Ministry Pipeline
***Required Curriculum Requested by Pastoral Team***
Fundamentals of the Faith: 13 Lessons to Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of Jesus Christ
By: John F. MacArthur
On Sunday mornings at Grace Community Church, where John MacArthur preaches, small groups gather together in Fundamentals of the Faith classes to use this manual of thirteen lessons that blend basic biblical truths with personal obedience and service.
For the first time ever, Fundamentals of the Faith is available to everyone in book form. With topics ranging from “God: His Character and Attributes” to “The Church: Fellowship and Worship,” this study is ideal for discipling new believers or realizing afresh what it means to follow Jesus.
Each lesson is loaded with learning tools to help you engage Scripture:
A link to 13 free downloadable messages by John MacArthur himself
Study questions and memory verses
Suggestions for practical application
If you are a new believer or know someone who is, Fundamentals of the Faith is the perfect resource for establishing a solid biblical foundation for the Christian life.
engagement.
Family and Children Ministry
***Highly recommended by the Pastoral Team***
Family Worship
by: Donald S. Whitney
Gathering together for worship is an indispensable part of your family’s spiritual life. It is a means for God to reveal himself to you and your loved ones in a powerful way.
This practical guide by Donald S. Whitney will prove invaluable to families―with or without children in the home―as they practice God-glorifying, Christ-exalting worship through Bible reading, prayer, and singing. Includes a discussion guide in the back for small groups.
Family Worship Bible Guide
By: Joel R. Beeke
Leading and nurturing your family as you seek to glorify God and encourage spiritual growth in your home is both God's command and your privilege. One of the best and most effective ways to do this is through intentional, worshipful, daily family devotions where the truths of God's life-changing Word are openly discussed chapter by chapter. Hand in hand with your Bible, this Family Worship Bible Guide presents rich devotional thoughts on all 1,189 chapters in the Bible, including searching questions to promote conversation, to help you with this responsibility. Use this resource every day alongside Scripture to read each chapter's major takeaways aloud and then discuss them with your family. With the Holy Spirit's blessing, this book will transform you and your family!
Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God
By: Voddie Baucham Jr.
More teens are turning away from the faith than ever before: it is estimated that 75 to 88 percent of Christian teens walk away from Christianity by the end of their freshman year of college. Something must be done.
Family Driven Faith equips Christian parents with the tools they need to raise children biblically in a post-Christian, antifamily society. Voddie Baucham, who with his wife has overcome a multigenerational legacy of broken and dysfunctional homes, shows that God has not left us alone in raising godly children.
This bold book is an urgent call to parents―and the church―to return to biblical discipleship in and through the home. This paperback edition includes a new preface and a study guide to facilitate interaction in small-group settings and to help parents put principles into practice.
Principle of Biblical Interpretation
***Books on Hermeneutics Recommended by the Pastoral Team***
How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth: Fourth Edition
By: Gordon D. Fee
Understanding the Bible isn’t for the few, the gifted, the scholarly. The Bible is accessible. It’s meant to be read and comprehended by everyone from armchair readers to seminary students. A few essential insights into the Bible can clear up a lot of misconceptions and help you grasp the meaning of Scripture and its application to your twenty-first-century life.
More than three quarters of a million people have turned to How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth to inform their reading of the Bible. This fourth edition features revisions that keep pace with current scholarship, resources, and culture. Changes include:
Updated language for better readability
Scripture references now appear only in brackets at the end of a sentence or paragraph, helping you read the Bible as you would read any book—without the numbers
A new authors’ preface
Redesigned and updated diagrams
Updated list of recommended commentaries and resources
Covering everything from translational concerns to different genres of biblical writing, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth is used all around the world. In clear, simple language, it helps you accurately understand the different parts of the Bible—their meaning for ancient audiences and their implications for you today—so you can uncover the inexhaustible worth that is in God’s Word.
Inductive Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, and Application through the Lenses of History, Literature, and Theology
By: Andreas J. Kostenberger & Richard Alan Fuhr
Inductive Bible study is a practical, relevant, and time-tested approach to interpreting Scripture. This volume incorporates insights from contemporary evangelical hermeneutics into an approachable, step-by-step process moving from observation through interpretation and on to the application of God’s Word. Each step is viewed through the lenses of the hermeneutical triad, exploring the historical, literary, and theological elements that impact how one observes, interprets, and applies the Bible. Chapter by chapter, Inductive Bible Study explores a broad representation of biblical texts as it illustrates the steps of inductive methodology across the literary landscape of Scripture. Important features of the book include comparing translations, asking the right questions of the text, basic discourse analysis, considering various facets of context, the study of words and phrases, interpretive and thematic correlation, evaluating relevance and determining legitimacy in application, the role of the Holy Spirit in appropriating Scripture, and doing theology as the outflow of inductive Bible study.
Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis
By: Craig A. Carter
The rise of modernity, especially the European Enlightenment and its aftermath, has negatively impacted the way we understand the nature and interpretation of Christian Scripture. In this introduction to biblical interpretation, Craig Carter evaluates the problems of post-Enlightenment hermeneutics and offers an alternative approach: exegesis in harmony with the Great Tradition. Carter argues for the validity of patristic christological exegesis, showing that we must recover the Nicene theological tradition as the context for contemporary exegesis, and seeks to root both the nature and interpretation of Scripture firmly in trinitarian orthodoxy.engagement.
Discipleship
***Highly recommended by the Pastoral Team***
Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus
By: Mark E. Dever
In this concise guide, pastor Mark Dever outlines the who, what, where, when, why, and how of discipling―helping others follow Jesus.
Following the pattern found in Scripture, this book explains how disciple-making relationships should function in the context of the local church, teaching us how to cultivate a culture of discipling as a normal part of our everyday lives.
Part of the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series.
Gospel-Centered Discipleship
By: Jonathan K. Dobson
Everyone’s idea of discipleship is different. Some people emphasize evangelism―sharing their faith. Still others promote a hierarchical system for spiritual growth, a way for older Christians to pass on best practices to younger believers. Yet, both ideas are incomplete. Real discipleship is so much more.
Avoiding extremes and evaluating motives, Jonathan Dodson insists on a way of following Jesus that re-centers discipleship on the gospel.
This book helps us understand and experience the fullness of discipleship as God intended. It combines the mess and the weight, the imperfection and transformation, the honesty and wonder of being a disciple who revolves around Jesus. Here is a practical guide to discipleship that is Spirit-filled, Christ-centered, field-tested, and easily implemented.
Organic Discipleship: Mentoring Others Into Spiritual Maturity and Leadership
By: Dennis McCallum & Jessica Lowery
Two leading disciplemakers explain how they mentor disciples in one of the most successful disciplship-based churches in North America. Biblical and practical, this book gets down to the real questions in the disciple making process:
How can I avoid discredited authoritarian models for disciple-making?
What is the biblical case for making disciples?
How can I disciple others if I was never discipled?
How do I select someone to disciple?
How do I get started?
How do I become the kind of close friend that can influence another?
What sort of goals should we set?
What kind of study content is most helpful?
How can I foster a love of prayer in another?
Why do people follow some models more than others?
How can I create a life-long thirst for doing ministry?
How can I effectively coach my friend in his or her ministry?
When and how do I release a disciple to independence?
These authors are experts who have raised up hundreds of house church leaders and other Christian workers during their combined 60 years of experience.
