Apprentice
At St. Mark’s Community Church, we want to walk with you in the process of becoming more like Jesus. We believe the most significant issue facing the world today is whether those who identify as Christians will become passionately devoted followers – or apprentices – of Jesus Christ. Spiritual formation is this process of being an apprentice of Jesus, continually learning from everything he did or said and learning to live like he lived.
Apprentice
Our thoughts about God determine who we are and how we live. In the Apprentice series, we'll turn to the Gospels and put our narratives to the test to see if they match up with what Jesus himself reveals about God.
Do you want to grow in your understanding of who God is?
Would you like to discover what it means to follow Jesus?
Do you long to experience life with other Christ-followers as part of God's kingdom?
If your answer to these questions is “yes” to these questions, then Apprentice, an in-depth journey of becoming more like Christ, is for you.
The Apprentice Journey
We have divided the longer Apprentice journey into 5 phases. Learn more about each below.
Phase 1: The Good and Beautiful God
With a small group of fellow pilgrims over the course of 10 weeks, explore The Good and Beautiful God - the first book by James Bryan Smith in the Apprentice series.
You'll grow in your understanding of who God is, and what it means to follow Jesus while living in community with other followers as part of God's kingdom.
Phase 2: The Good and Beautiful Life
"We all want to be happy, and we want it all the time." So begins James Bryan Smith in The Good and Beautiful Life. The problem is he tells us, we have bought into false notions of happiness and success. These self-centered decisions lead us further into the vices that cause ruin: anger, lust, lying worry and judging. Eventually we find ourselves living a beautifully packaged life of self-destruction.
Following the Sermon on the Mount, this follow-up to the Good and Beautiful God guides us to look behind these character flaws and to replace our false beliefs with Jesus' narratives about life in the kingdom of God.
Phase 3: The Good and Beautiful Community
This book shows us how to bring spiritual formation and community engagement together, and then once again offers spiritual practices that root new, true narratives about God and the world in our souls. We’ll learn how to live in authentic ways as a good and beautiful community of Christ-followers, shining the light of the Spirit into every relationship.
Phase 4: The Good and Beautiful You
The Christian faith is not only about belief and practices, it’s also about the kind of people that we become. Yet some of the biggest barriers to our transformation come from our toxic self-narratives. These narratives shape the way we see ourselves and the way we interact in the world. God designed us with a deep longing in our souls to be wanted, loved, alive, and connected to God. Healing our souls requires more than knowing what God thinks about us. Our healing comes not through reason alone, but through revelation.
Phase 5: The Good and Beautiful Life of Apprenticing Others
Learning to be more like Jesus is a life-long journey and that continues until we see Jesus face-to-face. Few things are more inspiring than witnessing someone who is spiritually dead come to life, turn away from sin and become more and more like Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Every Christ-follower needs spiritual formation and is equipped by the Spirit to also assist others in their development. Deliberately helping others grow in their relationship with Jesus is our mission and we want that to be your experience here at St Marks, in your neighborhood, your workplace and throughout our community. (Acts 13:47, Matthew 28:19-20)
Pastor Fil Anderson
As pastor of Spiritual Formation, Fil provides spiritual direction and mentorship for the whole St. Mark’s community, including its leadership. Fil also teaches spiritual formation courses and leads groups throughout the year.
Fil is an accomplished writer and sought-after teacher and communicator in the areas of spiritual formation & disciplines. Find out more.