Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Cultivating Bible Study Interest

Staci Schefka

Cultivating Interests Through Bible Studies - Part 1

Father in heaven, thank you so much for the opportunity and privilege we have to be at camp meeting.

What a life-changing experience camp meeting is.

The seminars, the evening and morning speakers, Every aspect of it is just imbued with the Spirit of God.

And as Your Word is taught and contemplated, Lord, we can sense the change happening in our own heart.

And I pray that there's a change, even now, that's taking place in those who are gathered in this room, and that each 1 will be motivated, inspired, and compelled to get involved in an even greater way in the cause of God that you have blessed us with and blessed us to be a part of.

If the cause in which we are engaged means anything, it means everything.

And we pray that you would help us to give it our whole heart.

So bless Stacey as she presents and each 1 here as they take time to learn and to be ready to give Bible studies themselves.

All right, I've got 1 extra handout for my friend Kim.

All right, well, we're so glad you're here.

And let me just give you a little preview of what I'm planning on doing the next 3 days.

Today I'm mostly going to be focusing on the need for a Bible study reformation in our church for more people to be involved in this very important work, and what can happen when that happens.

I'm also gonna talk today about how to actually find a Bible study, how to get a Bible study started.

Tomorrow is just gonna be focused on actually giving a Bible study.

Now there are many different types of Bible studies.

I'm gonna focus mostly on how to give a sit down, 1 on 1 personal Bible study.

And then Friday, I'm taking the entire day to talk about how to gain decisions in Bible studies.

You can take a person all the way through a series of studies, but if you don't know how to gain decisions along the way, or deal with objections and questions, and all their fears, and all those challenges that they're having and following what they're hearing about You won't have a harvest So we're going to talk about that and how to deal with some of those kind of scenarios that you can rent you So those are what I'm planning on doing over these next 3 days.

And hopefully you can make it to every 1 of them.

So let's begin by just reviewing something that you're already familiar with, I'm pretty sure.

You know, it's the theme of camp meeting.

I think it was camp meetings theme last year as well.

But here is just Grow Michigan in a synopsis.

Grow Michigan is an aggressive but balanced evangelistic strategy to help churches grow spiritually and numerically.

It employs the agricultural growth cycle used by Jesus, thus emphasizing that evangelism is not an event, but a process in which every step is essential to the success.

So You've seen this chart here with the 5 stages, prepare, plant, cultivate, harvest, and preserve.

In this seminar, we're gonna be focusing on the cultivation stage, and that's why it's called Cultivating Interest Through Bible Studies, because it's the cultivate phase where Bible study ministry really happens.

Now, it says in Christian service, every member is to be a soul winner.

Let ministers teach church members that in order to grow in spirituality, they must carry the burden the Lord has laid on them, the burden of leading souls into the truth.

Now it's interesting in this quotation, it's telling us that the Lord has put a burden on us.

It's the burden of leading souls into the truth.

Okay, so this is the work that we're being called to do.

This is at its core Bible study ministry and the role of church of ministers is to help the church members realize that if they want to grow spiritually, they need to take up this burden that the Lord is putting on us.

We should live in this world to win souls to the Savior.

So let's look here at these 5 steps of the growth cycle of growing crops and compare them to making disciples.

So the first stage is prepare, plant, cultivate, harvest, and preserve.

So on the right column you see what each of these stages represent.

Preparing is preparing that soil, getting the hearts ready.

We would call this usually friendship evangelism.

It's that felt needs, it's ministering to people's physical needs and emotional needs, it's building relationships with them.

And then that leads to the planting stage, and we're planting the seed.

And according to the Bible, the seed represents the Word of God, right?

So it's when we start to introduce the truth to them in some way.

So that might be through some glow tracks, or it might be through some literature.

We might do a mailing of great controversies to our area or something.

This is all ways of starting to plant the seeds.

When a person, many of you I'm sure, how many of you guys did Unlock Revelation at your church?

For Unlock Revelation, something about evangelistic meetings is they sometimes fall in multiple categories here.

For some people who've been coming to church already, some, maybe they've already been in some Bible studies, an evangelistic meeting is harvesting.

But for some people, which you probably had quite a few of these maybe in your church.

This is their first time in an Adventist church, their first time coming to an evangelistic meeting, it's their first time hearing any of this stuff, and you're really just planting seeds, right?

So that's why we have to go through it a second time.

What we're finding at our site, my husband has 2 churches, he preached at our Lula Church, which is just a church plant.

We have about 20, 25 members attending there.

We had like 45 people coming to our meetings.

So we had like 3 guests for every church member that happened to be there every night, which was fun.

We still have about 10 of those who are coming to our follow up study class.

And what we found is that because so much of this was so brand new to them, it's a lot for them to take in, right?

And they're just like, wow, you know, I'm not quite sure I'm ready to join your church yet I'm not quite sure I'm ready for baptism because I'm still like trying to process all of this, you know Which is honestly fair right because there's a lot they've just learned So we needed to take them through the material again.

We have to, we planted some seeds, but now we've got to cultivate.

So that's what the phase 2 or the Daniel class is doing.

We're going through the material a second time on a slower pace, in a more interactive small group kind of environment where we can talk about it, they can ask questions, we can answer questions, and now it's real they're really cultivating, now they're really growing, now they're really getting it, Now they're like saying, wow, this is awesome.

I love this, you know, and that's where we're going to be able to then harvest them and baptize them.

So those 2 planting and cultivating kind of go in lead into each other.

And in an evangelistic meeting, you're seeing a lot of these happening.

You'll even see in an evangelistic meeting, the preservation happening, because you may have some newer members in your church.

Them going through the meetings, again, is solidifying these things that they've recently made decisions about.

So that's why we need to do meetings every year I think because they serve so many purposes in our church for so many different groups of people.

So cultivation is the study time, Harvesting is what leads to baptism, and preservation is that mentoring of the new members.

So that's why we're using this cycle of evangelism, of the growth of the plants, to show how we make disciples.

Now let's look at 1 more little chart where we compare this with church ministry.

So minister, share, study, baptize, mentor.

You can be ministering to 1 individual, a friend.

You can be sharing some literature with friends at work.

You can have a Bible study you're giving every week.

You could be helping someone get ready for baptism and mentoring a new member.

And this is all things you personally are doing.

But as a church, you're doing events that are complementing these areas.

So in the area of preparing the soil, what are some of the things a church can be doing to help prepare the soil of their community?

Like health events, cooking classes, community service center, stop smoking, you know?

So things where we're ministering to our community and meeting the felt needs of our community.

This is where as a church, we're out passing out glow literature, we're out passing out literature, we're doing some outreach events like that.

And then in the study area, churches need to be providing training for church members on how to give Bible studies and providing resources for them, blessings and DVDs and materials so that they are equipped to go out and give Bible studies.

And then church holds a public evangelistic meeting where we're now harvesting those decisions that are being made through those studies and then we're discipling and nurturing those new members.

So the church ministry is to be complementing the work of the personal ministry.

Cultivating Interests Through Bible Studies - Part 2

Dear God, thank you Lord for this stay here at Camp Meeting.

And thank you for the experience Tracy had just last night, where she was able to meet a non-Aventist family that was right here on our campus last evening, and offer them Bible studies.

Lord, there are people all around us who would say yes if we just asked and I asked Lord that you would give each 1 of us that courage to ask someone if they would like to do a Bible study.

Today I ask that you'd bless us time we spend together as we talk about actually how to give that study in Jesus name.

Okay so as Seventh-day Adventists we believe that Jesus is coming soon, and God has really blessed our church with an enormous amount of knowledge, right?

Just think about, especially if you came from a different denomination into the Adventist churches, how much you have learned and grown and discovered since you became an Adventist.

We have so much knowledge, especially about those prophetic books of Daniel and Revelation.

And I want you to look at this quotation from Testimonies, Volume 9.

In a special sense, Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and lightbearers.

To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world.

On them is shining wonderful light from the Word of God." They have been given a work of the most solemn import, the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels' messages.

There is no other work of so great importance.

They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention.

If we don't share this message, what other church is going to?

In fact, if you were to visit another church and ask them, what are the 3 angels' messages?

They'd probably look at you with a blank stare, right?

Like, I don't know what you're talking about.

And when you realize that those 3 angels' messages mentioned in Revelation 14 are mentioned right before the second coming of Jesus and they're going to every nation, hundred ton of people.

It just shows why she says here that this is work is of so great importance that nothing else is to absorb our attention.

And that doesn't mean that we don't have jobs and we don't have families We don't have other things in our life, but we can't become so preoccupied with those things that we're not taking opportunities and praying for opportunities to share this message in some way Even if it's just leaving a glow track with them or giving them, you know, an address to a website like Amazing Facts where they could go and read and get more material or whatever.

It could just be a 1 brief encounter, but still taking that opportunity to guide them to understanding this important message.

Yesterday we talked about the birth of Bible study ministry.

We talked about how it happened actually at a camp meeting in 1883 in Southern California and that prior to this we did not have as a denomination Bible lessons that were written in a question-and-answer format.

We did a lot of preaching, we had tracts and pamphlets, but this concept of ask a question and go look up a Bible verse to find the answer to the question wasn't developed until this camp meeting.

And it kind of happened almost by mistake, because Elder Haskell was preaching and a thunderstorm came up and nobody could hear him and he had to come off the platform, gather everybody around him and ask a question and then have someone look up a Bible verse to answer the question.

And that was how the very first question answer Bible study developed.

And Ellen White saw that this was the method that our church members should be trained in on how to give Bible studies.

It says in Gospel Workers page 192, the plan of holding Bible readings.

Today we call them Bible lessons, but in our early years of our church we called them Bible readings.

And we actually had a book we published called Bible readings for the home circle.

And church members would get to that book, they would study those lessons, and they would share those Bible readings in people's homes, asking a question and then together opening the Bible to find the answer.

So Here she says, the plan of holding Bible readings was a heaven-born idea.

There are many, both men and women, who can engage in this branch of missionary labor.

Workers may thus be developed who will become mighty men of God.

So as we participate in this type of ministry, we will become mighty men and women of God.

You grow spiritually a lot when you are studying the Bible with someone else.

By this means the word of God has been given to thousands And the workers are brought into personal contact with people of all nations and tongues God will not permit this precious work for him to go unrewarded and he will crown with success Every humble effort made in his name.

I'm glad it says every humble effort, right?

Because when we're getting started, we may not feel like we know what we're doing.

And you may feel a little bit uncomfortable and a little bit like, I hope I'm doing the right thing and hope I know what to say and and it may feel like a very humble effort but what does he promise?

He will give success to every humble effort.

This is the Bible study of Reformation that we so desperately need in our church.

It is for thousands of workers to be doing this ministry.

There are families who will never be reached by the truth of God's word unless his servants enter their homes and by earnest ministry sanctified by the endorsement of the Holy Spirit break down the barriers." Now let me just pause there for a moment.

We as an Adventist church, especially here in Michigan, are pretty good about holding evangelistic meetings.

Now we just did a statewide Unlock Revelation and a lot of our churches do a meeting maybe every year or every other year, But this says that there are families who will not be reached through evangelistic meetings.

When you think about, and Tracy and I were talking about this after the class yesterday, if you were to send out brochures to your community and buy them to your evangelistic meeting, and let's say you sent out 5, 000 flyers you might get 5 people to show up to your meeting okay now if you were to instead go out let's say door-to-door or through a fair booth or going and just visiting people that you already know and inviting them to do Bible studies, your percentage would not be 1 out of a thousand.

It could be more like 1 out of every 15 or 20.

If I were to go down a street and take a card like this and say, have you heard about a free Bible study school and it has free Bible lessons and tell them about the lessons and bring a sample copy with me and show it to them and say would you be interested in these free Bible study guides that you're getting answers straight from the Bible?

And on 1 street you could probably get at least 5 people to say yes.

But if you mailed flyers to that neighborhood, or maybe 10 neighborhoods, not 1 of them would come to your meetings.

There are families who will never be reached unless we go to their doors until we go to them They're not necessarily going to come to it.

That doesn't mean we don't do public evangelistic meetings Because there are people who do come right?

But for the amount of money That we spend mailing out brochures and holding public events like that and renting a hall and all of that We could spend no money Just buying some Bible lesson and go out and get a lot of Bible studies started and you would have more results and reap more people and have more baptisms than all that money you spent in a big meeting.

But still the old approach of door-to-door, before that you don't necessarily know, it still has a fairly low percentage, from my experience, of positive response.

Even if some people would take the material and be very courteous, it probably goes in the circular file afterwards.

So I think it is very important to have some kind of a personal connection to that person, the family, co-worker, relative, because that breaks down the very first barrier, which is like, who are these people?

Because people today get so many things in the mail, and so many people coming to sell them stuff at the door that It's tough to know what they should listen to.

So your best option would be, like you said, somebody you already know, knows you, already trusts you.

Your second choice would be to invite somebody you don't know.

They don't really know you, but it's still a personal invitation.

Third option would be something that comes to them in the mail and there's no face behind it at all.

Okay, so, I said, I refer to the people that you know.

When you've exhausted that list, and everybody has said, no, I'm not ready for that, I'm not interested in that right now then go to those who you haven't yet met and then do some mailings in there and do some evangelistic means in there too So the key is to use many methods because somebody will respond.

Let's not just stick with just public meetings because there are some that won't come any other way.

Okay, Let's read the rest of this quotation.

She's saying that as we do personal ministry, it breaks down barriers, we could say prejudices.

I had people that when I did Bible studies and was following up on lead cards, I mentioned yesterday that sometimes you can do a mailing, you get those cards back in the mail.

Project Steps to Christ occasionally sends out, if you've ever gone at your house, these like little packets that have like ads in them for roof cleaning and carpet cleaning and all those.

Well, Project Steps to Christ sometimes slips into there.

They pay to have an insert put in there offering some of their free books like on the edge of time, which is a portion of great controversy or pathways of peace or something like that, which is part of steps to Christ.

And anyways, when those people mail that card in, they follow up and send them the material that they had requested, but then they send the card to the nearest Adventist church to follow up from there.

So occasionally I get some of those cards in the mail.

And so I have followed up on some of these and then offer them Bible lessons, start a Bible study with them, never ever told them I was an Adventist.

We just started studying and they start to realize that I'm a Christian.

They're enjoying it and it's not until...

Cultivating Interests Through Bible Studies - Part 3

Thank you, Lord, for this time that we have together this afternoon to talk about gaining decisions in Bible studies.

And I ask, Lord, that you would bless this session and that the information that we go over today would really be helpful as we're Working with a soul that we want to see in the kingdom of heaven Give us wisdom Lord to know how to reach people for you in Jesus name.

Amen Okay, so what is our goal in our ultimate goal and giving Bible studies It's the Great Commission which we find in Matthew 28 18 to 19.

This is a familiar passage you all know this 1, Go therefore and teach all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things, whatever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." So this is the goal of our Bible studies is to teach them, that word also means disciple them, teaching them to observe all things that the Lord has taught and leading to baptism, which is the culmination of many little decisions they've been making along the way.

Now, the harvest phase is where an individual is putting their beliefs into action and taking up the cross to follow Jesus fully.

Because this is our goal, we have to constantly be praying for right words to invite our interest to make those decisions for Christ.

1 of the most challenging parts of soul winning ministry is getting people to make decisions.

And this is because truthfully, a big portion of this is the work of the Holy Spirit on a person's heart.

But if we know how to persuade and how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, who is working on their hearts, we're more likely to gain a decision.

Schuller a little bit ago, and he tells a story about Henry Ford.

And, of course, Henry Ford, well-known here in Michigan, invented the automobile, And this was a story about when he was taking a trip through Europe.

And they came across King Francis Joseph II of Austria.

He was vacationing in England and his Model T was broken down on the side of the road.

Henry Ford just happened to be coming down and Saw a broken down Model T and he thought well now I know all about this vehicle so he stops and He asked if he can help and of course Henry didn't mention who he was and The King King Francis Joseph didn't recognize him He didn't know Henry Ford was So he opens up the hood and he has them crank it a certain way and he's listening.

Yeah, you can tell something's wrong with the engine.

And he gets a hammer and he taps right here and he taps right there.

And Henry Ford said, 100 silver shillings.

And the king said, 100 silver shillings for 2 minutes of work?

He said no, 2 silver shillings for 2 minutes of work, and 98 for knowing just where to hit.

And that's a lot of where it comes to, When it comes to gaining decisions, a lot of it is knowing just where to hit.

You know, what to say for that individual to help them come across the line.

So it's kind of really a science, and you learn more about it the more you do it.

But a lot of times we don't learn much about that science so we don't even know where to begin.

So hopefully this class is going to give you some help in getting started.

Decisions is Persuading people for Christ.

The sole winner must know the human mind, how people think, why they act, and the skills necessary to know just where to hit.

Our goal is to learn how to help people decide for Jesus and the truth that are going to prepare them for His coming.

And our role is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit who brings conviction.

Because we can't bring conviction, that's something the Spirit has to do.

Our role is just to cooperate with what the Spirit is already doing in their heart.

And thankfully, Jesus has promised us in Matthew 4 and 18 that it he said follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

And I claim this promise because he's going to teach us how to actually catch those men and fish for those men as we are studying his methods.

Series

Cultivating Bible Study Interest

Cultivating Interests Through Bible Studies - Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

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