Teach the following as a priority:
1. Journaling
2. Simple Prayer
3. Clean Heart
4. Baptism
5. Sexual Purity
Keys to Teaching Journaling
- Demonstrate how to journal. The best way to teach people is to actually journal together walking them through it. You can use:
a) The Bible – download a Bible app.
b) The Blue Book study on Journaling.
c) Content from the Reference section of the blue book, such as:
– Encouraging Scriptures.’
– New Testament, (1-2 month reading plan from Mark).
– Old and New Testament, (1-2 years Bible reading plan).
d) Scripture in the black notebook (found in the welcome pack). - Journaling is all about hearing from God. What is God saying to you?
- It can be short, even just 5 minutes a day.
- Question for God: “What would you say to me today?”
- Focus on application.
- If you miss a day, don’t worry; simply start again the next day.
- We journal from the BIBLE (not devotionals, Christian books, blogs, or podcasts, etc.)
- After a few weeks you will notice a theme. This is the key thing God is saying to you.
Keys to Teaching Simple Prayer
- Turn your thoughts into prayers. That is how to pray more throughout the day without needing to make extra time.
- We can pray anytime, anywhere.
- Prayer is about the heart, not the type or length of words.
- If you don’t have the chance to pray out-loud, you can pray internally.
- Be yourself. Pray in a normal conversational voice.
- Pray as a son / daughter of God.
- God already knows the back-story; even, “Help!” is a powerful prayer.
- Everyone’s prayer is powerful (not just the leader’s prayer).
- It’s OK to have your own prayer style, but don’t push it onto others.
- You can pray for big things, (like healing, miracles, etc.) with easy, short, and simple prayers.
- Always model simple prayer in Connect Group.
Keys to Teaching Clean Heart
- Clean heart means we are willing to deal with forgiveness issues.
- Before going to sleep, at the end of the day is the best time to check your heart.
- It can be short, just before you fall asleep at night.
Two Parts to Clean Heart
1. Forgiving others.
- Make a habit of forgiveness – forgive those you need to forgive.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean what they did is OK, it means you are releasing them from your heart and thoughts.
- Forgiveness is a decision, not an emotion.
- You may find yourself angry again after forgiving—just forgive again, as many times as necessary.
2. Be still and let God speak to you.
- If God shows you something, attend to it quickly.
- Have confidence that you are forgiven and God is happy with you.
Keys to Teaching Baptism
(See the studies on water baptism in the Blue Book).
Keys to Teaching Sexual Purity
(See the studies on sexuality in the Blue Book).
