Study Center

Memo: Many times people come to FAST, because some friend encouraged them to check us out, or perhaps to take some specific class they heard of, but they don't know much else about our ministry. They have no idea what resources are available. This brief booklet introduces our three main training tracks, to give you a better idea what you can expect to learn at FAST. It doesn't list all our resources, but it should give you a clear idea what we emphasize, and where are training priorities lie. And while you don't have to pursue our training in the exact order suggested, these notes will guide you step by step through the exact path we recommend. If after reading these next few pages, you still have question, be sure to ask it via our Help Hotline at FAST. If you are eager to get started right away, click the Study Center link on our site and get yourself enrolled. If you want to bring FAST training to your family, small group, or church, click the Training Teams link, and register your group. See you inside! The Editor, Hid in Christ

Bible Memorization

If you have been a member at FAST for any length of time, you know that one of our big areas of emphasis is Bible memorization. It's only one part of the discipleship process, of course, but it plays a surprisingly powerful role in spiritual revitalization and life transformation. Time and time again, I've seen it supernaturally jump start a person's spiritual growth.

In this memo, I'd like to review what I recommend as the most important steps in building a powerful memorization program. To do that, I decided to outline the thought process behind the four modules in our MEMORIZATION training track.

Here are the four levels:

1. Beginner Level
The first memorization goal I recommend, is simply learning the basics of how to memorize. Many people think there isn't anything much they need to learn to memorize effectively, but in most cases, that's not true. Even learning just a few basic tips can make a huge impact on whether or not you succeed.

The first module in our level one training track does that nicely, by taking you through our Crash Course in Bible memorization. This short training series covers all the essentials: how to memorize, the mechanics of a good review system, secrets to remembering references, tips on maintaining consistency, and more. Best of all you can complete this class in just 7 days.

Another thing we recommend early on, is learning to use our Memory Engine. Students regularly report what a game changer this little app has been, and it can help you too. It's actually a bundle of several different tools that all work together to help you accumulate verses. Basically we manage everything for you, behind the scenes, to make memorizing Scripture as simple and easy as possible.

Once you've got the basics down, you've got the Memory Engine or a comparable system running, and you've memorized your first dozen verses or so, it's time to move on to the next module.

2. Advanced Level
The real power of memorization doesn't come from mastering the mechanics of using a verse pack or setting up a review system. These can help you start accumulating verses more effectively. But the real power comes when you learn the skills you need to use those verses practically in your daily life.

And we've got the perfect class for that: our Breakout Memory Challenge. This class not only massively expands on the nuts and bolts of how to memorize, but it hones in on life implementation. You'll learn how to choose specific key verses that speak to you practically, meditate on them and draw out key principles, and then build those principles into your personal experience.

Yes, the nuts and bolts tips in this 30 day class will definitely help you learn verses far more quickly than you ever thought possible. But more important, you will learn how to transform those verses into genuine building blocks in your spiritual life. Which is what this step in our training is all about: moving from simple memorization to even deeper internalization.

And coming soon, we'll be opening access to our Breakout Memory Challenge, so you can take it anytime you want. And we may even offer a way for churches to sign up members as a group, and run through it together. That would be cool, wouldn't it?

3. Expert Level
By the time you finish modules one and two, you should be a highly competent memorizer. You'll have the skills and tools you need to accumulate verses rapidly. And your pile of verses should be growing larger. But there's two more levels still to go.

Th third module in this training track works through our For Such A Time ebook. This resource takes a fresh look at endtime events, and especially the important role memorization will play in preparing a people for earth's final scenes. The goal in this level is simply to deepen your understanding of the purpose of memorization, so you can pursue God's goals more intelligently. After finishing this book, you will likely never quite see memorization the same again.

We will also encourage you to plug into our Memory Club and Bible Boost programs. These are both designed to help you find key verses you want to memorize. The Memory Club covers the Bible from Genesis to Revelation over a period of two years, helping you find the best and most popular verses in each section. Our Bible Boost program approaches things thematically, giving you hand-picked lists of verses on key topics each week, from which you can select verses you want to learn. Engaging and interactive programs like these make a difference, because encouragement and support are critical to long term memorization success.

In short, our goal for module three is to dramatically deepen your longterm commitment to memorization, so that it will remain a lifelong practice.

4. Guru Level
Last but not least, we want to give you some tools to help you share what you have learned about memorization with others. In our experience, one of the most important keys to longterm success in memorization is having friends around who memorize with you. That added "real life" encouragement and accountability can make a tremendous difference. And to be frank, the Bible pronounces a "woe" on those who don't have a partner (Ecclesiastes 4:9-109 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.). That's serious!

So we close out this training track with a fun little class called FAST Friends. This course guides you through a series of "missions" filled with fresh sharing ideas, even the most timid witness can enjoy. It will also show you around the various sharing tools on our site so you know how to see who responds to your invites, and encourage them along during their time here.

And ultimately that's the real goal, isn't it? It's not just knowing the nuts and bolts of memorization, knowing how to make memorization life-changing, or even knowing why memorization is so vital for these last days. We also want to be able to share the power of God's Word with family and friends. To build up a local core of committed memorizers, so we have people nearby we can press forward with together, challenging and exhorting one another, in a shared quest to be filled with Scripture.

Conclusion

So there you have it: four key goals for your memorization:

1) Learn the basics of memorization, and start using the Memory Engine or something similar.

2) Go deeper, and discover how to focus on key verses, through meditation and application, in pursuit of real life transformation.

3) Spend some time exploring the radical importance of memorization in preparing God's endtime people for earth's final crisis. And last,

4) Share the blessings of memorization with those you love, and build up a growing core group of memorizers in your area.

Commit yourself to achieving these four goals in the coming month, and it will take your memorization up to a whole new level. In fact, you may just be surprised at how wonderfully God will bless.

Go ahead, your future is before you. Knock out all four modules, and get your honorary certificate from FAST for completing our MEMORIZATION track.

Become a memorizing machine...

Personal Discipleship

For over 30 years, I've given my life to ministry. Early on, I became convinced the most important work we can do is to mobilize and empower believers for service. That the great need of the hour is true discipleship training. That our priority must be equipping men and women with the skills and tools they need to equip others. That if we could just get back to the New Testament model of multiplication, our churches could become powerhouses for evangelism. And that nothing else could finish the work.

I still believe it.

But it's not been easy. While God has seen fit to give us tools that have helped thousands grow spiritually—the viral replication of workers we've sought has not yet been fully sparked.

Here's the conclusion I've come to: things are not going to happen until we plead with God for more power. For more of the Holy Spirit. Or to put it differently, multiplication is not going to trigger revival. Rather, revival is going to trigger multiplication!   

In fact, looking back, that is the only thing that has ever sparked viral replication. That has ever transformed a church into a powerhouse. Revival, we know, is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. And so, we are committed at FAST to making that our first work. To calling believers everywhere back to the Bible. Back to personal discipleship. Which is what this training track is all about: equipping you to be a revival agent...

The Discipleship Track

If you've been a part of our ministry for awhile, you have probably heard about our discipleship track. It a series of three main Bible study courses designed to help you take in, live out, and then pass on God's Word. These courses form the backbone of our this training track. In fact, they form the backbone of ALL our training.

If I could encourage every person at FAST to do just one track, it would be this one.

Now unlike the short courses in our MEMORIZATION track, these study guide courses are specifically designed for use in small groups. Which means completing them gives you insights into how you can begin making disciples yourself in your family, small group, or church. You can still work through them individually, but the best way to go through this track is to gather a few friends, and go through these lessons together. Or better yet, to do it as a small group or class in your local church. That's what our Training Teams option is all about.

What do the lessons cover? Here are the main modules:

1: Launch
We kick off your training in this track with an introduction to the subject of revival. In fact, we'll guide you through what was probably the most popular class we have ever offered at FAST, a 10 day upper room experience, we recently retitled Dry Bones.

Basically, we start your training with a vision of what could be, and a prayer that this vision will motivate you to press forward, and persevere through this track.

2: Hold FAST   
Module two guides you through our 5 week Survival Kit course, which focuses on Bible memorization. These lessons introduce a new format to your training, including weekly objectives, Bible searches, assigned verses, memory keys, and more. And while the content is similar to information covered in our level one track, these lessons model the ideal way to introduce a friend to memorization. .

These lessons are our very best resource for helping others begin memorizing Scripture. Work through the lessons, and you'll know just how to get a friend started too. Learn to use these lessons effectively, and you'll be off to a great start in your quest to become a disciple-maker.

3: Stand FAST   
Module three digs a lot deeper into the essentials of day to day discipleship. In particular, we'll do a 9 week study guide course called Basic Training. It zooms in on the four main spokes of the disciple's wheel: Bible study, prayer, time management, and personal witnessing. While memorization may be the spark that gets a person growing, these core disciplines lay a foundation of spiritual maturity. And that foundation is key to effective ministry. Getting the foundation right is essential.

We also include some of our most valuable short classes in this module to reinforce what you learn in the study guides: the Application Workshop, Prayer Secrets, and our Life Focus system courses. Complete these supplemental classes, and you will be even better prepared to help others start growing in their walk with God.

4: Work FAST   
The third main set of lessons in our discipleship track has been updated to a new study guide course called Revival Keys. This 9 week program explores our urgent need for revival, and the essential conditions of revival—and it gives you tools to help put those things in place. You'll also be given a strategy for pursuing revival in your local church. You'll learn how to safeguard a revival experience when it comes. And you'll know just what to do to help see revival spread. Step by step, these lessons will guide you into becoming a fully-equipped revival agent.

I believe this course has the potential to change everything. People hungry to grow will be drawn to your life. And you will have the tools you need to help them grow in memorization, discipleship, and revival. Soon you'll be able to gather a small group around you, where revival can burn more and more brightly. In time, it will spill out into the rest of your church. And from there, into your community. We're locked into this vision at FAST, and pray you will commit to it too.

5: The Commission    
The final module in this track works through another important short class, called The Lost Art of Disciple-Making as well as our ebook, the Leaders Manual. Basically, we'll walk you through the nuts and bolts of replicating our entire training curriculum in your local church. We'll cover everything you need to know from how to advertise your class to graduating those you train.

We'll also introduce you to some of the leadership resources we have available to those who lead teams—from step by step teacher tips and quizzes, to supplemental handouts, certificates of completion, and more. Our goal here is to close out this track with everything you need for true spiritual multiplication.

Conclusion

The Great Commission gives us a clear mandate: to go and make disciples. That means not just leading people to Christ, but teaching them to observe everything Christ commanded us (Matthew 28:19-2019 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.). And that mandate reaches on down today. He promises to be with us in this work, always, even to the end of the world.

If you have ever wanted to be a part of this Great Commission and get personally involved in this work of helping fellow believers grow, this track will give you the training you need. Why not make a serious commitment, right now, to learn more fully how to take in, live out, and pass on God's Word.

And even more, to equip yourself with the tools you need to train others. We'll walk you through the whole process, step by step, so you know exactly what to do. Make it your goal to:

• Help friends get started in memorization
• Help friends grow in personal discipleship, and
• Help friends to seek true revival together

It really is time to raise up an army of revival agents. Enlist today...

Ministry Leadership

Want to know what the hardest step in disciple-making is? It's not teaching someone to memorize. You can share an overview of that in just 10 or 20 minutes. And if they stick with the plan, that person will soon have dozens, or even hundreds of verses. Teaching practical discipleship is a bit more challenging, just because there are more areas to cover: Bible study, a prayer journal, time management, personal witnessing. But these skills are also pretty straightforward. And if a person works at it, they can master any of these skills in time.

But teaching someone to go on and become a consistent, effective, soul-winner is a whole different level of challenge. That's the goal of our LEADERSHIP track.

It's an important goal, isn't it? Our MEMORIZATION track can lead to a radical transformation in your life. And our DISCIPLESHIP track can lead to real change in your church. But if you want to have an explosive impact in your community, you are going to have to go further!

Think about it this way: it's not really too hard to completely saturate a church, and train everyone who is interested in being trained, in a relatively short period of time. But when you run out of people, that process inevitably grinds to a stop. If you want to see the multiplication process continue, you have to learn how to reach out into your community, and start seeing people come to Christ in your church on a regular basis. New members are the life-blood of any church that's serious about training. There's no way around it.

And ultimately, reaching new people, should be the whole point of our training. It's the whole point of the Great Commission. And if our training fails to fulfill that ultimate objective, how effective really, is it?

Churches everywhere are languishing, and have plateaued or are in decline. But Bible memorization can spark revival in hearts. And personal discipleship can keep revival burning bright. But ministry leadership, is what will bring revival to the streets of our town. Get ready!

Evangelism Skills

We've designed this training track to operate somewhat as a series of stand alone training modules. You can complete these in any order—and focus on just the ministry skills that interest you most.

But there's actually a certain logic to these modules, and we recommend mastering each component in order. Each builds on the one before, and ultimately, evangelism works best when you have all of the pieces in place, working together. Completing the entire track will take some time, but it's worth the effort.

Here are the 5 main modules in this track, and why we've put them in the order we did. Think of it as an overview of our outreach philosophy:

1. Church Training
The first skill you need as a worker, actually has to do with equipping your church. Learning to appreciate the power and potential of the local church, and then putting systems in place to maximize your church is our first goal. After all, if your church isn't really ready to receive new people, God is not going to bring new people in!

This module includes a study guide course called Jump Start, which looks at what the Bible has to say about the body of Christ. And then we have a short course called the Explosion Blueprint, we'll be updating soon, that identifies multiple keys systems every church should have in place. Together, these classes will show you how to optimize your church for ministry and get things moving in the right direction.

2. Ministry Development
Once your church begins to get serious about training members, and you start to see signs of spiritual growth, you are going to want to quickly move people into frontline ministry to your community. That requires some basic ministry development skills.

To teach these, we have a study guide course called Worker Tools, and another short course called Unleashed. Together, these classes teach the 7 essential components you should build into every ministry, and then, how those ministries should fit into the overall cycle of church evangelism. The opportunities for ministry today are endless, and there's no reason every church can't have one or more ministries reaching out to fresh contacts every week. This module will show you how to do just that.

3. Small Groups
For nearly two decades now, we've been emphasizing the importance of evangelistic small groups, as foundational to solid explosive growth. And it works, but on one condition: these groups need a steady influx of seekers to thrive. Or to put it differently, if there are no effective outreach ministries in your church, it can be hard to keep your small groups filled with seekers. But when you do have viable outreach ministries, and they are optimized to funnel people into small groups, you have a dynamite combination.

To teach all the nuts and bolts of running a small group, we have our tried and true Team Tactics study guide program. And coming soon, a short course named Called to Care. These resources will both teach you everything you need to launch, lead and unleash your team!

4. Bible Work
Here's another skill every believer should develop: the ability to give personal Bible studies. And the training in this module covers that thoroughly. You'll learn our innovative chain referencing program called Cross Reference. You can take our how-to course on giving Bible studies called Truth Triumphant. And a special program called Truth Corps which will guide you through keys to presenting some of the most perplexing Bible questions people ask today. Complete this training, and you'll be ready to go!

But Bible work functions best in conjunction with an active small group. That is, you can always go door to door and find people interested in studying the Bible. But in my experience, these studies are typically not all that effective—and they can drain a lot of time. But when you are part of a small group, with seekers you've become friends with, and they start asking questions—giving Bible studies is not only easier, but more fun. And far more fruitful.

Or to put it differently, everyone helping to lead a small group should know how to give Bible studies. And every Bible worker should be looking for study partners in some evangelistic small group. It all works best, together.

5. Prophetic Preaching
If you follow each of the steps, you will soon have a church that's optimized and ready for new members. You will have viable outreach ministrues that are regularly funneling new contacts into small group. And seekers in those small groups, will be connecting with fellow members for personal Bible studies, to answer specific questions. Only one thing more is needed to reap a harvest: evangelistic meetings. Without these, ministries, small groups, and even Bible studies, can go for months, or even years, without seeing much success.

This module helps prepare you to launch evangelistic meetings by leading you through a deep study of Bible prophecy, called Prophetic Facts. And coming soon, a course on public speaking, called Talking Points.

Without the preceding steps, evangelistic meetings can be expensive, and your success limited. But when the ground work is all in place, and everything is connected and functioning properly, these evangelistic meetings are the step that brings people to decision, and conversion, and baptism. It's here that all the hard work leading up to the meetings pays off at last, "that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together" (John 4:36And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.).

Conclusion

There's actually a little more to this certification track. We start things out with an introductory module that explores God's call to ministry. And we wrap the track off with a module on world vision and spiritual multiplication. But these are the 5 essential components.

Make it your goal in 2020, to learn these skills, and help build each of them into your church. Here they are again:

1) Get key church systems optimized for growth.
2) Start building viable outreach ministries.
3) Funnel contacts into evangelistic small groups.
4) Answer questions in personal Bible studies.
5) Reap a harvest with evangelistic meetings.

It all starts with learning to deeply internalize the Word (track #1). And real ministry success is built on a foundation of personal discipleship (track #2). But if you have those things in place, and you are ready to take the next step—make it your goal to learn how to win souls.

It's a bit of process, and there are a number of components involved, but if you stick with it, success is sure to come. And that success will revitalize and thrill others in your church, and inspire them to greater efforts too. From person to person, a love for soul-winning will spread. And we'll soon see a great final harvest ushered in.

Make it your goal to be part of that glorious harvest. And commit to leading out in efforts to work toward that in the coming days!