Turn with me if you would to probably a familiar passage, Matthew chapter 28. This will be, first of all, thank you everybody for, and before I forget, everybody that has asked for a book and things, if you would see Gwen, she's handing them out and she will coordinate that. The verses that we're gonna read right now, and I'm gonna challenge everyone, if you haven't already, I'd like to ask each of you to memorize these verses. You may already have done that, but these verses are so foundational to what we're gonna be talking through for the next 12 weeks or so, that I'd like you to commit them to memory, so that the Holy Spirit can use these to renew our minds and transform our hearts throughout the week, every week, and so that we can be more thoughtful and more aware of his desire that we become disciple-making disciples. So Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Now we're going to watch just a brief video, probably four or five minutes, that will give an overview of This video is just kind of an introductory overview for what the course is going to be all about. I think it will be a good foundation, a good launching pad for the rest of our weeks together. and push us to these goals. Sometimes it just happens naturally in different states. life, to think about who you are and why God put you here on this planet. More specifically, the course of your life is designed to help you achieve three things. To understand afresh who God is, what he's doing about you, and what Jesus Christ has to do with that. Secondly, to see and understand yourself because you find it quite a bit confusing or disturbing or unsettling, perhaps some cherished ideas or assumptions of the challenge. Or you might long for a nice simple answer and find that none seems available. So, really the purpose of week one is to lay a foundation for the rest of the seminars. What I'd like to do is, if you guys would, for those of you who have manuals, if you'd turn to page 6 We're just going to go briefly, we're going to hit the tips of the waves on kind of a, give a real brief overview of the course. It's very, very foundational. I like to put this in, the way I think of this course is, It's based off of a book called The Trellis and the Vine, which a number of folks in the room have read. And I like to, I've been to, being in business, I've been in a number of different contexts for different training exercises. And I think the most effective training that I've ever been through have been things where it was done in stages over time where I had an opportunity to digest and really allow the teaching to kind of soak in before taking in new teaching and when it was done slowly and over a period of time, it really transformed. So the purpose of this is not to be two hours of information, now go change the world. I think the methodology of the course of your life is really different in that each week kind of builds on itself and a little new information and that builds on prior weeks And by the end, I think you're gonna see it's, we're all gonna have a really interesting Bible, gospel-saturated, Bible-oriented view of what it means to be a disciple-maker of the Lord Jesus. So turn with me, if you would, to page six. We're gonna read through this real briefly together. The format we're gonna use is gonna be a little different than what they're advocating here, it's still built on the same foundation. So they're under letter three. Three gifts and three strands. The three gifts and the foundation of what this is gonna be built on is the three gifts mapped out here in these paragraphs. You've just heard a summary of what this course is about. Another way of summarizing the methodology of this course is that we will be trying to make the most of three incredible gifts that God has given us. The first gift, God has given us as his word, the Bible, to light our path like a torch on a dark night. It is good to share our thoughts, feelings, and experiences, but in the end, it's God who not only has the answers, but also knows which are the truly important questions. So the first foundation here is the word of God, the Bible. Secondly, God also gives us each other to help, to urge, to encourage, and to sharpen each other. You'll spend lots of time, we will spend lots of time in the Bible together during this course and we'll do most of it together rather than individually. And as we talked about a little bit over the last week, I think there's a special way in which God uses the word and the spirit and community that we can grow even more rapidly together than we can by ourselves as we have the opportunity to speak the truth and love to one another. And then the third gift from God that he's given us We also need God to work in our hearts and minds to help us understand and change. That's why prayer is such a precious gift. God invites us to come to Him and ask Him to work in our lives. And He promises to give us only good gifts in response to our prayers. And so this course, the course of your life is built on these three gifts of God, from God, and consists of three interconnected components or strands. So everything we should do in this class should really be built on those three, those three gifts from God, the Bible and prayer and Christian community. And everything we do should really be centered on those and build on those. Now the three strands, we're gonna deviate a little bit because of the unique structure we're using here. Ideally what they would, another format, the primary format by which the course of your life is taught would be like in a home Bible study where you have an entire evening together to slow down. So we're not gonna hit every single question in the manual. We're just not gonna have time for that. So I'm gonna be looking to draw out probably the most pertinent pieces. We're not gonna have 90 minutes and so we'll work on a little bit of a condensed format. But so the seminars, when you see in your manual, the seminars are our time together here on Sunday afternoon. And there are nine seminars, and we should be able to stay pretty close to that format. We might have to slow down just a little bit so we don't go too fast. The second component is something I really want to highlight for you, right in the middle of page seven, the one-to-one meetings. A key piece of the course of your life is to actually put some shoes on this and do one-to-one discipleship with somebody, hopefully from within the group, would be ideal. And if that's not available, if that's not possible simply because of logistics or otherwise, then I'd like you to consider finding somebody, whether it's a coworker, a neighbor, or something that you can do a one-to-one Bible study with. And part of your assignment for next week is going to be identifying that person who you can do a Bible study with. What I'd like you to do, just to give you a little sneak preview for that, is turn back to page 7, 7-0. And just to give you a flavor for what this looked like in format, because our family did a test drive on the course of your life last summer. We got about two-thirds of the way through it before Sam went off to college. So we got truncated just a little bit early, but we got a pretty good foundation. And so what these one-to-one meetings look like in our family is we just wanted to kind of get comfortable with the format. The good news is that we've got six in our family and that's equally divisible by two. So in our group, we just had three groups of two who were on a weekly basis were going through these one-to-one Bible meetings. And the purpose of these, and the reason these are so important is It's very, very important for us to get kind of comfortable with the concept in a very low risk, basically no risk kind of format, the idea of doing a one-to-one Bible study with another person. It's much easier to walk before you run. And so if we have, if we've been diligent about doing these one-to-one meetings in another 12 weeks or so, whenever the course is done, I think it'll be great that we'll not only have a really good biblical understanding of what it means to be a disciple-making disciple of Jesus, but in 12 weeks we'll also look back and say, not only do I understand what that means, but I've already been doing it. And thirdly, oh by the way, it's fun. I mean, unfortunately, poor Michaela was my partner in our family, in our family time. But, I mean, we had, every now and again, Sam and Hannah would be off to Chick-fil-A and, you know, Glenn and Abby would be off at Bread Co. or whatever the case may be. But it really got to be fun. I mean, we really enjoyed these times together. And so, it's all, there's basically no preparation required for this. So, it's very low risk, very low effort. to go through these one-to-one Bible meetings. But it's very, very important. So I'm going to ask everybody to just be very, very intentional about following through on that. Because I don't want anybody to, the big piece of it is this is about a lot more than information. This is about transformation. And so if we're going to be, if we're going to experience the transformation, of what it means to be a disciple-making disciple of Jesus. It's really important that throughout the course of this, that we actually put some shoe leather behind this and do some one-on-one meeting. And honestly, it's a lot of fun. I mean, you can talk to Michaela on your own, but I actually had a lot of fun meeting with her and talking through these passages. But you can see it's a preset passage of scripture. There are some conversation, some thought-provoking questions there on the right-hand side. We probably spent about a half an hour together going through that, maybe probably a little less than that. But it was a great, and it's also great from a relationship-building standpoint. If there's, maybe there's somebody here in the church that you're thinking, you know what, there's somebody, I bet they're probably pretty interesting. Maybe I can have them be my one-to-one partner. So what I'd like you to do as part of the assignment for next week is to be thinking through Who is that person? And actually go ask them, and we just wanna make sure that everybody has somebody to visit with and do their one-to-one meetings with, okay? That's a very, very important piece of this, because we don't want this just to be, hey, that was a bunch of good information, and not have it actually change how we live. I mean, one of the things I love about CFPC is that's actually one of the pillars of what we wanna be about, is making disciples of Jesus. And this is a great format, I think, for, not only learning about it, but testing waters and seeing what this looks like on a boots on the ground kind of basis. So that is the one-to-one meetings referenced on, referenced in the middle of page seven. The last piece of what they call an intensive, we won't talk about this long, we're not gonna use the format that they're using here. The ideal way that they structured this course would be after a certain number of sessions between seminars eight and nine, what they'd like us to do is all go away for a weekend together. Now, if anybody wants to fund that, we'll be happy to try to do this. We can go to the Caribbean or something. But I think given schedules and all things like that, it's going to be difficult for us to make that kind of a time commitment and to do it all in the same time. This would be ideal. It would be great from a fellowship standpoint. We're going to take these intensive times and we're going to fold them into our time together here on Sunday afternoon. Now, one of the things I want you to be aware of is as we move through the course, one of the very, very powerful pieces of this model is because we're going to have, say, 12 weeks together, Part of the prayer time that we're gonna have, both corporately and individually, is we're gonna be praying about who has God placed in my life that I can reach out to and see if they'd be interested in doing some discipleship with, doing some Bible reading. There's a book I read some months ago that said that for people under the age of 30, for when a person went to them and said, would you be interested in doing some one-on-one Bible reading with me, the percentage of people who said yes was around 71 or 72%. So there's an awareness of the Bible, there's an openness to know that percentage went down somewhat when you got over the age of 30. But still, we ought to enter into this time trusting that, you know what, God works in hearts of kings and everybody. So there may be people that God has brought into my life and will bring into your life throughout the course of our time together. And so we want to be praying about who that might be. And that's one of the things that they would normally cover in the intensive. But I'd like for each of us to be thinking about who, maybe it's a coworker, maybe it's a neighbor, whatever the case may be. I'll tell you what this looked like in my life was probably We're probably going back about two years now. I've mentioned this guy before. He's a friend of mine at work. His name is David. And we were just getting to kind of know one another as reasonably new coworkers. And I was just sensing that David was, there was a potential that David might be hungry to grow a little bit more spiritually than he was. I kind of got the impression that he was, just needed somebody to encourage him in that path. I prayed about it for a couple of days, and I went into David's office, he's right next to me, and I went into David's office one morning and I just asked him, I said, I'm just gonna throw this out there, but I'd be interested to know whether or not you'd be interested in doing some kind of discipleship, just seeing what God's word says, and if you'd like, and he gets this big smile on his face, and he looks at me and he says, I don't think I have an option. And I said, what do you mean? I was praying about it this morning and I was reading the word and I realized that I need to know God's word better than I know it because he's got two teenagers and a young, a really young child. And he said, I know I want to lead my family better than I am spiritually, but I also know I don't have the training, the knowledge that I need to do that effectively. And so he said, I think God put you right here so that for us to do this together. And so, That was before I got exposed to any of this, but our friendship has gotten much stronger since then. So those are really the three keys to this. First off, from our standpoint, is going to be the seminars. It's going to be our time here on Sunday afternoon. Secondly, the one-to-one meetings are going to be very, very important. And you're actually going to have a lot of fun with that. You're going to really enjoy that. And then the intensive, again, we're gonna fold into our time together. The other thing is I really want to, I'd really like to take some time at the end of each of our Sunday classes, is spend some time in prayer, both corporately and maybe break down into some small groups. What I'd really love to see is, because I don't want this to be a man-centered kind of program, that kind of thing. What I'd really love to see is for the Holy Spirit to really transform us as a church for us to see God move in our midst through our time together and see him, whether it's new visitors that he's gonna bring to church that are gonna give us disciple-making opportunities or whatever, but I'd really like to spend some time in prayer as we wrap up our time together here in a little bit, okay? Lastly, I'd love for our time together to be very interactive, okay? If Warner's got a question, then there's a really good chance Tim is also asking the same question, so I'd love for this to be, I don't like to lecture any more than you all wanna hear me lecture, so I'd love for you guys to talk about whether it's an opportunity you had to share the gospel this past week, or even if it was just very quickly sharing a Bible verse with somebody, the basic principle where we're headed for this is to be just routinely in the practice of being with our brothers and sisters with Bible open and speaking God's truth to one another, okay? And so if you have opportunities, even if it doesn't have to be glamorous or anything like that, but we'd love to encourage one another with the opportunity to take God's word and use it to share with God's people, okay? So any questions about where we're going? And you're probably gonna have questions now that will be what we answered in weeks to come. Again, it's kind of like there's a foundational level and then next week we're gonna go on top of that, thin layers of concrete. And then by the time it's all said and done, hopefully we've all got a really rock solid understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and what it means to try to be used by him to make followers of Jesus, to make disciples of his. So, questions, John? What if you're going through your scripture, and either you or the person you're with has a question about whatever you're reading, or both of you have a question, and you can't answer it? Like, okay, you said zero risk, but what if, like, what do you do? Great question. What I would do is honestly admit that I don't, I'm not omniscient, and there are things about, there are nuances in scripture, I mean, that I'm not gonna understand, and maybe, either do some research, that's a great opportunity to do some research, or that's a great opportunity to reach out to Jeff or somebody that, I mean, there are gonna be things about scripture that, again, we're not gonna have every single answer, and that's okay. So, I mean, that should be part of the fear factor that should really go away because no one in this room is gonna be expected to be an absolute Bible scholar and to be able to interpret accurately every single book of the Bible, but one of the things I love about this book is it starts out in the book of Colossians, that it really goes through on the one-to-one meetings, and it's manageable, and so I think Colossians is a pretty straightforward book of the Bible, so they didn't pick Revelation, or something that could be a lot more confusing, that's a great question, but you know what, God can speak for himself, and so we certainly want to bring in reinforcements wherever we have to. I have to do that with great frequency, so yeah. Did you have a, oh, okay, I thought you were raising your hand, okay. So, but great question. Yes, Dorothy. here that attend, and then there'll be people who come to church or that aren't part of it, will this class be mentioned in our regular worship service and that possibly someone that attended that might be someone we would, God might put it on our heart to ask, that they might know about it that way? That would be one way of... So if I understand you, is it possible that the class would be mentioned during the worship service so that that person might be possibly someone to meet with for a one-on-one meeting? Is that possible, Jeff? Sure. OK. Yeah, we have mentioned it the last couple of Sundays. It may also be certainly something we could mention during the worship service. And even taking the initiative itself and going up to someone else who What a great opportunity. If there's somebody that maybe you don't know as well as you like or you think that could really be an effective discipling relationship or whatever, what a great opportunity to broaden the net. Does it work? Sure. So good. Any other questions? Yes, Davina. Right. Great question. Let me clarify that. Probably the best way for that to happen from a relationship standpoint and from a just from a practice standpoint, would be over a cup of coffee at Bredco, or something like that. I think you'll find that it's gonna be more fruitful if you can get some time carved out, probably away from church, only because things are probably gonna feel a little bit condensed time-wise around here. But again, there's a, excuse me, One of the great benefits I think that comes out of this, remember the three gifts from God were scripture, prayer, and one another, is just the relationship building that goes along with this. So if you have time, it's great to block out an hour, and maybe the Bible discussion piece of it is gonna be 20 to 30 minutes, and the rest of it is gonna be praying for one another, and praying for the church, and just sharing what's going on in one another's lives. So that would be ideal would be, you know, maybe an hour during the week. No, no, no, no, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. That'll be, it'll be, yeah, during the week wherever. So there's not a, there's not a defined time or anything. That's, that's where it'll be. It'll probably take a little coordination for whoever that person might be, saying, you know, what does your camp calendar look like? No, maybe it's, hey, let's have dinner at six o'clock on Wednesday on the way to the seven o'clock preaching. That might be a great way to do it. So yeah, whatever flexibility works in your camp. Yeah. Can we use any of the places here at church beforehand, like before Sunday, or whether that be available to us as a meeting place? Sure, yeah. I think you could easily work in a three-person group. The dynamics change just a little bit depending on how well they know each other and things like that. After having done it with McKay, I mean I could see where it could very easily work in a three-person group. Yeah, there's a lot of flexibility that way. Yeah, good question. Yeah, anybody else? Yeah, it's Carol. Sure, absolutely. Can the spouses do the one-on-one? I mean, it's one of the benefits to having it being someone other than the spouse. It gives you an opportunity to build a relationship with a new friend, that kind of thing. But certainly, that can be a great way to do it. Yep. Absolutely. A lot of flexibility to this. And one of the things you're going to see is this is not a one-size-fits-all kind of discipleship program. You have to do this. You have to do this. That's why prayer is so integral to what we're going to do is God's moving differently in my life as he will in brother Tim Schiller's life and we have different people that are kind of in our sphere of influence and things like that. The idea is more embracing the reality that God's got an agenda, and this is gonna be unfolded in weeks to come. God's got an agenda to make worshipers of himself, and then what role we have to play in that of being a disciple-making disciple. But there are different people in Tim's sphere of influence than there are in mine, and so on, okay? Very good. If we could turn to, quickly, and some of the questions on relative to the one-to-one meetings are on page 8 under number 4 where it talks a little bit about more on the one-to-one meetings. But again, there's a lot of flexibility on this. Turn to page 9 with me if you would. We're going to do a real brief study again to help kind of lay the foundation for our semester. Turn with me if you would to Psalm 139. I'll read verses 1 to 16. There are three questions there, just to give you a heads up. The first question is, what does this passage say about God's place in the course of our lives? Secondly, how does the psalmist feel about this? How does he react? And then thirdly, how do you react? And under number three, what I'd like us to talk about is where do we see God speaking in this passage directly to the whole idea of what we're learning about, becoming a disciple-making disciple of Jesus. So let me read real quickly Psalm 139, verses one to 16. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is too high. I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay a hold of me. If I say surely the darkness will overwhelm me and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to you and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you, for you formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all and in your book were all written. The days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. Okay, so let's do this exercise real quickly together. What does this passage say about God's place in the course of our lives? Again, we're building a foundation for lessons to come. What do you guys see in there? Always with us. Very good, Dorothy. Thank you. What's that? He knows us. Very good. He knows us inside and out. Very good. We're all in his plan. Very good. He guides us. Very good. He guides us. Another thing we picked out of here is we're referenced as his creation, which would make him Creator, okay, very good. Always present, yes, John. Cannot hide from God. Absolutely cannot hide from God. Very good, thank you. Let's go on to number two real quick. How does the psalmist feel about this? How does he react to these truths? He's thankful, very good. He's resigned to that, I mean, it's an acknowledgment, and he's resigned to it. It doesn't have to be a man in the name of grace. Yep, he has submitted to God's role in his life. Anybody else? He praises him. He praises him, very good. Yep, thank you, Carol. The word I wrote down, he stands in awe of God. Pick up on that that he definitely recognizes that God is supreme and amazing. Let's go on to number three real quick. How do you react? How do you react to these truths that we've unpacked from these verses? Especially thinking about it in the context of we know that where this course is headed is we wanna understand rightly our role as disciple-making disciples of Jesus, okay? So how do the truths that we've talked about here in these 16 verses of Psalm 139, how might they fit into being a disciple-making disciple of Jesus? John. It's extremely comforting to know that I'm not the best thing God. Amen, very good, very good. I'm sorry, what? We're not alone, that's exactly right. I can tell you, I mean, back to the story I was telling about my friend David, to me it just blew me away when I was sitting in his office at 10 o'clock on a, whatever it was, Wednesday morning, saying, hey, I'd be interested in doing some kind of Bible study with you, I bet we could grow together, figure this out together, and he just gets this look on his face and looks at me and he's like, I don't even think I have an option. And it just, but God was, previous, right? God was working in his heart to show him, you know, I need, I need this. I need something. But God went before me and laid all the groundwork. So, but it was good to see his faithfulness in that. Yeah. Anybody else? Another thought I had was, again, if we're talking about creator, creation, that means that I'm gonna be accountable to God, right? So it means that if I'm given this one life, I want it to be about more than amassing wealth or whatever. I mean, if I only get one shot at this, I wanna make sure that my life is pointed in the right direction. Whatever I'm doing, is important to God. So quite honestly, one of the things we're going to be talking about over the next weeks, we're going to be talking about what is God's agenda? What is He all about? It's very cool. As you go through these lessons, it's very, very cool. The author has really helped to crystallize what is God's agenda for the world? And then, oh, by the way, I want to get on board with that. If God's going that way, I don't want to be going the other way. I want to be on board with His agenda. It just kind of makes me think that, you know, we're all gonna, before you hear that, someday, well done, my good and faithful servant, I wanna make sure that I was pulling in the same direction that God was, and there's probably some bad theology with God pulling, but I think you know what I'm saying. It's like, God's gotta, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yep, absolutely. I love, John Piper quoted, So only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. And so in coming weeks, we're gonna be understanding more deeply what is God's agenda and what is our role in his agenda. Anything else that we see on how we react to this? Again, back to that, another thing, nuance I picked out here was, again, back to creator, creation, king, servant, God has the right to impose, I mean, God has the right to tell us what we're to do with our life, right? So God has the right to tell us, this is not only, this is God's agenda for what he's trying to, what he's accomplishing here on earth, but he has the right to direct all of our lives. So if God gives us direction, one of the things that gets unpacked in the Trellis and the Vine book, and it gets touched on, throughout this course as well, is that there's a strong propensity for people to, because a lot of us came in, we've memorized these verses from Matthew 28, right? And the tricky part is that we have, sometimes we have this general awareness that yes, disciple making, I am pro-disciple making, I think the pastor should work even harder at that, okay? That's the typical, that's a very typical mindset within the American church, is why, you know, we should have a rally. Well, what the authors make a case in the Trails of the Vine book, and also in this, as we unpack it, is does Jeff have a role to play in disciple making? Absolutely. but each one of us has a role in making disciples as well. This is not something for people, only people who have graduated from seminary. This is stuff that all sheep can do this. And so now as we head into this in future weeks, it's gonna be a matter of, wow, and that's what I love about this course, as our mindset gets changed and we come to accept the fact that, wow, I am a disciple of Jesus and part of my job description and quite honestly my delight as a disciple of Jesus is to try to be used by God to make other disciples of Jesus. So that's a part of my identity is to be a disciple, making disciple of Jesus. And then 10 or 12 weeks from now, oh, by the way, in my one-on-one meetings, I've already been doing that. I've already been practicing the things that God wants me to do in prayer and through his word to seek to be used by him and trusting that he knows what he's doing and the Holy Spirit is real and he has the opportunity, he has the power to transform hearts. So that's what I love about this is it's not just informational but transformational. And so that's where I think all this comes together in Psalm 139. Yeah, Gordon. with someone in order to make it seem like work. Absolutely. Warner and I had coffee yesterday and that was a lot of fun. And one of the things that the authors of this course will advocate is that it's just being open in communication. The idea would be here is not just for, we use Warner and I as an example, that if Warner and I were to enter into a weekly discipling relationship that a lot of times it's helpful to put some boundaries on that and say, let's plan on doing this every week for the next three months. And the idea would be that after that pre-described time is over, then maybe what we do is we part company, and each of us goes to find two new folks to disciple with. So there's a reproducing, multiplying effect that goes along with this. I think that's part of when we get outside of this, like in three months, four months, whatever, when we start actively seeking maybe a co-worker or something like that, that's really helpful to communicate. It's like, hey, for the next 90 days, what would you think about having lunch every Monday for the next 90 days? We'll talk a little Bible and get to know a little bit of God's word together. Thank you for bringing that up, Warner. A lot of times it's helpful if they're going to be a lot more open to it if they know they're not making a commitment for the next 40 years. And so, that's very, and it can, it's also, I mean, a lot of times it's just helpful to enter into a fresh disciple-making relationship at that point. But again, the idea here is, and this is what I love about this church being committed to making disciples, but this course and the way it works is hopefully there's a multiplying effect to this, okay? Okay, good. Thank you. So, let's talk about next steps. Here's what I would like you to be thinking about. One is identify a partner, okay, that you can do these one-on-one meetings. Now, if for whatever reason it doesn't work out that that person can be someone in this class, there may be somebody that maybe there's a coworker who maybe they're a church-going person, maybe they're not, maybe you go to them and say, You know what, I'd really love it if you would agree to do this with me for the next three months, that this is part of a course, and would you be willing to do this with me? It could even turn into an evangelism opportunity. Or maybe they're already saved and they don't know what it means to be a disciple maker, but that's such an important piece to the course, is... Yeah? It could. It could. It really could. That might take someone that might be – have more of a risk-taking personality. They might be – for instance, if somebody is real reserved or shy or whatever, it might be more comfortable with them to work with somebody they already know to be saved and things like that. But absolutely, if somebody's prayed about this. So this week is all about prayer and trying to identify that person that you can do the one-to-one meetings with, okay? And if for some reason a week gets missed, no one's coming under church discipline for that. But that is, I just want to reemphasize for you that that's really, really huge. Because in three months, I want everybody to be looked back on this as like, wow, I can, you know, God could use even me. And oh, by the way, I've already been doing it. So in a very low-risk environment, it's really fun. Again, don't ask Michaela about her experience, but I thought it was fun. So what we'll do is we'll plan on, you don't necessarily have to meet with your person one-on-one this week, but identify that person. And if you would, just be ready to share that next week with us, if you would, just so that we can have some accountability there. And then we'll actually practice it the week after would be the first time that we'd have our one-to-one meetings. Then for next time also, I'd like you to complete ahead of time on page 11, questions 1 and 2. That's basically, so if you've done some prep time there on Genesis 1 and 2, just the questions there on page 11, that'll be helpful. as far as our group conversation for next time. I think that'll be obvious why. And then the prayer requests, and then come to discuss that next time. And then what I'd like to do is encourage you all, and I will be praying about this as well, that pray for our church, that our church would be a disciple-making church, that the Holy Spirit would just move, and that every one of us would have a passion to be used by God to make disciples. This is, when I first got exposed to the Trellis and the Vine about a year ago, I got done reading it, I think I was telling Jason, I got done reading it and I thought, this is true and this is something I can devote my life to. I mean, it's just that transformative because at the end of the day, does anybody care if I turned out to be a good golfer and I was a five handicap? Nobody cares. from an eternal perspective, having an eternal mindset of investing in the kingdom. I just think this is so pertinent. So pray for that. Again, pray that God will begin to show you who he has in your life, not necessarily during our time together, but after the class. Pray that God will show you similar to my situation with David, my coworker, that he might just put somebody in your path that you can do that. All right? Let me close this up in prayer. I'm hoping in future weeks that we'll have a little bit more time to spend in prayer. But thank you all for coming. I'm so encouraged. And I pray that God will use this year of class and use our time together to bear great fruit for him and the glory of his son's name in the future. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time together. Father, I thank you for the privilege of being a member of a church that seeks to be faithful to your great commission to make disciples of the Lord Jesus. And Father, how easy it is when we are commanded to do something, Father, how easy it is for us to bristle and resist because you know, as part of our fallen nature, we do not always embrace commands as we ought. But Father, help each of us to see this command as a delight. Father, what could be a greater pursuit to devote the one life that you give each of us, but to make disciples of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit would illumine your word for us. Father, that your Holy Spirit would give us a hunger for your word. And Father, that we would understand your word and that we would have a passion to share your word, not only with each other during the time of our class, but Father, also with others from either from our church or from outside our church. And I pray that your Holy Spirit would use this course, use this class to make disciples, to reproduce disciples of the Lord Jesus. And Father, I pray that you would give each of us an eternal mindset that we would be passionate about using this one life that you give us for that which truly matters. Father, how easy it is to be trapped by and misguided by lesser things. Father, by money and by status and by other things. But Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit would just elevate the person and work of Christ in our hearts and in our minds so that we would cherish and delight in him above all things, and that we would not be reluctant, but that we would be anxious to tell others about our great Savior. Father, we pray especially for the worship service tonight. I pray, Father, that you would bless Pastor Jeff as he opens your word. And Father, may you work through him and through your word by your spirit. Father, that if there are any folks with us tonight who do not yet have a saving relationship with Christ, I pray that you would bring about the new birth in one or more here tonight. And Father, I pray for the sheep who will be here as well. Father, that we would hunger for your truth, and Father, that you would use the proclamation of your truth to transform our hearts and our minds, that we would cherish our Savior even more. Father, as we enter into this Easter season, I pray that you would bring people across our paths, that we could share the good news of Jesus with them, that we could get to share the news of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. And Father, as we learned earlier from Psalm 139, you are a pursuing God, you have an agenda, and Father, we just pray that you would go before us and begin to work in the hearts of people that you will bring into our paths this week, that we might have the privilege of proclaiming your truth and even seeing one or more come to a saving faith in Jesus. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.