Discipleship Culture Guidebook - Preview by Garden City Church

MISSION

Garden City Discipleship C u lt u r e

Depending on God to grow disciples deep & wide for Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s glory A guidebook for how we make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus

Garden City Discipleship C u lt u r e

Version 1.1 Copyright ÂŠ 2020 Justin Buzzard Design by Jason Jones All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. www. gardencitysv.com All Scripture quotations come from English Standard Version (ESV).

A GUIDEBOOK FOR HOW WE MAKE, MATURE, AND MULTIPLY DISCIPLES OF JESUS Silicon Valley is both an amazing and exhausting place to live. Garden City exists to give Life—to be a counterculture to the pressure, loneliness, and consumerism of this place. Whatever your story or situation, we invite you to discover Life in our family. But be warned: participating in what God is doing here will change you. People don’t stay the same here. Sparks fly when the real you encounters the real God among real people. We’re flawed humans finding good news to believe, a band of brothers and sisters to belong to, and a mission to live. Whether you join the Garden City mission for 3 years or 30 years, we aim for the living God to plant three ways of life in your heart that mark healthy disciples of Jesus: Receive Life, Grow Life, Give Life. You have an important role to play in this church and city, and we’re excited to be on this journey with you.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. - John 10:10

“A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.”

Eugene Peterson 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS P R E FA C E

I N T R O D U C T I O N On Discipleship

PA R T 1

Receive Life

PA R T 2

Grow Life

PA R T 3

Give Life

APPENDIX 1 APPENDIX 2

HABIT 1

SELECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 2

L I S T E N , P R AY, O B E Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 3

S TO RY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 4

E N J OY A G R A C E - B A S E D I D E N T I T Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 5

B E T H E C H U R C H — G AT H E R & S C AT T E R . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 6

LO V E G O D W I T H A L L YO U R H E A R T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 7

LO V E YO U R N E I G H B O R A S YO U R S E L F . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 8

DESIRE & FIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 9

LEAD—WORK & REST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 10

G I V E T H A N K S , B E J OY F U L , G I V E G LO RY . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 11

ENCOURAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HABIT 12

M U LT I P LY—S E E K T H E W E L FA R E O F T H E C I T Y . . . . . . . .

Tools and Suggestions A Mature vs. An Immature Person

108 110

APPENDIX 3

The Orphan vs. Child of God Checklist

112

APPENDIX 4

Storytelling—How to Retell Other People’s Stories with the Big Story

113

INTRODUCTION WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT MAKING DISCIPLES? Because life and death, heaven and hell, and the good of our city is at stake. Jesus gave the church one mission: to make disciples (Matt. 28:18-20). We exist to enjoy and spread the abundant Life of Jesus through making, maturing, and multiplying disciples. We’re on a dangerous mission to plunder hell and populate heaven and our city with Life-giving disciples. Discipleship begins when we respond to Jesus’ call, “Follow me,” and we believe this is the greatest purpose, mission, and adventure that

M E M O R I Z E (throughout this guidebook you’ll encounter Bible verses that are central to our Discipleship Culture that we encourage you to commit to memory)

humans can pursue.

Alan Hirsch 4

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”- Matthew 28:18-20

“The church should be one of the most adventurous places on earth.”

WHAT IS DISCIPLESHIP? Saint Paul defined discipleship as “sharing the gospel and our lives” with persons we feel affectionate desire for (1 Thess. 2:8). Discipleship is relational. Discipleship is transferring truth and love through relationship—forming intentional, adventurous friendships that make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus. Discipleship is an adventure that addresses both what people understand and how they live, content and conduct, one’s talk and one’s walk.

MEMORIZE

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our lives, because you had become very dear to us. - 1 Thessalonians 2:8

WHAT IS A DISCIPLE? Disciple translates the Greek word “mathetes,” which means “follower, learner, apprentice.” Disciples are pilgrims who, like Abraham, spend their lives going someplace—traveling towards God and his call. A disciple is a follower growing in relationship with Jesus and helping others grow in relationship with Jesus. Disciples join together to follow Jesus and fish for Jesus (Matt. 4:19). Discipleship isn’t private, it is public—our relationship with Jesus influences the people and places around us.

“The discipling life is an others-oriented life.”

Mark Dever 5

W H AT D O E S G A R D E N C I T Y ’ S LO G O A N D NAME SYMBOLIZE ABOUT D I S C I P L E S H I P? Our logo communicates the type of disciples we make. We grow disciples deep & wide— deeply rooted in God and widely branched to bear fruit and give Life to our city. The human story started in a garden (Gen. 1) and ends in a garden city (Rev. 22). We live in the middle of this big story, in a strategic part of the world that the first settlers called “The Garden City” because everything they planted flourished in our valley’s

HOW DO WE DO THIS?

temperate climate and fertile soil. Our church ex-

ists to plant “trees” (Psalm 1; disciples, groups,

scribed in this guidebook as we gather and scat-

churches) who sink deep roots into and give Life

ter as a church, living intentionally and creatively

to our city, and who carry this DNA with them if

to expand our discipleship culture. The epicent-

God calls them to a new city.

er of our culture is a lifestyle of grace-powered

We practice the Life-giving habits pre-

obedience, of acting on our 2 Discipleship QuesW H O C A N B E PA R T O F T H I S ? Everybody! We desire everyone in our

tions that help us listen to and take our next step with God:

church family, from the one-week-old Christian to the well seasoned Christian, to play a role

What is God saying to you? What’s your next step?

in our discipleship culture. And this is for nonChristians too—we want non-Christians befriended and selected into discipleship relationships. 2)

We form groups of 3-5 people (same

gender, ideally from your Life Group or Serve Team; we don’t want to add something to your life, we want you to integrate this with your life) who practice these habits together for 6-12

“Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim.”

EUGENE PETERSON 6

months, then send people out to multiply this process. Ideally at least 1 non-Christian should be originally selected or eventually drawn into the group. These groups can be hierarchical and led “top down” by a lead discipler who runs point on discipling the group, or can function “side to side” as peer discipleship with group members at similar maturity levels. Whichever route you chose, somebody needs to be the primary leader to blaze the trail for your group and every group member can learn from everyone in the group.

“Churches don’t need programs so much as they need cultures of discipling, cultures where each member prioritizes the spiritual health of others…Really, the ‘how’ of discipling is not that complicated. It’s about doing life together with other people as you all journey toward Christ. We make friends and then walk them in a Christward direction.”

Mark Dever

WHAT ARE THE 4 CORE INGREDIENTS THAT FLAVOR OUR DISCIPLESHIP CULTURE? 1)

Developmental Journey/Adventure (Sanctification). Discipleship is a devel-

opmental journey. Every human is living a unique story, and their transformation is a process that requires grace, time, and nuance. We don’t view people as tasks on a to-do list, but as dynamic characters in a developing and redemptive story. Jesus is a radical person, and following him is an adventure full of peaks and valleys, feasts and storms, wins and losses, and “all things working together for good.” The apostle Paul teaches us that disciples “are being transformed…from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Sanctification is a process that most often moves at a developmental pace of one degree of glory to another (not 90 degrees), and has its share of difficulty. The process of growing up is rarely easy. 2)

Relationship (Love). A relational God created us to enjoy relationship with

him and one another. Relationships are the source of our greatest hurts and greatest joys. We mature, heal, and thrive only through relationships of love. The design and purpose of our church is not programs or accomplishments, but relationship, relationship, relationship. Garden City exists to draw you into a deeper love relationship with God, deeper love relationships in our church family, and deeper love relationships with unbelievers in our city. The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our relationships. At the center of our faith is a relational God who sent us a Person, not a program or an idea.

4 CORE INGREDIENTS CONTINUED 3)

Desire, Choice, Habits (Obedience). As humans we do what we want, so dis-

cipleship must attend to our desires and our choices/actions/habits. Our culture is built on Life-giving habits that a Holy Spirit-empowered disciple must desire and choose for themselves, around self-directed obedience to the Word of God. The grace of God empowers us to obey God. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Grace and active obedience are complementary. There is no faith without good works, and no good works apart from faith.” We don’t treat people like kids who need babysitting. We expect adults to be adults—responsible for their desires and choices. Our 2 Discipleship Questions are daily opportunities to, hopefully from a place of grace and desire, choose to listen to and obey God: What is God saying to you? What’s your next step? Our brains are geared toward habituality, so intentional habit building is central to transforming discipleship. 4)

Trust and Risk (Faith). Trust is the foundation of any healthy relationship.

The adventure of discipleship constantly presents us with big problems, where we have the opportunity to trust that our God is bigger and exercise the first three words of our mission statement: “Depending on God.” Humans risk, or we rust. We grow and the gospel advances only as we exercise fresh faith in God and take fresh risks to follow God into new territory. We don’t have a small God, we believe in a BIG God— therefore we trust big, pray big, and risk forward. Among the most important and repeated words of the Bible are: “Trust God.” We all hear “trust God” through our own experience of what it’s been like to trust people. Everybody comes to faith with some type of injury to their ability to trust. Our hope is for Jesus to use our community to bring healing here, and lead you into a life of deep dependence on God.

“God is a God of adventure, and a life well lived, a life of discipleship, must be one that can take risks as we courageously follow our Lord…Life, and particularly life in God, will always involve dynamic movement, growth, development, change, participation, adventure.”

Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch 8

WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT FROM JUMPING INTO OUR CHURCH’S ADVENTURE OF MAKING DISCIPLES? On the one hand: Danger. Opposition. Conflict. Spiritual warfare. Hurt. Pain. Loss. To be sinned against. Shock, sadness, betrayal, anger. Messiness. Discomfort, discouragement, chaos. Frustration. Suffering. Death. Lament. Failure stories.

On the other hand: Excitement. Joy. Laughter. Growth. Healing. Discovery. Breakthrough. Learning. Intimacy. Impact. Lifelong friendships. Wisdom. Comfort, encouragement, clarity. Peace. Gratitude. Receiving and giving forgiveness. Redemption. Resurrection power. God’s guidance and provision. Answered prayer. A real experience of Ephesians 3:20-21. Rest. Success stories. Celebration. Singing. Hope.

“Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.”

William Carey

To sum it up: Have human-sized expectations of humans, and God-sized expectations of God. Have fallen-world expectations of a fallen-world (and an imperfect church), and new-creation-sized expectations of our God whose redemptive kingdom has broken into this world and is making all things new. As you pursue this discipleship journey, things won’t go exactly as you planned, but you can trust God’s bigger and better plan. What we are developing in people is a lifestyle for a lifetime, “a long obedience in the same direction.”

“By definition, an adventure is a journey with an uncertain outcome.”

MEMORIZE

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. - Ephesians 3:20-21

HOW DO WE MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF OUR MISSION? Through people taking next steps in making, maturing, and multiplying disciples of Jesus. A key observable metric for us is people engaged in this discipleship process and seeing people “graduate” from Discipleship Groups after 6-12 months of journeying through this guidebook in order to multiply new groups that will make, mature, and multiply disciples. We celebrate next steps that are easy for the whole church to see and measure: baptisms, inviting more people to gather with our church, growth in church membership, planting a new Life Group or Discipleship Group or church, etc. We also celebrate next steps that the whole church family might not see, but that a smaller group of the church will see: confessing sin, reconciling a broken relationship, sharing the gospel, taking a risk in the workplace, working through this guidebook, etc. Our motto here is “better, not perfect.” We’re not chasing perfection. With each new day of following Jesus we’re simply seeking better—to take a next step that leads us deeper into abundant Life. Things will not go exactly as planned and we will make mistakes as disciple makers. That’s okay and to be expected. Look at Jesus’ original disciples—they often said and did stupid things. But Jesus met them in moments of failure and turned them into discipleship moments that produced new insights and growth.

“Certainly we should be very active in seeking God, and Jesus himself called us to ‘ask, seek, knock’ in order to find him. Yet those who enter a relationship with God inevitably look back and recognize that God’s grace had sought them out, breaking them open to new realities.”

Tim Keller 10

HOW IS THIS GUIDEBOOK ORGANIZED? This guidebook has 3 parts, each organized around 4 habits, for a total of 12 habits. We chose 12 because this is a number of biblical significance (12 tribes of Israel, Jesus chose 12 disciples, etc.) and allows space to cover fairly comprehensive ground (Alcoholics Anonymous works through a whole recovery process in 12 steps, etc.). But, this guidebook is incomplete. It doesn’t guide us into everything there is to know about discipleship, instead it leads us into 12 habits—12 ways of living—that have the potential to produce a major difference in our world and give someone a core framework for a lifetime of discipleship.

Each habit/chapter contains: • An introductory paragraph about the habit • A biblical text to study, and related verses to memorize • Several suggested ways, methods, or tools for practicing the habit • Some key quotes, allowing you to hear from diverse voices • A one-sentence summary of the main takeaway • And recommended reading for those who want to dig deeper

Optionality and Freedom: This guidebook is built with options and freedom. We’re all different, and we want you and your Discipleship Group to pursue the most Life-giving way to practice the habits and works through the content of this book. Have fun blazing your own trail through this guidebook, and share with the whole church how God is meeting you here—you’ll likely have something to teach all of us that will inspire and equip us. Add your maturity, wisdom, leadership, and resources to this guidebook to increase the depth and width of our discipleship culture. This is the 1.0 version of our guidebook, and your input could help shape our future 2.0 version.

HOW DO I START, WHAT’S MY NEXT STEP? Turn the page and start with Part 1 and Habit 1: Selection.

“Jesus asks nothing of us without giving us the strength to perform it. His commandment never seeks to destroy life, but to foster, strengthen and heal it.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer 11

H a b i t 8 : Desire & Fight Jesus is a radical person. There’s nothing status quo or tame about following Jesus. His call to discipleship is daring, dangerous, dynamic. Jesus isn’t interested in the surface of our lives, he’s interested in the depths of our lives. He’s after our desires—the deep motivations and longings of our heart. If we’re not tapping into desire in our relationships, not awakening and transforming our deep wants, then our discipleship is superficial and will not bear long-term fruit. Our next step is to follow Jesus together in the arena of desire, discover what’s there, be prepared to fight sin and Satan, and take some risks.

MEMORIZE

Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” - Matthew 4:10

STUDY MATTHEW 4:1-11 AND GENESIS 3:1-7. What is Satan doing in these 2 texts? What are the different names used for our Enemy in these 2 texts? What similarities do you see between these narratives that sit at the beginning of the Old Testament and New Testament? What is Satan’s strategy for tempting Eve and Adam, tempting Jesus, and what connections can you make between how the Tempter tempts you? Where do you see an appeal to desire in these texts? How does Jesus fight temptation? What is the result of Jesus’ fight? What additional connections can you make between these chapters of the Bible, the core book you’re reading, and your stories?

“What do you want? -JESUS

“Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst—for those who desire life as it was meant to be.”

John Eldredge 69

AWAKEN DESIRE. To be human is to desire. When we fail to engage our heart’s desire we settle to pay attention to only the surface of our souls. Desire matters to God. The Bible reveals a God who wants to awaken our desire, forming disciples who worship him and enjoy abundant life from a place of desire and delight, instead of duty or drudgery. The problem is that because of desires gone sideways, most Christian community settles for the tame territory of behavior modification. We don’t let one another get away with that. Garden City’s culture is one of learning to awaken, surface, and pay attention to our deep desires so that Jesus can meet us in the deep drive of our heart and form our desires towards what is most Life-giving. To get started with awakening desire, use the question Jesus asks his first disciples in the Gospel of John: “What do you want?” This question is more powerful than it looks. Stay with this question as a Discipleship Group, ask it to one another and see where it takes you. The goal here is to, over time, get more in touch with your deepest desires (even if they are sinful, addictive, messy) so that Jesus is accessing and transforming us at the core of our being and so that we’re tapping the most powerful engine of disciple-making. For example: Say you’re attending to a problem area in someone’s life and they say all the right things about how they will use their willpower to overcome this issue, but they have no desire to change. You can be certain there will be no lasting change in this person’s life, your efforts are just reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic before it sinks. True transformation happens at the level of our wants. So, we awaken desire.

C.S Lewis

“The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord vends our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far to easily pleased”

MEMORIZE

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. - Psalm 37:4

PROCESS YOUR LIMITS AND LOSSES. We are overbuilt for this world. Our God-sized desires will not be fully satisfied this side of the grave. In this fallen world, maturity looks like the ability to come to terms with our limits and losses. Though you may have explored some of this territory with Habit #3 (Story), go deeper now in processing your limits and losses. What desires do you have that are likely to remain unrealized because of your limits and losses? If you have little to share here, know that this is coming. Once someone reaches about age 40 they’ve begun to be slapped in the face with various limits and losses, and whole-hearted discipleship involves processing this.

“To be human is to be for something, directed toward something, oriented toward something. To be human is to be on the move, pursuing something, after something…To be human is to be on a quest…You can’t not bet your life on something.” James K.A. Smith

LIVE PSALMICALLY. The Psalms are one of God’s greatest gifts to his church. For thousands of years God’s people have soaked in and prayed the Psalms, letting the Psalter form their desires and give language to the diverse emotions and seasons of life. The Psalms teach us how to desire, rejoice, suffer, weep, celebrate, lament, trust, complain, process, repent, fight, wait, progress, ask, rest, worship, sing, and hope. Join in with a habit that’s existed among the saints since before the birth of Christ: Live Psalmically—develop a close relationship of listening and talking to God through the Psalms so that you can be a well rounded disciple able to enter into and process all the ups and downs of life. One great way to do this is to follow Garden City’s Word & Prayer Plan, which typically guides you through the entire book of Psalms 1-2x per year.

“The deepest spiritual lessons come through suffering. It takes the deep water and the hot fire and the dark valley to teach us the walk of faith.”

- Elizabeth Elliot

“If you don’t trust God in your suffering you’ll develop a neurosis that’s worse than the suffering. There will never be enough rational clarity to explain suffering.”

MEMORIZE

- Rich Plass

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. - Psalm 42:1-2

FIGHT SIN. Though we are justified (Habit #4) and freed from the penalty of sin, and are set free by Jesus and the Holy Spirit to overcome the power of sin, we are not yet free from the presence of sin. Each of us have particular sins (usually stemming from our root idols, see Habit #6) that we struggle with and need to fight. Some of these are sins of commission (something we’re doing), some of these are sins of omission (something we’re not doing and ought to be doing). Discuss together 1 or 2 particular sins God is calling you to fight against, and discuss the strategies you and other Christians throughout history have found effective for fighting sin. How can you lovingly hold one another accountable in your fight against sin?

“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

MEMORIZE

John Owen

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. - Romans 8:12-13

“Jack saw in his own life that growth in these basics happened only as he admitted every day that he was a desperate sinner in constant need of the grace of God. As he studied what the Bible taught about faith and humility, he understood that repentance is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but a whole way of life. It is this life of ongoing repentance that the Spirit will use to bring faith and humility to the heart of the leader…he modeled repentance to young leaders by acknowledging his sins and asking them to pray for him.”

Barbara Miller

FIGHT SATAN. Satan hates God, hates the gospel, hates the church, and hates you. Though God is sovereign and has the ultimate victory over Satan, Satan remains actively at work. In the words of Peter: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” -1 Peter 5:8. Spiritual warfare is real. We are disciples at war not just with sin, but also with Satan and “the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” Satan is a liar, and he’s been lying to you your entire life. Discuss as a group the ways Satan typically lies, tempts, and attacks you, and discuss your battle plans for putting on the armor of the Lord and fighting Satan.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. - James 4:7

MEMORIZE

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. - Ephesians 6:10-12

TRUST AND RISK. We see a pattern in Scripture and in our experience that a main way God grows people’s faith is through calling them to step out in faith. Trust in God grows as we choose to live by faith (not sight), to take the risk of stepping out into new territory where we are 100% dependent on God to come through. God calls us to these next steps of faith by appealing to a desire to trust him wholeheartedly and give ourselves to what most glorifies him. Discuss as a group where God is calling you towards deeper trust and fresh risk, and where you see God doing this with his people in Scripture. What’s 1 risk you could take this week to demonstrate your trust in God? A simple and stretching way to keep your adventure with God fresh is to take 1 risk each week or each day. Try it out. Make a habit of it. Imagine how God could use such a community of dependent risk-takers for his glory!

MEMORIZE

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. - Hebrews 11:1, 6, 8

“F.A.I.T.H. a Fantastic Adventure In Trusting Him.” Corrie Ten Boom

BE FAMILY, HOSPITAL, AND ARMY AS THE CHURCH. Hold together 3 metaphors for the church. The church is Family: we are relational—we belong to one another and know & love each other as family. The church is also Hospital: we are redemptive—we provide a place for hurting people to heal. And the church is Army: we are missional—we are a band of brothers and sister on a mission, at war, fighting an enemy, advancing the Kingdom. Healthy disciples and churches hold these metaphors in balance. Discuss how this 8th Habit emphasizes “Army” yet still touches on all 3 of these dimensions of being the church, and take action as a Discipleship Group to be Family, Hospital, and Army together.

Martin Luther King Jr. 74

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

“Go forward in every part of your ministry. Act like a courageous person even when you may not feel like one. In anyplace where you feel fear, plunge in.”

- Jack Miller

“The vast majority of the Bible was written by people facing significant danger and chaos.”

- Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch

MAIN TAKEAWAY: We’re a church of disciples who practice the habit of desiring, fighting, and risking.

What is God saying to you?

What’s your next step?

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR HABIT 8: The Journey of Desire, John Eldredge The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith Killing Us Softly, Efrem Smith Be Still My Soul, Elizabeth Elliot The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (sermon), Thomas Chalmers From Fear to Freedom, Rose Marie Miller