Vision 2025, Guide 2: Family & Discipleship
In Portland As It Is In Heaven, 2025
Review the practice so far (10 min)
In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Community—leaning further into doing life together as we seek to be a community of love and depth. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercises for the week ahead: to continue processing our relationship to change and to attend the Hospitality of Need lecture with Kevan Chandler. So let’s talk about how that went!
Did anything more come up as you processed your relationship to change?
What invitations did you sense the Spirit extend to you through the Hospitality of Need lecture?
Guide overview (2 min)
Our story at Bridgetown has always come back to practicing the Way of Jesus together in Portland—to planting the seeds of our apprenticeship to Jesus deep into the soil of community. And more than Bible studies or sermon discussion groups, our Bridgetown Community is a practice-based formation group built around our shared desire to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.
The Communities Team spent the summer looking under the hood of Bridgetown Communities—collecting feedback, dreaming together, and discerning what God was up to. And near the end of that time they realized that, if anything, there was an invitation to double down on the direction we were already going—specifically, to reinforce our Community rhythms: Family, Discipleship, & Mission. Tonight we will explore a few of these shifts by considering how to deepen our expression of Family & Discipleship in the coming year.
Exercise for tonight (30 min)
As we center our Community around practice-based formation, there are 2 main changes we will start implementing this month: 1) developing our Family rhythm, and 2) deepening our Discipleship rhythm. Tonight we will explore these shifts and plan our next steps together. Then we’ll have space to dream together about anything else God might be inviting us into during this next year.
1. Our Family rhythm (10 min)
For years, Bridgetown Communities have had a monthly Family night intended to build trust and relational depth. And while this rhythm has worked for some Communities, most feel like once per month is somewhat lacking. So, the first change we’ll make is to move from a monthly Family night to a weekly Family practice during dinner. Starting next week, our first hour together will look something like this:
After communion and as we start eating, we will have some kind of intentional conversation. The Communities Team will recommend a prompt with each series for us to use each week, like they do for communion. This new rhythm will only take 15 minutes of our hourlong meal, deepening our relationships together. And, since next week is the series finale, we’ll each answer the question: In one sentence, what do you want God to do in your life over this next year?
One person this change will specifically impact is our Family Coordinator. They have done a great job coordinating our Family nights, and we’re so grateful! So I want to share about how my conversation with them went about their role. (Leader Note: Share the plan. Will they coordinate the weekly Family practice? Plan extracurricular events? Step down?)
Before we talk about the next change, let’s take a moment to process this one. Let’s get into groups of 3 or 4 and answer the following questions:
What excites me about this new Family rhythm?
What will I miss about our old Family rhythm?
What steps do we need to take to make sure this happens each week?
2. Our Discipleship rhythm (10 min)
Some may be wondering what is going to happen to our monthly Family night. As we continue to run after what the Spirit is inviting us to, we want to press deeper into our Discipleship rhythm. The Communities team heard a lot of feedback about Community Guides—namely that they’re long, infrequent, and lack actual practice. So the shifts coming to Community Guides are that they will be 45 minutes, they will be more practice-based, and there will now be 3 of them per month. Having 3 monthly Guides allows them to be shorter and more closely tied to the series, letting us engage the practice more regularly. That said, if something happens (like our mission night overlaps with a Guide’s release), I will simply send the Guide to everyone for us to go through on our own, so we can come ready to discuss the “exercise for the week ahead” next time we meet. This allows us to be more intentional about our own formation and gives us more time as a Community to engage in practice and reflection.
Before we talk about any other invitations we’re sensing, let’s take a moment to process this change. Let’s get back into groups of 3 or 4 and answer the following questions:
What excites me about this new Discipleship rhythm?
Am I feeling any resistance? Why might that be?
What could God do in our Community through this change?
3. Anything else (10 min): Before we talk about the exercise for the week ahead, let’s take the rest of our time to process anything else we’re feeling invited into as a Community. Whether it’s a new or old invitation, what has been stirring in you for our Community? Maybe you want to step up to help serve in some way, or need to step back from a role you’ve had? Maybe there are ideas about our mission, or how we do meals? Let’s take a few minutes to discuss and dream together. (Leader Note: Set a timer for this to make sure it doesn’t go too long.)
Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)
Tonight we experienced an exercise that involved collaboration and teamwork, but there are also ways for us to grow in this practice of Community on our own throughout the week. We all have busy lives, so none of us have time for too much. But taking a step toward the practice on our own is a way of partnering with God in our own formation for the benefit of the Community. While the practices are personal, they are not private—they are ways of letting God shape us so that when we come together, our Community will be richer, deeper, and more like Jesus.
That said, until our next Community Guide, the exercises for the week ahead are to:
Read through the Community commitments. Next week, we will be reviewing our Commitments for the coming year. So, before then, let’s each look over the commitments we’re making to one another in being part of this Community. We can review those at: bridgetown.church/community-commitments
Consider the cost. As we continue to dream about what God has in store for our Community, let’s each take some time in prayer this week with the following questions: What do I want to be true of our Community in a year? And what might I need to sacrifice in order to make that happen? We’ll come back next week to discuss.
