Begin your Journey

 
 

JOURNEY

This ministry is for new people or people who have been in the church for a long time. Even if you are undecided and searching, this ministry will help you. And don’t let the word “disciple” scare you! It simply means a follower of a great leader. Followers emulate their leader and pass on their teachings. We welcome you to join us on this journey. Take the Next Step on Your Journey!
 

 

 Welcome to

Journey

 Discipleship!

 
 
 
 

 JOURNEY DISCIPLESHIP – UNDER DEVELOPMENT!

Details TBA

These steps are part of what EAG feels are essential components of healthy spiritual formation. Following the steps in order is not essential except for Step 1, The Purple Book, which we advise as a starting point for every new believer or person who needs to learn what the Bible says about foundational beliefs. If you are interested in a step that is not being offered right now, please see Pastor John or Bonnie about the possibility of an independent study. Although these steps are meant to be walked out in small cell gatherings, they may also be offered as Wednesday evening Bible studies, Sunday evening LifeGroups or Thursday night HomeGroups, so watch your calendar!

FIRST – THE BIBLE

 
The Bible isn’t a step. It’s a journey!  Read it. Ponder it. Study it. Mark it up. Take notes. Speak it. Carry it around. Rustle its pages. Listen electronically. It’s our foremost authority. Let us know if you can’t afford one. TIP: Don’t use a regular highlighter like the Sharpie in the pic below. See how the page crinkled where it is highlighted in green? You don’t want wetness or bleed-through. Try the Accu-Gel Bible Highlighter Study Kit or the Bible Dry Highlighter. Also watch which pens you use. Test in an inconspicuous place first. Get started!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Next – A New Kind of 12-Step Program!

The Purple Book

Step 1: Called to Basic Training

12-part Bible Study

From students and scholars to parents, kids, rock stars, and professional athletes, people all over the world are doing The Purple Book. Why? Because they’re looking for a foundation that no storm in life will prevail against and a heart that’s shaped and guided by the knowledge of God’s Word.
 
The Purple Book is a twelve-part Bible study designed to help new believers and longtime followers of Jesus stand firm and grow strong in the Christian life. Take the challenge to build the foundation of your life on the Word of God. Do The Purple Book.
 
‘I love The Purple Book. It continually helps reinforce the only foundation worth building upon – a biblical one.’ – Peter Furler, newsboys … ‘The Purple Book has been instrumental in my growth as a believer .. an effective tool in helping me build the life that God has intended for me.’ – Mark Brunell, Washington Redskins
 
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Step 2:  Called to Inward Maturity

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

EH Spirituality is a strategy for discipleship that deeply changes lives. This course addresses the reality that emotional maturity and spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. It equips people to develop a personal, first-hand relationship with Jesus by incorporating stillness, silence and Scripture as daily life rhythms. Move through 8 life-changing sessions:
  • The Problem of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality
  • Know Yourself That You May Know God
  • Going Back in Order to Go Forward
  • Journey Through the Wall
  • Enlarge Your Soul Through Grief and Loss
  • Discover the Rhythms of the Daily Office & Sabbath
  • Grow Into an Emotionally Healthy Adult
  • Go the Next Step to Develop a “Rule of Life”
Emotionally Healthy Relationships

Step 3: Called to Outward Maturity

Emotionally Healthy Relationships

If you liked Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, you will like EH Relationships. This teaching equips people with 8 practical skills to love others well as mature followers of Jesus. It offers new language, new tools, and new strategies to break through relational roadblocks.
The EH Relationships Course includes powerful skills:
  • Check Your Community Temperature Reading
  • Stop Mind Reading and Clarify Expectations
  • Genogram Your Family
  • Explore The Iceberg
  • Listen Incarnationally
  • Climb the Ladder to Integrity
  • Fight Cleanly
  • Develop a “Rule of Life” to Implement
Spirit, Soul and Body

Step 4:  Called to Know Who You Are

Spirit, Soul and Body

In Andrew Wommack’s Spirit, Soul and Body, you will learn how to release the life that is already in your spirit into your body and emotions. You will learn that you are a spirit being who has a soul and lives in a body. The real you is your spiritual person. And it’s in the spirit that you’ve been totally changed and made just like Jesus. There isn’t an old sin nature left in you.
 
Most Christians have been taught to believe that after salvation, they are still the same at their core, and they live the rest of their lives trying to restrain this old nature. Instead, what happens is that your sin nature leaves behind a body and a soul (mind, emotions and will). These still function as programmed until you reprogram them to come into line with the Scripture.
 
Join us for this condensed version of Spirit, Soul & Body.
 
Spiritual Gifts

Step 5:  Called to Serve

Using Your Gifts

If you have not yet completed the Characteristics of Spiritual Gifts and Here Am I – Use Me surveys, you will have the opportunity to do so in this step. 
 

YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL. There is no one else who brings your combination of gifts, personality and background to the Lord. And you are offering your gifts to the Lord, not just to the pastor or church. You may feel unworthy, but even the bad things in your life can serve a purpose. You may feel old and tired or washed up, but we find Simeon and Anna serving in the temple as aged people. And you’re not too young either. We find Samuel serving Eli the priest as a lad. Too sinful? You can see those chains fall off. Too timid? The Lord can make you come alive and free.

We look forward to working with you to understand, discover and deploy your gifts.

Holy Spirit

Step 6: Called to a Spirit-Led Life

Moving in the Spirit

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is available to every believer as a distinct experience apart from salvation. Being led by the Holy Spirit in our daily life is essential to a dynamic, growing, fruitful Christian life.
 
The premiere authority on the Holy Spirit in the A/G is Tim Enloe. His material is available at his website. When he and his wife, Rochelle, speak for us, you will not want to miss a single service. Listen to “Understanding and Receiving Spirit Baptism” by Tim Enloe below.
 
 
Various sermons, teachings and small group gatherings will be made available to learn more about moving in the Holy Spirit. To learn more now, speak with Pastor or any deacon or team leader.
Spiritual Warfare

Step 7:  Called to Battle

Victory Over the Enemy

In the highly-rated book Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson, you will learn how to take authority over the powers of darkness that attack you daily. You will learn how to: 
  • Realize the power of your identity in Christ
  • Free yourself from the burdens of your past
  • Stand against the spiritual forces of this world
  • Win the battle for your mind
  • Become the spiritual person you want to be
  • Discover the truth about God’s view of you
In Living Free – Breaking the Cycle of Defeat by James Robison and Robert Morris, you will discover how to live in freedom, fullness and fruitfulness. James Robison opens his heart and reveals his personal journey to true freedom in Christ. Robert Morris opens Scriptures to reveal hidden truths regarding the plans and purposes of God. Living Free will lead you into a new walk with the Lord. Live as you were meant to be in Christ….FREE. Listen to highlights.
Financial Health

Step 8:  Called to Financial Health

Get Your Finances in Order!

Two outstanding resources for handling and turning around your finances are Dave Ramsey’s teachings and Crown Financial. Listen to a clip from one of Ramsey’s broadcasts below. Caution: He is blunt.
 
Crown Financial founded by Larry Burkett has changed over 50 million lives, helping people find financial freedom, thrive in their career and live a purposeful life.
 
Both resources are available on RightNow Media. If you don’t want to wait for a class, log in and take this step toward your financial health. Be a good steward!
Radical

Step 9:  Called to a Radical Life

Tired of Comfortable Christianity? Try This.

What is Jesus worth to you? It’s easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily…
 
But who do you know who lives like that? Do you?
In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple–then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment–a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.
 
Listen to David share his heart about this book. And see the Radical website.
Discipline

Step 10:  Called to a Disciplined Life

Change Your Habits

The private world can be divided into five sectors. The first deals with what makes us function as we do – our motivation. Are we driven people, propelled by the winds of our times, pressed to conform or compete? Or are we called people, the recipients of the…beckoning of Christ when He promises to make us into something?
 
Another sector of our private world centers on what we do with the limited amount of time we have in this life. How we allocate time for the purposes of personal growth and service…is key….The third sector is intellectual: What are we doing with our minds…?
 
The fourth sector is our private world…is that of the spirit….This place of the spirit is what I call the garden of our private world. Finally…rest…a Sabbath peace…so significant that I believe it should be recognized as a uniquely essential source of inner organization.
 
-from Gordon MacDonald’s Ordering Your Private World.
Listen to him talk about the inner life
Hospitality

Step 11:  Called to a Shared Life

Hospitality, and Not Just For WomenI

In Open Heart Open Home, author Karen Burton Mains says, “If our hospitality is to minister, to impart to each who crosses our threshold something of the presence of Christ – if it is to transcend the human and deal in the supernatural – there must be…a learning, a tutoring at the hand of the Holy Spirit. 
 
“Memories of my family home linger in the child part of my mind – comfortable clutter, the dining room table a collection center for books and mail and jackets, the rooms decorated with children’s toys. Visitors never seemed offended, but visibly relaxed in the face of all this informality. Ties were loosened, jackets removed, shoes discarded, and feet propped up…
 
“Each of us has a home – be it a small room, a modest apartment, or a mansion – in which we can practice hospitality.” Men are just as important as women in this sharing! Abraham is just one example of the common practice of hospitality in the Bible.
Evangelism & Discipleship

Step 12:  Called to Go

Evangelism & Discipleship

Jesus says in Mark 1:17, “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” His disciples were not chosen from an elite Jewish rabbi university. Though it can be helpful to be trained, you can start sharing your testimony and the gospel immediately. Your passion for lost souls is your most important asset!
 
For soul-winning, Evangelism Explosion is clear and comprehensive. The Roman Road is another great tool, as well as The Way of the Master and also Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ). Lifestyle, friendship, and conversational evangelism are natural approaches that work for many. For discipling someone, your passion for their growth is the key ingredient. For methods and tools to do this, the Real-Life Discipleship Training Manual is great. We may use others as well.
 
Stay tuned for small groups in both areas, but don’t wait for them to be offered. Win and train someone NOW! And get involved in ministries that reach others.

 And above all, put on LOVE

Your First, Middle and Last Step!

Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of do’s and don’ts–it’s falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis Chan describes it, you will never be the same. Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything. Be sure to take the Crazy Love step. Watch an intro here.
 
Crazy Love

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