Zion East Prospect Church
New Song 082519
  • Pathway To Discipleship

    I. Where are we going?

    With out a clear mission and vision we are not going anywhere.

    The Great Commandment

    34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
    37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
    We are to love God with all that we have...
    Love is the key.
    You can not do that if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior.
    38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

    The Great Commission Matthew 28:18-20

    18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
    19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
    20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
    * These two scriptures give us a basic direction
    and discipleship will take on a more metaphorical meaning. Following Jesus will entail understanding and obeying his teaching. Making disciples from all the nations obviously requires going to them. Baptism will be the key first step that initiates new disciples into the church. This baptism is a single act, distinct from repeated Jewish ritual washings. It is done with the trinitarian formula invoking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
    Those who are baptized are to be taught not only to know all of Jesus’s commands but also to obey all of them (28:20). Thus in discipleship the intellectual component is secondary, the means to the end, which is spiritual formation (cf. ). All this implies the central role of the church as God’s primary agency for mission. Only in the community/family that is the church can disciples be baptized and taught to observe all that Jesus has commanded

    II. Why do we need a pathway?

    18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. KJV
    Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Proverbs Interpretation

    Two other related possibilities present themselves, more closely related to the verb’s simple meaning of “seeing.” In the first place, it could be a vision of the end, a goal. In the second, it could also include the idea of the “plan” to achieve that goal. The meaning of the colon seems to warn that those who don’t have a goal and/or a plan for the future have nothing to guide them onward, so they go every which way. The “vision” restrains them because it suggests a strategy to achieve that goal.

    It seems where there is no vision people do what they want
    There is no unity

    III. What does the pathway look like?

    They are levels of growth and commitments.
    They lead us into discipleship
    We need to understand what it means to live the Christian life.
    more images
    While Christians are always growing and transforming. You grow in these four areas and you have reached the basic pathway to discipleship.
    Why do, “ Pathway To Discipleship.”
    * It is a way of sharing mission and vision.
    * Defining a pathway that could become a new pathway at church.'
    Defining a pathway that could become a new pathway at church.'
    * It is a way of doing confirmation and having the youth be apart of the worship experience.
    * Not enough of our Youth are in worship.
    They drift from attendance as youth and then we rarely see them in worship as adults.
    * The youth will have time to ask questions and respond to the material in a segment of the youth group.
    * It begins a pathway that could be used in various places in Sunday School.
    * It is a way that the parents can partner with their youth and reinforce what they are learning.
    * It may open up family devotions in a new way.
    * It is a way that adult who have not joined could.
    * Adults could meet a few minutes after worship to talk about any questions they may have.
    * It is a way of defining a pathway that could be looked at as a way of life within the church.
    * Basic Biblical understanding discipleship.
      • Proverbs 29:18KJV1900