Anyone can take a single action, but not many of us are able to institute a significant change in lifestyle:
- We can go to the gym once and work out until our muscles burn, but that one-time action doesn’t change our overall health.
- We can make one deposit into a savings account, but that one-time action doesn’t establish financial security.
- We can create one daily to-do list, but that one-time action doesn’t create an organized approach to work.
We understand that principle when it comes to our physical fitness, finances, and careers, but for some reason, we have trouble letting it sink into our spiritual formation. Instead, we treat discipleship as if it’s fueled entirely by a series of isolated events. As church leaders, we tend to build ministries around the next event or high-production worship service, but discipleship doesn’t primarily happen through these milestones as dramatic as they might be.
Instead, discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction. It happens through sustained, ordinary spiritual rhythms. And Rooted can help with that. It can help move a church into a repeatable, sustainable, lived-out culture of spiritual formation. Here are four ways the Rooted Experience can do that.
1. Rooted level sets discipleship.
“Discipleship” has become almost a junk-drawer term. It means something different to just about everyone. But when a church walks through the Rooted Experience together, that term is reset. It enables everyone in the congregation to align under a single, shared understanding of what it means to follow Jesus, not just for the ten weeks of Rooted, but into the future. When everyone from the pastor to the brand-new believer has that same understanding, it helps the church move in the same direction together.
2. Rooted grounds spiritual growth in repeatable rhythms.
The Rooted Experience anchors discipleship in seven rhythms modeled by the early church in Acts 2. These are the same rhythms that should characterize a growing believer in Christ today:
- Daily Devotion
- Prayer
- Repentance
- Sacrificial Generosity
- Serving the Community
- Sharing Your Story
- Worship
As a church walks through the Rooted Experience, they will not only learn the importance of these rhythms; they will find them becoming a regular part of their ordinary lives.
3. Rooted moves us from head knowledge to active experience.
One of the greatest dangers in the modern church is confusing biblical familiarity with spiritual maturity. We line up more classes and programs, assuming that more information automatically leads to more devotion. Rooted disrupts this assumption by building experiences into the ten-week timeline. People don’t just learn about prayer; they pray together. They don’t just learn about service; they serve alongside one another. And they don’t just learn about repentance; they actively engage in it corporately. Through these experiences, Rooted bridges the gap between what we know and how we live.
4. Rooted provides an engine for small group multiplication.
Every pastor wants to see healthy small groups multiply, but launching them is often difficult. Rooted is designed for high reproducibility. By the time the final celebration night arrives, people have bonded through shared vulnerability and are ready to move from their Rooted group into a long-term small group community.
Our job as church leaders isn’t to manufacture growth—only the Holy Spirit can change a human heart. Our job is to create an environment where people can faithfully position themselves to hear from God and then respond. Rooted can help a church focus on simple habits, shared experiences, and a clear path forward so that discipleship itself becomes the normal rhythm in the church.
