Utumishi Blog

At the ministry training today two things came out particularly strongly for me:

1. The gospel is for believers. Fidel preached on 2 Tim. 2 and wonderfully brought home verse 1 – be strengthened not by your bank balance or friends or vague hopes or false promises but be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Then in Colossians 1 we saw that we mustn’t move on one inch from the gospel we first heard (v23). The way to get people mature in Christ is… to preach Christ (v28).
2. God has given us books. Not a random pick-and-mix collection of verses. I’m getting increasingly excited about preaching and discipleship and training that is basically just going through books. Instead of coming up with our own ideas and complex schemes and finding verses from all over the place to support that, how about taking the books that God has given us and seeing what the particular message and target of each of them is and just let them do what they’re there for. So instead of coming up with 10 points on gospel ministry that we think the apprentices need to know at the beginning of their year, let’s just let Fidel preach 2 Timothy – a letter all about handing on the baton of gospel ministry. Instead of us trying to come up with an introduction to the doctrine of God, the gospel, expository preaching and how to live in the light of the gospel – let’s just go through Colossians.

Notes from the day:

• Doctrine of God
• 1-to-1 discipleship & pastoral ministry
• Intro to Expository Preaching – Session 1