Deliberate Church: Chapter 1

Section 1 – Gathering The Church
Chapter 1 – The Four P’s

"Teach and Pray; Love and Stay."

PREACHING
Dever was happy to see every aspect of his public ministry to fail if it needed to, except for the preaching of God’s Word.
There is only one thing that’s biblically necessary for building the church: the preached Word of God.

1. The Word sustains us
2. The Word grows and fights
3. The Word is what builds us up and preserves us
4. The Word is His effective power for salvation
5. The Word creates faith
6. The Word performs God’s work in believers
7. The Word convicts
8. The Word gives us new birth
9. The Word saves us

“God’s Word builds His church. So preaching His Gospel is primary.”

PRAYING
Prayer shows our dependence on God for building the church.

What should we pray for:
1. The prayers of Paul.
2. Pray that your preaching of the Gospel would be faithful, accurate, and clear.
3. Pray for increasing maturity in the congregation so that the corporate testimony would be attractive to unbelievers.
4. Pray for sinners to be converted.
5. Pray for opportunities for personal evangelism.

Start a church pictorial directory and pray through it a page at a time.

PERSONAL DISCIPLING RELATIONSHIPS
“One of the most biblical and valuable uses of your time as a pastor will be to cultivate personal discipling relationships, in which you are regularly meeting with a few people one-on-one to do them good spiritually.”

PATIENCE
It would be wise for many of us to lower our expectations and extend our horizons.

The key to displaying this kind of patience is to have a right perspective of:
1. Time – we must think in terms of the rest of our lives
2. Eternity – we will be held accountable for our work
3. Success – we must be faithful