The Community Practice
In a lonely, fractured culture, Jesus offers a new kind of family
Despite the unprecedented connectivity of the modern era, genuine community is vanishing. Isolation, transience, and superficiality can sabotage our formation into people of mature love. But through Jesus, we enter a new kind of family that offers intimacy, joy, healing, and commitment.
What to expect
Each Practice comes with four video sessions, weekly exercises and readings, and additional resources to help your group create life-changing daily rhythms as you apprentice under Jesus together. The sessions are about 30 minutes long and include time for group discussion.
Our Practices work well for small groups or for running course-style with a larger group, but they can also be modified for a churchwide Sunday teaching series, small cohorts, and many other contexts.
Week by Week
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To apprentice under Jesus is to join a new kind of family – a highly relational, joyfully-connected kinship group that follows Jesus together – not just around a stage, but around a table.
Practice: Begin eating a meal with your group weekly.
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In an individualistic culture prone to despair, followers of Jesus form micro-communities of defiant joy that resist the black hole of fear and anger, and mutually carry burdens of sorrow and pain.
Practice: Go around the table and share the highs and lows of the week.
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Many modern barriers to community are symptoms of shame. But as we learn to courageously name our wickedness and woundedness in the presence of loving community, we begin to heal.
Practice: Find a trusted person and confess your sin.
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As we draw closer in community, periods of conflict, pain, and disillusionment are inevitable. But as we accept these challenges and remain connected, we grow into mature love together.
Practice: Spend time in a guided reflection to clarify your next steps.
Recommended Resources
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The Companion Guide
Each session will use the Community Practice Companion Guide, which contains weekly Reach Exercises, assigned readings and podcast episodes, and reflection questions.
A beautiful print version of the guide will be available on August 5 wherever books are sold. If you’d like to buy an early version of the print guide or access the free digital guide, both will be available April 29.
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Recommended Reading
The recommended reading for the Community Practice is Made to Belong: Five Practices for Cultivating Community in a Disconnected World by David Kim.
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Table Conversations
Table Conversations is a set of cards with questions to help your community go beyond the surface and connect in meaningful (and fun) ways. A beautiful boxed set is available for purchase, or get a free digital download of all 100 questions.
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Rule of Life Podcast
The Community season of the Rule of Life podcast will feature pastor, writer, and disability advocate Shelbi Schutt in conversation with John Mark Comer. This season includes luminary interviews with Andy Crouch, Jay and Danielle Pathak, Dr. Curt Thompson, and David Kim, plus additional testimonials and stories unpacking what it means to live in the new family of Jesus.