What is Discipleship?

Today, we spend an inordinate about of time at work, or at school &/or at practice. And yet there are few if any personal Bible studies or small group materials that focus on how the gospel applies to our work beyond sharing the gospel with fellow colleagues, students, & teammates. Why is this?

For the past one hundred and fifty years, Christian discipleship programs have largely emphasized matters of personal devotion (i.e., piety, evangelism training) and discipleship (i.e., knowledge of doctrine, Scripture memory). Over time, this has created a private / public divide in our knowledge base for how to live out the implications of the gospel. As Christians in the heartland of America, we have inherited a strength and weakness from our Christian forefathers. We are very strong in the “sacred/private” aspects of Christianity: we are nice, kind, generous people, especially outside of work. But at work ("secular/public" aspects), we often operate by a different ethic and standard (e.g., consider the Christian business man who berates his employees (merciless), or the Christian dentist cuts corners on her patients' checkups (laziness) or who begrudgingly gives raises to her dental hygienists (stinginess), or the lawyer who always reminds his paralegals how much their insurance benefits cost the practice (a power grab), or the Christian student who cheats on her homework (stealing)). We need fresh training on how to view the services we provide, the products we make and our work itself as an extension of God’s Kingdom and an act (not object!) of worship to King Jesus.

Trinity exists to become a community that trains members to study their industries well enough to know how move their professional fields back toward their creational purposes rather than just exist at work to make money and then live out the gospel when they get home. This focus will naturally draw men back to church (only 40% of the average congregation is male) because Trinity will demonstrate that the gospel matters a lot more than they've known to the areas of their lives that men care a great deal about. This will help many women, who are starving for their husbands, fathers, and brothers to lead spiritually, to live our the Gospel, also, without bitterness.

Join us on Sunday nights. Until then we encourage you to check out our bookstore or for great curricula and books to help you learn how beautiful, believable and applicable the Gospel is in all spheres of life.