Small Group Ministry - The Precedent and the Need

I want you to turn to three different places. Now, you know my style by now. I really don't like to make people turn here and there. If that's tough for you, I'm gonna have the Bible verses on the on the screen. We're gonna go in three different places and I have some teaching that will center around where we're going with our small group Bible study ministry, but we're going to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12 starting in verse 12. Then we will move over to Titus chapter 2 starting in verse 1 and then we'll go back. We'll go back to the left and we'll go to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11.

Now, normally when we meet in our worship services, even at night, our goal, our primary goal, is always to teach the Word. I think that you know that by now. We spent quite a few weeks, didn't we not, in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah. I enjoyed that journey. I enjoyed taking you through a big portion of the Old Testament. I think that that was very new for some of you and it was really a lot of application to us today in the church. So that's our normal practice and that is to go a lot of verse by verse teaching. Now we're going to examine some scriptures from the Word.

Yes, but our primary purpose and our service tonight is to talk about and share with you where we are going in the life of our church with small group ministry. Now tonight we're here to introduce to you a significant change. I don't know if you realize it. This is a significant change in the programming and the life of our church. I've been pastor here, if my memory is correct, since 2011 of September and as long as I have been pastor here, we have never had adult Sunday school. You might call it adult Bible study. Some people call it adult small groups. However you want to title it, we've never had that ministry here.

We have developed that ministry with our children and our students on Wednesday nights. If you come on Wednesday nights you will be pleasantly surprised of how many people we're ministering to. We have three children's classes. We have one student class and really and truly we need to divide that student class now. We really do need to make that maybe a junior high, senior high. One day we'll get there but that ministry has been going on real well. We've really been at it on Wednesday nights for a year and a half with the material and the structure that we've had.

Now, Brother Keith and I have been praying about adult small group ministry, Bible study ministry for quite a long time. Whether you realize it or not, we've looked at many models. We've looked at many plans. I have called many of my minister friends, some of the ministers and churches that I've gotten connected with, with the connection with Anchored and Truth, some of those guys I've talked with them. I've been listening to what a lot of people are doing looking for what the Lord wants us to do. And Brother Keith and I feel like it is time for us to start adult Bible study, small group Bible study within our church.

We see the needs in your lives. We see the needs in the life of the church and we even hear some of you say things that pertain to those needs. There have been people who have asked us if we're ever going to do ministry such as that. Now, I want to take us to these places in the scripture and I want us to see two realities that pertain to where we are going. These two realities are this. First, the biblical precedent for small group type Bible study. You might not realize it, but this kind of teaching is in the scripture. And then second, the need for small group type Bible study.

So those are the two things you're going to see come out of what I'm going to share. First, the biblical precedent for small group Bible study. It's in the scripture and the need, the need for this type of ministry in the life of the church. Now, I always make comments about taking notes. If you do struggle to keep up, I don't want to lose you and I'll be glad to give you my sermon notes or let you have some of these tonight so that you can jot some things down. But we're going to look at our first portion of scripture and that is out of 1 Corinthians chapter 12 starting in verse 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 starting in verse 12.

Now, let me give you a little bit of background here first. We know that the church at Corinth was started by Paul. Corinth was a very immoral, wicked city. This church was not comprised of many Jews as compared to some of the other churches, but it was a church comprised of a lot of worldly people, people that had been saved out of paganism. And this church was the church that had a lot of problems. Now Paul, he writes back 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, why? To try to straighten out some of the problems in the life of the church.

Now, within this portion of scripture, he's dealing with the body of Christ within the life of the church and he's dealing with a lot of different people. Now, if I was going to title just what I'm going to share with you, I'll give that to you. I call this the theme of what I'm going to share. One body, many members, and obvious needs. And if you have that in your mind as I read the verses, you'll see it. One body, many members, and obvious, obvious needs. Now, with that in your mind, let's look at the verses together.

For even, starting in verse 12, for even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all of the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free, and we were made to drink of one spirit. Then Paul goes on and he gives some more illustrations about the body and how the body functions. Verse 14, "For the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,' is it not for the reason, any, the less, a part of the body?

And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,' is it not for this reason, any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body just as he desired." Now, I'm going to pause there because we're going to refer to these scriptures. I want to be careful with our time. So I want you to see that this is a teaching on the body of Christ, and I'm calling this one body many members' obvious needs.

Now, there are two observations I think you see there on the screens before you. I want us to see that we see one body in many individuals. Look at verse 12, "For even as the body is one and yet has many members and all of the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ." Now, notice that term "one body." It's mentioned all through those verses. The New American Standard that I'm reading from, it mentions the phrase "one body" five times. But then we have the word "many" and other phrases that speak of many are diversity.

And the New American Standard mentions this type of language, this type of many and diversity, five times as well. Let me go back. "For even as the body is one and the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ." And that goes all the way through into verse 13. So we see that there is one body is comprised of many individuals. We have one body, the church. This is the redeemed people of God called together to be the church, but this one body, you have much diversity. So I know that language seems to go around and around and around, but that's what we see. One body with many different individuals.

The second observation, we see the "many" and the "many" functions. Starting in verse 15, you see the language change. "For if the foot should say, 'Because I'm not a hand, I am not a part of the body.'" And there's all kinds of language centered around the human body, but Paul is speaking figuratively because he's talking about the spiritual body. Now notice, there are many parts with many functions. What do we see? The foot, then we see the hand, then we see the ear. Verse 16, then we see the eye. All these reference the different parts of the body. So notice we have parts with many functions.

Then we have the many that are placed there by God. Verse 18 is a key verse. "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body just as he desired." So these many are placed in the body by God. And then notice the need of the many. This is a key verse as well. Verse 19, I didn't read it earlier. "And if they were all one member, where would the body be?" But now there are many members, but one body. So we have the need for the many. And then notice the dependence on one another. Go all the way down to verse 26.

"And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it." If one member is honored, all of the members rejoice with it. So we have a dependence on one another. Now I know I didn't read all those verses. Go and read them on your own and see how this all just comes to the surface. So we see many parts within the body of Christ. That's the church. We see many functions within that body. And this shows us that we see many needs in the body as well. So what do we apply here? You know me by now, as I preach and teach, I always bring this back to application. We need to see that we are one body, but yet we are many.

We are many and we are diverse. God made us all very different and that is good. And we need to see the purposeful design which is by God. God has brought every one of us and those who are not here tonight. He's brought us all here and He's done that because He knows best. So I go back to kind of the title of this portion of Scripture. One body, many members, obvious needs. You find yourself with obvious needs? Well join the crowd. You're just like those wonderful Christians there in the Church of Corinth and you're just like me as well. Now I want to transition to that Titus passage. Titus, Titus chapter 2.

If you find yourself in 1st or 2nd Timothy, just keep on going and you'll get to Titus. Titus is right after those two pastoral epistles. If you get to Philemon, go back to the left a little more. But Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2. Let me give you a little background here with this passage. Titus was one of Paul's best young men. Besides Timothy, Titus was his best pupil and Paul put Titus on the island of Crete to pastor those churches just like he put Timothy there in Ephesus. And Titus was doing the very same thing. He was correcting theological problems. He was an elder in the life of the church.

And so just like with 1st and 2nd Timothy, with Titus we get a window, a glimpse of the pastoral life in the churches there at Crete. Now I've given you kind of the title of this portion of Scripture. I call this central to relational teaching. Central to relational teaching. Let's go back and let's look at those verses starting in verse 1 of chapter 2. Paul says to Titus, "But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine." And then it changes in verse 2. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound and faith and love and perseverance. Then it changes in verse 3.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior. And then we see a change in verse 4 that they may encourage the young women. And then if we continue we will see that Paul tells Timothy how to instruct the young men. And then on down at the very end starting in verse 9 we see that he even gives instructions how to instruct slaves or bond slaves or bond servants. Now there are two observations I want to make here. First we see central teaching. Look at verse 1, "But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine." This teaching is teaching that comes from Titus as an appointed elder within the life of the church.

This is not stretching at all. You can say it like this. This is pulpit ministry. Look at the verse, "But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine." That speaks to his ministry as an elder in the life of the church. That is a central teaching. It is his job and his responsibility. It is not a stretch to say that that applies to the pulpit. But then second we see relational teaching. Starting in verse 2, going all the way down to verse 9 and verse 10, it's all relational. Notice Titus, he's ministering to older men in verse 2. Then he's ministering to older women in verse 3.

Then there's a ministry to younger women in verses 4 and 5. There's a ministry to younger men in verses 6, 7, and 8. And then there's a ministry to bond slaves in verse 9 and 10. You might say, "Pastor, you've zoomed through that." It's right there. This is relational. And as a matter of fact, the older women were the ones who were to teach the younger women. So we see two types of teaching right here. Two types of ministry within the life of the church. Titus is teaching in a central manner and in a relational manner. Now, I am not saying that he had a Sunday school class like we're accustomed to.

But I am saying that there were times when he met with certain groups. Now, we don't know what it looked like. We don't know where he was. But we see that he's ministering to certain groups and then there are other groups ministering to other groups. See, what do we need to apply to us? We need to see that we have the need for relational teaching within the church. We're already meeting some of those needs now with our teenagers and our children. Now, I want you to see how we have approached the central teaching, the pulpit, and the life of the church. Think about it.

We have worked very hard and we have been very diligent to teach you thoroughly from the pulpit. There's not been one man that stood behind this pulpit since I've been here that has taught something theological error. They've always taught you solidly from the Word of God. We have worked really, really hard to teach you sometimes word by word, book by book, subject by subject from the pulpit. But we need to see this relational teaching and yes, it even meets certain needs. Do you think the younger women had needs that need to be met? And those younger women, those older women, could meet those needs.

Now, I give you a good example that I think will help you here. I was talking to Brother Keith about this. We've been talking about it for so long. It all runs together and we were thinking back to when we started and we split those classes and started those classes for our children and our teenagers. Brother Keith made the comment. He said, "For our teenagers, when we gave them that Bible class, their class, on Wednesday night, he used this language. It was a lift for them." It's perfectly, that's just accurate, perfectly accurate. We saw a cohesion.

We saw them desire to be with one another as they're studying the Word and it was like a magnet. They wanted to come and more students came. We have more teenagers coming. There's that need for that relational type teaching. If you study church history, you see great men of God doing things like this. In the Great Awakening, the great Jonathan Edwards, he's known for his theology and his thunderous preaching. During the Great Awakening, he journaled and wrote that he met with various young people, college-age students and younger. He would meet with them to teach them the Word. That's that relational teaching and we see the need.

We know there is a need. So I wanted you to see that central and that relational teaching. Now I want to move a little faster because after this Ephesians passage, I do have several things I want us to see. So let's look real quickly at Ephesians chapter 4. I think you see some of the things that I've been sharing with you, how they fit with where we are going. Now a little background with this Ephesians passage. This is another church that Paul started. Paul had a long and lengthy and successful ministry there in Ephesus and it was a wonderful church. It was the flagship church of the region.

It was the larger of the churches as compared to some. They were Jews and they were Gentiles alike and Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus to iron out some problems. Now what I call these passages, I call this trickle-down ministry. I think you'll see this. This is what I call trickle-down ministry. Let me read a few verses starting in verse 11. "And he gave some," this is God, "to be apostles." We know who they were. "When those apostles died, the office died. Some as prophets, some as evangelists." We know that evangelists are missionaries. They evangelize. Many of them are part of starting churches. Some to be pastors and teachers.

In the original language, pastors and teachers is really connected. That's what brother Keith and I are. We're pastors, teachers, we're elders. Then notice the language. "For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." And if you keep going on down, it is trickling down, down, down, down, down. Three quick observations I want you to see. First, we see the leaders.

The leaders that are given in that what we see in verse 11. God has given the church leaders. There are different offices here listed and the offices are given for the birth and the function of the church. But then second, we see the equipping of the saints of God. Now a question. Who are the saints of God? If you're born again, you're one of the saints. You're one of the saints that God has placed here in the life of this church. You're part of the body. I don't know if you're a hand or an ear or an eye. It doesn't matter. God's put you here and the offices are given for the equipping of the saints. Look at verse 12.

"For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service to the building up of the body." So the saints are equipped for works, works of service, and for building up the body of Christ. Now who is building up the body? It's the saints. The saints have been equipped by God's leaders and so the saints are building up the body. And then the third observation we see the goal. The goal of all of this work. We see this in verse 13 through 14. I won't read the verses because of time, but we see unity. We see knowledge of God. We see maturity and we see strength. So we see a trickle down in ministry.

It starts with those leaders that God has appointed. It comes down to the saints and the saints build up the body and it just trickles down. There is a goal. The goal of unity, maturity, and spiritual strength. And Paul desired these goals with the Corinthian church and the Ephesian church. So what do we need to see? We need to see that we should expect teaching from the Word of God to trickle down into your life and then grow you to the place where you influence and affect and minister to others. Where God is using you to impact other people. We should see these types of results. Now I want to make a transition here.

I'm going to move away from these passages of Scripture and I'm going to reference several other portions of Scripture. I'm going to reference some scriptures that will help us see ministry or teaching in a smaller type setting other than the pulpit. We will see that with some of these passages it is obvious that others are teaching or leading besides apostles and elders. These could be called lay leaders. When I mention these verses maybe write them down and you can study them on your own. We see this in Colossians. The book of Colossians. Paul is writing to the church at Colossae. He did not start this church.

He never visited Colossae but he heard about the church from a man named Apipras. And notice what verses 12 and 13 say. Apipras, Paul's writing to the church at Colossae, who is one of you. What does he say? He is one of your people. Apipras is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus. He greets you always struggling on your behalf in his prayers that you may stand mature and fully assured in all of the will of God. Verse 13, "For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those that lay out to see you and heropolis." That's two other churches. So we see this man Apipras. We do not see that he's an elder. It's never called.

He's never called an elder but he's laboring in that church. We see it earlier in Colossians 1, verse 7 and 8. Just as you learned it from Apipras, that's the gospel. Our beloved brother, our fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. So here's a man who's not an apostle and he clearly is being used of God in that church. Then another portion of scripture out of Colossians 3, verse 16. Paul says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another." One another in all wisdom singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

So he's saying you teach one another. Another portion of scripture. This is one of my favorite because I prayed this portion of scripture for people in the life of our church. This is 2 Timothy chapter 2 starting in verse 1. Paul is writing to his best student, Timothy, and what does he say? "You then my child be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus." Verse 2. "And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust a faithful man who will be able to teach others also." That is a four-generation spiritual work.

Paul says, "I've taught you, you teach faithful men and faithful men will teach other faithful men." You see that? Clearly others teaching and ministering in the life of the church. Another passage real quickly out of Romans chapter 12 starting in verse 6. Paul's writing to the church at Rome. He's desiring to go to Rome. Starting in verse 6. "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us." That sounds like the Colossians or excuse me the first Corinthians 12 passage.

"Let us use them the gifts if prophecy in proportion to your faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, and the one who exhorts in his exhortation, and the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, and the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness." These are all lay people ministering in the life of the church. Some even teaching. But then the last verse I'll give is a warning. James chapter 3 verse 1 gives us a big warning.

"Not many of you should become teachers my brothers, for you know that those who teach or we who teach will be judged with a greater strictness." There's a warning there. We can't casually teach the Word of God. So what have I showed you? We have many portions of Scripture that talk about us as the body, us being many, us being a diverse group, and us being used with our gifts and our abilities to minister to others. It is our job to equip you and then enable you to be able to minister to the body. And I think that you are able to see that as we move through those Scriptures. Now remember what I said.

There were two realities that pertain to where we're going. I wanted us to see the biblical precedent for small group type ministry, and I wanted us to see the need, and I think that you see those two in all that we have looked at. Now I think it's important for all of us to understand the purposes and the goals of what we're doing. I think goals and purposes are good. I think they're tangible. I think I can show you where we are going. So as we are embarking in what we are calling small group Bible study, I want us to see that we have goals and we have a purpose.

Now the purposes will be answered, if those are questions for you, by looking at our goals. Now I'm going to give you our goals. Some are immediate goals and some are long-term goals. Some are immediate goals and some are future goals. Let me start with our immediate goals. Now there are five up there and I don't want to complicate matters or confuse you, but really we see three. Let me walk you through them. Our immediate goal, our first goal, is to teach the word and meet spiritual needs. When we teach the Word of God in your life, it meets spiritual needs. So when we sit down together in that environment, our goal is to teach you the Word.

Our second immediate goal is to create fellowship over the Word. When we're in a smaller setting, we can fellowship with one another over the Word of God. As you get to know one another, as you get to know brothers and sisters in the life of the church, you will begin to converse and talk and share fellowship over the Word. But then it builds. Look at number three. The next goal would be to develop life connected to life discipleship. Now what does that look like? When you begin to bond with brothers and sisters and you begin to share your Christian faith in the Word of God, then you begin to disciple one another.

Brother Keith and I have done that for years. We do it all throughout the week. We do it in the high times and the low times when we're struggling and when we have victory, we have life connected to life discipleship. I can't tell you how many times we discuss what we're looking at, sermons. We discuss the Word, Bible studies, and it's discipleship, life connected to life. That takes a little time. Now I want to show you how I can simplify this. You can take number one, two, and three and you can simply say ministry around the Word. Isn't that obvious? That's what that is. Ministry around the Word. But then notice how it changes.

This is our fourth goal. We want to facilitate ministry within the body. When you get to know one another and when you're fellowshipping over the Word and you're connecting with one another, then we will see you begin to minister to each other. You will begin to meet needs that we don't know anything about. You'll begin to meet needs that maybe no one knows. That needs to take place in the body of Christ in the church. And then the fifth immediate goal is to promote outreach and evangelism. Now that comes last because it takes time for this type of ministry to grow.

You see there are five immediate goals on the screens before you, but let me show you how we can boil it down to three goals. Number one, two, and three, you can call this ministry around the Word. And then you can say number four is number two, we want to facilitate ministry in the body. And then you could say number five is really number three, promote outreach and evangelism. I hope I haven't confused you, but I wanted you to see how you can shorten what we have looked at. These are immediate goals and I hope and pray that that speaks to you. That shows you our purpose.

Now if some of you are writing, I don't want to move too fast, but because of time I do want to move on, I can come back and give you this information. I want you to see our future goals because I want you to see where we want to go. I want you to see that this is in addition to our immediate goals. We're going to accomplish these immediate goals, but then in time we want to see the development of leaders. Yes, I mean leaders that can teach the Word. I believe the day will come when Brother Keith and I will not be teaching groups and there'll be others that will be teaching things that we're doing now.

We're praying for the development of lay leaders in the life of our church that can teach the Word. And then our second future goal is for more purposeful outreach and evangelism. Yes, a more deliberate and purposeful outreach and evangelism. And then one of our future goals is the multiplication of ministry in this area, the multiplication of groups. Listen, if we grow and we will, we reach people and I believe we will, then guess what? The groups will grow. I referenced our student group earlier. It's large. We really need it to split. And when the time comes, we'll know. God will give us the leader and we'll know. So what do you see?

What am I putting before you? What is before you on the screens? We have immediate goals and then we have future goals. I wanted you to see where we are wanting to go with what we are doing. Now I want to move to some out some practical things that come up to your mind. These things are obvious. But I want us to see when. When are we going to start? Well, if you've paid much attention to the April calendar, you see that we're going to start next week, next Sunday night. Some of you might say, "Where are we going? What are we going to do?" We're gonna meet in two different groups. We're gonna meet Sunday night at 6 p.m.

Now some people might say, "Well, what about our evening worship service?" This will take the place of our evening worship service. We're not skipping a worship service. We're just breaking up and studying the Word. And if you look at how the calendar works out, we'll provide a more detailed calendar. We're gonna look, we're gonna engage in a seven-week study and that's gonna take us basically on into July. So we're gonna start next Sunday night. We'll have two groups and I'll give you a little more information on that in a minute. But I want to show you what we're going to study.

Nobody's really asked me that yet, but I want you to see we've been praying and working hard as to what to teach. It comes across or it's really presented in two ways. Brother Keith and I ran across quite a while back this little book called "Expository Listening." That might sound strange to some of you. We know what expository preaching is. That's what we do. We teach the Word. We exposit the Word. Exposit means to explain. But this expository listening goes a little further than where we've been going about you being responsible to listen and be ready and receive the Word of God. It really goes further than where we've been going.

This is very much where we need to go. Now we had run across this book, but I don't believe it was a coincidence. I ran across a Bible study that Grace Life Church had developed on this book. I'll show you how wonderful this partnership with them has been. I was talking to some people at Grace Life Church this week asking questions about using their material. And one of their ministers on staff said, "You can use it. You can copy it. You can do anything you want with it. We're here to serve you. You're a partner church with us. We'll help you in any way." Most people would charge you for that. So this is what we're going to do.

We're going to teach you through the seven-week study that's been developed off the book. Now we would encourage you to get the book. It's a very easy read. If you have trouble with that, we'll be glad to get that for you. It shouldn't cost any more than seven or eight, maybe ten dollars. But it's called "Expository Listening" by Ken Ramey. R-A-M-E-Y. Now you don't have to have the book. We will provide you a handout from the study. So if you don't get the book, you get a handout each week. If you get the book, you can read along as we give you the handout. I think that that's pretty simple.

I wanted to explain that in such a way where you could understand it. And I look forward because I think this is really going to meet some needs with where we need to go. Now a few more questions and then we'll transition to the end. Some of you might say, "Well, how is this really going to be fleshed out?" We're going to divide everyone into, I call it, a younger group and then I call it a wiser group. If you think about that, that's supposed to be a joke. We're going to go younger and we're going to go the wiser group. Brother Keith and I are teaching. Brother Keith's going to teach the younger group. I'm going to teach the other group.

Now the wiser group will meet at our house on Sunday nights at 6 p.m. and then the younger group will either meet at Brother Keith and Teresa's house or Colby and Misty McMorris's house. They've agreed to share their home as well. Now we'll provide you a schedule with that so you'll know where to go. Now some of you will say, "Well, when will I know where I go?" Brother Keith or I will call you this week as we finalize those details. We're trying to make sure that we have adequate child care, which we will. We'll answer those questions so we're trying to make sure all of those bases are covered.

So one day this week you will get a call and be told where we want you to go. Now there's one more thing that I want to do and then I will share one thing on my heart. I want to answer a few questions that have popped up. They popped up in my mind, my wife and I as we've talked. Brother Keith and I talked. Inevitably this makes us ask questions. So I think I'm going to field some of your questions before you ask them. First question, will these be like what we would call marriage groups? No, this is not a marriage group. This is not just for married couples. This is not a teaching that goes along with that type of need.

Although, you know, one day that might be a need. So these are not marriage groups. These are for everyone. Another question you might have, what will we do at the end of the seven-week study? We're going to see. We're praying for God's leadership when we get to that term. Like I said, this will take us all the way into July. Will we have other studies? Yes, we will. We might go through a book. We might have other subject studies. But I do believe we will continue in some form of having small group Bible studies. Another question you might have, will we have other leaders? Yes.

In God's timing, I believe God will raise up other men and other ladies who will and can teach. The next question, will there ever be women teaching men or mixed gender groups? No, that will not take place. The Scripture clearly teaches that women are not supposed to have authority over men. We adhere to that very strongly. There's a place for women to teach, but what did we learn in Titus? Older women teach younger women. Now, of course, we do have women that are teaching children, and that is biblical as well. Another question, and this might sound comical, will you have homework?

We'll give you information, and we'll ask you to work through the Bible study, and then come and participate. This is a participatory event. We want you to share. We want you to share how this is speaking to you. We want you to ask questions, because there are things that you'll say and you'll ask, and you'll put into the conversation that'll go a lot further than things that I could say. So, yes, we want you to participate, and we want you to pour into this ministry. Now, I have one more thing I want to share, and this is really not in my notes, but this is your pastor talking to you. I strongly encourage you to participate.

We need it in the life of the church. You need it in your life, just like we take preaching in the pulpit serious. We take teaching the Word of God in any place serious. We're going to work hard to teach. We're going to work hard to lead. We want you to work hard. We want you to make the commitment to be there. If one of the children is sick, I understand. I've seen men come and just say, "My wife had to stay home with the babies." Come. I know that there are things that come up, but we want you to make a firm commitment to be a part.

I promise you, if you'll make a commitment to the Word of God and the people of God and the ministry that God has put out before us, I believe you'll see a spiritual return, and I believe God will use you to influence others. You might say, "Me? Yes, you. Yes, you." So I guess you can say from this day forward, we have started Adult Sunday School or Small Group ministry in the life of our church. I've told friends, "Yeah, we do children in youth Sunday school. We do it on Wednesday." So I guess we're going to stick to an odd pattern, and we're going to do Sunday school on Sunday nights, but I look forward to it. But let's pray.

And then we'll dismiss.