Our class decided it would be cool to change our tack a bit and do a Bible book study instead of our typical topical studies. I’m not sure they’re still glad they did because we (I) are taking quite a bit of time going through, and I’ve gotten a bit too technical in the presentation. I think we’re doing well with a better balance of background, application, and velocity in Chapter 2. Here are the notes divided into sections.
This study came from four different sources that are closely related in their practical truths. I was reading something and came across this quote:
“Bad habits are easy to make, but hard to live with. Good habits are hard to make, but easy to live with.”
And somehow God took that thought and reminded me of one of my favorite Andy Stanley sermon series, Destinations: The Principle of the Path. And when I started thinking about that, I remembered a recent sermon by one of our teaching pastors where he talked about the process of how our thoughts become attitudes and actions, and how those actions become habits, and how those habits will determine our lives. And then I remembered some great wisdom from Andy Andrews that really helps make it all practical.
I began thinking about all four principles and realized there is an important reminder / warning for us at any age and place in life that we be careful with our minds, intentionally choose what is influencing our decisions, and make sure the destinations that are set by our current paths are where we want to end up.
Here are the recordings of my teaching this series (AAC format playable in most browsers, iTunes, and iDevices):
(My new lapel microphone does a much better job getting my audio, but a much poorer job picking up audio from the group, and this lesson had a huge amount of wonderful discussion that ended up being large chunks of silence on the recording, so I had to remove it. That results in some odd transitions, but it’s better than wasting the listeners’ time. I may have to start running two separate recordings to capture both well.)
In John 4, Jesus gave us the two most important instructions on how to properly worship God, and corrected some frequent worship failures. This study considers Jesus’ words carefully and then offers practical ideas for how we can worship God more consistently and effectively.
On Mother’s Day our men had a very informal discussion about finances and giving. During that conversation we agreed that it would be very helpful to have some studies to refresh our awareness of God’s ways in the area of money. This is the first of that series, and we focus on the central passage in the Bible that presents the principle of the tithe and the blessings associated with obedience.
Zip file containing four lessons exposing the wiles of the enemy in our families. The first lesson is an overview, the second looks at how the devil can use worldly friends, the third covers common temptations faced by different family members, and the fourth reveals how even unwitting or past occult activities can open the door to the enemy.
This material was written in support of the Cambodia mission in January 2006. It’s not in a lesson format since it was intended to be combined with the other training material and then translated into Khmer. It has since been used in other international training efforts and is useful for basic Christian marital, parental, and domestic topics.