CBC believes that the practice of the personal ministry of God's Word should be implemented locally and globally. The problem of providing adequate soul care through the personal ministry of God's Word is not unique to CBC. The aim of this project was to build a culture of soul care through the personal ministry of God's Word in the church.
This project trained and motivated church people to actively care for people's souls through the sufficient Word of God. For discipleship to be effective in the church, public and private ministry (Acts 20:20) of God's Word is required. Therefore, the Word of God must be the first priority when caring for the souls of men.
David describes what God's word does using active participles (restoration, creation, joy, and enlightenment) and proper nouns influenced by verbs (soul, simple, heart, and eyes). The problem is to build unity in the church to consistently follow God's plan of care through the personal ministry of God's word. A culture of care is built when people understand and follow God's vision for the church.
When pastors spend a large part of their week focusing on the public ministry of the Word, they minimize the personal ministry of God's Word. A church community that helps each other mature through the personal ministry of God's word is an important distinction. Building a culture of care through the personal ministry of God's word is a difficult task, but an achievable one.
The Call to Care”
Combined, the men on the expert panel had more than thirty years of experience in biblical counseling training. I then created learning outcomes, a detailed teaching outline, classroom handouts, projects for growth, and full manuscripts for each of the six sessions. The structure of each class consisted of a 15-minute review of the previous week's projects for growth, an introduction to the topic, a lesson that taught two key passages on the topic, a discussion of the practical results, and a conclusion with prompts regarding growth projects.
The growth projects were designed to improve the learning outcome for each week and had the following structure: studying an assigned passage and answering the accompanying questions to develop Bible study skills, memorizing scripture passages, reading resources about Bible counseling or sanctification, praying, and conclude with steps to prepare the student to biblically care for another. Essentially, this teaching format and the growth projects were designed to help participants see how this model of public ministry could be used personally to care for someone else privately. The projects for growth focused on the idea that God calls His disciples to do the work of the ministry.
Glorify God”
The Contextual Status of a Person”
The first passage emphasized the commandment to make disciples, while the second discussed God's plan to mobilize the church to action. The first passage contrasts the born-again with the unborn-again, while the second passage showed futile care. The projects for growth centered around biblical case studies with different status contexts so that class participants could practice distinguishing between them.
God’s Authoritative and Sufficient Word”
Idols in the Heart”
This concept worked well in transitioning the class into this week's introduction to idols of the heart. The learning outcome of this session was that the participants would understand that the most important battle for continued spiritual transformation is fought in the heart of the person. The first passage identified the spiritual battle taking place in a person's heart, while the second passage explained how God conquers the believer's heart.
Since most believers are intellectually aware of the warning against idolatry, the practical portion of the class explained the difference between good desires and excessive/dominant desires. The projects for growth focused on James 4:1-10 so that the concepts could be reviewed in one location and participants would be willing to teach this passage themselves.
Living according to the Truth”
There was both a partial and full review of the curriculum because project implementation moved from Winter/Spring 2023 to Fall 2022. Likewise, the men had full teaching scripts for the first two class sessions as a preview of the sessions to come. Since the problem is not unique to CBC Brewerton and the five other churches that participated in the inaugural class, this chapter will explore and consider the project's impact on building a culture of care through the personal preaching of God's Word to the class participants.
The purpose of this project was to equip members to minister spiritually through the confident use of God's Word. Therefore, a curriculum was developed to help class participants appreciate, understand, and apply God's Word in personal ministry with special emphasis on the process of spiritual transformation. All these aspects point to the ultimate goal of the project: for the glory of God, CBC wants to change the practice of class participants so that there is a greater culture of care in the local church.
The intent of the lecture was endorsed by CBC Brewerton members who volunteered to complete a spiritual care assessment.1 The assessment identified time, fear and biblical illiteracy as major factors contributing to the delinquency of spiritual care in the church. Later, a pre-class survey found that 42 percent of class participants had not provided spiritual care to a person in the past three months, even though 98 percent of people in the assessment noted that someone had come to them for advice.
Understand the Knowledge, Confidence and Practices of
I was not afraid of the call to counsel and the work required to become competent in counselling. A panel of three experts reviewed the curriculum using a rubric to evaluate the curriculum's biblical accuracy, scope, pedagogy, and practicality.3 This goal was considered successfully met when a minimum of 90 percent of the evaluation was achieved. Unfortunately, the expert panel was only able to do a partial review of the first two.
This modification to the review will be discussed more under project weaknesses, but ultimately it did not hinder the content of the curriculum. After the class, the expert panel conducted a full curriculum review, including additional PowerPoints and handouts. The most useful part of the expert panel review came from the comments section, along with personal interaction during the writing of the curriculum.
Since one member of the panel works at CBC Brewerton, there was almost weekly interaction that improved curriculum content. The general consensus of the expert panel on the curriculum was (1) the material was well organized, concise and clear; (2) the six key principles really identified the core components for beginners; and (3) the growth projects greatly benefited the participants by helping them practically apply the material and preparing them to care for each other.
Modify the Knowledge, Confidence and Practices of Informal Soul Care
Of the fifty-three people who participated in the class, most, if not nearly all, attended and completed the five-course requirement to qualify as a class participant. If a pre-class survey of participants is any indication, she found that 60 percent of the fifty-three people surveyed were doing informal church care at the start of the class. If we then compared this with the post-project survey of 77 percent of the twenty-six people who demonstrated informal care, the increase would be 17 percent.5.
There were two aspects to this problem: review time and the tools available for committee members to use. The goal was to have a complete overview of the curriculum that could be reviewed by committee members before classes began so that improvements could be made as needed. As previously mentioned, this did not affect the overall quality of the content, but the review change did limit a full review before classes began.
No curriculum is perfect, but I believe this deficiency in scale was offset by the personal interaction during the curriculum writing. One of the restrictions on class participation was the requirement to attend five out of six sessions.
Would Do Differently
For this week, please read Exodus 3:1 – 4:16 and answer the following questions
What reasons does Moses give for why he should not be the person who goes on God's behalf. What reasons hold you back from obeying God's plan to send you to care for people.
Pray – Ask God for wisdom and obedience, so that you can give biblical care to a person over the next 6-8 weeks
Make a list of five potential people you could show care to (church, family,
Pray – Ask God for wisdom and obedience to provide biblical care for someone over the next 6-8 weeks. Worship is a human response and will grow or shrink in direct proportion to a person's understanding of who God is revealed in the scriptures. Therefore, people need to hear about God's character daily if he/she wants to grow spiritually.
Read and think upon the following passages about God
Pray – Actively pray for personal boldness and confidence in God, so that you might display His character in your life while caring for one another
Invite someone to meet with you (coffee, lunch, hang-out, etc.)
Read the following passages about people
Memorize Proverbs 20:5
Read Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hand chapter nine, “Getting to Know People” by Paul Tripp
Pray – Actively pray that God will help you to grow in humble discernment regarding the status of people in their problems, so you might display love rather than being
Set up a meeting for next week
Read Read the Bible Supernaturally chapter eleven, "The Necessity and Possibility of Reading the Bible Supernaturally" by John Piper.
Read Reading the Bible Supernaturally chapter eleven, “The Necessity and Possibility of Reading the Bible Supernaturally” by John Piper
Meet and provide biblical care to one person
Memorize 1 Thessalonians 1:9
Read How People Change chapter four, “Married to Christ” by Tim Lane
Regarding the person you are caring for
1. Read the following passages
- Memorize Romans 12:1-2
- Read Acting the Miracle chapter two, “Incentives for Acting the Miracle” by Kevin DeYoung
- Pray each day
- Meet with the person for a third time
- Bonus: Please fill out the post-project survey
The Church of Biblical Counseling.” In Biblical Counseling and the Church: God's Care through God's People, edited by Bob Kellemen and Kevin Carson, 20-33. The God-Centeredness of Biblical Counseling.” In Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically, John MacArthur and The Master's College Faculty, 51-63. Biblical Counseling and Evangelism.” In Biblical Counseling and the Church, edited by Bob Kellemen and Kevin Carson, 314-31.
Where do we find the truth?” In Scripture and Counseling: God's Word for Life in a Broken World, edited by Bob Kellemen and Jeff Forrey, 62-76. The pursuit of holiness." In Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Changeless Truth, edited by James. Sufficient for Life and Godliness” In Scripture and Counseling: God’s Word for Life in a Broken World, edited by Bob Kellemen and Jeff Forrey, 47-61.
The Sufficiency of Scripture.” In Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Immutable Truth, edited by James. This project was designed to equip and mobilize the members of Calvary Baptist Church to participate with the pastors in the personal ministry of God's Word to help every man, woman and child in the church grow in their relationship with God.
