We believe that God designs the Christian life to be one of discipleship wherein God's people pursue spiritual maturity into Christ-likeness together.
Discipleship Cohorts
Discipleship Cohorts is our main ministry for adult discipleship. Our hope is that they will facilitate growth in maturity through committed relationships, mutual encouragement, prayer, and the study of God’s Word. Cohort members are of the same gender and meet for a set amount of time. While these cohorts are not our only discipleship context at Christ Church, we do see it as one of the primary ways we hope to see God's people growing in Christ-likeness.
This fall and spring, we’ll journey together through the Gospel of John, using a study guide from The Good Book Company written by Pastor Josh Moody of College Church. In the fall semester, we’ll explore John chapters 1–12, then continue with chapters 13–21 in the spring. John wrote his Gospel “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Through this study, we’ll discover what it truly means to live abundant, eternal life as followers of Jesus.
Fall
September 7–11 // Cohort Kick-off
September 14–18 // Cohort Lesson 1
September 21–25 // Cohort Lesson 2
October 5–9 // Cohort Lesson 3
October 12–15 // Cohort Lesson 4
October 19–23 // Cohort Lesson 5
November 2–6 // Cohort Lesson 6
November 9–13 // Cohort Lesson 7
November 16–20 // Cohort Lesson 8
Spring
February 1–5 // Cohort Restart
February 8–12 // Cohort Lesson 1
February 15–19 // Cohort Lesson 2
March 1–5 // Cohort Lesson 3
March 8–12 // Cohort Lesson 4
March 15–19 // Cohort Lesson 5
March 22–26 // Cohort Lesson 6
April 12–16 // Cohort Lesson 7
April 19–23 // Cohort Lesson 8
If you are not involved in a Discipleship Cohort, please email Pastor Garrett at gcraig@christsma.org. He would love to help get you connected!
The Format of Discipleship Cohorts
Each cohort meeting will last around 75-90 minutes and will include:
- Arrive/Catch up (10 min)
- Individual testimony/spiritual update (10-15 min)
- Reading together (15-20 min)
- Discussion and application (20-25 min)
- Prayer for one another (10 min)
The Bible's Vision for Christian Discipleship
When someone turns from sin, trusts in Christ, and receives the Spirit of Christ, they then begin a lifelong journey of becoming more like him as they come to know his character and ways more and more. God's desire is to take the message of the gospel deeper and deeper into our own lives and we help one another do that through our Discipleship Cohorts ministry.
- Dying to Ourselves to Live in Christ // The Call of Christian Discipleship. When God draws someone to the excellencies of Jesus, he calls them to lose their life to find their life in Christ. The Christian life, therefore, is marked by losing to gain, dying to live. When we follow Jesus, we learn and re-learn this gospel pattern over and over again as Christ becomes more precious to us than everything else. (Matthew 16:24-26)
- Maturing in the Grace of Jesus // The Growth of Christian Discipleship. The message of the gospel of free grace in Christ is the prime source material of all Christian discipleship. By nature we believe that God deals with us according to an "earn and deserve" system and we, therefore, treat others likewise. To know Christ, however, is to know God's sovereign grace in his dealings with us and it is this knowledge that we must grow in more and more. (2 Peter 3:18)
- Equipped to Speak the Truth in Love // The Means of Christian Discipleship. God gifts the church with pastors and teachers who equip God's people to lovingly speak the truths of the gospel into one another's lives. The means God has designed for us to grow as believers is when God's people lovingly point each other to Jesus from God's Word. (Ephesians 4:11-16)
- The Word of God // The Source of Christian Discipleship. The Bible is sufficient to equip us for a God-glorifying, Christ-centered, and Spirit-empowered life. All discipleship activities, therefore, should source their efforts in unleashing the truths of God's Word, which are able to make us wise in salvation and bring us to maturity in Christ. (2 Timothy 3:14-17)
- Becoming like Christ // The Goal & End of Christian Discipleship. When we grow in our ability to comprehend the glory of Christ more and more, God uses that to transform us to be more like Jesus. Seeing by faith as he actually is in all of his beauty and majesty empowers the transformation in Christian discipleship. We grow in Christ now in hopes that one day our faith will turn to sight and we shall finally and fully be like him. (2 Corinthians 3:18 & 1 John 3:1-3)