8 to 15: The World is Smaller Than You Think

Did you know that 95 percent of all believers placed their faith in Jesus primarily because of someone in their OIKOS Group? The Greek word “OIKOS” is a noun, it means an extended household. What this means is that you and I have approximately 8 to 15 people that are in our world where you share life most closely. This is your sphere of greatest influence. If I were to ask in a room full of congregants of who came to Christ mainly because of someone who brought you to church, told you about Christ, invited you to hear and become a part of the community of believers, almost everyone (95%) in the church service would raise their hands and say “Yes, someone in my sphere of living invited me to church, to Christ, or was just there to be a sign for salvation.” Most people come to Christ because of someone who was interested in them. So the world-changer is the one who actively encourages people in their relational world (their oikos) to become Christ followers.You can become a World-Changer! It’s not hard, nor is it complex.You just select up to four names who are Pre-Christians who have not placed their faith in Jesus and then you begin to pray for them everyday. You also will pick out Prodigals who are believers but who are not actively pursuing their faith; write them down and pray for them daily. Then there are those who are Purposefuls, believers who are actively pursuing their faith. Take these names, write them down, pray for them. And finally there are the Potentials. These are those who keep showing up on your life’s front burner more often than in the past. You write those names down and pray for them.In all you will have eight to fifteen people that you will pray for everyday.You list their names, pray daily for your names, invest and watch for appropriate ways to be God’s instrument, and invite them to church thoughtfully and regularly, and prepare to become a better example of faith in Christ as well as a more effective witness of His grace. The Bible tells us Jesus said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19). This is our oikos.This is how we follow Jesus and become fishers of men.

Very soon the church as a whole will begin to experience the life changing, daily washing of care and compassion for others, and we will begin to see the manifest presence of Christ as we trust and obey. I love you with the love of the Lord! Pray for your OIKOS! Those you go to school with, those who you work with, those who are your neighbors, those who are your relatives, those who are the others. Write them down-8 to 15 and pray and let God do the work through you.

-Pastor Don

Link to Oikos brochure

Similar Posts

  • Four Important Truths

    There are four important truths to learn:

    1. Take God seriously

    He is the Sovereign God of the universe. He is not the man upstairs or the good guy next door. From the day of our conception to the day of our death we are to hold Him in awe.

    1. Believe His Word

    We have the mind and heart of God in print. Many paid a great price to hand it off to each of us. He is honored as we read and heed His message from His own lips that are breathed out in print in our own language. The Word changes us to His truth.

    1. Confess Sin Quickly

    Get your minds off of the evening news or any news that would preoccupy you. It’s a fog that can disillusion you from the real world. Yes, be in the know, but do not allow your life to be accumulating sin. Confess and walk with God under a full sun.

    1. Refuse All Hypocrisy

    Be who you are and not who others will you to be. Find your identity in the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep yourself off of the pedestals of this world or even your own world. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. We are accountable to Him.

  • Out On The Streets

    God has placed the local church in divinely appointed areas. We are located in Burlington near the interstate not far from downtown. While we are a body of believers that gather weekly we are also a church that scatters daily.

    There is a scene that we do not see. It is the invisible spiritual world that is playing its game of havoc upon mankind in the physical visible world. When the church is not available in prayer then the invisible world runs amuck upon the visible world.

    As the church is on the scene and praying then we know that the invisible spiritual world of God is available to us. When God’s presence is thick and real then sin is defeated and Satan is deposed. Prayer is needed to ask God for His activity.

    May we pray and go in the name that is above every name. Prayer gives us wisdom, power, and purity. Prayerlessness is terrible. There is power in congregational prayer and power in the individual prayer. Let’s Pray. We can’t see the wind but we can feel it. So what we see and feel is dependent upon God’s people as we pray.

  • H.E.A.R. method of reading God’s Word

    KMBC Family,

    The H.E.A.R. Journal is one of the best methods I know in getting to know the God who loves you. As you connect with your church in reading the Scripture together on a daily basis, you will find that after your reading, meditating, and journaling, you can find prayer better and more effective.

    • Learn to Highlight the verse or verses that God is using for that day.
    • Explain the verses in the context of what the writer is saying.
    • Apply the Scripture to your life and what God is saying to you.
    • Respond to God in praise, thanksgiving, repentance, or in action toward
      someone.

    Use the H.E.A.R. Method of reading the Word and allow the Word to get into you and for you to get into the Word.

  • He’s Speaking To Us In This Covid-19 Virus Pandemic

    God is talking, are we listening? In these last days He is speaking to us through His Son, the Lord Jesus. Times are fleeing and lives are valued by what we do with Jesus. But are we listening? How far have we drifted from God and His voice? Have we become more dull of hearing and distracted by the things of the day? Satan is our invisible enemy.

    I am praying that my world will hear what God is saying, and to the church may we hear her Shepherd and draw nigh to His side. The world needs to realize that repentance is a necessity and only the Holy Spirit can reveal Christ to the lost and of its unbelief in His Son. They are dead in trespasses and sins and only He can give life. He is the Creator and Redeemer! All things began by Him and they will end in Him. And all will stand before Him! And one day all will kneel before Him!

    The people of God should examine themselves and to repent of her selfishness and fleshly ways. We should know better but we have a drift as well from God’s ways. Our ways are not His ways and therefore we must know Him, hear Him, so as to follow Him. As the church goes so goes the family, the city, the country, and the world. Without the church who is to become a part of the conscience which awakens the sinner all will continue in its apostasy. So will the church listen to what God is saying to her? Will we love, pray, witness, give, confess our need to Him, or will we continue to try to deafen what He is saying? He is slow to judgment and yet He is great in mercy!

    May we draw nigh and He has promised to draw nigh to us. Listen to Him!

    Pastor Don

  • Heaven

    Redemption through Christ has bought back God’s original design. For His glory, our good, we sense the great call of God upon our lives. Adam and Eve and their children were to extend the blessings of Paradise throughout the entire world, but instead of this purpose, Adam sinned and brought a curse upon the ground for man’s sake. Satan, though defeated, still reigns in his kingdom, but not for long.

    Salvation, therefore, restores man to his original calling and purpose, and thus guarantees man’s original mandate. Under the perpetual curse of sin there is no purpose for God to be glorify, though His glory cannot be diminished. But because of God’s amazing grace, when sin and the curse are taken completely away, people will be capable of exercising proper stewardship of the earth and the new earth to come. Heaven will rule and His kingdom will come. Though, at this time, we experience God’s kingdom in our hearts.

    Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy our God forever. One day in the realm of glory this will take place uninterrupted, but in the mean time God has called us as resurrected beings to carry out his plan for developing a Christ-centered, resurrected culture in a dying, decaying world.

    Christ’s mission is to both redeem what was lost in the Fall and to destroy all that competes against God’s dominion, authority, and power He wields. When all is placed and put under His feet, when God rules and mankind rules the earth as kings under Christ, the King of kings, at last all will be as God intends. This period of rebellion will be forever over, and the universe, and all who serve Christ, will participate in the Master’s joy!

  • Left Behind

    Left Behind (Preached on March 29th, 2020) Matthew 24:36-41
    Prophecy seems to be out of place these days in our preaching unless a tragedy takes place. People go immediately to sensationalism to scourging the preaching but we need to go to the Scripture. The soon coming of the Lord seems to as common as American as apple pie, hotdogs, and baseball. We don’t think much about it. But we should! Jesus is coming again.
    Our world is anxious today and worried. Everything has been turned upside down. Jobs are shut down, parking lots are empty, nonessential businesses have closed. And the church is emptied of its congregants. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me…” (John 14:1). The Lamb of God is coming for the lambs of God. We are seeing a dress rehearsal for the coming tribulation.
    People don’t believe in the rapture. Enoch did. Elijah did. Jesus did. Paul did. One day Jesus is coming back to catch us away. You find that in I Thessalonians 4:13ff. Who are going to be taken up with Him? The ones who have been born again, who have the same nature as God. Those who have a second birth. Those who follow Jesus as Lord on earth.
    Some things out of place at this time. The bride is not with the bridegroom. The Jews are not back in the land of Israel. Satan is not in hell. Jesus is not reigning in Jerusalem from David’s throne. God is preparing all things to fulfill these prophecies.
    One day children will disappear from their beds. Moms will be missing. Pilots will be taken up. Bus drivers and car drivers will exit their cars. One man working beside another and one is taken. Two in bed, a man and his wife, and one is taken.

    1. A Word of Caution (Matthew 24:36)
      We don’t know when the event will take place but we know it will. Millions will vanish without a trace. It will be a worldwide event. In less than a millisecond, there will be an evacuation, an exit, an entry into the glory to be with the Lord forever. Can you imagine the anguish when loved ones have been taken and many don’t know where they are? We look at the nation of Israel. It was reformed as a nation in 1948. Never has this happened to any other nation or state. Jesus said this is the budding of the fig tree and when this happens the coming of the tribulation is nigh. That means before the tribulation happens the rapture will take place. Only when the true church is taken from this world will we see this happen. The world is awaiting a devastating day. And they do not know it and they are indifferent to it.
    2. A Word of Contemplation (Matthew 24:37-41)
      Look at the situation today: politically, economically, ecclesiastically, and morally. Jesus said these things would take place and the world will be shaken from its moorings. Their anchor will be pulled up. Everything people have lived for, sold their souls for, will suddenly, fatally, finally be taken away. Noah preached for 120 years and only 8 got in the ark. He was a preacher of righteousness. With every blow of the hammer, with each cutting down of a tree, with the dabbing of tar on the boards of the ark to waterproof the ark from the water, God was speaking. God is saying things today. Adrian Rogers said, “I would rather scare you into hell than lull you into hell.” Too many are not ready! Mortality is coming, hell is coming, and people are being warned by today’s situations. Too many say they know Christ but the question is does He know them? Many Christians are asleep and they will stand at the judgment seat of God to be shown their bad works before a holy and righteous God.
    3. A Word of Concern (Matthew 24: 42-51)
      After the rapture God will focus His concern on the earth. He is going to allow man to continue in their rebellion. They will ruin themselves. Then Satan will come in the person of the Anti-Christ to rule over and stamp his mark of 666 on earth of his subjects. But at the last 3 1/2 years of the Great Tribulation, God will begin to pour out his bowls of judgment upon the earth dwellers. They will cry out for the rocks of the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb of God. Can you imagine that? What should we do as God’s people? Be watchful! Be Warned! Be Awake! What should the lost do? They should repent of their sin, their life of self-serving, self-ambition, and get the life of God in them by turning from their sin and asking God to be merciful unto them.
      One day Jesus is coming. A man went upstairs to the attic. He found an opened box with nuts, bolts, nails, dust, pieces of paper, and some splintered wood. He found a strong magnet and waved it over the box. What leaped to the magnet? The nuts, bolts, and nails. Why? They alone had the same nature as the magnet. Only those who have the same nature of God within will be caught up to Jesus. Those who know Him will be rescued from this world’s chaos that will take place one day. Either party, saved or lost, come to Jesus before it’s too late!