One source discipleship plan

The One Source Discipleship Plan is a personal discipleship program based in the word of God. After all the word of God is God’s tool for developing disciples. We often find ourselves spending more time reading books about the Bible than we do actually reading the Bible.

THE PLAN- 1 chapter a day, 1 verse a week, A resource for Life!
Each week participants will read one chapter of first John each day. This will allow the participants to actually read through the book of first John each week for five weeks. At the end of your daily reading you should spend some time focusing on the key verse. First studying, then memorizing and meditating on this verse. It is hoped that at the end of the sermon series participants will have memorized one key verse from each chapter, and have a general understanding of the basic themes of each section.  Those who want to do a little bit of extra work can follow self-study suggestions to develop a more comprehensive idea of what is in each chapter. This will provide not only an easily accessible outline of the book but an understanding of the key concepts from the scripture to use in our own personal discipleship, and our conversation with others.

THE RATIONALE
Peter uses the illustration (1 Peter 2:2) of infants loving milk (baby food processed by the mother), and adults who eat steak for themselves. His point seems to be that as we grow spiritually we become less dependent on others to explain and teach and more dependent on what we gain from scripture itself. If all we do is attend church services, eventually we will hear the sermon on "Three Ways to Handle Stress".  If we meditate on Philipians 4 we will gain wisdom and insight that will help us manage our emotions; trust God with our daily lives; focus our thoughts on productive things; learn how to use worry as a trigger for prayer; and how to pray in stressful situations. Better yet, memorize philippians 4:6 and you will always have a practical plan ready at a moments notice, to guard our own hearts and share with someone else, any time worry creeps into our lives.

Philippians 4:6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. - New Living Translation.

THE PROCESS
There are many good books on how to study the bible available. They cover all the different types of literature the bible uses (narrative, prose, poetry, apocalypse, parables, paralellism, geneologies, songs, hymns, etc). The Bible was written by 45 different authors, using 4 different languages, over 1500 years, in 66 books. You can do a Phd. in Biblical Hermaneutics (how to study the Bible) at seminary if you want to, or you can use a more simple process for your own personal bible study.

Howard Hendricks taught hermaneutics at Dallas Theological Seminary for years and suggests a simple process using the acronym OIL. Observation is the begining of Bible study (What does it say? How is it said?...), Interpretation is the process of understanding and explaining what it means (What questions does the passage raise? ...answer? and how would I explain this to someone else?). Life applicaiton draws out, how the passage should change our lives.

The Hand Illustration - the thumb gives us "Grip"

The Navigators use a simple illustration of a hand to help students remember how to study the bible. They also have a resource page that contains many helpful articles about how to grow spiritually. One resource is a brief explanation about how to do personal bible study, including a simple 7 step process that helps keep you focused.