devotional

About

Starting in September 2007 all the Adult Bible Fellowship classes at Calvary Church will be studying the book of Romans. This study of the book of Romans is part of our Coordinated Curriculum.

A Little History

Every 3-5 years the Elders and Ministry Staff of Calvary Church conduct a thorough self analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Calvary. Through this evaluation process a strategic plan is developed to focus attention on key areas needing development.

The last strategic plan identified six key areas: transitioning leadership, comprehensive bible study, staffing vital ministries, positioning for outreach, adapting to physical growth, add to our missions legacy.

A vision statement and strategy statement was developed to help us develop a Comprehensive Bible Study

Vision: We want to be faithful to Scripture and multiplying disciples. We want to be a center for the faithful study, teaching and preaching of the Word of God, providing opportunity for each individual to be discipled from spiritual birth through spiritual reproduction, with each one loving the Lord and His Word.

Strategy: To develop a comprehensive, systematic approach to the study of the whole Bible for all age groups that will be relevant to daily life, resulting in the deepening of the spiritual life, growth in grace, and an expectation of accountability.

This focus has yielded the development of new curriculum for all ages including our ABF ministry.

This fall, all ABFs will be studying the book of Romans—The Transforming Power of the Righteousness of God.

Our goal is to develop fully devoted followers of Christ—disciples who know and apply the Word of God consistently and faithfully in all areas of life.

This curriculum is designed to provide a foundation (Biblical/Theological/Practical) on which a framework of additional truths can be built—the foundation and truths then don’t simply inform our world-view, they form it. Our theology is not simply informed by the Word, but is formed by it. And once our theology and world-view are formed by Scripture—they must be lived with integrity (wholeness).

To that end, the follow explains the driving forces behind our curriculum at Calvary Church

The Focus
God’s glory among the nations
The Foundations
Knowing God and His Word personally
The Fundamental Goals
Fluency with God’s Word in Life Situation
Heart motivated Love for God and Others
Impacting and Influencing others toward Christ

Adult Bible Fellowship Coordinated Curriculum
Since a coordinated curriculum for ABFs has not been in use for many years, since our individual ABFs each are unique, and since we desire our curriculum to expository, the decision was made to start our coordinated curriculum with the study of the book of Romans.

Romans was chosen for a number of reasons:
1. to allow us to review and teach the basic truths of our relationship with God including many basic doctrines
2. to allow us to teach inductive Bible study
3. to help us show that God’s program for the nations is evident throughout Scripture, not just in the Great commission

So as part of our overall curriculum plan the study through Romans has a number of goals:
To help students

Develop a deeper understand of God
Develop a better understanding of how the Bible and God’s plan flows from the Old Testament though the New Testament
Develop a greater appreciation of the doctrines of salvation and sanctification and their continued impact on every area of life
Develop an understanding of the priority of relationships in their growth process
Develop an understanding of how to do personal Bible Study

Materials
Available our website http://www.calvarychurch.org/288405.ihtml

Materials provided for the student:

Personal Bible Study materials that can be used to prepare for each lesson
Class notes (Generic handouts will be available on our website additional handouts will be provided by the teacher)
And this Devotional Guide (http.//devotional.calvarychurch.org )