Memorable moment of the day: Philip preaching on “squabbles in the nursery” (1 Cor. 3:1) having to compete with the very enthusiastic children’s music class in the next door room.
1 Corinthians and Philippians were again full of challenge:
- Are we taking the glory that God deserves for building his church and giving it to men? (1 Cor. 3:6-7)
- Do we have leaders who are good models? Do we have good models who give the time and space to ‘Timothy’s? (Phil. 2:22)
- Do I have sufficient kingdom-mindedness to be fine with other people building on the foundation I have laid (1 Cor. 3:6,10) or to train up and send a ‘Timothy’ away to another mission field? (Phil. 2:19-23)
- Am I careful about how I’m building the church? (1 Cor. 3:10-12)
- What is our measure of success in mission and ministry? (Phil. 2:25-30)
I ran out of time looking at Application so you can download the full notes for that here and the Powerpoint here.
Mercy Ireri, our good friend from Langham, pulled a lot of the week together, talking about moving from the flesh of the text (words) to the skeleton (structure) to the heart (big idea) and then back out to the sermon skeleton (it is useful if the sermon is not a structure-less jellyfish) and finally putting the flesh on the bones. I was particularly struck here by the danger of looking at the flesh and making a quick initial judgment (as we do about people) without taking the time to get to know the structure and have a heart-to-heart and maybe find something quite different to initial appearances.
We finished the day a slightly reduced number (29) who stayed the course to do the hard work of producing a sermon outline for the 1 Peter passage. We found that there was a good deal of fuzzy logic involved – trying out a big idea, working on the subheadings, finding they don’t all link into the big idea, reworking the big idea… But in the end we came out a lot clearer than we were a few days ago with something that, with a big more flesh on the bones, we could preach on Sunday knowing that it is not us speaking but the Author of 1 Peter.
Please pray:
- Giving thanks for those who have committed a lot of valuable time to attend the week and shown great humility and keenness and engagement, pray that we’d persevere with joy to the end!
- For Sammy, Greg and Harrison as they teach us tomorrow.
fidelnyikuri
iServe Africa Webmaster
Utumishi Blog 
Surely, you are doing a good job at RtB…Andy ,I have only a small, humble comment to make.An encouragement infact for all of us in Christ…To continue fanning the faith,building upon the word and to Keep searching the scriptures dilligently,just as you are doing at RtB.God is faithful and He gives wisdom generously to His children revealing all truths to them and by His spirit yet at times in their weaknesses and humble states…God bless you all and make His mighty presence to be with you.
At the end of this week we’re certainly feeling our great weaknesses but also grateful for his might presence and more convinced than ever of the wonderful sufficiency and power of Christ’s Word.