STRENGTH FINDER - Making Disciples Starts With You & Me

Today we focused on the three key elements of the You & Me Class: Product, Process, and People.

1. PRODUCT: Disciples. Our primary work as believers is to make disciples. The Great Commission given to us by Jesus was to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." Matthew 28:18-20. Making disciples starts with You & Me, then to those closest to us (spouse, family, class members, church members, friends, co-workers), then to the city, etc.

2. PROCESS: The process is a 5-step process we have adopted as our class mission statement: Surrender (love God), Serve (love others), Seek (pray), Study (grow in wisdom), Share (tell others). When we do these 5 things in Purity and with Passion, we will have God's power (Holy Spirit) to fulfill His Purpose through us. It is a supernatural process.

Just as we saw in the example of Moses (Numbers 11:11-17) and with the example of the first church in Acts (Acts 6:1-7), we need to be prepared for what God is doing and is going to do with our class. As with Moses and with the church in Acts, making disciples requires organization and teamwork.

We know Moses had reached the end of his rope when he cried out to God, "If this is how you're going to treat me, why don't you just kill me?" God solved Moses' problem by enlisting 70 leaders and officers to establish care teams to take the load off of Moses.

In Acts 6:1 it says, "Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number..." There were problems and disputes growing among the people. The solution was to select from among them seven men of 1) good reputation, 2) full of the Spirit, and 3) full of wisdom to be put in charge of caring for the people. After this was done, its says in Acts 6:7, "The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith."

Our class is growing. God is blessing. The group that God is bringing together is amazing! The You and Me Class is loaded with talents and Spiritual Gifts. We need to put those talents and gifts to work in our class in the areas that will prepare the class for what is coming. Each person needs to pray about where they can best serve based on their talents and Spiritual Gifts.

The foundation of our class needs to start with three groups: Administration, Care Groups, and Rapid Response Teams. Within each of these three key groups will be opportunities for you to serve in primary or support roles. In one of these three groups you will be able to use your Spiritual Gifts and talents. We will be looking into this further in the upcoming weeks. In the mean time, please complete the 80 question Spiritual Gifts Survey to discover your Spiritual Gifts (email me for the spreadsheet), and be sure to complete the Strengths Finder test. These two tools are invaluable to our class as we move forward in building an effective team and make disciples. In addition, in preparation for our next series, complete the 5 Love Language test and email me your results. Here is the link: 5 Love Language Test

3. PEOPLE: You can have a great PRODUCT (ours has been given to us by God), and an effective PROCESS (ours is scripturally-based and dependent on the Holy Spirit), but without PEOPLE (surrendered believers growing in wisdom) you have nothing.

We need to love each other, support each other, and not let the enemy rob us of God's blessings. We can be guaranteed that we will face trials and periods of darkness, but with God, we can grow stronger. We need to stand strong together as a class. Remember, we are at war and must put on the armor of God (Ephesians 6). "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Ephesian 6:12.

Next week we will look closer at how our talents work together in our closest relationships.

Congratulations to Patrick and Kerrie Reed on the birth of their son, Carter Reed.

This week, the spotlight was on DAVID COE. The animal that best describes his talents and personality is the owl. Since David is single, I proposed a set of 5 top talents for the woman that I felt might best complement David's "top 5". Here is a trailer for David as he continues his quest to find his "Green-eyed Relator".