Study the Word of God

 

Welcome to Multiply, a podcast to encourage church planters, pastors and Christian leaders and I am Daneille Snowden. 

Recently, the Lord reaffirmed to me to be a student of the Word of God. The more we all know God’s Word, the more we know Him! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1 As we study God’s Word, more of His Character and His Life infuses into our soul. The fruit of this shall be that we will become like Him, as His Word will naturally flow through us, and impacts other’s lives. 

 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  2 Timothy 3:16-17

Is this exciting? The power of God’s Word changes us and then in turn can change others for His good and glory! We become increasingly hungry for Him, wanting to draw ever so close and deep into His presence. The more we study, we will be empowered to be effective for His called purpose upon all our lives.

    Paul challenges his student-disciple Timothy to: “Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15  To study is defined as; ‘the devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge,  to read in detail especially with the intention of learning, and to examine something very carefully.’

It is good to ask ourselves how much time and effort do we take to study God’s Word? To examine and meditate upon His Word? Let us take these questions to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to lead us in accomplishing this accordingly. It is good to ask the Holy Spirit to leads us in our studies of God’s Word, we must remember this promise; “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:26

Thank you for listening, please share this word of encouragement with others. We are on www.vcpencouragement.org, Facebook and YouTube. Thank you and God bless!

Elements of Vision Casting

 

Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters. As a village church planer you are a follower of Jesus.  I hope you feel joy and peace when you think about that.  You are a follower of Jesus, the most loving, kind, and compassionate man who ever lived.  

As a follower of Jesus, your aim is to live as he lived and do what he did. One of the great achievements of Jesus while he was on the earth was to cast a vision for the future.  Jesus said to Peter, the man who earned his living by catching fish, “Follow me and I will make you a fisher of men.”  (Matthew 4:19). 

Jesus shared a new vision for Peter’s future.  Peter embraced the vision and began to follow Jesus to fish men and women from the world so they could enter the kingdom of God.  Jesus cast vision when he said in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” 

You are a follower of Jesus.  Your goal is to live as he lived and do what he did. How are you doing at casting vision?  Jesus was a vision caster and you are too. I am sure that you have shared with others the big vision of the Village Church Planting ministry: “A church in every African village by 2050.”I hope you own this vision. I hope it is in your heart, in your prayers, and on your lips every day. I can tell you that I carry the VCP vision in my heart. It guides my prayers and comes out often when I speak. 

But this big vision must be broken down into smaller parts if it is to be practical. So let me ask you, what is your vision for the villages located within 25 kilometers of your home? Can you imagine the day when there is a church in every one of those villages? Are you trusting God for a church in every one of those places? Are you sharing this local vision with your church members and your disciples? Does this local vision guide their prayers? Does it compel them to go and sow the good seed of the Gospel?

As you cast vision for what God wants to accomplish, your faith will grow and your obedience to Christ will become even more practical. So turn the VCP vision into a vision for your part of the world. Let God guide you. Then tell people the vision God has given you. 

You might say something like this: A church in every village in my district by 2030; a church in every village in my province by 2035.” As you share the vision, describe why you believe it is God’s will for the vision to be fulfilled. Then encourage people to pray for the fulfillment of the vision. Call people to loving unity and active ministry as they work to fulfill the vision you are sharing.

Jesus was a vision caster.  You too can cast a faith-filled vision for your people and your place. 

This has been “Multiply.” And I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this encouraging word with today?

#EncouragementForVillageChurchPlanters #VisionCasting

Principles of Leadership - Practice Accountability

 

This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters.

During 2022, my theme has been “10 Principles of Spiritual Leadership”.  Today we have reached the ninth principle which is Practice Accountability.  To be accountable is to give an account for one’s performance or behavior related to something for which they are responsible. 

Jesus taught about accountability in His parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30.  You likely remember the story.  A man went away on a journey and left certain amounts of money to his three servants. The first servant received five bags, the second received two and the third servant received one bag … “dividing it in proportion to their abilities.” (vs 15)

The story continues in verse 19, “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money.” [emphasis added] The first two servants had doubled their sums and received much praise from their master.  (vss 20-23) 

However, the third servant confessed, “I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’  “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! …” (vss 25-26a). The one bag was taken from this man and given to the servant who now had 10.  

The master in this parable practiced accountability with his servants (as our Heavenly Master practices accountability with us).  He required them to give account for what they received.  I draw several points from this parable. 

• Responsibility was entrusted to each “in proportion to their abilities”.  As leaders, it is imperative that we (firstly) have an awareness of the abilities of those on our team, and (secondly) that we give them assignments that are consistent with those abilities. 

• In principle #6, we discussed the importance of leaders delegating authority.  In that episode I said, “having delegated a task, we cannot merely walk away, assuming that everything will be accomplished as expected.”  Delegation at the beginning must be accompanied with accountability at the conclusion. 

• Accountability, like feedback in principle #8, may have either a positive or a negative outcome.  The master in our parable expressed great praise for the first two servants who doubled what they were entrusted with.  As leaders, when practicing accountability, it is our responsibility to encourage and reinforce the good outcomes of our followers.  (By the way, this also applies in our role as parents with children.) 

• Effective leaders have the courage to hold others responsible when they have done wrongly.  We will discuss this in further detail in our next episode.  

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.

Village Church Planting Foundations

Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that

provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.

When we talk about Village Church Planting, some people begin to imagine that

planting churches in villages must be very different from planting churches in

cities or even towns. And it’s true, villagers have a different lifestyle than

people who live in cities. City people use a clock and a calendar to plan their

lives. Villagers use the sun and the coming of rainy season to plan their

activities.

So as village church planters, we fit our gospel presentation and our disciple

making activities to life in the village. But the heart of Village Church Planting

is not the culture or lifestyle of villagers. The heart of Village Church Planting

is obedience to Christ and his seven basic commandments. Jesus says “Repent

and believe the Good News.” So we repeat this command of Christ to villagers.

We explain the Good News in ways they can understand. Yes, we use the Jesus

Film and Bible stories and drama and dance and song. But what is really

important is that we share the Good News widely and that we tell it well. What

is really important is that we make disciples of Christ.

Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves. So we express his love in

word and deed. We model the way for others to also share his love.

Jesus tells us to baptize. And so we do. We take care that baptism is not just a

form or a rite that new believers participate in. We patiently and clearly

explain the meaning of baptism, (the water that cleanses our bodies the way

the blood of Jesus cleanses our heart from sin). Village Church Planters make it

clear to those whom we baptize that baptisms does not save us; Jesus saves us.

We teach that receiving baptisms is a meaningful way Jesus wants us to

identify with him, our Savior and Lord.

Village Church Planters prepare their church members to receive the Lord’s

Supper because Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” We help

believers focus on Jesus, his body broken for us on the cross and his blood shed

for the forgiveness of our sins. We use the Lord’s Supper as an opportunity to

build up faith and to find grace and strength to live for Christ.

We help believers learn to pray and feed on the word of God the Bible. We do

this because Jesus tells us to and because we want to help villagers find

spiritual power to follow Christ and experience his loving presence in their

lives.

Our churches learn to give generously in order to fulfill Jesus’ Great

Commission to make disciples everywhere and especially in African villages that

do not have churches. Loving obedience to Christ is the foundation on which

Village Church Planting stands. May God give you grace today to love him more.

And may the churches you plant grow stronger day by day as they are

empowered by the Holy Spirit to obey Christ and his commands.

.This has been “Multiply.” And I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this

encouraging word with today?

#EncouragementForVillageChurchPlanters #SevenCommandsOfChrist

 

Vision Casting

 

Hello this Multiply, a podcast to encourage village church planters and leaders. I am Brad Snowden. Today we are looking at vision casting. VCP’s vision is to have a church in every village in Africa by 2050. This is a powerful statement or vision because it lines up with God’s word so perfectly. The great commission and the great teaching of Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus said to him, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”   

If we love the Lord in this way then we will find it easy to share Him with others and if we love our neighbors then  we will want to share with them what God has done in our lives. If we love them in Christ then we will certainly want them to grow spiritually in his word and this is  discipleship. The fulfillment of the VCP vision shines a light upon the necessity of the multiplication factor. We must cast the vision as Jesus did for His disciples. Jesus made disciples and disciple makers at the same time. It takes on a different mindset and a little more work but the multiplication factor will be great. If we disciple disciple-makers then they will do the same and thus the number of church planters will grow in great numbers thus fulfilling the VCP vision as well as God’s word. This can be done by casting the vision, and with God’s word this becomes the powerful tool God  planned it to be. We must be followers of Christ walking in faith and not by sight. For the natural eye would say “wow look around there are villages everywhere how can this be done”?  It takes faith in the Lord because we cannot do this alone. Jesus said in Matthew 19:26 “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”

 If I wanted to clear a field for planting and there were big stones in the field I could try to do it myself and not accomplish the task at hand or I could find someone to help move these huge stones out of the way so the planting could be done. We must continually ask for God’s help to accomplish this vision that he has birthed in us.  He won’t just step in and do it, but we can ask for His help and He will strengthen His people to accomplish His plan. I would like to encourage you to disciple disciple-makers, and in teaching them the Lord can use them to be church planters and then we must send them out. It will happen, God will work in all this and the vision will become reality. We serve a God who can do the impossible through His people and we simply have to use what he gives us. Vision casting is simply sharing what God has challenged our faith in and he gives us the  solution in order to accomplish the vision He has given. We can see with God’s help that through disciple-makers making disciple-makers the vision of a church in every African village by 2050 can be accomplished. We can see God at work to accomplish his plan through each one of us. This has been a word of encouragement for village church planters.

 Please share this message with others.

Principles of Leadership - Provide Feedback 2

 

This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters.

During 2022, my theme has been “10 Principles of Spiritual Leadership”.  In my previous podcast, I introduced principle #8 which is “Provide Feedback”.  We discussed positive feedback and how this affirms and encourages those who follow us.  

The other side of this principle is corrective or negative feedback.  As I mentioned last time, it is the responsibility of the leader to share both positive and negative feedback to those under their leadership.  

We defined feedback as “evaluative or corrective information about an action … ” One of my favorite Bible stories about corrective feedback is found in 2 Samuel 12:1-20.  God sends the prophet Nathan to confront King David about his sin with Bathsheba.  (Think of the courage this must have required on Nathan’s part.) 

 Nathan tells a story about a rich man and a poor man.

• (vs 3) – the poor man has nothing except one little ewe lamb

• (vs 4) – the rich man takes the poor man’s lamb to provide a meal for a visitor

• (vs 5) – David’s anger burns against the rich man

• (vs 7) – Nathan shares the corrective feedback.  “You are the man!”

• (vs 10-12) – Nathan shares with David some of the consequences of David’s sin

• (vs 13) – Nathan’s feedback results in the desired result.  David repents, saying “I have sinned against the Lord.”  David takes the desired corrective action.  

Here are some leadership principles that I see in this encounter.

1. Nathan approached David in the context of relationship.  They knew one another as seen in 2 Samuel 7.  As leaders, it’s vital that we have relationships with followers in the event that we need to bring correction to them.  King Solomon recognized this and wrote about it in Proverbs 27:6a. “Wounds from a friend can be trusted…”

2. 12:1 tells us that “The Lord sent Nathan to David.”  As leaders, we must always keep in mind that we are the Lord’s representatives.  When it is necessary to provide negative or corrective feedback, we must do so in a way that honors our Lord.

3. The goal of negative feedback is corrective action on the part of the feedback recipient.  Notice that Nathan did not berate David.  However, he did help David see his sin. As leaders, the goal of our feedback is redemptive; it is intended to correct or restore.

4. We cannot ignore the consequences of wrong behavior.  In our story, David’s and Bathsheba’s child died. Occasionally, there may need to be consequences that accompany our feedback.

Remember: The goal of our negative feedback is redemptive; it is intended to correct or restore.

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.