Lunch and Learn: Four Invitations

- For us, this has been a process similar to what many of you are going through in the church and they're probably even there on campus. Because of what's happened in this past year, I think everybody's going through a time of revisioning and relaunching many of the ministries that have been going on in your church, for some that includes things like what you were doing on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night. It may even include your group structure and strategy. It might include events that you used to have and had to put aside last year, even ones like vacation Bible school. So some really sizable events. And so there is a revisioning of the why, of the church and and the what and the how and all those kinds of things. And we have been really forced into that kind of mode too for a different reason as well. We had two retirements, Jamie Baldwin and Eileen Mitchell. And so we've had two additions to our staff and both of those were completed by February. But the two that are online with us today, Steve Layton and Mark Gainey and I, began this process of revisioning even before Steve was on staff with us with a prayerful hopes that indeed Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions would confirm him. And we're thankful that they did. Also wanna remind you that we do have two others, Patty Burns, who is all things preschool and vacation Bible school. She has been one of my favorites and an expert in that area for years and years as has Belinda Stroud when it comes to children's ministry and Bible drill and all things discipling of children. So we want you to know they're still part of the office and call on them. Frank Jones serves us as a contract worker carrying on the work of senior adults. And so I wanna make you aware of that. And then to cite to you that in part of this revision and we've come all the way back to the why which I think is important for anybody to do going forward. And of course the ultimate why for all of us is the love of God, the love of people and the making of disciples coming off of the great commandment and the great commission. But then inside of that it's a question that we need to ask about any ministry of the local church or the local campus, why this ministry? So why Sunday school and discipleship office? And we've basically come to say, we exist to encourage and equip disciples, to connect people to Christ, the community and the commission. And so that's where some of these tools have been coming from including connect three, one, six and several of you joined us for those webinars in the past couple of weeks. If you did not, those webinars will be made available soon to watch. But also today, as we talk about the four invitations. Although I will say that Mark and I along with Andy Frazier had been cooking on this for quite some time. And there is some things that are not unique about the four invitations. I believe everybody that has ever looked at the life of Jesus and kind of the phases that He went through with the disciples have landed on some theme and variation of this. But we're trying to encourage and equip by simply saying to you, you don't have to borrow somebody else's word, somebody else's mission, somebody else's vision. You can craft it, but you ought to craft it by looking at the invitations that Jesus gave. Now I wanna say there is one that I believe is very unique to this process and it happens to be my favorite. I'll talk about that as time goes. But without delaying any longer waiting for anyone else, we're just gonna dive in today in the four invitations. And we're gonna start with kind of a 30,000 foot view. And then we're gonna come down and look at each one of these invitations, a little more intently. So I'm gonna ask Mark just to walk us through that great overview, that 30,000 foot view of four invitations and then we'll begin to have conversation from there.