Fifth Discernment Team Workshop

cropped-mosaicswebstamp.pngFifth Leadership Training: Discernment Team Workshop on August 3, 2014, 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm in Granite Bay, CA

Task 2: Step Four:  Who has God Placed on Your Hearts to Engage?

Scriptures: Acts 16:9-10

That night Paul had a dream: A Macedonian stood on the far shore and called across the sea, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” The dream gave Paul his map. We went to work at once getting things ready to cross over to Macedonia. All the pieces had come together. We knew now for sure that God had called us to preach the good news to the Europeans. (The Message)

• Have any new people groups emerged?

We have a new group of people (7~8 people) in their high teens to 20s in diverse ethnic background, who are now gathering at pastor’s house in Elk Grove regularly for Saturday Korean language study. Most of them are coming from Elk Grove and South Sacramento but some are traveling from as far as Roseville.

• Who is calling to you from “across the sea” inviting you to engage them with the Gospel?

We definitely felt that our Macedonians are Millennials from Davis, although further visitations of Midtown and Davis may be required to confirm that after checking each other about their experience with site visits. We were not sure if there are enough of Millennials are gathering or live in Midtown by first visit. We decided to have monthly visit to Midtown and Davis.

Our current gathering is at Parkview Presbyterian Church (727 T Street, Sacramento), located at least 5~6 blocks outside of Midtown, may not be the best place for our Macedonians (Millennials) because there is only one coffeehouse within 5~6 blocks (or 2~3 mile radius) from the church. Parkview can be served as our temporary place until we secure our ultimate location which is more consistent with where our target group is gathering.

After sharing the demographic statistics and site visitation experience, we all agree that Millennials of Davis are our ultimate target group along with Midtown Millennials as our secondary target group.

We have not confirmed yet who is already doing ministry for Millennials in Davis and Midtown and will research. Only church that can be confirmed is Davis Community Church (DCC) that plans to start community coffeehouse ministry by converting their huge social hall located near downtown of Davis. We will be getting involved with DCC as a partner in upcoming months.

For the effective evangelism of Millennials gathering in Davis and Midtown, it will be better to go to the harvest field rather than inviting them. The coffeehouse setting may work really well to attract non-believers to come to know Christ and love-filled young Christians who are ready to serve (or to harvest). Our young leaders are very determined about winning them.

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Step Five: Are We the Ones Who Should Go?

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 12:1-31

After confirming our target group and target area (Davis), we meditated on the Scriptures coming from 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, which explains what are the bodies of Christ, how we function each other, how we can develop our gifts and talents to serve better in the church, the body of Christ.

We learned that God wants us not only develop His given gifts in our life but use these gifts to build a better body, the community of believers. There are so much gifts that we received from God which He allowed us to use for the body of Christ, however, we tend to keep it for ourselves or forget about it. We need to encourage each other to be able to find out what gifts are given and how we can use these gifts for God and others. The ultimate purpose of gifts are building churches by winning the lost souls.

In order to receive these gifts whether they are hidden in our sprits or not given yet, we need to focus our eyes to God who gives all these gifts freely and abundantly for the glory of God. We have to be very sensitive to voices of the Holy Spirit who is leading our faith with action. We need to pray (with fasting) to follow the footsteps of Christ in a daily basis not to be distracted by worldly worries and flesh desires.

We are now ready to keep moving forward with common vision and tasks with full of love and compassion!

“He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” – Luke 10:2, NRSV

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