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A Life Worth Leading
People are yearning for purpose, direction,
and significance in life. Even more, they are searching for a faith that
can transform their lives. A Life Worth Leading is based on Paul's
admonition to "lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called."
This site contains resources for doing a
sermon series on A Life Worth Leading.
It can be done as a 6-8 week sermon series during January/February 2007, but could
also be very appropriately used as a sermon series during Lent, 2007.
A Life Worth Leading is not only a Lutheran reading of
Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life, but many of the books and
resources that lead people toward the quest for significance in their daily
lives. Each chapter is based on key Bible texts, and includes powerful
stories of personal transformation. Five transforming purposes will be
highlighted: inspiration through worship, integration through fellowship,
following Christ through discipleship, involvement through ministry, and
invitation through evangelism.
This site is to support you in developing a
sermon series around the 8 chapters in the book, and to provide you examples of
sermons and outlines that other pastors have done. As others preach the
themes in this book more resources will be made available.
The absolute best way to use this series is
to ask congregation members to buy the book, and you can get it at a bulk rate
for as low as about $6.50/book. Use it in small groups, use it in Sunday
forums, and ask people to read the chapters corresponding to the sermons you are
preaching. Use the discussion questions at the end of each chapter for
small group discussion. More discussion guides will be available for using
this series during Lent. By then other sermons will be posted here.
 A
Life Worth Leading is a part of a trilogy of "purpose" books in the Lutheran
Voices line at Augsburg Fortress. The second book is Robert
Driver-Bishop's book People of Purpose. The order of the purpose/emphases
of the 5 purposes are the same in his book, so if you're organizing a sermon
series using A Life Worth Leading and using it in small group discussions
in your congregation with the discussion questions at the end of each chapter,
People of Purpose be used as daily devotions, as they're intentionally
synched together for a 6 or 8 week sermon series.
Robert has a multitude of resources available
on his site for a variety of ways in which his book can be used in a sermon
series. His fully stocked
site is a wealth of resources. He also has a Lenten sermon series that
he preached last Lent. The sermons you'll see there are in the same order
as the sermons/chapters here, except Robert adds insights from Biblical
characters that help bring out the theme. Again, you can use the order of
the purposes in both books for a sermon series, use A Life Worth Leading
for small group discussions, and use People of Purpose for daily
devotions. Discounts are available when you order in volume from Augsburg
Fortress.
Once you've led your congregation through a
sermon series with one of both of these book it's time to focus on
 how
your Church Council can begin to structurally transform the spiritual DNA of
your congregation.
Leading On Purpose is a best
seller from Augsburg Fortress and was written to be read by Church Councils or
Boards. I taught Purpose Driven Lutherans at Luther Seminary for 6
years, and this book is a summary of that week long class for pastors.
Once you've done a "purpose" sermon series, the next step is to transform your
Council into new ways of "doing church."
There's also a fully stocked
website for
Leading On Purpose to support you with additional resources.
At St. Matthew we did a sermon series on A
Life Worth Leading in January, 2006. Here is the
sermon series guide that
we used to prepare, including texts and a brief description of each Sunday.
I've included all documents in a Word
document instead of PDF so you can easily use anything you wish.
Enjoy!
Eric Burtness, St. Matthew Lutheran,
Beaverton, OR
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