The most potent resource New Day can cultivate in your life and/or church is story. At New Day we are invested in the power of story to unlock the human heart. We have seen the human heart instinctivly open when it's connected to story. Much of the Old and New Testaments are written in the form of story and some of Jesus' most memorable teachings were in the form of stories. At New Day we invite your church to create a culture of care and discipleship where story is at the center of what you do: something we call Story-based Discipleship™
Story-based Discipleship™ takes the heart-power of story and weds it to the rational and volitional aspects of the gospel to help people appropriate and metabolize more than just intellectual assent to the life-changing power of the Gospel....it helps people experience the incarnational Gospel and share it with others.
What this means is that everyone has a compelling story that God is writing through his/her own personal experiences, past, present AND future. Spiritual growth is discipleship. Jesus invited his followers to disciple others..."teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you"...and Jesus' most central and compelling teaching was to love God, others and self. Growing in one's ability to love God, self and others is much more than learning theology. Sadly, many Christians today have been taught that successful discipleship revolves around knowing the right theology, behaving in the right ways, and practicing the right spiritual disciplines. However, one's heart is rarely transformed by knowledge, behavior, and discipline.
The crushing reality of this superficial approach to discipleship is that our churches become full of knowledgeable, externally obedient pastors, leaders and lay people whose hearts have escaped sustained spiritual formation. Sin is hidden, sanctification is reduced to moral behavioralism, and life, rest and peace become an illusion.
Engaging a person and their problems through the lens of story means that the discipler is equipped to talk, emote and engage people deeply. Not with advice or moralism but with their presence and the ability to enter the deep grief and confusion of a person's story without flinching. Wisely engaging the beliefs one holds about God, self and others to explore where Evil has distorted and perverted truth to serve Evil's purposes. Through story-based discipleship, a christian discovers where and how Evil has been deceiving him/her, expose that distortion to the truth of who Jesus is and how he works in a life AND then to step out in faith and begin living in light of that truth--with the support of the discipler. The process of freedom is rarely easy and is often fraught with starts and stops, but the counselor/discipler ("Jesus with skin on") guides the disciplee to Jesus' power, light, life, and healing.
At New Day we equip you and your church to engage people in a uniquely holistic and christian way, engaging a person's story to unlock life-long transformational living and life-giving sanctification...a well-spring of life bubbling up to Eternal Life.
