What is the key to Loving and Leading with the Bible? Relationships! And that’s what the WWWG Community is all about. So, we were extra excited to host this workshop led by Michelle J. Goff and her team at Iron Rose Sister Ministries (IRSM). What a unique and special time it was, too. Those on the Zoom call shared in times of worship with singing, scripture reading, and prayer, followed by a very special lesson on relationship building as shown in the life and ministry of Barnabas through the book of Acts.
Barnabas, the “son of encouragement,” can be seen all through the God story. Barnabas is the one who brought Saul, before he became Paul, to the disciples. He was also the first to realize the importance of bringing John Mark into closer relationship and, though he ultimately split from Paul and John Mark, what huge roles all of these men continued to carry out in the early church and the spread of the gospel.
Barnabas prioritized relationships and focused on the message of Christ as an humble encourager and testifier of truth despite his frequent “second billing” suggested by the order of naming first Paul then Barnabas throughout the book of Acts.
Michelle helped us see the ways in which Barnabas taught through formal and informal means; almost always doing so with someone else by his side to ensure together they could relate and connect – that’s relationship! And, through it all, his relationship with God and the Good News took center stage. So much so that we see an amazing description of him in Acts 11:24: “He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.” Lord, we pray this can be the epitaph written about us one day!
Our time together concluded in small breakout sessions, applying the relationship and teaching principles of Barnabas to 3 well-known women of the Bible. IRSM’s practical application of Common Threads helped us connect on deeper levels in our small groups…even more relationship building. It truly was an encouraging morning teaching us how to use relationships to bring others to Christ.
If you were unable to be a part of this fabulous workshop, we invite you to see all that you missed by watching a replay here - https://youtu.be/tq5BSXMGIsM
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