 Hi there, this is Pastor Vlad and I want to take a few moments to share with you about the importance of following up on the new believers. First of all, the vision of every local church that is led by Jesus as the head of the church is to win souls and make disciples. One of the reasons why we have home groups at the church is because God calls the pastors to equip the saints for the work of ministry. The challenge that we have a lot of times as pastors is that we end up doing the work of ministry and the saints are the ones sitting on the sidelines and just grading our performance. And so one of the things that we at hunger generation that we are doing is that we're empowering people to disciple people, to bring people to Jesus, to heal people through the name of Jesus, to cast out demons. And one of the ways that people are empowered to fulfill their responsibility or their work of ministry is through home groups. First of all, home groups are very biblical. In the Bible we see that Jesus had a group of people. He ministered to the masses, but he discipled a smaller circle of guys. And that's one of the reasons why we believe in thousands locally and millions globally. And the way we reach our local groups is not just by the big, we call it like this, I think I took it from Andy Stanley, is that circles are better than rows. And not only Jesus discipled smaller circle of people, smaller circle of people, but we see that apostles did the same thing in the book of Acts. We see they met in a temple, which is symbolic of like a weekly gathering at the church. And they also met at the houses, which is symbolic of the small groups where discipleship, the work of consolidation, the work of deliverance and healing is usually done. God has been doing some awesome things at home groups at hunger gen. People have been getting saved, people have been getting healed. A lot of deliverances have been happening at home groups. And our home group leaders have been used by the Lord to lead people to Jesus right there at the home groups. And I know this is just a beginning. You will see a list right now of just eight reasons why we need home groups. The first one is their biblical. Jesus modeled that to us. The second reason is their convenient. The third reason is their economical. Fourth reason is they are unlimited in size. Fifth reason is their unlimited in reach. Sixth reason is they provide accountability. Seventh reason is they provide safe environment. Eighth reason is they provide focus. And I'm going to quickly go over also the guidelines we have for every single home group. One of them is that we have to meet in decentralized locations. We encourage people to meet in parks, in Starbucks, in the house, in the places where other people can feel safe and comfortable. Houses, they work the best for most of us because, well, we call them home groups. And another reason is that it helps people to relax and helps people to feel connected. The second tip for home groups is we encourage frequency for health. The more consistent people come to home groups, the more likely their spiritual life will grow. Number three is every home group leader always has to be challenged to facilitate conversation instead of preaching in their home group. If a home group leader ends up speaking for 40 minutes, next thing that happens is his home group is not going to grow. Home group is not an extension of Sunday service or continuation of Sunday service. It's supposed to be a completely different vibe and completely different feel than a Sunday service. Number four, a tip for home groups is shared ownership. The more people can participate and take ownership of the home group, the more successful home groups will be. Number five is the goal of every leader is not to attract attendees but to raise leaders. Number six is every home group has to encourage members to meet outside of the home group on social activities, graduations, picnics, go to a movie, do something, sporting events, because this is when people really open up and people really get together. And the last one is that we encourage all the home group people within themselves to share their numbers and to follow each other on social media so they can be aware of what's going on with each other so they can stay in prayer. The life of every home group is new people. When new people stop coming to home group, very soon home group is going to die. Very soon the home group leader is going to be very burdened by the thing that is happening in the home group. And I want to share just briefly of what it's like to do a follow-up. How do we expect home group leaders to follow up on people who just get saved? First of all, a follow-up is the care and the attention that we give to the new believer in order to produce within him a character or within her a character of Jesus Christ. A follow-up is what happens when the person gives the life to the Lord and until they really get rooted or planted in the house of God. That season from their salvation to their kind of like being consistent and being committed is we call that follow-up. We have to understand follow-up is very important and it's actually our responsibility as the home group leaders and our helpers' responsibility to do the follow-up. The good story of that is Apostle Paul. Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 9, he gets this encounter with Jesus and it's very radical. It's the encounter that we all hope that people in our home groups have. He doesn't just come to church. He meets Jesus on the road. God knocks him out of the horse. He goes blind. He meets God. God reveals to him that, hey, I'm the Messiah. I mean, he's all nine yards. He gets the whole package. Apostle Paul goes to Damascus and so he ends up three days fasting. I mean, talk about real salvation. Three days fasting, blind, crying out to God. At this moment, God calls Ananias, who is the disciple of Jesus Christ, and tells him, I want you to go to Paul and I want you to pray for Paul so he starts to see and I want you to mentor Paul into the next steps of his walk with God. And it kind of puzzles me that God, who just knocked him out of the horse, made him blind. God, who just had this encounter with him, could not follow up on Paul. And that tells us that God's job is to save. Our job is to follow up. Sometimes we mix that up as we actually end up doing God's job or we're trying to save a person, and then we toss our job on God and expect the Holy Spirit to follow up on those people. We always encourage, don't follow up on people who are not saved. You can catch up on them, like catch up with them. You can meet with them, hang out with them, connect with them, befriend them. But following up, like helping them to mature in faith and everything. I'm going to mention that in just a few minutes. Following up is really done for the work of those that God has already worked on in area of salvation. If God had knocked them out of the horse, if something didn't happen inside of them, it will feel like honestly discipling a corpse. It was just not going to work. It's just not going to work. So discipleship is really our job. God's job is to save. Our job is to follow up. God's job is to convert that person. We see that clearly portrayed in the way Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. That is the work of Jesus. But He commands everyone else around Lazarus to untie Lazarus. I want you to see this, is that Jesus doesn't go untieing Lazarus. Jesus is the one that does the miracle of resurrection. His disciples are the one that are doing the miracle of transformation. And this transformation is untieing the grave clothes of this man who used to be dead. Every person who gets saved, they carry dead clothes around them. They carry traditions. They carry mindsets. They carry habits. They carry hurts. They carry hang-ups. They carry things that we need to untie around them. And Jesus calls us. He says, I raise them from the dead. You guys need to remove the grave clothes from out of them. And we have to understand that. Now it will be foolish to go into the Lazarus tomb and begin to untie his clothes when he was still dead. The same way it is not wise to disciple a corpse. Meaning if somebody is not converted, if somebody isn't saved, discipling them is not going to do no one good. It's good to catch up with them, hang out with them, but following up on them ain't going to work. Same thing happened, you know, God brings Jesus on earth. Supernatural birth. I mean, miraculous birth. Jesus gets born from a virgin Mary. But God doesn't do the job of raising Jesus up. The job was given to Mary and Joseph. The same thing. God saves someone. He gives them us the job to nurture, to cultivate, to care and to raise that person up. And so Ananias, he goes and talks to Paul, prays him, the scales get removed. Paul starts to see. Paul gets baptized in the Holy Spirit. Paul gets baptized into water. And Ananias then introduces him to the rest of the church because people were kind of freaked out of Paul. And so he introduces him to the rest of the church and we see Paul goes on preaching and not only preaching, he rescues so many people for Jesus. Paul starts many churches. Paul writes two thirds of New Testament and today many of us actually are benefitting from the writings of Apostle Paul till this day. But the connection between Paul's conversion and Paul's destiny was Ananias. Every time we thoroughly and effectively follow up on someone who gives the life to Jesus, not only Christ will be reproduced in them, not only the scales will be removed, not only the shackles and the chains will be removed, not only God's going to connect them to the body of Christ, but actually we will be able to reach to the multitudes through that person. Follow up is so crucial and it's so overlooked in the churches today. And so we really want to challenge all of our home group leaders. We want to challenge everyone who's watching right now who's maybe a home group leader at your church. If you want to see more salvation, you got to take care of the salvation God entrusts to your ministry. So in a nutshell, discipleship is what God called us to do, to win souls and make disciples. We do the discipling, Jesus does the saving. And Jesus won't do our job, we cannot do His. Few things on how to follow up on the person. This will mainly deal with people who are watching, who are having a similar style of the service as in our church. When somebody gives their life to Jesus, this is where the follow up begins. Many people that come to Jesus in our church are actually now are outside of our church, whether it's at coffee shop, at home group, on the street. And so once they give their life to Jesus, you really have to get their information and you have to follow up on them. The same day, you have to text them the next day, try to meet with them within that week to connect with them and invite them to home group and invite them to church. Now, what about if somebody gives their life to Jesus on a youth service on Wednesday night or on Sunday morning? The challenge that we now present to every single home group leader is when somebody comes to the altar call. As a home group leader, you have to be at the altar as well. It's easy sometimes to excuse yourself and say, well, I don't have to go because I think there's already somebody there or I didn't bring this person so I don't have to have the responsibility of connecting with them when they get saved. And all of these are excuses and they are very lame excuses. We need to throw them out because if we don't have new people coming to our home group, our home group is not going to make it for a home group to grow. There has to be constant flow of new people. And for that to happen, a home group leader has to be, when somebody is getting saved, you need to be as a home group leader in the front with that new person that just got saved and minister to that new person and pray for that new person. So when somebody gets saved, we come to the altar call. We come to the altar with them. Number two is during the altar call, we pray for them. We minister to their needs. We ask them if they have any other needs. Not just we lead them to Jesus. We ask them if they have sickness right on the spot. We pray for their healing. We pray if they have any bondages. We pray for that as well. After the prayer, we give them these two things. The first one is the Gospel of John. It's written in a very creative kind of a youthful, new, modern way, really nice. But give them this and you can get this. If you're watching from another church, you can get them for free at thelifebook.com. And from those of you from younger generation, we have them in their media room on the side. You pick one up and then we give them also this thing right away. And this is welcome to your new life. We have them in their media room and for those of you outside of our ministry, you can buy them online. It's by Ralph W. Neighbor, Jr. He wrote this and this is for the new believer to understand what just happened to them. Not only we pray for them, we give them these two booklets, but we also have them sign a connection card. A connection card just asks for their information and then actually gives five steps of what just happened to them. So we rip this up and we give this to Pastor Martin or one of the other leaders. And this part, they keep it with them. When this is done, when you pass the information to one of the local pastors, one of the pastors at Hungry Jen, make sure you snap a picture of it so that you can have their information. When you go home and you finish your lunch or you finish your dinner, whatever, it depends on what time or what day that person got saved. That same day, before you go to sleep, you got to shoot them a text, send them a text saying, hey, thank you for coming to church. It was nice praying for you. I'm so glad I met you and just encourage them. Next morning, you need to take time to pray for them. Honestly, just a few minutes. Pray over their needs, pray over their family, and God will establish them. The reason why is because many times when somebody just gets saved, Satan sends all kinds of family. He sends temptations. Sometimes he just sends doubts. The same way Jesus, the moment he was born, Herod literally wanted to assault and destroy Jesus. The next day, the moment somebody gets saved, if we don't protect them with prayer like Mary and Joseph where they took Jesus and hit him in Egypt, if we don't hide them in prayer, then the Herods, the demons, the doubts, sometimes the traditions, different things surface and they quench the work of the Holy Spirit that happened a day before. So you pray for them. The moment you finish praying for them, you literally pick up your phone and you shoot them a text. You're saying, hey, I just prayed for you. I just want to let you know God is going to move in your life. God is going to do great things in your life. And then you ask him if you can meet with them. If you can meet with them, preferably before a home group. Maybe 20 minutes or 30 minutes before home group, so you can kill two birds with one stone, so they can come to the home group and also so you can connect with them. And this is how follow-up begins. Now, let's say that they agreed to meet with you. Typically, people will be able to do so if you follow these steps. If you pray for them, if you get their information, if you give them things, and then you follow up with them with the text. When you meet with them, a few things to keep in mind. One, is you have to understand the meeting with them is about them, not about you. That means you want to ask questions about who they are, where they're coming from, where do they grow up? Did they grow up in a religious home? What was their experience with God? What was their first exposure to Christianity? You want to ask them if they have a Bible? You want to find out how do they get invited to church if you don't know yet? What did they feel when they came to the front? Why did they come to the front? What made them feel like they needed salvation? How do they feel right now? Just literally, you want to be like an interrogator in a nice way. Ask them questions. Don't be the person who tells them your new cool revelations or just how great your life is, because while they're going to be impressed, they won't be impacted. When you ask more questions, then feel free to share your testimony. How you came to church? How you came to God? How you overcame certain things? Why? It will help them to understand that they can be where you are at right now and that you're not a person with wings. You're human, just like them, who is growing in Christ. You always want to finish the first meeting with them with telling them how to grow spiritually. We usually just honestly outline just four simple things. We tell them to talk to God. We call it a prayer. We tell them to read the Bible. This is how God talks to us. We can hear God when we read His word. And thirdly, we tell them to feed their spiritual man, which is like their spirit, by listening to podcasts, watching testimonies. We help them to subscribe to Hungry Gen Podcast and maybe some other podcasts that you feel led. And the last one, we tell them the spiritual growth has to go into this stage. They need to get water baptized. And then we encourage them to stay for the home group. We encourage them to come to the home group where we can connect them to other people. And if you do that, I mean, that's over 50% chance that these people, not only are they going to come back next Sunday, but they are going to bring someone next Sunday, then they are going to become effective in Jesus Christ. And it's important that we don't do that for one week and then we just kind of forget about them. Then we continuously kind of send them reminders, send them text messages, send them something that we watched. You have to understand, it's kind of like a baby. You don't just give birth to a baby and leave it in the hospital. You bring it home. You don't just bring it home. You take care of the baby. You watch over the baby. And there comes a point where the baby learns to walk. The baby learns to run. The baby becomes independent. And the baby becomes an adult and actually can take care of you. And so that is exactly the goal of Jesus Christ, that we make disciples. And these disciples will make other disciples. I hope that this was encouraging. If you're watching and you're a hungry gen leader, I want to let you know I'm praying for you. If you're watching and you're a home group leader at your church, I'm praying for you as well. I'm hoping that you will succeed in discipling others because this is our mandate from Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name.