In this session, I want to talk to you about some skills, just some really practical skills that will help you as a leader, especially in leading a house church. First skill I want to talk to you about is how to teach effectively, and as a young man, as a young house church leader, I just was struggling with teaching. Didn't really how to do that, didn't have training in that, and never, had never run to seminary, any of those things. And one day, I picked up a book by DL Moody. DL, Moody was the Billy Graham of 100 years ago. Billy Graham, or rather, DL Moody had seen the claim is a million people come to Christ and without television, without, you know, without internet, and all the things we have today. And they pick up his book, and I read in the book of his sermons, and I realized that DL Moody was a good storyteller. He simply told story after story after story. You know, you're listening to me teach in this course. Do you know what? You're gonna remember the stories I told? You know, the Bible is filled with stories, God's stories. We remember the stories. And yes, obviously it's a scripture that God uses the change our lives as the Holy Spirit anoint the Scripture. That's true. But what caused us to remember the Scripture, the stories, the stories in the Bible, the woman at the well, and we can go on and on and on. God's faithfulness again and again, his redemption, again and again. To Joseph, he went through all the trials and all the things that he went through, to Moses when he made the mistake, but God still gave him a second chance. 40 years later, we go on and on and on and on. Paul who almost everybody left him except Timothy at the end. He stayed faithful to the end, and we see most of the New Testament today because of his obedience to God. And go on and on. Well, I read his little book many, many years ago called Teaching with confidence, 12 keys to teaching. Let me take a moment share with you, because I think this is going to help you become the Bible teacher God's called you to be. Because I began to tell stories. I would share scripture, I share a key point, and I tell a couple stories, and people would remember the stories. Some were stories I read in books. Some were stories, about other people that I met, and they told me their story. Some are my stories going and on. DL Moody told stories. I noticed that the great evangelist Billy Graham did much of the same thing, and realize that we're called to tell God's stories today. So let me tell you just these 12 things that helped me as a teacher. One of those is telling stories. I'll get to that in just a moment. The first thing I learned is this, an effective teacher loves people. You've got to love the people you're teaching. They need to know that you look at them in the eye and you care about them. Use your their name whenever you can house church you can do that. You can use Jack and Sam and Eli and whatever the names are the people in your group, in your house church you can do that because they knew you'd love them and you care about them. The second truth I've learned about learning how to teach effectively is to pray and pray and pray and pray and pray because prayer prepares our hearts. Prepare it prepares the people's hearts as we pray. I mean, I took extended time to pray 

before doing these 36 sessions that I'm doing here, right here as we're training house church leaders all over the world. Because prayer works in people's life. Prayer changes hearts, changes my heart, keeps me fresh in life, and also does something deep in your heart because you're receiving the other end of the teaching, same thing happens to you as you pray. Number three, teach the word, not your opinions. It's so easy to teach our own ideas. Now, find what the || scripture says and teach the word figure the Bible says II Timothy 4:2, preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season because God's word is powerful. It's full living power. We know that, and faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. So don't just keep your ideas. Teach the Word, the Word of God, and then give a story about about how that happened in somebody's life. That's why good teachers are good readers. Learn all you can. If you're not a good reader, then listen. I mean, we have the internet today. There's lots of things available in the internet that you can get on your phone, where you can grow as you learn and you listen and CLI is a great place to get much of that. Number four, use visuals and illustrations or stories. Just use every illustration you can. You know, I often get a little out ask people, even if I go to a village someplace in the world, just something I can draw on or write on back in this session, just a moment, I'm going to show you an illustration. I'm going to go right here and show you an illustration that'll help you understand something. Because I'm using a visual. I'm using an illustration number five, please do not use Christianese. Do you know what Christianese is? It's a language we Christians speak. If we say, Are you washed in the blood? Think about what that sounds like to somebody who knows nothing about Christianity. It were crazy. Well, and I'm not saying these aren't important things. Jesus washes our sins away because the blood of the cross. I'm very grateful. But use the language of people. I don't mean swear like people swear. I mean use the language of. Amazing thought patterns of language so people can understand you. Often, Christians using are just weird, these come with real people with real Jesus inside of us. So please don't use Christianese. John Wesley used to do this. He would take his sermons, preach them to a six year old servant girl, and she understood. Then he preached it. Keep it simple. And so you know the stories, stories told of a young preacher, and Wesley was going to teach him how to preach. So Wesley goes with him, and they go to the market one day. So I'm going to show you. And by the way, when I said six year old servant girl, it was eight year old. Make sure I'm clear on that. Anyway, he took this young preacher, he said, I'm going to show you how to preach. So he took him to the market, and it came upon these two women who were fighting and cursing each other. The preacher said, Get out of here. Leslie said, Oh no, no, just wait a minute. I want to teach you how to preach. He wanted the preacher to unknown for you understand the language of the common people, not cussing, but the language of the common people. So he goes, awfully this clergy lady breakdown 

God. We are all children of God, the faith in Jesus Christ, all called to be ministers number six, to speak the truth in love, we need to, obviously speak the truth. But speaking to a don't preach. Down on people. Go peace. Down on people. They'll say you and you say we and us. We do because we do that together. Number seven, teach with enthusiasm. You know, enthusiasm is a choice. The Bible says this, repent in Revelation 3:20 repent and become enthusiastic about the things of God. In other words, repent of nothing. Enthusiastic. Become enthusiastic about the things of God. And because believe it's a sin to be boring. And I believe we need to be full of life, full of truth, tell stories. The gospel is the most amazing thing in the world, the most amazing truth reality in the world. We should be excited about the gospel, and we choose to walk in enthusiasm. I love Colossians 3:23 whatever you do, do it heartily with all your heart unto the Lord. And we need to realize we're preparing people for eternity, and there's nothing in the world more important than that. Now to read this, to this, this, I found so, so intriguing. There's an actor in London. He was talking with a pastor and who admitted, he said, I don't get it. I don't understand it. On Saturday night, the pastor said, Your theaters are full, yet on Sunday mornings we can scarcely get anyone to attend our meetings. He said to the actor, you use fiction and you move the assembly to tears. We ministers represent reality and scarcely obtain a blessing, a hearing, and they hardly listen to us. The actor replied, maybe it's because we represent fiction as reality and you represent reality as fiction. I think he was right. So let's be enthusiastic. Let's share truth with love, but with enthusiasm, we have the greatest story of all times number eight, it's normal to be nervous. Just teach in faith. Whatever is not of faith is sin. And so see, I'm just nervous. That's okay. I've been nervous many times we teach in faith, and God honors faith because he's faithful. Number nine, speak with authority. God's given you authority. Speak with authorities you have. You have the authority of the universe. Jesus that all authority be given unto me. Matthew 28 that authority is in you. Christ lives in you. Galatians 2:20, so it's not I, but Christ living in me and living in you. Number 10, be prepared. Don't just wing it, so to speak, but make sure we prepare. Now you might be prepared and not even use your notes and you know something, that is okay, but at least you were prepared. And the church. People can often tell if we're not prepared. Some people say, well, we just depend on the Holy Spirit. We do depend on the Holy Spirit, but we need to be prepared. Number 11, be personable now. So as I said before, use people's names, look people in the eye, just you were caring about individual people here. We're not preaching to this whole group of 1000 people. We're simply have a house church. We're ministering to the people that God's given us in the house church, and number 12 receive constructive criticism. This might be hard for some of us, but ask people, and I do that today. I've been preaching. I'm 66, years of age. I've been preaching for years. Nice people. What can I improve? What can be better? 

Because we're always learning. We should be secure enough to receive constructive criticism, and you know, we need to own the teaching, make sure it's us, and this is for somebody else. It's also for us. As much as you can share how this truth has affected your life, because that's what it's all about. It's all about the Kingdom of God being released through our lives as we as we teach and proclaim the Gospel. And you know, the house church is a great place to do it. Now, couple other skills for leading, and I want to share with you, one is learn to be flexible and be creative. I just want to say that what works in one culture may not work in another culture. So leadership. Tip, be flexible, creative. Listen to God, learn all you can try something. What's the worst thing can happen? You try one time and you never do it again. At least, I'd rather have you try it wouldn't work and never try, because you never know if you try it doesn't work. At least you know we won't do that again because it doesn't work. I also want to talk to you about the multiplication process. This is so important, as I said before, the biggest the questions that I get. People ask me about house church all over the world, many cultures. How do we see people come to Christ? How do we multiply our small group? How do we multiply our church? Let me give you a couple little keys I think will help you. You've got to understand that who God is, he is a God of multiplication. I mean, everything with life will multiply. Families, multiply people, multiply plants, multiply rabbits, multiply everything with life will multiply. Now, why is important understand that because Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful and multiply. And I can remember, well, I'm a farm boy at that one little kernel corn, we planted a kernel in the soil. Out of it came this stalk of corn, two ears of corn. So one time I decided to count these kernels of corn. So I count these kernels of corn, I thought, hmm, once I get these kernels of corn, 1200 and multiply that again by the second generation. It's 1,440,000 kernels of corn by the second generation. That's who God is. God desires that we learn to multiply and we think multiplication. Most house church leaders aren't thinking that, that they can get a group of people together, and let's just see how we can have a family. But no, we expect our kids to grow up, and we expect them to have their own families, and then that's how it multiplies. That's why, as I said, Before, my wife's family, her mother's family, had 19 the family and a couple generations. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. It was multiplication because of a few people. But see, that's way should be in the kingdom of God we should expect. You know, let me just give you a couple practical steps that have helped me and helped us when it comes to multiplication. Here are some things you can do. Number one, speak the vision for multiplication when you start the house church, say this, where God bring this new church together, this house church together. We know it's just for a season, because we're gonna be sending people out to start their own house churches. You know what's gonna happen if you never speak that? It probably won't happen. I found the most interesting phenomenon I get into churches of all denominations, all 

backgrounds, I have found when there are churches who never teach salvation by faith. Guess what? Very few people come to Christ. I find churches that never teach about being filled with the Holy Spirit. Guess what, very few people are ever filled with the Holy Spirit. I find churches that that seldom teach about people being healed, but God is actually healing people today, very few people are healed, and I find churches, including house churches, who don't teach about and express the truth verbally that we're going to multiply because God the multiplication. Very seldom do they see multiplication happen. So why is it important we need to express that even in the beginning of our house church, that when we start, we're going to eventually multiply it. Use the analogy of a family. That's the best analogy. Families multiply. Same is true with us. Be open to creative models of modification. There are many ways that that can happen, and have as many assistant leaders as you possibly can. Let me use an analogy for you this on this wall. Let's imagine that this here square is your house church. You're meeting every Saturday night, and you might meet in a boardroom in a hotel. You might meet in a boardroom in a company. You might meet in a house. And you can call it house church, microchurch, organic church, go, whatever. But you know what it is. It's a Christian community. It is a we're going to call it for the sake of this teaching, we're going to call the house church. So first thing is, I could, if you're the leader, have as many assistant leaders as you possibly can, as many as you can, and many who feel called to do that, and you feel like they have the qualifications for, let's say you have two or three assistant leaders. There's 20 people in the group, and you're speaking the vision for multiplication. Then as you're praying with this small group, and by the way, you need to meet with them at times. It might be before the house first meeting, might be once a month, might be twice a month. You need to discern that, decide that, but you need to be meeting and praying with that group of leaders at times, because that's where the vision comes for the whole church. Otherwise, this is your vision, and they're kind of along for the ride. You need to do it together. So you're praying and you say, you know, I am willing to go start another house church. So what can happen is that you might be the one who would go out and say, I'm going to go out here and start another house church, and one of the assistant leaders will say, here and lead the house church. With the one other assistant leader, you'll go out here, and somebody else's assistant leader will join you. You've got two churches. Now here's the question, how do you know who stays, who goes? Allow the Holy Spirit to show the people where they should go if you dictate it. And I've been wrong so many times, because so often I think, well, I know who's gonna go here. I know who's gonna stay here. And guess what? I'm usually wrong when you let the Holy Spirit and you say, everyone pray, we're gonna have two groups instead of one. We might still get together every month or two, do something together, but we're gonna be two separate churches, this part of a network or a growing network. And when you 

do that. Guess what happens? Some people feel called to stay. Some feel called to go. The other creative model is this. You can simply say, say, Well, look, one of the assistant leaders is going to go out here and start and you're staying here with this one. See what happens is, when it's multiplied, it's not an old and new, they're both new. They're really both new. And there's another way you can multiply, another way it can work. You can do this. You can simply say, Okay, we have this house church here. But you know, this person says, you know, I've got these people at work, and I want to start a house church with micro church with three people at work. And they might still stay here, but on Wednesday noon, they're meeting with a house church here. There are two house churches. At one time, they're leading this one, they're part of this one. They're getting fed here, and that's great too see. There's so many models of multiplication we need to allow just be be clear with communication. Communicate, communicate, communicate. That's a leadership tip. And people receive communication different ways. You know that some need it written down. Some you've got to draw a picture. Some people you have to he always have to sing a song, you play a video, do something. And I had a guy that I work with in house church leadership, and I would explain something to him. He'd never get it. He'd forget meetings. I was so frustrated. I thought, How in the world do I communicate with this guy? Because everybody receives communication differently. It's like a satellite dish. Or satellite dishes are all different. But one day, I figured out how to do it. His wife was administrative. She was really sharp man. She knew exactly what's going on. So I would call his wife or send her a letter and tell her, she'd tell him and I was communicating at work. I'm simply saying you got to find out how to communicate properly. It is simply a leadership skill. Now you say, what do you do when you have a house versus stagnant? Well, there are times there's a life cycle for house churches. Sometimes they need to die. You know, I tell people, you have a funeral for the house church. There's times that happens. I don't like that, but it does happen at time. But praise God. Sometimes this house church here in the center that started might send out two house churches and all at once, this begins to stagnate. Maybe listen, could stop now, that's not preference, but that could happen. Obey the Holy Spirit, follow the Holy Spirit. It's just so much fun seeing the kingdom of God grow when we follow the Holy Spirit and we do what he's called us to do. So the times you may need to dissolve, you dissolve the house church. One more thing yet, and this session that is new believers. When they're new believers, they might need more than a house church. They probably will. They'll probably need some one and one or one and two discipleship. Now, there's many ways to do that. We have. We have produced hundreds of 1000s of these little discipleship books over the years, calling, knowing Jesus Christ as Lord as all the foundations of the Christian life, baptisms, eternity, Heaven and Hell, living in the grace of God, how to be free from any cursor of our lives, prayer, what is the church? Authority and 

accountability? Finances called being called to minister the Great Commission. And we really, literally distribute hundreds of 1000s of these various languages that. And what this does is takes people through the Scriptures, gives them stories, and they go through it, the one who disciples them goes through it, and then together, they learn the basic foundations of the Christian life. There are many materials you can use in the body of Christ. This is just one example that boy. What the point I'm making is this, people need more than the house church meeting. If the new Christians, you know when, when there is a new plant and a new tree that grows, it often needs a stake in the ground to hold it for about a year or so, and then after that, strong enough to go on its own. New believers do need extra grace. They need extra help and extra discipleship. And probably the last thing I share with you in this session would be this, it's important to understand, if you're in leadership of a house church and you're having a meeting that does need to be order maintained, and you're the one who's responsible to do that, because you are the house house church leader, and that's why we need help. We go to people who are giving us input, our mentors, our spiritual fathers and our spiritual mothers, and we'll learn much more about that later in this course, when we talk more about being true spiritual fathers and mothers in our generation. God bless you 



Última modificación: lunes, 16 de septiembre de 2024, 15:49