Supportive Ministry is offering a 10 month training intensive to people who want to root their life and leadership in God’s love and bring lasting transformation to their culture. You’ll learn the real life practicalities of how to notice God’s presence and activity in and around you so you can participate more fully in God’s life and mission and open up space for those around you to do so too. This training in missional living is practical and doable.
Finding Your Center
Maybe you feel like your life is a little incomplete and unbalanced, or a lot so. I have been that way a lot during my life. Maybe it feels like no matter what you do, something’s just not right. So you start a new plan for your life, strap on your best intentions, and work your plan. “I’m going to get serious about God. I’m going to attend church, read my Bible, and pray.”
Then, after a few days or weeks, or months, you have that same unwelcome feeling, “something’s not right.” So, you run a mental check over your plan.
Attended church, check
Read Bible, check
Prayed more, check
But, you say, “I still feel off balance and disconnected from God and with other people in my life or church.” So you look yourself over and do what any good American does, make a better plan. Except…
this time you strap on your even-better intentions and…wait for it… try harder.
Fast forward a few days or weeks, or months… you have that same unwelcome feeling, “something’s not right.” So you run over your checklist: one more time.
Attended church and joined a Bible study, check check
Read my Bible more often, and for longer, check check
Prayed even more often, check, and more fervently? check check
Now if you are like me, and I hope you’re not, you just keep doing this over and over for the next 10 or 20 or 30 years. Let me tell you, I never could work hard enough, be sincere enough, or be spiritual enough to ever have the lasting feeling that “I’m right in the middle of God’s plan for my life”, “My life with God is going well”, or “I am so at peace”.
“Let me promise you this,
I can’t promise you peace and joy.”
I might get that feeling temporarily, but it just wouldn’t last. How about you? Are you at a similar place? Have you been trying so hard but just not arriving at a place of peace with God and lasting joy? (Rom. 15:13, Phil 4:6-7)
Let me promise you this, I can’t promise you peace and joy. But, God can. I can promise that you aren’t going to find it in simple phrases like “let go and let God” or “just give it all to Jesus.” It’s not that they are false, but they just can’t help you with what you really need, transformation.
Even if God gave us a new life right now we can’t really use it, there’s no where to put it. We need to be transformed right in the middle of the life we currently live. Who can really “start a new life” while currently living in the old one? Have you ever tried to remodel the house you are living in? Been there, done that, and my family didn’t really enjoy the messy process. To press this analogy a bit farther, God doesn’t want YOU to remodel your old self, HE wants to transform you to be more like Jesus right where you are. God does the work, not us.
Many of us are searching for is a way to really center our life on Jesus. This disciple training is designed to help you. We are forming a small group of like-minded followers of Jesus who want to center their lives and work around God’s transforming love. Contact us and let’s find out if this is right for you.