lot of class time talking about them. We’ve chosen to include highlights from our weekly emails, sign-ups for upcoming group events, photos from past events, and announcements about our monthly Oasis Gives Back campaign. We have a section of the board devoted to our class missionaries, which includes a picture and short bio, as well as prayer points. We’ve also chosen to add favorite verses on note cards and a few book recommendations from group leaders. We’re able to communicate a lot of important class information without words, which allows more class time for studying the Word.
We’ve found that our board is a great way to build community within the group. We can see everything that’s going on and coming up. We are reminded to pray for our missionaries in the world when we see their bios and pictures. We love looking at our class pictures and celebrating all the blessings we collectively share. It also speaks volumes about our group with first-time visitors and future Oasis members.
It was a team effort to decorate the board and now we have one person designated to manage the postings. The entire project was the brainchild of Karen Clark, one of our faithful members and the driving force behind many of our wonderful group activities. It really takes amazing people like Karen to make things like this happen.
Our class board has created a welcoming presence in our room which perfectly reflects the intentional heart of our leader, Sarah Samuel. As a class, we echo the words of Jesus in saying “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” and “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (Matthew 11:28-30, John 10:10). We hope that everyone who visits room 2000 will be enriched and challenged by the study of the Word, as well as encouraged by what God has planned for our impact in His Kingdom.
 

Jul
16
E Leader , F Leader , I Leader , L Leader , Paul Wilkinson

Praying for the Lost and Searching

By Paul Wilkinson

Shelly and I are working with an organization this week in Jamaica called American Caribbean Experience (ACE). They essentially do the Middle Tennessee Initiative in rural Jamaica, focusing on healthcare, education, poverty, and spiritual development. We went to church yesterday at High Gate Gospel Chapel and, shockingly, they have a very similar discipleship strategy as us: being faithful followers of Jesus while making followers of Jesus, cf. being disciples of Jesus while making disciples with Jesus. I say “shockingly” in jest, because Bible believing congregations throughout the world who take the Great Commission seriously will have that same strategy. An elder preached instead of the pastor and he said this: “Witnessing to unbelievers begins by praying for them and praying for ourselves, that the Spirit will work through you for them.“
The elder’s comment prompted my mind to an old evangelist question: if God answered “Yes!” to every one of your prayers, how many new believers would there be? For years, for me, the answer was zero. I didn’t have compassion for the lost and searching like I should have, even though I was being trained in seminary to reach them! The knowledge and ability to evangelize the lost and searching does not create in us a will to evangelize the lost and searching; prayer brings our will in line with God’s so that we become passionate for and compassionate towards the lost and searching. The elder was correct: it all starts with prayer. I challenge you to challenge your groups this week as we get ready for Group Connect (August 29) and Fall New Group launches: if God answered all of the prayers of our group with a resounding, “YES!” how many new citizens of the kingdom would there be; how many people would be saved?
Encourage them to have 3 people in their minds at all times for whom they are praying to come to faith. If they don’t know three lost people, then encourage them to pray for God to make them aware of friends with 3 lost people that they can pray for. Share with them your handful of lost and searching people that you pray for to give them a model. But don’t forget to encourage them to pray for themselves, as well, that they’d have the boldness to share, a sound gospel message, and  a confident personal testimony when the time comes.


Remember the Welcome–Launch Rally on Sunday, August 5!

4:00 PM – Leaders will gather in Hudson Hall
6:00 PM – Burgers and Hot Dogs on the Lawn for the whole family

Please RSVP to help us plan!