Maturity in the Essential Church

Podcast: rwh.podbean.com Website: www.runwithhorses.net Youtube: https://youtube.com/@rwhpodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RWHpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rwh_podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/RWH_podcast   How do you know if you are growing? Today we focus on identifying spiritual maturity in the Essential Church.   Welcome to Run With Horses! My name is Norman and my goal is to help you thrive as a follower of Jesus. The spiritual life is both incredibly simple and potentially the most difficult part of your life. God invites you to live intentionally and on His mission. It’s very cool that we can do that together!   Last week we looked at an overview of disciple making as part of the fundamental DNA of the essential church. Today we consider maturity, particularly the idea of spiritual transformation. We have to be changing if we are maturing and becoming more like Jesus.   Quick review: MY WORKING DEFINITION OF CHURCH A CHURCH is a group of Jesus’ disciples who worship Him in spirit and truth, humbly offering their lives as living sacrifices, together living out the mission of Jesus as His witnesses to the world, by sharing the gospel and making disciples through teaching obedience to His commands as they edify and equip others to join them on His mission.   It is my view that this process of accepting the mission of Jesus and becoming a disciple maker is at least part of what God uses to transform you. Think about the questions we are left with after thinking through the definition of church.   How do you worship God? Spirit and Truth gives some guidance. Truth should lead us to look at the Bible for answers. What does the life of a living sacrifice look like? Humility is there. What is sacrifice? Probably want to look at the OT for some insight. How do we get together? When, where, how often, what do we do? The NT gives some idea of the big picture, Acts and Paul’s letters need to be investigated. What is the mission of Jesus? The Gospels give His words directly, Acts gives the early churches application of them. What is the Gospel and how do we best communicate it in our location to the people around us? Back to the NT. How do we make disciples in our context? What are Jesus commands? How do we edify others? Who is responsible to do this? Struggling with these Questions in your particular context forces you to consider what God says about each issue and what is left to adjust for your time and place. Struggling to Live what you believe is the context for lasting spiritual growth and transformation as we all learn to trust Him more. We started session one with the topic SEEDS: What’s our Disciple Making DNA? We move on to session two with the topic: TREES: What is your vision of Maturity?