Sessions Include:

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #1
The Peculiar Community
1 Peter 2.9 – 11

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #2
The Hopeful Community
1 Peter 2.9 –11; Matthew 5.14 – 16

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #3
The Serving Community
Luke 22.25 – 27

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #4
The Christ-Centered Community
Romans 14; John 17

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #5
The Reconciling Community
Matthew 6.12 – 15; Ephesians 4.15 – 16 

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #6
The Encouraging Community
Hebrews 10.24 - 25

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #7
The Generous Community
1 Timothy 6.10; 2 Corinthians 9.6 – 8

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #8
The Worshipping Community
Psalm 84; 1 Peter 2.9; Psalm 95

The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #9
Writing a Soul Training Plan
1 John 2.6

Why Study Books?

My church recently transitioned to using books as curriculum in our Sunday School. The reason is simple. My life has been profoundly influenced by the reading of books. I don’t think my life has ever been changed by any curriculum piece I have ever read. Ever.

I have actually surveyed a number of groups I have taught over the years, asking: Has your life ever been changed by any curriculum? The most common response is for people to laugh out loud.

Our first study was the Bless book by Dave and Jon Ferguson. It is a great study on relational lifestyle evangelism. About half-way through the the study, we did a survey to help determine what we would study next. No one wanted to go back to the curriculum. Not. One. Person.

The #1 choice for what to study next was a tie:

• John Ortberg’s The Me I Want to Be
• My recently released book, The 21 Laws of Discipleship

We will be studying these two books over the next year and a half or so. Here is what Amazon says about Ortberg’s book:

The Me I Want to Be will help you discover spiritual vitality like never before as you learn to "live in the flow of the spirit."

Why does spiritual growth seem so difficult?

God's vision for your life is not just that you are saved by grace, but that you also learn to live by grace, flourishing with the Spirit flowing through you. And this book will show how God's perfect vision for you starts with a powerful promise: All those who trust in God "will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8).

Pastor and best-selling author John Ortberg first helps gauge your spiritual health and measure the gap between where you are now and where God intends you to be. Then he provides detailed tasks and exercises to help you live in the flow of the Spirit, circumventing real-world barriers - pain and sorrow, temptations, self-doubt, sin - to flourish even in a dark and broken world.

As you start living in the flow, you will feel:

• A deeper connection with God
• A growing sense of joy
• An honest recognition of your brokenness
• Less fear and more trust
• A growing sense of being "rooted in love"
• And a deeper sense of purpose.

God invites you to join him in crafting an abundant and joy-filled life. The Me I Want to Be shows you how to graciously accept his invitation.

I have just completed a new, 22-week study of John Ortberg’s book, The Me I Want to Be that we will be using in my church. (I had previously done a 7-week study.)

I have always thought that using books as a curriculum would be a good idea, and I have written a lot of book studies over the years. One of the things that actually using books as curriculum caused me to realize has to do with cost. By writing a study on every chapter of this book, instead of my previous study that had a lesson for every section, the cost drops to below what we were paying for curriculum. Better curriculum. Cheaper cost. Win. Win.

I once asked a pastor, “If the life of discipleship to Jesus really takes root in a community of people, particularly in a local church, how would you know if it was really beginning to make a difference?” Without hesitation he said, “In committee meetings.” My first response was to chuckle, because I know, from many years on church committees, just how discouraging they can be and how badly people can behave. I was a bit surprised at his answer, though I might have thought he would say, “They would be more engaged in worship,” or “They carry their Bibles everywhere,” or even “They sign up for more community service.” The pastor went on to tell me that the problem in many church committee meetings is that the people walk in with two ways of thinking. Some of the members realize the work being done is for God, for the good of the people, to make the world better, to advance the kingdom of God. But others are more influenced by the values and goals that run the kingdom of this world. I asked him for an example.

“We were having a trustees meeting one evening, and our primary issue was over the new building we were planning on adding to our campus. This was something the people on the committee had very strong feelings about, caused by two concerns. One concern was that we had hit a place where we had not been growing numerically, and it may have been caused by the fact that we simply had no space. We were packed in all of our services, and we really needed more room. The second reason we were not growing, some suspected, was that a church just up the road had recently experienced a lot of growth—which included members from our church who had joined their congregation—and some on the committee felt that it was because they had a better facility than ours.”

Have you ever had to pause and reflect on whether you were participating in the kingdom of God in your answer or actions?

The pastor went on, “The discussion turned to one of the members of the committee, an architect, who had been working on the blueprint for the new building. They asked him questions about what the building would be like, how much it would cost and how many people it would hold. At one point a person, who probably meant well but phrased the question poorly, asked him, ‘What I want to know is this: Can we build a building that will help us compete with the church down the road?’ The architect paused and said, ‘Give me a second,’ and he took a deep breath and went on to say, ‘I needed to think for a minute whether I was going to answer that question from inside or outside of the kingdom of God.’ ”

The fact that he had to pause to think about how to answer revealed that the two ways of thinking, two different narratives, were in the room. One was built upon worldly values, such as competition, success in terms of numbers and self-preservation. The other was rooted in the kingdom of God, a place of cooperation, success in terms of service and self-sacrifice. Those two narratives often clash in church committee meetings, the pastor noted, because the members are shaped by two different stories. When someone begins to tune in to the kingdom-of-God narratives in his or her life, and has been working to apply them, you will see it most clearly in the way they behave in church committee meetings. I told the pastor, “So then, the best argument for helping people grow in their discipleship to Jesus is not just for the sake of their souls but for the improvement of committee meetings.” We both laughed, but in fact we had touched on a deep truth.

FALSE NARRATIVE: OUR NEEDS MATTER THE MOST

The architect in the story was in a position that all apprentices of Jesus find themselves in on a regular basis. Each day we make thousands of decisions, and while many of them have little effect on our souls (“Should I wear brown or black pants today?”), there are many decisions that expose the state of our souls. The question posed to the architect was one of those soul-exposing questions. Behind either answer we give lies a narrative. We have been shaped much by the narratives of this world, and it is difficult to shed them. One of the most dominant narratives is built on self-preservation, personal happiness and making sure our needs are met. This narrative is not only for individuals. It can also be the foundation for a community.

The church committee meeting was composed of people who had one thing in common: they were members of a specific community. The community provides them many things: a home, a common vision and, over time, a history of great memories. People love their communities. We become protective of them and want to see them succeed. The church committee in the opening story consisted of people who are giving their time and energy to help the church do well. There is nothing wrong with loving the community of Christ-followers who have nurtured you and perhaps your family for many years. And there is nothing wrong with wanting things to go well with your church and its ministry. There is nothing wrong, for example, with being concerned about how to make sure the pastor gets paid each month or that the parking lot is sufficient.

The problem comes when the most important consideration, the dominant desire and the main focus of a community is its own success. Just as an individual whose whole life is focused on meeting his or her own needs becomes narcissistic, self-centered, ineffective and ultimately unhappy, so also communities can become so focused on themselves that they lose their souls.

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community: Following the Spirit, Extending Grace, Demonstrating Love (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Formatio, 2010), 53–55.

If you would like to explore this new study, it is available on Amazon, as well as part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking