What I Would Do Differently
SESSION 1 WHAT IS INTIMATE SPIRITUAL CARE?”
Purpose of Session 1:
- To introduce the goal of the project and explain why the subject matter was chosen for the assignment.
- To define key terms.
- To demonstrate the biblical evidence for a culture of intimate spiritual care.
Outline of Session 1:
THE GOAL OF PROJECT
“To begin a culture of intimate spiritual care among the members of Burtonsville Baptist Church.”
KEY TERMS
Spiritual care – “the informal ministry of the Word in which ordinary members utilize the Scriptures to encourage, admonish, and instruct one another.”
3 levels of Word Ministry:1 [Tim Keller, Preaching, 1-4]
Level 3 – Preparing and Delivering Sermons
Level 2 – Formally Teaching the Bible (Formal counseling, Bible studies, Sunday School)
Level 1 – Christians explaining and applying the message of the Bible to other Christians and neighbors in informal, personal settings.
Tim Keller – “Every Christian should be able to give both teaching (didaskalia, the ordinary word for instruction) and admonition (noutheo—a common word for strong, life-changing counsel) that convey to others the teaching of the Bible.”2 Intimate – Personal, often accomplished one-on-one or in small group settings, in relationships that require honesty, commitment, and transparency.
1 Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism (New York:
Viking, 2015), 1-4, Kindle.
2 Keller, Preaching, 1.
Discipling – “helping others follow Jesus”3
Spiritual care is an indispensable component of biblical discipleship.
Rationale
Why of all the potential topics to address did I choose to focus my project on a culture of intimate spiritual care?
Reason 1: A culture of intimate spiritual care is a driving force in the life of a healthy church. It deepens fellowship, empowers evangelism, and drives both individual and corporate sanctification.
o Tim Keller – “We must beware of thinking the Sunday sermon can carry all the freight of any church’s ministry of the Word.”4
o Greg Ogden – “I have concluded that the preached Word needs the context of community, where its meaning can be discussed and its implications considered. To the extent that we listen to preaching week after week without processing it, our spirits can build a resistance to it. Only as we wrestle with the Word, particularly in a relational setting, does it seep into our being and transform us.”5
Reason 2: A culture of intimate spiritual care is not a strength within the life of our church.
o I was tasked to focus my project on a weakness, not a strength, and this is an area where God desires us to grow.
BIBLICAL EVIDENCE EPHESIANS 4:11-16
Main Point
The church grows in maturity, avoids being tossed about by the winds of faddish doctrines, only when its members regularly speak the truth of the gospel to one another in love. Speaking the truth of God’s Word into the life of fellow Christians is not the exclusive responsibility of the church’s ministers. The opposite is true:
God has given the church ministers so they will rightly equip the saints to speak the truth of God’s Word to one another.
Context
Beautiful juxtaposition of the church’s unity and its purposeful diversity
One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God (4:4-6)
3 Mark Dever, Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 13.
4 Keller, Preaching, 5.
5 Greg Ogden, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2016), 46.
“But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift”
(4:7)
The resurrected Christ has poured out the spoils of his victory on the church by providing gifted individuals (4:8-11)
5 Groups of gifted individuals
The ministry of each group centers upon the teaching of God’s Word.
Reason God has gifted the church ministers
A sequence of three stair-stepping prepositional phrases.
Immediate Reason: “to equip the saints for the work of ministry”
o Christ has blessed the church with the groups of gifted individuals in verse 11 so that through their ministry the entire church is equipped to do the full work of ministry.
Ultimate Reason: “for building up the body of Christ”
Harold Hoehner – “Apostles and evangelists need to proclaim the message and establish churches. Prophets and pastors-teachers need to inform and instruct believers. But the work of the ministry does not stop there—it continues as these gifted individuals prepare all the saints for the work of ministry with the ultimate goal of building up the body of Christ.”6
If the body of Christ is to be built up properly, every individual saint has a role to play.
What is that role?
We arrive at it in verse 15.
Having emphasized the goal—unity & knowledge, mature manhood, not storm- tossed children gullible to deceitful schemes—Paul unpacks the means to the goal.
“Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way to him who is the head, into Christ.”
The way the church matures is when its members are equipped to speak the truth of the gospel in love to one another.
Informally. Regularly. Purposefully.
Conclusion:
Intimate spiritual care is the privilege and responsibility of every church member.
Ministers equip church members to speak the truth to one another in love. Only then will the whole body grow into maturity.
6 Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 551.
COLOSSIANS 3:15-16