Savedthroughfaith.com

Spiritual formation is concerned with facilitating spiritual change in people. People change most readily when they are in environments that foster change as they learn to live out their unique communal calling. Such environments supply both support and challenge, and participants accept community responsibility as a way of life. We think of being responsible for others and allowing others to care for us. There is a shift from independence to hea...

Today, I had lunch with a good friend. We were talking about discipleship (in the midst of discipling one another). Since discipleship is always between people, it is necessarily relational. Since people and relationships change, discipleship necessarily changes as well. Thus, discipleship is dynamic. As the people grow, discipleship changes. As life situations change, discipleship changes. As people enter/leave the relationship, discipleship cha...

I loved the question that Jack (from “Flight Level Musings“) asked: “Where are the Equippers?” He gives a couple of good examples about what he means: So, what is the best way to equip someone? An example would be my grandfather. He was a farmer. His father was a farmer. My great-grandfather equipped my grandfather to be a farmer. How did he do that? It happened as they went about their daily lives of planting crops, putti...

I was recently reminded of a couple of posts that I wrote called “How do you find the time?” and “How do you find the time to pastor?” I thought I wrote these last year, but apparently it’s been two years since I wrote them! So, I thought I would republish the posts together. It looks like a few things have changed in those the past two years. I’m not teaching adjunctively for Southeastern College at Wake Fores...

I came across an interesting quote concerning the following passage in 1 Thessalonians: Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.  We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you,  and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.  And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, hel...

This morning, I met together with a group of guys to talk about life and Scripture and God and stuff. We didn’t have an agenda or plan, other than wanting to spend time encouraging one another in our walk with with Lord. At one point, a brother read from Psalm 27, and we talked with “waiting for the Lord.” This led to a discussion about contentment and Hebrews 13:5-6 and the issue of contentment. As I was thinking about contentm...

Two years ago, I wrote a series called “Theological Sources” (Introduction, Scripture, Tradition, Reason, Experience, Conclusion). I enjoyed thinking through these issues and putting this series together. I’ve included the introduction to the series below, as well as links to the other articles. I’d love to continue discussing these issues. If you’d like to reply, please reply to this post so that we can keep the dis...

Discipleship (i.e., the Great Commission) cannot be legislated; it must be modeled. If you want to see more disciple-making, then start making disciples that make disciples. Don’t tell people to make disciples; make disciples yourself. Like Unlike Related Posts:Alot of talk about discipleshipDisciple making 2: Pupils or Disciples…What is discipleship?More "thoughts" on discipleshipDisciple making 4: Implications… Sh...

I was greatly encouraged by a post written by Jason as “Spend and Be Spent.” The post is called “Maybe we should…” Here is the main point of his post: And that’s when I said it…”maybe we could cancel Sunday night services, and encourage our people to be ‘with’ non-believers at this time intentionally.” And of course, the idea is not to dedicate more time to a one-night a week progr...

Felicity at “Simple Church” wrote a very succinct, but thought-provoking post called “The One Key Skill in Simple Church.” She begins with this: One of the main paradigm shifts within this movement of simple churches is the belief that ordinary men and women hear God.  They can be entrusted with the affairs of the Kingdom.  It does not need specially trained people to manage the church.  The Holy Spirit is able to ru...