Discipleship Ideas by Brad Dunlap

I Moved. Find Me on My New Blog: www.plantingthegospel.org

braddunlap — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:52:40 +0000

I’ve moved my blog. Visit me at www.plantingthegospel.org.

Interview on “The Next Christians”

braddunlap — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:48:05 +0000

I’m about half way through Gabe Lyons book “The Next Christians.” I’ve been burdened by the statistics & stories that Gabe’s research has shown – especially in his previous book “unChristian.” However, I’ve also had some questions along the way as to how our old paradigm mixes with the new that Gabe is presenting. Especially in areas of a “social gospel” & practically what the “gospel” means to a new generation of 20′s & 30′s. I was happy to hear John Ortberg ask some of the questions I have been pondering. Thankful for both of these men & their hearts for the Kingdom.

New Worship Music

braddunlap — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:27:13 +0000

When was the last time you downloaded an entire worship album for FREE & it was actually worth listening to? Click on the link below to download an old worship album (2006) from The Village Church. The Village Church – Worship & Music

You can download their new worship album beginning tomorrow! God of Victory

Finally, listen to “Glorious Day” (below). I’m hoping this will be one of the songs we choose to sing on Easter at Green Hills Church!

What Is the Gospel? – John Piper

braddunlap — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:48:54 +0000

3 minutes every Christian should watch! Discussed this video yesterday with my discipleship guys as we talked through “The Gospel Call” & “Regeneration.”

What Is the Gospel?
1. A Plan – from eternity
2. An Event – in history; Christ died
3. An Achievement – sins paid for & righteousness completed
4. An Offer – extended to the world that is free
5. An Application – through faith we are forgiven & justified
6. God – 1 Peter 3:18; God is our treasure; God is our end; my forgiveness & going to heaven, is not the end. Being satisfied in Him, being with Him, worshiping Him…God is the End!

My how this matters – it means everything!

For All my Singer / Songwriter Friends

braddunlap — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:25:29 +0000

This has become a favorite song as of recent…enjoy!

The Glory of Plodding

braddunlap — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:06:22 +0000

I don’t repost many articles…BUT if you love Jesus & His Church – this is a MUST READ.

http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/glory-plodding/

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

The Glory of Plodding

by Kevin DeYoung

It’s sexy among young people — my generation — to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church. Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It’s immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it’s the institution of marriage that preserves the romance. Without the God-given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul.

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

My generation in particular is prone to radicalism without followthrough. We have dreams of changing the world, and the world should take notice accordingly. But we’ve not proved faithful in much of anything yet. We haven’t held a steady job or raised godly kids or done our time in VBS or, in some cases, even moved off the parental dole. We want global change and expect a few more dollars to the ONE campaign or Habitat for Humanity chapter to just about wrap things up. What the church and the world needs, we imagine, is for us to be another Bono — Christian, but more spiritual than religious and more into social justice than the church. As great as it is that Bono is using his fame for some noble purpose, I just don’t believe that the happy future of the church, or the world for that matter, rests on our ability to raise up a million more Bonos (as at least one author suggests). With all due respect, what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the choir every week, serves on the school board, and supports a Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?

Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church. In the grand scheme of things, most of us are going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8) or Phlegon (v. 14) than an apostle Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. We drive to the same places, go through the same routines with the kids, buy the same groceries at the store, and share a bed with the same person every night. Church is often the same too — same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works — like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights, like beloved Tychicus, that faithful minister, delivering the mail and apostolic greetings (Eph. 6:21). Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

It’s possible the church needs to change. Certainly in some areas it does. But it’s also possible we’ve changed — and not for the better. It’s possible we no longer find joy in so great a salvation. It’s possible that our boredom has less to do with the church, its doctrines, or its poor leadership and more to do with our unwillingness to tolerate imperfection in others and our own coldness to the same old message about Christ’s death and resurrection. It’s possible we talk a lot about authentic community but we aren’t willing to live in it.

The church is not an incidental part of God’s plan. Jesus didn’t invite people to join an anti-religion, anti-doctrine, anti-institutional bandwagon of love, harmony, and re-integration. He showed people how to live, to be sure. But He also called them to repent, called them to faith, called them out of the world, and called them into the church. The Lord “didn’t add them to the church without saving them, and he didn’t save them without adding them to the church” (John Stott).

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). If we truly love the church, we will bear with her in her failings, endure her struggles, believe her to be the beloved bride of Christ, and hope for her final glorification. The church is the hope of the world — not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her Head.

Don’t give up on the church. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity. The invisible church is for invisible Christians. The visible church is for you and me. Put away the Che Guevara t-shirts, stop the revolution, and join the rest of the plodders. Fifty years from now you’ll be glad you did.

—

What are your thoughts?

ONE Word Resolutions

braddunlap — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 22:31:20 +0000

Each January 1 we make New Years Resolutions…but by February 1 we’re doing good to even remember what we resolved to change, lose, accomplish, or cut out! Here’s an easy way that my wife has influenced me in making Resolutions doable, simple, & most of all successful.

Just commit to ONE NEW WORD for the year!

Katie’s new word is SIMPLICITY. She’s already started with helping me to clean the garage. We sold the Air Hockey table for $25 (it was a free gift a few years back) to make room to finally park her car “in” the garage. She has told me she plans on simplifying the number of adopting families she follows through Google Reader to make more time for reading & meditating on Scripture. Finally she is simplifying her closet & our house even more. We took another load to Thrift Smart just this last week!

My new word for the year is a tough one. I hesitate to even put it out there because I’m already anxious when I think about sticking with it for 356 days. But I need the accountability, so here goes…PRAYER. I want to concentrate on “doing” less & “praying” more in 2011. Well not really, but I know I need to do this. My natural tendency is to work, work, work & to make it happen. Let me introduce myself, I’m Mr. Responsibility, which means I can’t just let stuff go. But sometimes I need to. Sometimes I need to be less critical of others & most of all myself.

So I’m committing to spend the year PRAYING that God will direct me. Serving others by committing to PRAY for them. And PRAYING that God will do far more through the power of PRAYER and the work of the Holy Spirit, than I can do on my own. It’s not going to be easy because it’s not a natural tendency for me. But I know it’s going to be exciting, challenging, maybe frustrating at times, but most of all fruitful.

Finally the boys (all 3 of them) have a One Word Resolution as well. No they didn’t pick it, and I’m sure they’re not that happy about it just yet, but it is going to be a good one for all of us…RESPECT. Katie kicked it off for them today at lunch by writing out Ephesians 4:32, placing it in a picture frame on our Kitchen Table, and encouraging all of us to memorize a verse a week. It goes like this, “Be KIND to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (ESV).

Stay tuned later this week. I’m going to be writing about LIFE CORE VALUES. I think you’ll be encouraged to see how you can find synergy & life long growth as a result of committing to LIFE CORE VALUS. Stay tuned!

2010 in review

braddunlap — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:59:43 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2010. That’s about 13 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 12 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 36 posts. There were 18 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 60mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was September 14th with 183 views. The most popular post that day was Sometimes God Races Across the Clouds….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were dunlapadoption.com, facebook.com, greenhillschurch.org, Google Reader, and mail.yahoo.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for istock, magic the gathering cards, compass, discipleship ideas, and istock large.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Sometimes God Races Across the Clouds… September 2010
2 comments

The Compass or the Clock June 2009

Confession Is Such a Relief November 2010
4 comments

Can You Really Believe the Bible…If So Why? June 2009

Faith & Doubt July 2010
2 comments

Hip-Hop & God’s Sovereign Will

braddunlap — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:32:46 +0000

Hip-Hop goes Theologically Reformed. If you haven’t heard LECRAE – go ahead & TURN IT UP and get ready. A talented rapper who holds strong convictions about the centrality of the gospel in all of life and enjoys learning from contemporary and classic Reformed teachers.

If I remember correctly, “Reach Records” found their home in the Binghamton community in Memphis at one point. I think they are located in Atlanta now.

My friend Chris Hendrix who works with the Binghamton Development Corporation in Memphis helping train young men to love God, lead their families, and learn Construction as a trade had this to say about Lecrae: “Bro, Lecrae is a friend of mine and I will tell you that he is a Jesus loving mug! And he has always remained so humble with all the hype that has come at him, which is so evident in the music he produces.”

I love this 2nd video – great for pastors to be reminded! a favorite line from it goes like this: ”some call it sovereign will, all i know is you the boss.” What a great reminder – check it out & be encouraged!

Confession Is Such a Relief

braddunlap — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:55:36 +0000

Funny moment tonight with my two oldest boys. Over the last few weeks they’ve been collecting more & more of “those cards” from their friends that they know Katie & I don’t like. (If you have elementary age kids and take the time to look into some of these cards you quickly realize they promote wizardry, the occult, & just plain old weird stuff).

I hadn’t paid too much attention to them but last night I took the time to look through their stash & pull out the weird cards. Then I googled a few of the names & quickly discovered that the cards definitely didn’t promote what I want to be building into my young men!

Tonight I had a strategy to do an even trade, “sports cards” for “weird cards.” I stopped by Wal-Mart on my way home from work & picked up a stash of NFL cards. I don’t want my kids to think I’m just a “party-pooper” or don’t want them having fun. But I want to teach them to make wise decisions as well & to follow Jesus even at a young age.

I didn’t have much confidence that the trade off would go well, but i thought i was being pretty gracious knowing I could have just chunked the weird cards & given them nothing in return.

When I asked them what they thought, my oldest (who is 9 years old) said, “wow that’s such a relief.” He instantly pulled out a new stash of cards i didn’t even know about & handed them over. Both boys were giggly with excitement as they looked at their new cards & talked about how good it felt to be rid of the old weird cards. Then they both instantly started talking about different aspects of their old cards that they knew were bad.

I was amazed to see just how much of an impact “confession” had on them. They were physically moved & relieved to hand over their “illegal paraphernalia.” We spent the next few minutes talking about friends who were not making good decisions – my boys are leading the discussion. I was amazed to see how their hearts were moved by choosing what was right – moving away from darkness & toward the light.

You might think I’m making too big of a deal out of just cards, but if you had been there you would see that it was a spiritual moment for them. We ended the night with prayer. I prayed that my oldest son would have the courage to stand up & defend his friends when bullies call them “retarded.” I prayed that they would have “tender hearts” & “thick skin.”

We ended the night & they asked if I could put on some music. When I mellow out I’m a big Fernando Ortega fan (I know I’m just an old man). I put on one of his slow albums & they loved it. I’m thankful that my boys enjoy hymns & positive songs that bring glory to God & tell of His wondrous love for us.

Parents, be reminded, you have no idea what effect for the long haul you are having on your kids when you take the time to lead them in the truth. It’s not always easy, and it takes time, but I have this hunch that the rewards are extraordinary!

In fact it’s more than a hunch – it comes from experience. See my mom & dad took lots of time to invest in me. My mom quit teaching college to come home & teach me the Bible & to lead & guide me. My dad taught me God’s word through both word & action. I’m thankful for a Godly heritage. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I only hope I’m doing half the job at raising my kids with the Lord’s help that my parents did.