Mission Shaped Living Participant's Guide

By John McGinley

More than just a tool box of ‘how to do evangelism,’ Mission Shaped Living will build spiritual practices, vision, hope, and confidence into your life so that sharing God’s love with others becomes a joy and not a burden.

Society has shifted and the way mission was done in the past is no longer effective. People are looking for authenticity and Christians are looking for a lifelong and deep discipleship that results in effective mission with authenticity. Structured over eight sessions, this participant’s guide is designed to work alongside the Mission Shaped Living Leader’s Guide to provide everything needed to run the course. Mission Shaped Living gives churches, small groups, and individual believers the tools and resources to develop discipleship and an outward focus to reach and bless their communities, cities, and nations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David C Cook
• Release date: Aug 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780830781829

John McGinley

John McGinley serves on the executive leadership team of New Wine as Director of Church Planting Development, is Associate Vicar of Holy Trinity, Leicester, and Development Enabler for the Archbishops' College of Evaneglists. Since April 2021, he will be taking up a new role working with Bishop Ric Thorpe on a new Church-planting initaitve.

Book preview

MISSION SHAPED LIVING PARTICIPANT’S GUIDE

Published by David C Cook

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Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

Integrity Music Limited, a Division of David C Cook

Brighton, East Sussex BN1 2RE, England

The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

Details in some stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

All Scripture quotations are taken from Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN 978-0-8307-8180-5

eISBN 978-0-8307-8182-9

© 2020 New Wine Resources, Ltd.

The Team: Ian Matthews, Liza Hoeksma, Jo Stockdale, Susan Murdock

Cover Design: Mark Prentice at beatroot.media

Cover Image: Josh Rose on Unsplash

First Edition 2020

CONTENTS

Introduction

Session 1: Being Sent

Session 2: Confidence

Session 3: Courage

Session 4: Compassion

Session 5: Connecting

Session 6: Continuing

Session 7: Conversion

Session 8: Mission Shaped Living

Introduction

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matt. 28:19–20)

Welcome to Mission Shaped Living! We’re really glad you and your small group are going to spend some time looking at how you can live as witnesses of Jesus Christ in your everyday lives.

Many of us find it hard to talk about mission; we want people to know God’s love but we don’t know how to share it with them. Mission Shaped Living (MSL) brings together some spiritual practices and principles that other ordinary Christians have found helpful, and gives you some steps to follow as you go on a journey of exploring how you can be the witness Jesus has called you to be for him. It’s designed to equip us to live out our faith in Jesus in such a way that we lead others to follow him, just as Jesus said in his last words to his disciples (in Matt. 28 above). The focus of the course is on us being prayerful, joy-filled, thankful people who live our lives on mission with Jesus, knowing that he promised to give us his Holy Spirit to enable us to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8). We believe that if others are to come to trust in Jesus, it will come through the ordinary everyday witness of Christians in families, workplaces, gyms, coffee shops, schools, etc.—that’s us.

AIM

The aim of this course is that we will grow closer to God and one another and we will be equipped with tools that enable us to share God’s love and the good news of Jesus with others so that they can be saved.

STRUCTURE

There are eight sessions in MSL and each one is divided into three sections. Each of these is focused on one of the three relationships each Christian is called to: IN, UP, and OUT.

IN

Jesus said, ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’ (John 13:34–35). This is about our relationship with our Christian brothers and sisters.

Jesus has put us together in