Why we are on this earth?
We
are created on this earth by God to fulfil purposes and will of God. It is
essential to understand such God’s purpose in our life to find real meaning of
life in this earth and eternity. One of the primary purposes of our life in
this earth is that we are created to serve or minister to God. Since we are
part of the body of Christ, we all have a ministry. At least, every one of us
has three important ministries:
1.
Ministry
towards God: Our personal relationship with God, worshipping him.
2.
Ministry
towards our cobelievers: Mt 22.39; Gal 5.13; Acts 2.42-47; Titus 3.8)
3.
Ministry
towards others/world:
Ø
Mat 28:19-20: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I
have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Ø Luke
5.10: And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men."
Ø 2 Corinthians 5:18-20: All
this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting
their trespasses against them, and entrusting
to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore,
we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God.
Ø 1 Peter 2:9: But
you are a chosen race, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
What is Spiritual parenting?
Spiritual parenting is an effecting method or
program through which we can minister to the world or others very successfully.
The basic principle of the spiritual parenting is a serious of systematic, time
bound, focused and continued efforts and works towards a non believer with aim
to bring him or her into Christ. 1Corinthians 4:15 says: For
though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I
became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Thus, the spiritual parenting aims to give birth
some believers in Christ through sharing gospel. It is also a strong loving
relationship in which we share gospel and make them our disciple. The caring,
nurturing and facilitating a growth of new believers are part of spiritual
parenting.
SPIRITUAL PARENTING: STRATEGIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Aiming/Targeting
The first step of the
spiritual parenting is nothing but aiming few people to bring them into Christ.
Mainly we can aim/target two particular groups:
a)
Our Friends/oikos: family members, friends, colleagues, classmates,
roommates, neighbors, facebook friends, social networking friends etc
b) A community: people in a particular locality, people who work
in a particular institution or company, particular language group, different
kinds of people such as youths, eunuchs, specially able children etc
2. Prayer
Since we are the priests
of God, it is our responsibility to pray for perishing souls whom we are targeting.
The prayer is the price for perishing souls. This prayer is a war and the basic
principles of this spiritual war are described as follows:
Ø Exercising
spiritual authority in your prayer: We have to lead our targeting people to spiritual freedom through using
our spiritual authority in our prayer (Mt 16.18-19). Open the spiritual eye of
our targeting people for gospel through exercing our spiritual authority in
prayer (2Cor 4.4). Pray and break the entire mental stronghold such as
traditional faith, social fear, other faith etc and also pray for total mental obedience
of them to Christ (2Cor10.4-5).
Ø Pray with faith: Pray by seeing through your eyes of faith that
your target people has come to faith. Faith is the important part of spiritual
warfare prayers (Mk 11.22-24, Hb11.1).
Ø Take
fasting and pray: Nehemiah and Daniel
took fasting and prayed for their people (Neh1.3-4; Dan 9.1-3).
Ø Prayer
should continue persistently until God gives answer to our prayer.
Ø Conduct prayer walk.
Ø A
Prayer Model
Thump finger: Commit the perishing soul into the authority of
Father God.
Pointing finger: Exercise your spiritual authority and pray for
their deliverance from demonic influences.
Middle finger: Ask God to release Holy Spirit to work in the
targeting perishing peoples. So that, they hear the gospel and convince.
Ring figure: Pray that God may help us to share God’s love to
our targeting people especially in their point of need.
Small figure: Pray that God may use us to bring the targeting
people to God.
3. Lead them into Christ
Step
1: Develop a strong relationship: small talk, helping in their needs, encourage for their benefits,
invite for food, go for an outing, spend time, make regular call or respond to
his or her facebook wall, give a surprise gift etc
In this stage you need to discern his or her
spiritual status and ability to accept the gospel.
Step
2: Share either your testimony or a spiritual truth
Your testimony should be consisted:
Ø How was your life without Christ (discretion should
be applied)
Ø The particular event or circumstance where you met
Christ
Ø What Christ did in your life
Ø How your life changed with Christ
When you share your testimony, make sure that you
are not hurting the religious feeling of the other person or people of your former
faith and also try to connect it to the life of the other person and to share
gospel to him or her though your testimony.
You can share spiritual truths to your targeting people through your everyday
talk, or discussion or whenever the opportunity arises etc. You can send sms,
mails, write on the walls of social networks etc
Step 3:
Share Gospel
What is gospel?
Fact1:
God loves everyone. But
sin makes a gap between us and God. Every one is a sinner before God. Sin is missing
mark or missing the standards/will of God.
Fact
2: We cannot reach God
through only our moral living, good work or religion because they cannot solve
the issue of sin.
Fact
3: Jesus came to this earth
in the form of man. He was born in virgin Mary without sin, led a life without
sin, did things only God can do, died for the sins of humanity on the cross,
resurrected from the death, still lives and will come back to the earth very
soon. Through Jesus you can be forgiven your sins.
Fact
4: To experience the
forgiveness of your sin and become God’s child, we need to have repentance and
faith. Repentance is a decision to turn away from sin and commit your rest of
the life for living for God according to the word of God or Standards of God.
Faith is trust in Jesus that he died for your sins, resurrected from death,
lives now.
Fact
5: when you accept Jesus in
your personal life, you will become the child of God and will get eternal life.
Fact
6: Ask that weather they
are ready to receive Jesus? If they are ready, lead them to prayer for
salvation.
A
model prayer: Father God, thank you for loving me / and sending your son to die for
me / I acknowledge that I have violated your law / and sinned against you. But
now I place my trust in your son Jesus / who died on the cross to pay the
penalty for my sins /and that you raised him from the dead. / I receive the
forgiveness made available through Jesus /and your gift of eternal life / And I
receive Jesus as the Savior and the Lord of my life./ Please come to my heart
Jesus For all this I thank you./ In Jesus' name I pray. /Amen.
Fact 7: What is next? Prayer, worship, bible, fellowship,
church.
What are the effective methods of presentation?
- One to one sharing through bridge illustration
(see last two page about bridge illustration).
- Using videos
- Using mails
- Using social networking spaces
- Giving effective books
- Bible
- Inviting someone to a special evangelistic
programme
- Use special days like friendship day and
occasion like birthday.
- Organize evangelistic programmes
- Find out your own innovative methods
- Giving Christian movies and followed with a
discussion
4. Nurturing the new believers
a) Meet personally and teach the basic truth of Christ.
b) Introduce them into your mature cobeliever and
pastor
c) Invite them into a care cell
d) Invite them to the church
e) Build them us as a mature believer
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