Tag: Disciplemaker’s Living Guide

A ray of light: Cadre’s One Another Living Guide

A ray of light: Cadre’s One Another Living Guide

Bill Allison

In an amazing experiment, scientists set out to test an animal’s survival instincts. The scientists dropped a rat into a large jar of water that had been placed in complete darkness. They wanted to see how long the animal would continue to swim before it finally gave up and allowed itself to drown. What did they find? That the rat usually lasted little more than three minutes in complete darkness.

Then the scientists dropped another rat into the same kind of water-filled jar. But instead of putting it in total darkness, they allowed one tiny ray of light to shine onto the jar. Under those conditions, the rat kept swimming for 36 hours! That’s over 700 times longer! It seems that because the animal had a ray of hope, it continued to swim!

A ray of light

God wants YOU to be that ray of hope and light to the people “swimming” in your sphere of influence. That includes the people in your everyday life: at work, home, school, church and your neighborhood.

But where do you start?

Cadre’s newly updated, revised, and expanded One Another Living Guide

This is your guide for a journey through 25 life-changing “one another” verses from the Bible (i.e. love one another, pray for one another, bear one another’s burdens). It’s a pocket-sized booklet of biblical challenges that help you and your friends inflow the love of God into your lives—and then helps you overflow God’s love into your everyday relationships in practical ways.

Each “one another” study challenges you to express God’s love to others in a practical way. This guide is perfect for families, small groups, discipleship groups, Sunday school classes, elder’s meetings, staff meetings, disciplemaking learning communities, mission trip teams, and even your marriage.

What might God be able to do in your daily relationships if you dared to be a ray of light to the people around you? I dare you to find out.

View sample pages and order on the Cadre site.

If you host Cadre’s Ministry Is Relationships training experience, each person will receive the newly updated, revised, and expanded One Another Living Guide.

Find out how to bring a Ministry Is Relationships training experience to your ministry.

 

The real test of what happens during church…

The real test of what happens during church…

Bill Allison
 Here’s some Cadre help for living a love-God-love-people-make-disciplemakers way of life together after church…

one another guide

The One Another Living Guide

disciplemaker's living guide

The Disciplemaker’s Living Guide

john 3:16 living guide

The John 3:16 Factor Living Guide

Using any of these living guides is as simple as this…

  • Open the living guide.
  • Open your Bibles and read the Scriptures and their contexts.
  • Wrestle the Scriptures and the questions one by one with a heart to know and love God.
  • Pray the Disciplemaker’s Prayer together (it’s in the living guide).

You’re probably doing it right when your study together leads to more questions and deeper conversations about applying what you’re learning together.

7 Ways to Use These Living Guides

1. Sunday School:
Use the any of these living guides for the first 10-15 minutes of each class for discussion and prayer together for 25 Sundays. Or take your time walking slowly through the living guide the entire Sunday school class. If you read the context of each of the passages listed and give plenty of time for discussion, interaction, and prayer, it will easily fill your Sunday school hour. We’ve seen both of these approaches work great in a Sunday school setting. Get each member of your Sunday school class his/her own living guide and you’ll still have the most inexpensive Sunday school ever.
2. Small Groups:
These living guides are great for small groups to live out a disciplemaking way of lifetogether. By wrestling Scripture together, you and your friends have an opportunity to own disciplemaking like Jesus at the conviction level rather than just at the idea level. (And, oh, there is a major difference between those two!) This wrestling Scripture together in community (a.k.a., havering) is a critically important step in transforming friendships intodisciplemaking friendships.
3. With Volunteers and Students:
Use the any of these living guides to help your adult volunteer leaders and student volunteer leaders grasp and own the value of disciplemaking friendships as the conduit for gospel ministry.
4. Retreats:
These living guides are great for summer camp or fall or winter retreat experience. Cadre offers a four-session training experience that goes with each one of these living guides-and they work great in a retreat setting. Each person would get a living guide.
5. Family Discussions:
It can be as a simple and spontaneous as a 5-10 minute discussion via the questions in the living guide after dinner one night a week. If you have a long drive together, use the car time to wrestle a study or two together. Consider doing a family night using this living guide to explore what it looks like to live a disciplemaking way of life together. Then invite other families to share this living guide experience.
6. Starting Meetings:

Instead of just starting meetings in prayer, take 15 minutes to have people get into pairs and work through one of the 25 studies/adventures. This will drip essential disciplemaking values into your elder, staff, and team meetings throughout the year.

7. Mission Trips:
Make any one of these living guides the team devotional for your next missions trip. Since you’re all on a missions trip, why not use it together each day? 8. Can YOU think of another way to use these living guides in your life and ministry? We bet you can!

 

To get yours now, go here. Each living guide is also sold individually.

 

Turning your friendships into disciplemaking friendships

Turning your friendships into disciplemaking friendships

Bill Allison

When I went back to college later in life, I was told that I had a “math deficiency.” I ended up having to buy an introductory mathematics book and re-teaching myself some basics.

Every day I worked through a portion of that pitifully boring math book—alone.

However, once a week I met with a tutor who monitored my progress (or lack thereof) and tried to answer my many questions. (“Why would anyone plant a garden in the form of a triangle and then use the Pythagorean Theorem to measure the hypotenuse?”)

One day I asked my tutor, “Help me understand integers”—and I pronounced it exactly like it’s spelled: “in-TEG-ers.” My tutor smiled and said, “You mean, integers”—and she pronounced it “IN-ti-jers.” Sensing my embarrassment, she said, “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known this simply by working through the book by yourself.”

Right then and there I realized this: Solo book learning is a good start, but a fuller, deeper learning happens in community.

In my math community—with a tutor and few other struggling students—I learned to correctly pronounce mathematical terms I’ll probably never need, such as “integer.” (My math is up to speed these days, but you may have noticed that I still have a significant math deficiency in my attitude.)

In Jesus’ day, this fuller, deeper, communal learning was known as havering. And as it turns out, haver learning is a critically important part of the disciplemaking genius of Jesus. Why? Because you will never fully come to know and experience Jesus or disciplemaking by simply working through the Book by yourself.

(From the introduction to the Disciplemaker’s Living Guide.)

Announcing the Disciplemaker’s Living Guide

This Disciplemaker’s Living Guide is a tool for transforming friendships into disciplemaking friendships. It’s great for families, students, small groups, discipleship groups, Sunday school classes, elder’s meetings, staff meetings, disciplemaking learning communities, mission trip teams, and even improving your marriage.

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What’s New?

  • A refreshed size and design.
  • A helpful introduction on why and how to use it as a dialogue rather than merely a devotional guide.
  • The Disciplemaker’s Prayer and a challenge to pray it daily.
  • Language that clearly ties this resource to the disciplemaking priorities and practices spelled out in the Disciplemaking Is Relationships training.

5 Ways to Use this Living Guide

  1. With Volunteers and Students:
    Use the Disciplemaker’s Living Guide to help your adult staff and student leaders grasp and own the value of disciplemaking friendships as the conduit for gospel ministry.
  2. In Small Groups:
    Once your team-adults and students-understands and starts living the values, bring it to your entire ministry. This is a great series for small groups.
  3. For Retreats:
    This living guides is a great summer camp or fall or winter retreat experience. Cadre offers a four-session training called Disciplemaking Is Relationships.
  4. Family Discussions:
    Consider doing a family night using this living guide to explore what it looks like to live a disciplemaking way of life together. Invite other families to share this living guide experience.
  5. Starting Meetings:
    Instead of just starting meetings in prayer, take 15 minutes to have people get into pairs and work through one of the 25 disciplemaking studies/adventures. This will drip essential disciplemaking values into your elder, staff, and team meetings throughout the year.

How might God transform your friendships into disciplemaking friendships?

I dare you to find out.