Boy is this summary late. It seems like I have been running since Tuesday night, but I have a few minutes before I head south to retrieve children. This week we began with prayer and housekeeping. Jamie is bringing drinks next week and Matt dessert. A reminder that we will not have group on Tuesday, October 22nd and instead y'all will be going to the leadership forum that Thursday. Matt is making the arrangements for that event. We then shifted into a review of homework for the weak which included a discussion of spiritual formation (SF), what it is, why it is important and how it relates to leadership and character. This is the beginning of an ongoing conversation about SF but at its essence it helps form our character and provides for us the Spirit resources out of which we can then minister. It is what forms the kind of spiritual leaders we will become and provides the power out of which we will serve.
The discussion of SF intertwined with a discussion of Part I of Invitation to a Journey. This book provided our definition of SF, "Spiritual Formation is a process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others.” We recognized that SF is a process that we all experience, the question is are we being formed towards life and prosperity in Christ or death and adversity? It begins by recognizing the temptation to define ourselves by our "doing" rather than our "being," but it is the process that allows us to overcome that temptation allowing God to challenge us a midst our brokenness and conform us to His image and make us whole again.
We then looked at another personality inventory known as DISC. Where the Myers Briggs looks at where we get our energy, how we receive and process information and how we choose to relate to the world. The DISC looks at how we operate in groups or on teams. We all generally end up with one dominant characteristic. The D stands for dominant and are those people who are both big picture and task oriented. These are the guys who drives us towards the accomplishment of our goal. The I stands for influential and are the people that are big picture and people oriented. These are the natural recruiters who are more about connecting with people than pursuing the task. The S stands for stead and are people who are detail oriented and people oriented. These are the people who will take everything on themselves because they don't want to burden anyone but equally will remember to send everyone a card on their birthday and sooth over any hurt feelings. The final letter C stands for conscientious and are detail and task oriented people. These are the accountants of the world. A balanced team will have some of each category on the team. The D leads, the I recruits, the S keeps the team together and happy, and the C makes sure nothing is being forgotten to accomplish the task. A balanced team is the most efficient and effective and is what we will strive to build as leaders. We then took the inventory.
After the break we moved into a discussion of Inductive Bible Study and looked at the story of Noah, Genesis 5:28-10:1. We began learning the method, we read the scripture as a group and then made observations about the text from a general standpoint and a leadership standpoint. There is a blog post specifically about this so I won't go into further detail, but it was an exciting and fruitful discussion and is the first of many Bible studies we will do about Biblical leaders and the nature of the Church.
Our homework is as follows:
- Read Parts II & III in Invitation to a Journey
- Do an Inductive Bible Study of Acts 1:1-6:7 looking at who we are as the Church.
Once again great meeting! See y'all Tuesday.
Your brother in Christ,
Faron
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