David W. Cloud - One Year Disciple Course. Lessons in Christian Living

1. Suggestions for use in a Sunday School or other public setting

a. These lessons can be used for ages ranging from Middle School to Adult.

b. Each teacher should familiarize himself thoroughly with the material before it is taught. An ill prepared Bible teacher is a disgrace to the service of Christ, weakens the ministry of the church, and discourages the hearts of the students. When I was a kid growing up in a Baptist church, my teachers would typically just read the Sunday School lesson. No significant preparation. No heart involvement. No clue! It was doubtless a factor in why the majority of the young people in that church left as soon as they could. The Bible is the living eternal Word of God, and Bible classes should not be dull and boring. This reminds us of the importance of choosing the right teachers in the first place. Pastor Ken Shaver of Greater Cumberland Baptist Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, observes, The objective is not to teach a lesson but to teach the word of God. The lesson is just a tool to help the teacher accomplish this.

c. In addition to going over the review questions, the teacher should try to think of some other questions that will help the students apply the lessons to their daily lives.

d. The memory verses should be used. They are carefully selected and are an important part of the course. They can be quoted at the beginning or end of the class. Or the teacher can have the students indicate by a show of hands if they have done the memory work and then pick out some of the students to quote the verses, alternating students each week. Or one or more faithful students can be assigned the task of hearing the verses quoted by the other students.

e. Since the One Year Discipleship Course lessons are not mere bare outlines and all of the points are developed, it is a good idea for the teacher to make copies available to the students for future reference. One objective of any Bible class is for the students to be able to teach the material to someone else (Hebrews 5:12). The lessons are designed to help the child of God teach Gods Word. Handing out copies of the lessons at the end of the class is also a good idea if the teacher is unable to cover every point and deal with every reference in the class. The students can be encouraged to go over the material later in private.

f. It is a good idea for pastors to meet with the teachers each week and go over the highlights of the material. This way the teachers are all on the same page and understand the main points to emphasize. Further, the pastor can answer any questions that the teachers might have about the material. This is a good opportunity for the pastor to give instruction about methods of teaching.

2. Suggestions for use as a personal study

The lessons are well developed so that they can be used effectively for private study.

a. The student needs to look up and read every verse. The Word of God is always more important than any commentary about it.

b. The memory verses are a very important part of the course. We suggest that the student ask someone to test his or her memorization work.

c. The review questions are also an important part of the course. Take the time to answer each question.

3. Suggestions for use as a pass it on discipleship course.

This material can be used as a discipleship program in churches, whereby more mature church members are taught how to teach others. For this purpose, its not necessary to go through the entire course. Some of the lessons can be selected if the discipleship training needs to be shorter than one year.

The program has the following objectives:

Discipleship . The first goal is to disciple every new church member.

Teacher Training . The second goal is to provide a forum for training new teachers and an opportunity to develop spiritual gifts. The program provides opportunities for serious ministry, including opportunities for the more mature young people. It takes some of the teaching workload off of the leaders. And it helps disciple the disciplers. Few things motivate learning like teaching.

Fellowship . The third goal is to help develop close relationships between church members.

The program is set up in the following manner:

The first step is to select some church members who have grown in Christ and proven themselves faithful and that possess some basic ability to teach at a private level. These can include older teens that meet the standards. The basic requirements are that they have a good testimony, that they are faithful to church and submissive to the leaders, that they agree with the churchs doctrine and practice, and that they have read the Bible through at least once.

After the potential teachers have had an opportunity to study the material on their own, the church leaders set up some training sessions. They go through the course with the potential teachers, hitting the high points and providing teaching tips. During the training sessions, the potential teachers get up one by one and present a portion of a lesson to the leaders and the other trainees, after which they are critiqued.

When the teachers are deemed ready, they are prayerfully assigned a student, females being assigned to a female teacher and males to a male teacher.

The next step is for the teachers to set up appointments with their students to meet privately with them and go through the material. The leaders should try to attend some of the first lessons to provide further training.

Another option is to appoint two-person teams for discipling. This is what we do in our missionary church. A more mature and knowledgeable Christian is teamed with a younger or newer Christian. Both team members participate in the teaching, but the older team member is responsible to help develop the newer one. As the second members of the teams mature, they can become the leaders in new teams.

4. Suggestions for using the One Year Discipleship Course for evangelistic Bible studies.

Another way to use the One Year Discipleship Course is for evangelistic Bible studies.

Evangelistic home Bible studies can be an effective means for teaching the gospel in the careful, systematic way that is necessary for bringing sinners into a proper understanding of the gospel. The first several lessons of the course--Repentance, Faith, The Gospel, Baptism, and Eternal Security--can be used in this way.

Evangelistic Bible studies can be used as a follow-up for mass evangelistic campaigns (house to house literature distribution, radio broadcasts, etc.). Include a brochure announcing a course such as Basic Christianity Bible Studies or Basic Bible Truths. Instead of trying to get people to pray a sinners prayer before they understand the gospel, focus instead on getting the interested ones involved in a series of Bible studies where a relationship can be established and they can be dealt with carefully. This is what the apostle Paul did. He preached the gospel to the masses, then took the interested ones aside and instructed them more carefully in the things of God (Acts 17:34; 18:5-11).