How to Teach the Book of Isaiah in Less Than a Week

Every time I go to Kenya, I spend most of my time teaching at the Ahero Evangelical School of Theology (AEST), which trains future pastors, elders, and teachers, both male and female. I usually have just under two weeks to teach. Sometimes I teach a two-week class, and other times a one-week class and either a smaller topic for the following week (or we're in a different location that second week). This year, I'll have 8 days in the classroom at AEST.

What topics I teach are usually up to the faculty of AEST - they have a curriculum and certain topics the students need in order to graduate, so they tell me what they want me to teach to fit into their plan. That usually means that I have to pull together a semester's worth of material from my notes and studies to teach in a week's time. A couple of years, I've had the luxury of bringing something I had already prepared that fit into their course requirements. This year, no such luxury.

AEST wants me to teach the book of Isaiah the first week and apologetics for the partial second week. Have you read Isaiah lately? It's big. It's complex. It's repetitive, and yet it moves in a particular direction. And did I mention that it's big?

How can I teach that big (it's big), complex book in a week? Well, I can do that - but how can I teach it in a way that will be of true benefit in a week's time? It's flat out too much information, too much theology, and too much prophecy to digest within a week.

I could do just a high level survey, but that's not effective for their concrete learning style. I could do representative sections, but then you miss the narrative, and they are also storytelling learners.

Rather than telling them what Isaiah has, my plan is to coach them into discovering what Isaiah has. In addition to being concrete, storytelling learners, my students at AEST are also group learners. So, I will  create three teams. Each day, the members of one team will all be in one minor section, and the other teams will cover the other minor sections. All three will then be covering a major section of the book in a day's time, and by the end of the week, the whole book will be covered. They will do individual work, and then work as teams, to discover what each passage of each minor section has to say. Then in class, the teams will teach the rest of the class what Isaiah has to say. My job will to be to make sure they stay accurate - very little lecture. By the end of the week, they will have a full overview of Isaiah, and will have taught one another what it says.

The great benefits are: 1) Discovery is far more effective than lecture, 2) they will finish the class with a method of how to study Isaiah after I'm gone, and 3) they will have worked together to help one another understand this great (big!) book.

I pray this will work! (I've never tried this kind of teaching before.)

Discovery is something you're going to hear more about at Grace Fellowship as we continue to learn how complete followers are cultivated.

I'm Too Busy to be Missional

The word missional may be new to some of you, and for others, it may be a term associated only with a particular movement. At its core, the word missional is a simple adjective that describes someone (or a church body) who is an intentional participant in God's mission to mankind. It's not a particular activity, not a particular movement, not a particular checklist of things, but an attitude and a lifestyle. Someone who is missional cares enough about God's mission that he or she lives life with that mission in mind.

It is not a word reserved for the extremists or those who are "radical." It is not reserved for clergy, elders, and deacons. It is not reserved for missionaries. Any believer of any age in any occupation can be missional. And Scripture is clear that God is missional, the Gospel is missional, the incarnation of Christ was missional, and the giving of the Holy Spirit is missional. In fact, the entire Bible is missional.

But we're a busy people, and we might think that being missional is something we don't have enough room in our schedules for. I don't have time to add another thing, so I'm not going to even think about becoming missional.

The great thing about being missional is that it's not a program to add to life, but a way of life. It's a way to do everything else.

In his article "10 Simple Ways To Be Missional …without adding anything to your schedule" (http://www.vergenetwork.org/2011/10/04/tim-chester-10-simple-ways-to-be-missional/), Tim Chester has great suggestions on how even busy people can be quite missional. The short version of his list is:

1. Eat with other people 
2. Work in public places 
3. Be a regular (at a restaurant or coffee shop)
4. Join in with what’s going on (rather than starting up your own new thing)
5. Leave the house in the evenings 
6. Serve your neighbors 
7. Share your passion 
8. Hang out with your work colleagues 
9. Walk 
10. Prayer walk

Certainly, we could come up with 20 more ideas just like these. The point is not this list, but the idea of this list. There are things we do every day anyway, and almost every one of those things can be done with a missional mindset and purpose. The key is to build relationships, to make your faith obvious but not obnoxious, and to share truth when people are willing and interested, to do as we learned in the last sermon - to share what you have personally seen and heard. All it takes is willingness and intentionality to take God's mission seriously.

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and cultivate complete followers from all people groups." (Matthew 28:18-19, author's translation).

Lifestyle Discipleship

Last Sunday, Jimmy introduced our working definition of "Lifestyle Discipleship" as he explained Jesus' incredibly simple, easily repeated, proven plan of discipleship. Lifestyle discipleship is:

Cultivating complete followers of Jesus 
in every context 
by sharing my redemptive life with others, 
surrendered to the Father 
and empowered by the Spirit.

Let's look at this definition phrase by phrase:

Cultivating complete followers of Jesus: The idea of cultivating, as we taught a couple of weeks ago, pictures co-laboring with God, doing the hard work of cultivating, planting, watering, and weeding in the lives of one another, while God is the one who causes the spiritual growth within any of us. We do this for the purpose of developing complete followers - followers of Jesus who are 1) fully devoted to Jesus, and 2) being fully formed in thoughts, words, and actions. That's a disciple.

In every context: Jesus didn't cultivate complete followers in the sterile environment of a classroom, or even in the synagogue. He cultivated them in the marketplace, along the road, and inside the homes of others. He didn't just cultivate on the Sabbath day, but every day of the week. It wasn't an extra "program" he added into His busy schedule - it was His schedule.

By sharing my redemptive life with others: Jesus was always relational in how He cultivated complete followers. He offered redemption in Himself through relationship with Him. We can't offer redemption in ourselves, but we can offer our "redemptive lives," redeemed in Christ and instruments of redemption to others through authentic relationships.

Surrendered to the Father: Jesus repeatedly taught that His earthly ministry was conducted completely surrendered to His Father (e.g. John 14:10). As we follow Christ, we follow in His method, too. "Surrender" is the humble act of "giving up the fight." Our selfish motivations drive us to serve ourselves, whereas surrendering means we follow the will of our Lord. It's God's mission first and foremost, so to participate in His mission is to surrender our will to His.

Empowered by the Spirit: Jesus temporarily set aside the free exercise of His divine attributes when He took on human flesh  (Php 2:1-11). As a result, everything He did in his earthly ministry of cultivating complete followers was done by the divine power of the Holy Spirit who indwelt Him and empowered Him (Luke 3:21-22). We have no power in ourselves to "make disciples" - the power lies solely in the Spirit who indwells and empowers us.

Jesus is our model. His ministry here was to cultivate complete followers. Therefore, as we join Him in this mission, we model our methods and practices after His. The Church can at times overcomplicate our mission in our earnest desire to fulfill the mission. Jesus' ministry wasn't complicated. He was merely effective, surrendered to His Father, empowered by the Spirit.

It'll all be all right

I recently had an opportunity to face the reality that not everything is always going to be OK. We live relatively safe, predictable lives where things just work (most of the time), minor injuries don't become life-threatening emergencies, and our jobs will be there tomorrow (again, most of the time). Many societies today still don't have that kind of confidence. We live in a blessed time in a blessed place - it's relatively infrequent that we must face the reality that things could become very, very not OK. But once in a while, we are forced to - someone passes away, someone is in a horrible accident, someone gets a horrible disease.

For me this time, it was Lynne having surgery. It wasn't even a high-risk surgery or a life-threatening illness. I had very little anxiety leading up to the surgery. But the surgery took quite a bit longer than we were told to expect, which opened the door for me to speculate what bad things might be happening. When I was finally called back to talk with the surgeon, waiting in a small, drab conference room, I realized that it was possible he didn't have all good news. Or, he might have very bad news.

When he showed up, the initial news was all positive. Then he explained some of the complications they encountered in the surgery. Then he told me that there was an unexplained, concerning drop in her blood oxygen level during surgery, which halted the procedure until they could bring it back up. Everything turned out fine, but it forced me out of my overly cavalier attitude to face the reality that it's not always going to be OK. It didn't cause me anxiety, but it did force me to think through some things I've had the luxury of ignoring.

Was my confidence leading up to the surgery based on statistics of medicine or the sovereignty of God? This was a relatively routine, lower-risk surgery. The statistics on there being severe complications is incredibly low. There is every reason to expect the good outcome that we ended up having. But was I enjoying a robust peace because I merely relied on statistical analysis, or because I knew that even if the worst might happen, God's sovereignty still reigns over every situation?

If my confidence is in the track record of doctors, then my confidence is completely circumstantial. It may be well-founded by the data, but sometimes life does the unusual, defying the statistics. And eventually, the statistics run down to the point where they are against you. Clearly, that confidence is faulty.

If my confidence is in the sovereignty of God, then my confidence is not circumstantial. It doesn't matter whether what happens complies to or beats the odds. The odds can deteriorate completely against me, and still I have something to put my confidence in. That confidence doesn't mean that everything will work according to my desires. But it does mean that everything that does happen is within the purposeful, attentive control of the eternal God. Even when things are not OK, they are in fact OK. Perhaps painful, tearful, and confusing, but never without purpose, never out of control, never stronger than the God who will one day make all things new.

Lynne and I have been overwhelmed by your expressions of concern, your offers to help, the food, the notes, the texts, and even the sensitivity to guard our privacy. You bear evidence of the sovereign God's care.