Jim Howard

GYC 2017: Arise

The 21st Century Challenge

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

4. New Life in Old Methods

This message was presented at the GYC 2017 conference, Arise, in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

All right, I have a lot to talk to you about, so I'm going to dive in.

Okay, let's go ahead, let's bow our heads.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for the privilege of GYC and all of the wonderful seminars and sermons and chance for fellowship and just rekindling friendships with those from various different places around the world.

We just thank you for this wonderful privilege we have.

We pray that your spirit would now be especially with us in this meeting, Give us alertness and give us clarity and help us, Lord, to leave this place with practical ways that we can grow our local churches for you.

So I have a sort of second presentation that I'm not going to share yet because I'm going to finish what I was sharing the first time.

I didn't know exactly where to put the cutoff.

So Those of you who were in here before know that we were talking about how to grow your church and the importance of all 5 phases of the soul winning process.

You have to prepare the soul of the heart, you have to plant the seed of God's word, You have to cultivate interest through ongoing Bible studies.

You have to harvest decisions for Christ.

And then you have to preserve that harvest through ongoing systematic discipleship.

And we have different goals that I shared, that every local church, the general conference is casting this vision for every local church to be involved in church-wide community need-based ministries because this builds confidence and trust and prepares the soil.

Have an active literature and media ministry because this plants the seed of God's word.

Have a vibrant Bible study ministry because this cultivates interests.

Have regular evangelistic meetings because this is a great way to bring to decision and harvest decisions.

And then have a systematic discipleship ministry because this is a great way to make sure that church members are back and engaged in the work and begin to multiply disciples making disciples.

Now what I want to share with you briefly is that over the next 3 years, the General Conference Sabbath School Personal Ministries Department is going to be working on resources to help local churches in every 1 of these 5 phases, to help with the 5 goals.

Because many would be willing to work if they were taught how to begin.

There are many, many, many Seventh-day Adventists who are not the complacent ones.

They're converted, genuinely converted, but they don't really know what to do.

And they would work if they were taught how to begin.

They need to be instructed and encouraged.

Every church should be a training school for Christian workers.

Its members should be taught how to give Bible readings, that's Bible studies.

Every church should be training its members how to give Bible studies, how to conduct and teach Sabbath school classes, how best to help the poor and care for the sick, how to work for the unconverted.

You don't have to send them to Emanuel Institute in Michigan or to Arise or to AFCO or something like that.

Those are centers where great things happen.

But in addition to that, you've got to have Local churches that understand the obligation that rests upon them to train their members.

There should be schools of health, cooking schools, and classes, and various lines of Christian help work.

So we need to be putting our people to work that's the best way to retain them.

That's what we were talking about at the end of last time.

So to prepare the soil, we're going to be working on a health ministry guide and a community services guide.

2 little guidebooks with practical step-by-step instructions to help local churches know how to do local ministry.

So these are not broad pie-in-the-sky kind of thing.

It's more like a health ministry guide would tell someone, Here's how to do a cooking school.

Here are ideas for different themes you can use.

Here's how you do supper clubs, monthly supper clubs.

You know what I'm talking about, practical.

So local church leaders can take it and run with it.

That's what we are trying to do is create practical resources.

Community Services Guide will have ways for the church to have church-wide community service projects, not just 3 little old ladies running the community service center, bless their hearts, but we need the whole church involved in community service.

So there has to be other ways that we can get them involved and this guide will help local churches to be able to have ideas and know how to implement.

To plant the seed, we're going to have a literature and media ministry guide that's going to explain to local churches how to set up their local church for literature and media ministry.

Every local church should have a much better literature display and distribution system than what most of our churches have.

If you go into most churches in North America, you might find a literature rack.

And on that literature rack, you'll find the Adventist Review, the Union Paper, Frontier Mission, Little Friend, maybe a few glow tracks, A Steps to Christ.

Most of what's on there will be Adventist periodicals.

What we should have in our churches are full displays of message books and literature that our members can be distributing.

When I pastored in churches, I would have 30 or so amazing facts pocketbooks on every topic, every key topic that I would want people to make decisions on, always available, a stack of them in a rack, displayed.

And then I would have a whole bookshelf with Conflict of the Ages series, the inexpensive ASI version or something.

And, you know, Almost Forgotten Day by Mark Finley, or when God said remember, it's now called.

And Balance magazines, and Amazing Health, and Hidden Truth, and all these full message literature that needs to be spread like the leaves of autumn.

Our churches should be full of literature workers.

Like our members should be literature ready.

This is not, we can't just do a literature project a year or something.

We need to get this out because of the things that I shared in the last seminar where I talked about how Elomite said that the work of the fourth angel will be to a great degree accomplished by the publishing houses, by the literature work, that when thousands are converted in a day, that most of them will trace their first convictions to the reading of our publications.

We've got to get to where literature is more emphasized in our churches.

So this will be a guide on how to do it, how to do literature projects, how to set up and ideas for setting up a literature display, how to set up your personnel to handle it.

You need somebody to be constantly evaluating inventory, somebody who's placing your orders, Somebody like a personal ministries assistant who's especially assigned to literature ministry.

Somebody who's encouraging the Sabbath schools to promote literature in their Sabbath school classes.

Somebody who, In other words, it needs to be a full-on ministry of the church.

And when we say media, now we're talking about files and websites where we can put things available that way.

We're also talking about, you know, utilizing the media ministries in the church.

And then I always had a DVD system, like in every church I've had, I've had a full evangelistic meeting on DVD, inventory by message, out and on display for members to take and give out.

And we duplicated them at the church, paid for them in the church.

I mean, we don't even, so the book will have how to set up your budget, et cetera.

It's a totally different way of thinking for our churches, but we need to mass produce literature and media and get it out.

And Mission 365 is just something we are going to promote because this is a general conference initiative that 365 days a year that we are sharing literature.

And it emphasizes glow tracks and missionary book of the year specifically.

For the cultivate phase, we're in the middle, I would say in the first quarter, about 25% done, of developing a Bible study handbook, which is going to be a rather large resource that is going to help church members give Bible studies.

But I'm just telling you to hold on for it.

Don't talk to me about how soon that's that's not a fair question.

And it is going to have every doctrine with the key the main points of each doctrine, like main 3 to 5 points.

So if you're studying with someone on the state of the dead, what are the 3 to 5 main points that you're trying to make?

Under each main point, it will have the texts that best support that point.

And under each text, it will have the explanation of how that text explains that point.

So that when you're done, you feel more grounded and ready to share on that topic.

3. GROW [Your Church]

Just to make sure you know where you are, my name is Jim Howard and this is going to be a seminar about growing your local church.

And it's part of a week-long series shared by a few of us where we're talking about the 21st century challenge.

So anyway I'll have more to say about it but if we could just pause for a word of prayer and then I'll dive right in so let's bow our heads.

Father in heaven thank you so much for the time we have to spend here together learning and absorbing all that we can so that we can go back to our respective fields and go to work for you.

We ask your blessing on our meeting, help it to be practical, help it to speak to our hearts and may it be Lord that when we leave this place we will know that we've been in the presence of Jesus.

Well Let me just say a couple words of introduction for those of you who may not know me.

My name is Jim Howard again and I used to pastor in Ohio and then Michigan and served in Michigan for a number of years before working in the conference office as the Personal Ministries and Evangelism Director.

And so just this fall I was asked to be the Personal Ministries and Sabbath School Associate Director at the General Conference.

Oh, and hey, that's 1 of my new General Conference friends coming in now, Pastor Doug Venn.

He's the mission to the cities guy, by the way, in case you wondered.

A lot of what I'm going to share with you is going to be a hybrid of things past and present and future.

And so it's gonna be, you know, a lot of principles right now because the more I work at the GC level, the more I recognize the need to deal with principles so that no matter where you are in your various settings, you can apply them.

But I'm also the kind of guy that thinks nothing is worth anything unless it's highly practical.

And so when we're wrapping up today, if you have your mind set on another seminar in the next session, then you might want to email me or something to get the stuff I'm going to talk about next session.

Because next session is going to be even more practical, where I'm going to give a couple of tools or resources that can help you in your local church.

And, you know, I'm going to be setting the foundation for that in this session.

So, what I want to talk to you about is the Personal Ministry Strategic Plan in the general conference that has a new initiative called the Grow Your Church Initiative.

And the goal is for every church to be an active disciple-making machine.

We need to be machines as local churches.

Just churning out disciples that churn out disciples.

Yes, we want to win people, but I have a great burden, and anybody involved in personal ministries will have a great burden to not only win people but to get lay people active.

Because you're going to find out if you do enough study in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy that getting lay people active is essential for their own salvation.

And so I'm going to be talking about that a little bit and you know you can take some notes or whatever but I'm going to put my email up at the end and you can write down my email and if you want this presentation I'll just email it to you.

You can just send me an email, and I'll fire off the presentation to you that you can download.

So the Grow Your Church initiative is perhaps a little bit more localized version of the general conference initiative that hopefully most of you have heard of called Total Member Involvement.

How many of you have heard of Total Member Involvement?

We have total member awareness of Total Member Involvement, except for a few people in the back.

Now you, after today, after today, you will have all heard of total member involvement.

So we're going to talk a little bit about total member involvement.

I want you to understand why this is a burden.

You see, every department is tasked with getting members involved.

But as the Sabba School Personal Ministries Director, I want you to, or Associate Director, I want you to understand that total member involvement is the job of the Personal Ministries Department.

It's like technically the number 1 purpose of the Personal Ministries Department.

Let me show it to you in the church manual.

The Personal Ministries Department is to, what's that word?

Now, how do we usually use the word enlist?

And look who else is eligible for the draft.

Children in some form of personal outreach or missionary service.

The personal ministries department is tasked with the job of enlisting all members and children in some form of personal outreach service.

So this is at the heart of my burden and why I'm in the position that I'm in.

If every member was involved in some form of personal outreach service, just like it said that the personal ministries department is tasked to do.

That's the first time I'm going to ask you the question.

I'm going to ask you it again later so you might want to take notes.

Now, I want to show you a quote from Christian Service, page 69.

1 of my all-time favorite quotes by Ellen White, although I probably said that about quite a number of quotes, but this really is 1 of my all-time favorites.

Let ministers, that's what I am, teach church members that in order to grow in spirituality, now what are you wanting to grow in?

Must, You want to make sure you take note of that.

"...they must carry the burden that the Lord has laid upon them." The burden of leading souls into the truth.

This is a fascinating quote on a number of levels, but let me just break it down a little bit.

First of all, you know, as a minister, any minister has no right to put burdens on the people.

The Pharisees were doing that all the time.

But, as a minister, I am duty-bound to tell any congregation of any burden that the Lord has laid upon them.

Ministers have that duty and responsibility to communicate the burdens that the Lord is placing, the responsibilities that the Lord is placing upon the church members.

And according to this, that burden that the Lord has laid upon individual church members is the burden or the responsibility of leading souls into the truth.

Now we could talk for a long time about the need to spread the truth, and the need to scatter the truth, and the need to speak the truth, but that's not what it says.

Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

Emmanuel Training Sessions

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

3. Introduction & Overview

I've got 50, what do we have to, what time's lunch, 1.15?

Okay, I'm going to be incredibly concise here, incredibly concise.

So, and this morning is sort of a little bit philosophical if you will, inspirational, wanting to give you a broad bird's-eye-view picture as well as kind of give you some compelling reasons why personal work and personal soul winning is so needed in the church.

So I'm going to kind of continue that vein a little bit but talk about about a few other specific areas of it And then we'll get a little bit more into some of the methodology and that sort of thing as we continue in your schedule.

But before we start this last session for the morning, let's have a word of prayer together.

Father in Heaven, thank you so much for the opportunity and privilege we have to spend time just considering the work that you have called us to.

We want to be genuine disciples and that means we want to be like you.

We want to be soul winners through and through in our heart of hearts.

And Father, we know that if the calling that we have is to make disciples, then that means that we not only need to win others, but we need to win them to that same soul winning work.

So please help us, Lord, to understand this cycle that we are involved in and help us to do our part.

Speak to us through your Spirit now we ask in Jesus' name.

Alright, see that part that Mark told me I was going to have time to do where I asked what church you're all from?

So if we could just instead of going around and finding out what church you're from, if on the count of 3 you would all just tell me what church you are from?

Let's take your Bibles and turn to Acts 8.

There's perhaps going to be some things that I share with you that you have heard before, or maybe you've even heard me say it before.

That's ok, because I'm going to talk really fast and it'll be over before you know it.

So, Acts 8, beginning in verse 1, this is right after Acts 7 in which Stephen, that first Christian martyr, was stoned, and there was someone standing by who was consenting to his death.

And Saul, we learn later in Acts chapter 9, in his conversion story, we learn that he was kicking against the goads.

Which tells me that the Spirit of God was working on the apostle and he was resisting the Spirit of God.

And 1 of the key places where he was resisting the Spirit of God was in this story in Acts 7 where Stephen is stoned and he looks up and sees the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God and he says, Lord, charge not their sin against them.

And Paul, soon to be Paul, is looking at this and he's supposed to be the 1 who's consenting to this awful person being put to death, and he's seeing this Spirit of Christ and the glory of God emanating from Stephen, and he is convicted in his heart.

And as a result of the conviction, conviction results in different things.

Sometimes conviction will lead someone to fall on their knees and to pour out their heart and to surrender their life, but sometimes conviction leads someone to try to bury that conviction by getting even more wicked in what they're doing, and the apostle, soon-to-be apostle, did that very thing.

Saul decided to amp up the persecution that was going on.

And so that's what happens in Acts 8, right after the stoning of Stephen, you have beginning of verse 1 of Acts 8, Saul consenting to his death, and then it says, at that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except who?

Who was scattered throughout Judea and Samaria?

So you have the leaders, the pastors in Jerusalem, and the church members scattered throughout Judea and Samaria, right?

Now, in verse 4 it says, Therefore those who were scattered...

The church members went everywhere doing what?

Now, presumably, the apostles were also preaching the Word, but they were in Jerusalem, and so this isn't talking about them.

This is talking about the lay people going everywhere preaching the Word.

Go to Acts 11.19 and you'll see the same group spoken of.

Acts 11.19 says, Now those who were scattered over the persecution that arose over Stephen, who's that?

Those who were scattered over the persecution, traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to no 1 but the Jews only.

Look at verse 21, and the hand of the Lord is with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

It's for this reason, as Mark brought up, that the end of verse 26 says the disciples were first called Christians and Antioch.

So Antioch, which turned out to be the home base for Paul and Barnabas and their missionary endeavors where they spent much time, this home base was developed through the preaching of lay people.

And Paul and Barnabas just came later and were like, oh wow, this is really of God.

And they helped put a little bit of structure to it.

But the bottom line is it was this incredible movement of lay people that developed this church in Antioch and by which, quite frankly, the work spread as fast and as quickly as it did.

We always like to look at it and say the Apostle Paul did it all.

The Apostle Paul knew how to mentor people who went and did the same thing.

And what you see right here is that the work of the early church, the model of church that you see in the early church, was 1 in which the laity were preaching the word.

Then, as churches were established in Antioch by lay people and in other places, then they appointed elders to oversee.

Now, let me help you understand what that's saying.

Elders you could consider part of the church structure, okay?

Or was it the work of the lay people driving the need for structure?

So what can happen if we're not careful is that we can look at the church and its structure and think that it is the actual working body of the church, and then the actual laity spreading the truth that you see in the early church model can disappear and it can create very big problems.

Let me take you to something in your manual here.

And I don't know exactly what page it's on, but I'm going to find it, and then I'll tell you where it is.

Hey, Mark, is this the, what am I trying to say?

It says chapter 10 on the top of the page.

Do you want to come here and show me if this is, if we're looking?

OK, and then once you get to chapter 10, which is, then you go to page 11.

Soul-Winning

Personal Ministries & Team Evangelism - Part 1

Father in Heaven, we're so grateful for camp meeting.

Back to Menu

Presenter

Jim Howard

All Recordings

4. New Life in Old Methods

1h 4m

3. GROW [Your Church]

1h 7m

3. Introduction & Overview

59m

Personal Ministries & Team Evangelism - Part 1

1h 15m

9- The Third Option: A Way Forward or a Step Backwards?

58m

Getting Back to Making Disciples

1h

Tools for Transforming Your Local Church

56m

Tools for Making Disciples

1h

Sound Doctrine