Life Transformation Groups (LTG's)
A NEW WAVE for Growth breaking on the banks of the River…
(a note from Pastor Joe)
“Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” 2 Tim 2:22 (NASB-U)
I am fascinated by the "with those" part of this verse. Truth is, getting the righteousness, faith, love, and peace of Jesus to reproduce in us must be a cooperative effort. In fact all reproduction is a cooperative effort… “it takes two to tango”.
It is clearly in God's order that spiritual growth happens best in a relational context… we really do need each other to grow!
Not long ago our church began a journey to enlarge our vision of thinking “Missionally”! Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that God's plan for us to be “Missional” always involves “Multiplication”. Even God's strategy for our individual transformation has multiplication as a primary element. God's design for our transformation always includes multiplication. When the multiplying factor is removed, then that strategy for transformation has been designed to fail. This is the beauty of an LTG.
LTG's quite simply provide a concise biblical process for making disciples that results in godly character, evangelistic fruitfulness, and multiplication. LTG's combine God's call to multiply followers for His Son, God's plan for those followers to become like His Son, and the context of a biblically functioning community of 2-3 persons of the same gender.
LTG's provide a simple yet richly biblical process to carry out the GREAT COMMISSION our Lord Jesus left to us, that of “Making Disciples”. The great beauty of the LTG process is the balance of personal growth and evangelism. Time given to mutual confession of sin and the reading of large quantities of scripture are two of the most essential paths for personal growth in Christlikeness. Time spent praying for the lost by name, intentionally watching for the activity of God in their lives, assimilating them into the LTG , then multiplying by dividing the LTG into two groups of two is a powerful process for evangelism. The moment an LTG no longer balances growth and evangelism it ceases to be an LTG and the fullness of personal transformation that Jesus intends is short-circuited. The plan is simple. The process is simple. The meetings are simple. The payoff is OUTRAGEOUS personal growth for the believers who participate as well as multiplying KINGDOM growth when new followers of Christ are made!
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