Big Blueprint

Without prayer, we will not accomplish much of anything for God’s Kingdom. Whenever you engage in Kingdom word, the enemy and his forces align themselves to oppose you. They must be overcome through spiritual warfare. Your life group leaders will help you develop in this area. You will find some helpful information here. Plan to review it with your life group leaders:

• Following Jesus: Focus on the Message – Matthew 6
  • Lesson 2 – Acts of Righteousness: Prayer
• Life Church Counseling Page
  • Spiritual Warfare & Deliverance

It is a wonderful thing when a person has moved through the first four of the Five Thresholds (trusting a Christian, curiosity, openness to change, seeking), and is ready to follow Jesus. Before we celebrate however, we need to cover the soon-to-be Christian in prayer and bind those demonic forces that want to hinder his/her entrance into the Kingdom.

Our goal, as we engage in evangelism, is for the person we've befriended to actually become a follower of Jesus. Once you've established that the person is ready to make that decision you need to guide them into that commitment. After they've made that commitment we transition to discipleship.

Here is the sequence:

• Phase 1 - Evangelism (5 Thresholds, etc.)
• Phase 2 - Lead someone to Christ (i.e. conversion -  this is really Threshold #5 from Phase 1)
• Phase 3 - Discipleship (7 "F"s Following Jesus Curriculum)

Your life group leaders will help you learn to lead someone to Christ. Plan to review the following material with them:

Good News: Leading Someone To Christ

Jesus promised his disciples that they would receive power to be his witnesses after the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:8). We want every believer to experience this power so that they can effectively represent the Lord to the world around them.

Your life group leaders will help you learn to lead others into this experience.

The following components of our Following Jesus discipleship curriculum are designed to be used either one-on-one or as a class when discipling a new believer:

After someone makes a commitment to follow Jesus he/she will need to be discipled. This will normally take place in the context of a life group. As a part of their life group covenant, members should explicitly commit to being available to help disciple new people who become part of the group.

Our discipleship curriculum can be found here:

Following Jesus

The first component of this curriculum is:

Focus On the Message

In this discipleship component a life group member takes a new believer through the Gospel of Matthew.

In addition to the prayer teaching covered under “Personal Preparation” above, life groups need to set aside time for the members to pray for one another and for their families and friends. They also need to pray consistently for the people that God has called them to reach for the Kingdom.

In addition to your personal spiritual life, it is important for each life group to read/listen to the Bible and learn to put it into practice together. The Word section of each life group meeting is devoted to reviewing the Bible passages taught in the Sunday sermon and working together to understand them and put them into practice. Plan to review the following material together:

Life Church: Doing The Bible

If you’re going to make disciples, you’re going to have to spend time with people who don’t yet follow Jesus. Most people will be most effective in winning people with whom they’ve developed a relationship. Relationships develop best when you have frequent opportunities to interact. What groups or networks are accessible to you with whom you can interact on a regular basis? Here are some potential examples:

• community or neighborhood organizations
• co-workers
• student groups on campus
• unions or other professional organizations
• bowling league
• sports teams

You will work with your life group as a team to identify the unchurched people that you can reach. Plan to review the following material with them:

Good News: Building Relationships

We need to be able to overcome our reluctance to start spiritual conversations with people. Your life group leaders will help you develop in this area. Plan to review the following material with them:

Beyond Awkward (be sure to checkout the “Free Web Course” link at the top of the page)

We need activities that can promote deepening relationships between followers of Jesus and unchurched people. Our Sunday services are designed primarily to build up followers of Jesus – not impart Gospel truth to non-followers. We need to be able to conduct activities that are more suitable for this type of relationship building. Ideally these activities should be frequent enough to support the development of friendships. This means that they should be “turn-key”. The planning and preparation should be simple enough that the events can be launched weekly or at least monthly.

These activities all provide some combination of relationship building, community generation, and exploration of Christianity, but they will often have a primary emphasis:

• Building Relationships
  • Games Night
  • Change the World Night
• Generating Community
  • Life Group Meetings
• Exploring Christianity
  • Alpha Classes

You will work with your life group as a team to plan and carry out outreach activities. Plan to review the following material with them:

Good News: Building Relationships

Jesus promised his disciples that they would receive power to be his witnesses after the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:8). We want every believer to experience this power so that they can effectively represent the Lord to the world around them.

Your life group leaders will help you enter into this experience.

We want to train you to read/listen to the Bible and to put it into practice in your life. Your life group leaders will help you with this. Plan to review the following material with them:

Life Church: Doing The Bible

Life Groups are a fundamental part of Life Church!

The following 3 key components of our ministry are based on life group participation in conjunction with participation in our Sunday services:

• personal spiritual growth (i.e. becoming like Jesus)
• supporting other members
• winning new people to Christ and forming disciples

Life groups are essential for achieving these goals!

We want to train you to promote safe, healthy, and effective life groups and we want you to train others to do the same. Your life group leaders will help you learn to do what they do in leading and growing your life group. Plan to review the following material with them:

Life Church: Life Groups

Jesus has called us to be his witnesses. In order to be a witness, you need to be prepared to let people know what you’ve experienced with Jesus.

Your life group leaders will help you develop your personal testimony. Plan to review the following material with them:

Good News: Testimonies

Disciples can "go where the pain is" and make a difference. By prayerfully and humbly listening and loving those around them, they allow God to use them to bring healing and transformation to the people whose lives they touch.

God wants us to:

• Promote Justice
• Serve the Poor

Discipleship is the process through which we guide someone who has made a personal commitment to follow Jesus toward spiritual maturity in which they become more like Jesus and produce disciples of their own.

You can learn more about our approach to discipleship here:

Life Church Following Jesus Curriculum

After a non-believer has progressed through the thresholds of trust, curiosity, openness to change, and seeking, the next step is to make the actual commitment to following Jesus. This is the beginning of the actual discipleship process. We want every member of Life Church to be trained to guide a person through he process of making the commitment to follow Jesus.

Evangelism is the process through which we guide non-Christians towards Jesus. It culminates in a person making a personal commitment to follow Jesus.

You can learn more about our approach to evangelism here:

Life Church Good News Page

The foundation for our relational evangelism strategy is to promote frequent connections between followers of Jesus and non-believers. At Life Church, although we welcome visitors to our Sunday services, we place a much greater emphasis on inviting people to visit our social events and our life groups.