Living Like Jesus
Yes, you can.
Books For Spiritual Formation
A Curriculum for Christlikeness
Our Mission
To help each other to become the kind of person who is like Jesus because of inner transformation, rather than one who tries to act like Jesus under their own power.
Our Objective
To use classes and post class group meetings to connect at a heart and soul level with those who desire and are seeking help in their transformation, those ready to talk about what is hindering their growth and what is bothering them.
Our Plan
The focus of this plan is spiritual growth through discipleship of Jesus. Beginning with the classes, we lay a foundation for learning to live like Jesus and how to hear God. But it cannot stop there. This is a life-long journey of spiritual transformation. Beginning in the Fall of 2019, we will be moving from Wednesdays, every other week to Thursdays, every week and a possibility of the same type of group on Tuesdays every week. These are offered for just such a journey. More to come on this soon. The work of the group is to help us keep God before our mind, work to overcome the weaknesses in our flesh, and grow our love and compassion for others. Each meeting is intended to address the daily grind of transformation, the renewing of our mind, and the death to self.
It is with a humble spirit that we approach God for help in revealing our weaknesses and failures. We share those discoveries with our brothers and sisters in this group as much as is appropriate. We are here to edify, love, and support each other. We pray for each other and build one another up in the faith.
There are two points we mainly want to focus on: enthralling the mind with God and breaking the power of the evil in our bodies. The meetings are designed for growing closer to each other and be comfortable with sharing from our heart. This requires us to be vulnerable with each other. It is also when we show ourselves to be trustworthy, listening, and loving. There are some things that should not be discussed in the group as a whole, but rather with a trusted friend. There may also be things that are beyond even the help of trusted friends. Those subjects and issues should be taken to a professional Christian counselor or therapist. You cannot grow spiritually healthy if you are not emotionally healthy.
Classes are on hold
Class Details
Learning to Live Like Jesus
Jesus loved His enemies, had compassion on sinners, and refused to control or manipulate others for His gain. In this 14-week class we learn about the spiritual anatomy of ourselves and how to move each dimension towards God. As one participant said:
"This class has started the process of peeling back the calloused layers that have slowly built up over my heart and my soul over the years."
We'll discover why we are unable to use will power alone to change, and instead learn how to rely on the transformative hope God offers all of us.
It was never meant to be, but you can be a Christian and not a disciple. Being a Christian secures your eternity, but does little to make you Christ-like. Unfortunately, we too often see "Christians" who's life and behavior are nearly indistinguishable from non-Christians. Jesus offered a life more abundant, so why don't we realize that truth in our daily lives?
Because we haven't intended to become his disciple. Jesus lived an abundant life by living out of the Kingdom of Heaven and he invites us to live there too. The only way for us to live out of his kingdom is to learn from Jesus how to live. Jesus is always with us and will provide the power we need to accomplish this. Jesus was the greatest teacher of all time. We need to learn from Him, to be His disciple, His student.
In this 14-week class, through Dallas Willard's material, we will begin to see why we struggle to love those we don't want to love, why we struggle to overcome our anger, why we repeatedly mistreat our loved ones, why we are fighting the same battles against sin over and over in our life.
Dallas summarizes our spiritual state that has turned against God and he reveals the 6 dimensions of our self: thoughts, feelings, will, body, social relations and soul. After he lays down an understanding of the purpose of each dimension, he walks us through each one helping us understand how easily we can begin the process of spiritual transformation in our lives. The change in us is not something we can do on our own, but it is a work of the Holy Spirit acting in our lives.
As we begin to see changes in our inner life, for example, loving those we don't want to love, finding ourselves putting others first and realizing victories over sin, we'll find ourselves stepping into the Kingdom of Heaven more often. We'll begin to realize what it is to live an abundant life, a life permeated by love and a life of joy rooted deeply in our Heavenly Father.
This class is for anyone who is serious about learning to live like Jesus, married, single, male or female. Bring your spouse or significant other. Books are available at the first meeting and cost $10.
Registration is required and space is limited.
Hearing God
Being close to God means communicating with him. In our ongoing friendship with God we tell him what is on our hearts in prayer and learn to perceive what he is saying to us. It is this second part of our conversation with God that is found by many to be so difficult or even unapproachable. How can you be sure God is speaking to you? The answer is that we learn by experience. Hearing God is but one dimension of a richly interactive relationship, and obtaining guidance is but one facet of hearing God. In this 10-week class we'll learn that we were made for hearing God. We'll discover those many dimensions and learn practical ways to enter into a conversational relationship with God.
The focus of this class is to help you develop a conversational relationship with God. Learning to hear God is much more about becoming comfortable in a continuing conversation, and learning to constantly lean on the goodness and love of God, than it is about turning God into an ATM for advice, or treating the Bible as a crystal ball.
If you're new to Dr. Dallas Willard then get ready for some deep, yet practical Biblical insights in the form of tightly packed words and sentences. Just like anything worth having, it takes effort and some level of commitment. If you take the time to understand even some of what Dallas is saying, you will be richly rewarded.
God has created us for intimate friendship with himself - both now and forever and it is made clear throughout the Bible. In this class, we will journey down this path together, reading, discussing, watching videos and learning how to have a conversational relationship with God. The real difference is having classmates to journey with and the grace of God to empower us. Through each of us, the Holy Spirit will provide the needed insight from group discussion, and because you are part of a group, we all benefit much more than by just reading the book by ourselves.
Some of the subjects we'll be learning about:
- Guidelines for hearing from God
- Mistaken views of how God speaks to us
- The still, small voice and its rivals
- The power of words given to human beings
- A cabbage, a kitten and a different kind of life
- Recognizing the voice of God
- A life more than guidance
- Plus, much more
This class is for anyone who is serious about learning to hear God. Books are available at the first meeting and cost $10.
This class is unavailable for now.
"Authentic transformation is really possible if we're willing to do one thing and that is to rearrange our lives around the things that Jesus practiced."
Children of Light is a ministry of Bill Dowd in Vancouver, WA.