Step #3 — How to Implement Knowing God

Knowing God Preparation Steps

Step One:  Pray for workers to go into the harvest. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” (Luke 10:2)

 Step Two:  We suggest that you train a group of disciple-makers (spiritual parents) to personally care for the new Christians that enter your church on a one-to-one basis.  The process is entitled Becoming a Disciple-Maker and the materials are available at disciple-maker.org

Step Three: The pastor presents the Knowing God small group evangelistic home Bible study vision and strategy to his staff and leadership and gains support for the process.

Step Four: The pastor personally selects and enlists a person with a heart to reach people for Christ and good administrative skills to lead and oversee the Knowing God evangelistic ministry.  (This could be a staff member, lay volunteer, or in smaller churches, the pastor.)

Step Five: The pastor creates a list of the current adult small group leaders along with other leaders, such as deacons and their wives who are capable of leading small groups.  Next, he orders several Knowing God Leader’s Packs for each small group leader and enough Knowing God Student’s Packs for future neighborhood Bible studies throughout your community.

 Step Six: The pastor sends a letter and calls each person on the list and invites them and their spouses to a simple luncheon after worship services to explain the process.

 Step Seven:  During the luncheon…

  • The pastor explains the Knowing God Evangelistic Strategy along with his passion for reaching the lost.
  • Each participant receives a Knowing God Leader’s Pack and are invited to attend the five session Knowing God study at the pastor’s house on a selected night of the week. Depending on how many people are in the small group training, the pastor asks different people to lead each session to gain experience.  Three different people could experience leading one session. (The Knowing God study is only four sessions, but during the fifth session, the pastor explains how to implement the strategy, and practice role playing at neighbors’ doors.)
  • The pastor also explains that at the conclusion of the five weekly sessions, each person will be challenged to host an evangelistic Bible study for their own neighborhood.

 

Knowing God Implementation Steps:  Phase One

Step One: After the small group leaders are trained, each person establishes a day and time when they will begin hosting the four week Knowing God small group study at their own home.  Weeknight studies are most common.

Step Two:  We suggest that your church orders enough Knowing God Hanging Envelopes (ISBN 1-891572-19-9) plus Knowing God Flyers (ISBN 1-891572-20-2) for each small group leader.  This number could be 100-200 homes per small group leader.

Step Three:  Create your own Personal Invitation with a picture of you or you and your spouse describing the date, time, and location of your Knowing God study.  These invitations can be created online by going to the Create Invitation tab on the home page of our web site.  (If you have limited computer skills, simply ask a friend to help you.)

Step Four:  Two weeks before your study, you or you and your spouse will visit ½ the homes in your neighborhood – and one week before your study, visit the other ½ of the homes.  Your goal is to invite people that live on your street and adjacent streets inviting them to the Knowing God study.  This could be a total of 200 homes.
(In the United States, many people are at home on Saturday mornings between 10am and 12pm.)

Important:  It is important that you keep a master map of the homes that have been invited to the Knowing God study so you don’t duplicate invitations.

Step Five:  If someone answers the door, divide your speaking responsibilities by simply saying:
First Person:
• “Hello, my name is (first name, last name) and this is my wife (first name) and we’re your neighbors that live right up the street on (street name).”
• “We’d like to invite you to our home starting (day of week, and date) to learn how to personally know God.”
• “The study is only four weeks – one night per week – and we’ll cover subjects such as:

(First Person hands your neighbor the flyer and briefly covers the topics)

–  Why Should I Believe in God?

–  Why Should I Believe in the Bible?

–  What is God like?

–  How do I Know for Sure that I’m Going to Heaven?”

 Second Person:
(gives them the personal invitation with your photo, date, and time of the study and says…)

“If you would like to come, simply RSVP by e-mailing or calling us so we can have plenty of coffee and refreshments.”

“We’d love to have you to our home and get to know you better!”

(Be ready and excited to continue the conversation if they would like to talk further.  Try to begin developing a relationship.)    

“Have a great rest of the day!”

Step Six:  If someone does not answer the door, simply enclose the Knowing God Flyer and your Personal Invitation in the Knowing God Hanging Envelope and hang it on the front door handle.

Step Seven:  The day before any Knowing God Bible study, always give the people who have RSVP’d a call and or e-mail to remind them of the date and starting time.  Lead the Knowing God study at your home and pray for people to receive Christ as their Savior and Lord.

Step Eight:  When someone receives Christ at your Bible study, ask them if they would like to work one-to-one with a teammate so they can continue to grow spiritually.  Be sure and let the Becoming A Disciple-Maker Coordinator know that you have a “baby” that needs personal care so they can pair a trained disciple-maker with the new Christian.  The disciple-maker is trained to take a new believer through 7 one-to-one sessions in A Call to Joy and 11 one-to-one sessions in A Call to Growth.  New born babies need personal care – so be sure that the new-born in your small group receives one-to-one personal care.

Don’t be discouraged if you have only one or two people at your study.  God cares about each and every person individually in your neighborhoods coming to faith in Christ.  Jesus said, “If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?” “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness.  Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (Matthew 18:12, 2 Peter 3:9)

Knowing God Implementation Steps:  Phase Two

Step One: After Phase One has been completed, the pastor preaches an evangelistic sermon series about the need for Christians to go into the fields and reap the harvest.  The goal is to recruit additional workers to go into the fields and host additional Knowing God studies at their home.  At the conclusion of the sermon he may say:

“We’re not going to just talk about this – we have a church-wide evangelistic strategy to help you get into the fields.  It is entitled ‘Knowing God.’  You simply take a survey of your own neighborhood with one of our qualified Knowing God teachers (men with men and women with women unless married) asking if your neighbors would be interested in attending your home one night per week for four weeks to study about Knowing God.  You don’t have to teach the study – we already have teachers prepared to teach it at your home.  Those of you who are serious about reaching our community for Christ please come to the front of the building and make your commitment now.”  (Be sure and retrieve the people’s names that come forward so a qualified teacher can pair up with them to conduct the survey and lead the study in their neighborhood.)

Step Two: Simply follow the exact steps as Phase One and conduct the Knowing God study at the sponsor’s home instead of the teacher’s home.  The only difference between Phase One and Phase Two is that the Bible study is held at the church member’s home instead of the teacher’s home.

Small Group Bible Studies:
Make sure that the new believer becomes a part of a small group Bible study.  These studies can occur at the church building or in homes across your city.  You may want to follow the Knowing God Study with a small group study on the book of Matthew.  Matthew Small Group Leader’s Guide ISBN# 1-891572-15-6 is a great resource under the Matthew Small Group Leader’s Guide Tab on your home page.

Knowing God Implementation Steps:  Phase Three

Step One:  After you have completed Phases One and Two, use your city map to identify the streets of your city that have not yet been covered by the Knowing God evangelistic home Bible study.

Step Two:  In teams of two, go to each home and offer to lead a Bible study for their neighborhood.  You can use the same procedure as Phase One except your invitation can say, “If you are interested in hosting a Bible study about Knowing God for your neighborhood, please contact us at (e-mail or phone number).  If they are not at home, you can leave invitation information in the Knowing God Hanging Envelope and hang it on their door.  When a neighbor responds, they can then function as your host home for the Knowing God evangelistic home Bible study.   

Helpful Hints for Leading the Knowing God Evangelistic Home Bible Study

  • Confess all sin in your life, submit your will to the Lord, and yield complete control of your life to God so He can fill and empower you with His Holy Spirit. “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18)
  • Always pray before leading a small group Bible study and ask God to do the teaching through you. Remember, “You have been crucified with Christ” – let Christ live and speak through you.  (Galatians 2:20)
  • Memorize everyone’s name.
  • Remember – your main goal should not be to finish each session on time. Relax and allow your group to have healthy discussions.  If you need an extra week to finish the material – that’s okay!
  • Be a good listener – be sincerely interested and encouraging when your group members share. Eye contact is critical.
  • Never allow yourself to get in an argument with one of your small group members – even if they are argumentative. Above all – show the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control!
  • If someone asks you a question that you can’t answer – don’t try to “fake” an answer. Be honest and tell them you don’t know, but you’ll try to have an answer the following week.  (Ask your pastor for help in answering their question.)
  • One of your goals is to encourage everyone in the group to participate in discussions. If a certain member isn’t participating, ask them a non-threatening question such as, “(Name) do you have any thoughts on that subject?”
  • The less you have to look at the boxed material – the more confidence the group will have in you as their leader.
  • Be encouraging – if someone doesn’t answer a question exactly correct, and it isn’t a critical issue – don’t correct them – let it go. Or, you can say to the group, “Does anyone else have thoughts they would like to share about that subject?”
  • When you arrive at a “fill in the blank” portion and the answer seems fairly simple, allow your group to try to fill in the blank to increase group interaction.
  • Never let your group members see you look at your watch!

May the Lord give you a rich harvest because of your faithful obedience!  God has given each of us a certain amount of time on this earth…Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent Me.  Night is coming, when no one can work.” (John 9:4)  Let’s make every day count!  Remember, only what we do for Christ will last!  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16)

Grace & Peace,
Randy Craig

President

Living Word Publishing