From October through December, we’re beginning to explore through our Life Groups a new discipleship initiative we’re calling the Journey. (Click here for a full factsheet that explains how it was developed and how we hope to use it.) Here’s a shorter summary that describes the first steps we ask everyone to take.
We’re using as a roadmap a book called Communion With Christ that gathers together many lessons the Lord has taught us about discipleship over the past year. Now that you have the book, what should you do with it?
1. First, read through the two introductions in the book to familiarize yourself with the key ideas that the Journey is built on.
2. Then skim through the entire book to get a feel for its contents and how it’s laid out. Take note of the two parts in each session, both a devotional followed by what we’re calling “Training Work”. The Training Work is one of the most unique aspects of this project. Notice how it’s comprised of exercises that are broken up into three categories: Growing In Knowledge, Fruitfulness, and Christlikeness. These exercises are not just an optional add-on to the program. They lie at its very heart, so we ask you to dedicate yourself to completing them, keeping the Lord right in front of you as you do them (because you’re doing them for him, and in his strength.)
3. Since our Life Groups will be purposefully working with these materials, we encourage you to connect with one, then commit to attending faithfully through the course of this project.
4. Our Life Groups will be working through sessions 7 to 9 on prayer. The three main sections of the book (on knowing Christ, Bible reading, and prayer) are essentially interchangeable so nothing is lost by doing this. Furthermore, the Lord has laid on many of our hearts the need to deepen our prayer lives, so this will give us a chance to do just that. There are only a couple places where references are made to items covered in earlier sessions, and none are essential to your being able to do the work. When we formally launch actual Journey groups in the new year, we’ll return to covering sessions 1 to 6.
5. There is enough material in each session to fill a month of Life Group meetings. One meeting should be spent discussing the devotional. There is more than enough content to have a deep and lively conversation on the given theme. Use the questions provided in the study guide, but then really explore the topic with your own questions and thoughts. Another meeting can be devoted solely to the Bible reading assignment and memory project for the month. Again, use the exercises in the book, but then go deeper as the Lord leads you. Another meeting should focus on the exercises pertaining to sharing your faith, servanthood, and prayer. Each meeting should end in prayer and sharing.
6. Don’t leave it to the Life Group facilitator to do all the work and have to coax everyone along. We ask each person before God to bring reverence, humility, teachableness, and dedication to this work. With Advent and Christmas coming around the bend, our prayer is that the Lord will use this project to bring us all measurably closer to him.
7. The full vision for our Journey ministry is to see everyone connected in 2024 to a group of 2-4 people of the same gender who will meet once a month for times of mutual encouragement, prayer, and accountability, following the roadmap provided by the 3 Targets For Growth that you’ll find on page 16 of the book. If you want to experience lifelong growth in Christ, I can testify from personal experience that participating in this type of interaction is the sweet-spot for discipleship.