Discerning The Leading Of The Holy Spirit In Church Planting
Church planting, pastoral ministry, and being a follower of Jesus is a lifelong pursuit of seeking to faithfully discern and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Being able to discern what the Holy Spirit is leading or calling you to do is critical to healthy ministry, church planting, and living as a disciple. Following Jesus when Jesus is not physically, bodily present requires following the leading of the Holy Spirit. How do you faithfully and practically follow the leading of the Holy Spirit?
Have you ever heard someone say (or maybe you have said), “God told me ______” or “I feel like God is leading me to ________.” How do you know? What if God told two people exactly opposite things? Who is right? How do you know? How do you know if it is God, your preference, desires, goals, or ambitions, or possibly even temptation or sinful motivations? To claim God told you something or that the Holy Spirit is leading you to do something is a BOLD claim. We shouldn’t make those carelessly or flippantly, but we should seek the Holy Spirit’s leading in all areas of our lives. So how do you know if God is leading you or directing you?
Have you felt called to plant a church? You need a personal sense of calling, but you need more than an internal feeling or personal sense of being called. How can you discern a call to church planting?
Every time you plan a sermon series, prepare and preach a message, cast vision, lead your church in a new direction, call someone to new levels of leadership, counsel a friend or congregation member, or love and lead in your own family, you are asking the Holy Spirit to guide and lead. No one wants to preach a sermon the Holy Spirit has not led or empowered. No one wants to take their church in a direction that the Holy Spirit is not calling you to go. No one wants to do any of those things if the Holy Spirit is not the power behind it all and the one leading it all. But it requires faithful discernment.
The question is: how do you faithfully discern and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit? How can you teach those in your church to faithfully follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in their lives? This is what it means to be a disciple and make disciples.
At the Acts 29 Southern Africa Gathering we will look at why discernment is necessary and core to pastoral ministry, a call to church planting, and to being and making disciples. We will look at who the Holy Spirit is. We will look at the dangers and potential problems that are faced when trying to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit. We will look at a biblically-faithful, Gospel-centered approach to discernment that you can use and teach others to use in both daily life and larger decisions.
The goal is to equip you to faithfully seek, discern, and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in church planting, ministry, and life, and to make disciples who will do the same.
Gathering – Churches Planting Churches
Event details here
23 May 2020 – Cape Town (tickets)
25 May 2020 – Pretoria (tickets)
Photo by Tim Johnson on Unsplash
