Chad Furlong Response

     I so enjoyed listening to Chad speak. He has launched 2 Master's Commission Programs and is launching a new ministry this year called "Twelve Experience."

 One of the quotes that he made was "We don't want to be a mile wide and an inch deep." To explain this quote from a little bit of his perspective and mine is that we don't wan to get too wide in our ministries because we want to grow deeper as ministry first before you grow wider. I think with that being said, with a program of ministry you want to start out small and go deeper, and then grow wider or (bigger) and continue to go even deeper.

Chad had only gotten through one of the questions that we had but i'm really glad that he went on with just the one question which was "What is the underlining philosophy of your discipleship?" Chad went through all of the values that he has laid out for his discipleship program for "Twelve Experience" and i loved all of them.

I'm going to talk about one that really stuck out to me and that was his first value which to value intimacy more than anything. Valuing intimacy with God and with each other is huge, and it's a responsibility of people who are mature in Christ to help the other younger brother or sister to become like Jesus (to be able to try and line up with Jesus to the best of our ability). I actually kind of feel like this is hitting me right now even more than i thought it would. I'm starting to understand that valuing intimacy with God is so big, i don't need anything else except for Jesus and if i'm falling in love with him more and more and running after him with everything that i have, putting my full focus on him and not anything else than i'm doing well and that's where God is going to be able to take me and help me to help others to become like Jesus but one thing is that we never stop growing in our relationship with God. Wow, this is totally hitting me right now and how much God is calling me to to just grow intimate with him and not worry about anything else except for him, to love him and think about him all the time. This is my heart right now and what i believe that God is really wanting me to hear is for me to grow intimate with him and only him!

Another thing that i really loved hearing about was how Chad built his ministry and what he had to do to
take the steps he needed to in order to see his program built and to make your ministry "sexy" in his words. It takes a platform in your life that you need to find in order for your discipleship to reflect your platform because that should be what happens. And the next step is to write out your discipleship experience on paper and put in what you want in your ministry and what you don't want. That third step is to start calling people and finding leaders and getting things advertised which is where making your ministry "sexy" comes in. You have to be able to mark your ministry and let people see it, make it something that people want to see, something that catches their attention. I have learned so much and i really think that God is about to show me some things that need changed in my life and some things that God is calling me to that i need to start listening to and to stop ignoring it.

Response from Jeremiah & Cori Herbert

     Jeremiah & Cori Herbert are the Pastors at The Intersection Church in Gettysburg, PA. They both co-lead as the Pastors of the church.

     I learned so much from Pastor Jeremiah & Cori today about how they evangelize and disciple through their ministries. Jeremiah and Cori run The Intersection Church and Cori teaches dance as well. They both have beautiful imaginations and are so very creative which is what i love about them both. One thing you have to learn in the ministry is that serving is huge and there are ministry leaders that believe in you but if you want to do what they do, you have to work for it. It won't come easy, it takes work to get where you want to be. For instance, me personally, i want to be in the mission field somewhere but i have to learn how to organize events, how to pull together a team of people to go somewhere on a trip. There is a lot that i need to learn and i am interning with the Missions Pastor which is teaching me all of that, but along with that internship comes work and serving. 

     Everything that Jeremiah and Cori do is discipleship. In their thoughts, a disciple is someone who learns about God and teaches it. Sometimes we put Jesus into this box where you can only teach about God a certain way but that isn't how it is. Everyone disciples people in different ways and Jeremiah and Cori happen to do that in a very unique way which i think is so awesome! Relationships are so key to when it comes to the ministry. As leaders of a church or of whatever it may be in the ministry, the relationships are what builds in a church. You need to be able to build relationships with your church members and not just be a great pastor to them but a friend to them. Being a friend allows your congregation to feel like they can be more real with you and you hang out as friends and i think that's what makes your congregation feel more comfortable with you and not just look at you as the person who teaches them about God and that's it. As Jeremiah puts it, "Discipleship is a life-long obsession with Jesus."  In the words of Cori, "It's not just about the church, it's about what Jeremiah and i present as Jesus." I love the statement she made because it's so true; see when we present Jesus in a way that people see Jesus in us and through us in how live and act, that speaks so loud. I could have interpreted this statement differently than from what they meant but that is what i get out of this statement.
     I never really thought about it, but when you ask a Pastor or a ministry leader 'what can i do?' and they ask you 'what would you like to do?' and you answer, 'whatever you need,' it makes it hard for them to really be able to give you a job because they want you to be able to have a job in a place that you have a passion or a gifting in. I didn't really realize that that was something that i could do, i mean working in the ministry that i want to be in is awesome but as i serve under a pastor in the area i want to be in, i can serve where i know that my strengths are and that can help them out even more! When you know what your passions are and you go to a leader that you trust and tell them what you are gifted in or passionate about something then you can ask them if they could use you or what they would need.
     Cori said, "Jesus can be first in your life, but that doesn't mean that you bend for somebody every time they want your time." Balancing between family time and the ministry can be hard but you have to make sure that you give yourself the time that you need to yourself or with your family depending on if you have a family yet like a husband, kids...so with that being said i know that i will learn to balance my time and my ministry time and also learn to be careful not to let people entice me to do things that they think may be an emergency but really isn't and God i'm asking that you will help me to distinguish between that as i'm working in the ministry now just as an intern. 

10 Questions For An Unreached Friend

1. What are you reasons for not going back to a church that you visited once or any church?
2. Was there something that kept you away from a church or from not going back to a certain church?
3. What do you think the purpose of church is?
4. Did you feel welcome when you walked into church? If not, why?
5. Do you think there are areas in the church that could be improved or made better? If so, what could be improved?
6. What would make the enviornment of the church more inviting to you?
7. Do you believe in the one true God? If not, how come?
8. Is there a way that the pastor and teachers at the church could make it easier for you to understand what they are preaching about?
9. Do you think that a Christian should go to church on a regular basis? If yes, why, if no, why?
10. Do you think that going to church every sunday could change your life around?

Discipling & Evangelizing: Signs in Spiritual Transformations

     I learned a lot from listening to Jan Workman talk about her ministry and how she disciples and evangelizes through children's ministry. See one thing that i didn't realize is that a lot of times when we are teaching kids from ages of Kindergarden through the ages of 20-25 its that church kids are sometimes the ones even kids that don't go to church aren't always retaining what we teach to them. When we teach on Sanctification, Baptism, and different things that are harder to understand we need to make sure that our students are able to retain what we teach them. If the students are able to retain what you are teaching them then you know that they are learning it. I want to be able to work on that myself personally that as i work with the kids they would understand what we are teaching them. Discipling them is very important but we are just helping to disciple them along side of the parents. You know when someone is getting it when you start seeing suttle changes like the changes in behavior, attitude, and when they start inviting their friends.

     Another thing that we need to be aware of is that we have to look at transitions for kids. As a leader we need to be aware of how the kids feel when it also comes to going to a new class or a new age group. It can be intimidating and i know when i was younger and i transitioned to Youth Group. It was intimidating because i didn't really know anybody, there were people who were older than me and i was scared. Now the way that Jan Workman and the ministry works over at CLA in Camp Hill, it's worked out in a way that kids don't feel so intimidated and that the kids have the option of switching back and forth to kids ministry and to the middle school group until they feel comfortable but also sometimes they need to have that push. Sometimes that push helps but you also have to watch how the kids feel too.

     I learned a lot today about how you are able to disciple and evangelize to people or kids in Jan's case. I also learned that when you may not have a certain gifting an area that's not your strong point, look for someone in the church who is interested in ministry and it may end up being that that person just may have the gifting. You could even pray that God would give you the gifting that you need in order to fulfill what you need to have fulfilled. Jan also said how with having her A/G Certification, it has opened many doors for her in the ministry. I am looking forward to working very hard in my classes so that i may get my A/G Certification and see where God opens doors for me in the ministry of missions!