Knowing Your Mission Field
This exercise invites you to study your neighborhood, city, workplace or community to start to know the ins and outs of your missional sphere.
Living Your Calling
This exercise invites you to ask what it would look like for your primary calling — your identity in Christ — to show up in your secondary callings — your “station in life” (the various situations that make up your everyday existence: your job or school, your relationships, your neighborhoods, your hobbies, etc.).
Coaching, Consulting, & Counseling
This exercise asks you to define a certain area of your church’s vision, then invites you into an honest assessment of what aspects of your culture promote that area of your vision, vs. what aspects of your culture work against it.
Sharing Your Story
A helpful “first step” to take in getting to know others more deeply is intentionally learning each other’s stories. This is true whether you have walked with people for a long while or whether you just formed a new group.
Reflecting Your Story in the Story of God
This exercise invites you to look at the things that shape and form you, either in light of or instead of the story God says is most true of you.
Biblical Lament
The practice of lament is lost in our modern world. Most people will distract or steel themselves rather than enter into a process of lament. Often misunderstood, lament is seen as a synonym for grief or venting anger, and what good does that do? The Bible teaches us a way to lament that leads to hope even amidst suffering. This exercise will help dig into what Scripture has to say about this lost art.
Speaking the Good News Into Our Stories
This exercise invites you to reflect on how the gospel might sound like good news in tangible ways, into real life scenarios people face. The “four movements” of the Story of God show us how Jesus gives us a true and better vision for different aspects of peoples’ worldview and common perceptions.
Engaging Shared Mission
It can be difficult to define a shared mission — but such definition is often less about creating something brand new, and more about discerning and discovering what God is already doing among your community, together.
Displaying the Gospel
This exercise is provided to help make the connection from God’s commands to our daily lives.
Jesus as the True Armor of God
This exercise asks you to define a certain area of your church’s vision, then invites you into an honest assessment of what aspects of your culture promote that area of your vision, vs. what aspects of your culture work against it.
Discovering Areas of Unbelief
This exercise will help small groups of people walk through what lies we’re believing and how the good news of Jesus will bring greater peace, joy, and freedom into our lives.
A Culture of Everyday Discipleship
This exercise will help small groups of people walk through what lies we’re believing and how the good news of Jesus will bring greater peace, joy, and freedom into our lives.
Rediscovering the True Story
This exercise invites you into God’s one true story, which he tells in the Bible and our lives. Part 1 helps us see the story in the Bible and in our lives. Part 2 helps us remember the story's truths in times of of disbelief and temptation.
Seeing the Story of God in the Stories of God
The whole Bible tells the one overarching meta-story of God. Each story, command, and passage in the Bible also tell God’s story, over and over in “micro-” ways. Think through some micro stories from the Bible and how they reflect the various parts of the story of God.
Jesus as the True and Better: Biblical Types
Work through the theological concept of “types” by discovering what is true about the original biblical element or character and then learn how Jesus is the true and better version.
Prayer and Dependence
In nearly every realm of ministry & mission, it is easy to rely on our ways: our strength, our plans, our strategy. This exercise is designed to help you take a tangible step in fighting that temptation and reversing that trend to dependence on God.
DTR: Understanding Relationships in Mission and Ministry
Humans are inherently relational beings: we are not designed to be alone. Biblically and experientially, “discipleship” and “mission” at their best are relational pursuits. In this exercise, define your relationships in your mission and ministry with categorized roles and then prayerfully bring balance to them.
Creating a Culture that Supports Your Vision
This exercise asks you to define a certain area of your church’s vision, then invites you into an honest assessment of what aspects of your culture promote that area of your vision, vs. what aspects of your culture work against it.