Primer Guide 5: Commitment
Review the practice so far (10 min)
This is our final night of the New Community Primer! Let’s take some time to talk about some of the topics we discussed last week by considering these questions:
Over the last couple of weeks, what has excited you the most about being in a Community at Bridgetown?
If you were to name what you feel God is doing in your life at this moment in time, what would it be?
Facilitator Note: Set a timer for 10 minutes. When the timer is up, move on to the next section.
Read this Overview (2 min)
Tonight is a night of Celebration and Commitment.
Over the past four weeks, we’ve walked together through the New Community Primer—learning what it means to Practice the Way of Jesus as disciples, family, and missionaries in Portland. We’ve taken risks, prayed together, and begun to imagine what life in Community might look like.
This evening marks the end of the Primer and the start of something great! Every Bridgetown Community starts just like this, and over time, that gathering of strangers becomes something sacred: a place where God’s love is put into practice, forgiveness takes root, and the Spirit is welcomed again and again. Tonight, we pause to recognize that what’s beginning among us matters. We’re not forming a dinner group or a bible study; we’re becoming a people shaped by Jesus, living for the renewal of our city.
The Commitments we’ll revisit tonight aren’t checkboxes; they’re reminders of what we hope to build together––a shared “yes” to the life Jesus is inviting us into and the work he has already begun in us. These Commitments name the kind of people we long to become, and the story we want to tell.
Exercise for tonight (30 min)
To begin, let’s read through each of our Commitments together.
Facilitator Note: Have everyone pull up the Community Commitments on their phones, or have print outs ready for each individual.
I will select someone new to read each Commitment, and after each Commitment is read aloud, we will take just a minute to hold our “yes” before God and quietly consider what he might be highlighting to you in these statements.
Community Commitments
Commit to following Jesus: Actively participate in your own spiritual formation by continually choosing to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did in your everyday life.
Commit to your Community: Regularly attend and consistently participate in Community unless you’re out of town, sick, or there is an unforeseen, unavoidable circumstance, in which case one should communicate to their Leader promptly
Commit to Bridgetown Church: Regularly attend and participate in Sunday gatherings, and live under the authority of the Scriptures and the Bridgetown Elders, agreeing to and engaging with historic biblical orthodoxy (bridgetown.church/about).
Commit to your city: Taking spiritual responsibility for your local geographic community through prayer and involvement in your Community's monthly mission.
Now, let’s take the next 20 minutes or so to talk through these two questions:
What kind of story do we hope to tell a year from now about this Community?
What might we need to surrender or sacrifice in order to see that happen?
Facilitator Note: Before moving on, take a moment to bless the spirit of commitment over the Community, in prayer. Consider opening the prayer by reading Acts 2:42-47.
Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)
We want to end our time tonight by praying for those in the group who have felt a desire to apply to be Community Leaders. We will specifically pray for them and for the Community Pastors as they discern what’s best for our group. Then, we’ll take the last five minutes of our time together to have one person bless these individuals in prayer––asking God for his continued presence in their journey, and in this Community.
