Launching Rooted is simple and attainable for every church. We’ve learned a lot over the years by helping churches think differently about making disciples. In fact, we first learned about this model of “experiential discipleship” from Christians around the world. Our desire now is to come alongside you in this life-changing journey. Let’s start by mapping out five basic steps.
“Every church needs to be able to answer two questions: What is our plan for making disciples? Does our plan work?”
– Dallas Willard
Rooted is facilitated through a local church or ministry. A 10-week discipleship experience designed to connect people with God, the church, and their purpose—Rooted aligns with your unique mission, vision, and values. For those exploring faith, Rooted reveals who God is and how to live as His disciple. For believers, Rooted refocuses their faith and ignites new passion.
Rooted is built on the foundation of 7 Rhythms—each of which was taught and practiced by the early church in Acts 2. These rhythms shape the Rooted experience and will unite your church around core beliefs.
When you’re ready to learn more about Rooted, we invite you to:
Preview the participant’s workbook, including the 10 weekly topics, an overview of the 7 Rhythms, the Rooted journey, the Rooted covenant, and the first two weeks of stories and daily devotions.
Each month we provide an opportunity to learn the story and impact of Rooted, how Rooted fits into the context of your church discipleship ministry, and answer your exploratory questions.
“Genuine spiritual knowledge lies not in wonderful and mysterious thoughts but in actual spiritual experience through union of the believer's life with truth.”
– Watchman Nee
Facilitating a Rooted Pilot Group is the next and best step to engage the decision makers and key leaders of your church.
Rooted is an all-encompassing experience impacting every area of your church. This means that your staff and leaders must own the vision for Rooted. Inviting them to experience the 10 weeks for themselves will create buy-in and excitement for the life-transformation that will come through facilitating Rooted in your church.
In order to best serve you as you take this important step of facilitating your Pilot Group, we offer the following tools:
By ordering a Pilot Kit (15 Workbooks and 2 Facilitator Guides) you will receive everything you’ll need to facilitate your Rooted Pilot Group. You’ll be connected to a Rooted Network Coach for free one-on-one support and receive online training videos to help get you started!
We provide training events for you and your team—such as “Prepare to Pilot” and “Pilot Cohort”. We want your pilot experience to be beneficial to your team as well as generate excitement for the potential results a church-wide launch will bring.
“The 'occasionally remarkable' moments shouldn’t be left to chance! They should be planned for, invested in.”
– Chip Heath
We often say that it takes a moment to make a moment. After you and your team complete your Pilot and have experienced Rooted for yourself, you’ll be ready for a church-wide launch. Creating an intentional environment for the people of your church to experience life-transformation through Rooted takes more than just handing out workbooks. The framework below outlines how a 10-week Rooted session would be facilitated from start to finish.
There are planned and intentional elements involved in launching Rooted. In order to help you and your church have the most successful and beneficial launch, the following resources are available to you:
This event exists to provide a practical outline of how to successfully develop a plan to mobilize your team for a church-wide Rooted Launch.
We offer free coaching calls with our Director of Network Partnerships to help you navigate through all the details of launching Rooted. We will provide hands-on training specific to your context and share best practices.
"If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. You must be always having a revolution."
– G. K. Chesterton
The process is as important as working through the Rooted Workbook. We’ve seen incredible stories of transformation through the years and we want you to experience the work of God in the same way.
Rooted works best when offered multiple times a year—in the fall, winter, and spring.* These three ministry seasons have proven to align with natural opportunities in the calendar to attract new people into groups and for existing groups to walk through Rooted. The intent is that once a group completes the 10-week experience, they will continue together as a group in your church’s discipleship ministry.
Rooted becomes the place that people can point to throughout the year for multiplying new groups, multiply new leaders, and multiplying the impact in your church as more people learn about the Christian life and biblical community.
*While we encourage churches to offer and facilitate Rooted three times per year, we support and celebrate churches when they find the rhythm that works best for their local context.
"Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion—it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ."
– Billy Graham
While Rooted is the starting point for your discipleship pathway, it also becomes a training ground to equip your church community to live out your mission while incorporating ongoing spiritual practices, the 7 Rhythms of Rooted. Momentum will happen—not just in numbers, but in people serving, giving, and engaging.
As you continue to facilitate Rooted sessions in your church, you will see life-transformation in the lives of your congregation. Rooted will become the new way for small groups to be united around common language and foundational biblical principles.
As a Rooted church, you’ll have access to our Director of Network Partnerships and all training materials. You’ll be invited to join Learning Communities with other churches for collaborating and sharing your experiences.
“I have one desire now—to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.”
– Elisabeth Elliot
Rooted is designed to shape the way you steward your discipleship ministry on an ongoing basis. As the front door to your church, it will integrate with every aspect of your church and you will continue to see transformation taking place and leave people with a desire to stay together in biblical community.
Rooted Network has provided the following additional resources, built around the 7 Rhythms of Rooted, for your discipleship ministry. Keep an eye out for updates too—we are developing new resources for holistic discipleship in your ministry.
An 8-week, group-discipleship experience focused on the study and application of core doctrines of the Christian faith.
A 10-week small group experience designed to help individuals integrate 7 Rhythms of a disciple into the two spheres in which we spend most of our lives – work and relationships.
A 6-week version of Rooted designed specifically for high school students.
A 10-week small group resource designed specifically for people wanting to learn about and experience God’s design for work and family—in Spanish!