Purpose
This Good News curriculum is designed to help you and the members of your life group develop your ability to win people to Christ. Some of you will have arrived on this page during your pursuit of our discipleship curriculum (e.g. Matthew 10 & Matthew 28). Remember that you can only disciple someone who has already made a commitment to following Jesus. In order to have someone to disciple, you or someone else must first win them to Christ.
Evangelism —-> Conversion —-> Discipleship
You can pursue this material in a variety of ways:
- Use it directly to train a disciple.
- Use it to train your entire life group in evangelism. Talk to your life group leaders to plan this.
- Participate in one of our Good News classes that we will offer from time to time.
Here you will learn how to help other believers develop a lifestyle of understanding and obeying the Bible – God’s Word. Helping to train other believers is the best way for you to ensure your own spiritual growth. This material is designed to help train you to follow Jesus with confidence and then, confidently train others to do the same.
Audience
This material was developed in the context of a mostly African-American congregation in a Boston neighborhood. It is informed by the history of African-Americans in the United States in general and in urban settings in particular. My intention is, first and foremost, that it will encourage and strengthen the ministry of African-Americans following Jesus in an urban context. I am confident that, by God’s grace, it will encourage and strengthen people from many other backgrounds and in many other contexts as well.
Goals
This training has the following goals:
Knowledge & Skills
- You will understand God’s agenda and how to align with it.
- You will understand the Gospel, God’s Kingdom, what it means to follow Jesus, and how to explain each of these to others.
- You will learn how to be an overcomer and live a life of victory in Christ.
- You will understand how to consistently connect with a small group of believers for deep fellowship, prayer, and accountability.
- You will understand what your sphere of influence is and how to bless people and represent God’s Kingdom within it.
- You will understand how to do outreach by regularly bringing new unchurched people into your sphere of influence.
- You will understand how to evangelize by being a Kingdom influence on people in all five stages of unbelief.
- You will understand how to lead seekers into a life of following Jesus and how to disciple them.
- You will understand how to help disciples discover their own ministries.
Lifestyle
- You