Navigating The Way - True North
Navigating the Way – Week 1: True North
In the first week of Navigating the Way, we were reminded that just like the North Star guided freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad, we need a True North to guide our lives. For us, that unchanging point is Jesus and His mission.
Our mission as a church — and as followers of Jesus — is simple and immovable: make disciples who love Jesus and love people (Matthew 28:18–20). Discipleship begins with accepting His love and lordship, then grows as we live in obedience to Him. But it doesn’t stop there. Loving Jesus means loving people enough to go — to invest in relationships, invite others to faith, and help them find freedom in Him.
-
Well, hello, Rock Church. How are you guys doing? Everybody good today? So it's good to see you guys. I want to welcome everybody in Conway, but it is one of those weekends where we have all of our campuses joining together.
So we've got people in Aynor, people at South Strand, J. Ruben online everybody joining in right now. So let's give it up for them. We're so thankful that you're doing that and our coastal campus that I'm actually gonna be at our coastal campus on Monday night as well with our young adults. So this weekend I get to communicate to all of our campuses and I'm excited and thrilled to be able to do that.
God's doing some great things. Great things that you know. I know you just saw some baptisms. This weekend at our Aynor campus we are opening up our This Gen space. So now our kids every Sunday morning have a dedicated space.
Our students have a place throughout the week where they can gather. So Aynor, we're excited about you. At South Strand. I got some really cool news for our South Strand campus as well that we bought some property a while ago and we've been working to get a site plan together. Well, while we were doing that, the property attached to it became available. It's just a small piece of property, but it has a lot of frontage on 701.
No, 707. Excuse me for that. And so we made an offer that's accepted and next month we're gonna close on that. So our south stand property is just a little bit bigger, but it's gonna allow us to have a much better footprint right there, just south of St. James High School. And then in Conway, well, you can see half the wall came down, it's coming.
You can kinda glance back there and get a little bit of a peek now, right? But man, God's doing and our goal is just to help one more find what matters. Or another way I could say it is we want to help one more navigate the way back to God. And that's what this series is about. It's about navigating the way back to God.
Imagine if you could.
It's dark, it's cold, maybe a little bit of fog that you've got no shoes, you've got no coat, you've got no extra bag. And you find yourself just running. Just running with a hope of freedom. Running with a hope of life. Running to find some hope.
But you really don't even necessarily know how to Navigate your way through to freedom, to life, to hope. You don't have a GPS with you. You don't have a phone with you. You don't have maps with you. You don't have your community with you.
You don't have friends with you. You're just by yourself, doing everything you can to find life and to find freedom. And the one thing you remember is your community taught you a song that said, look for the drinking Gl Gourd. Just look for it. And if you look for it, you'll find the North Star.
And if you find the North Star, then you'll know which direction is north and just keep running and just keep trying to get there. You can't turn and ask somebody for help because you don't know if they'll kill you, if they'll return you, if they'll hurt you. So you just chase the North Star looking for freedom.
That's what it was like in the 1800s for anybody who was a slave and tried to make their way north. That's what it was like for somebody who was trying to find freedom. They didn't have phones, they didn't have maps. They couldn't really even rely on other people if they were seeking freedom. All they could do is find the North Star because they were told the North Star doesn't move.
And if you head towards the North Star, you're gonna be heading north, and. And you might make it to a land or to an area where you can be safe, you can be free, you can find hope, and you can find life. When
I think about that, it makes me think in just a little bit about us today. And here's what I mean by that. That someone in the 1800s who was a slave and was trying to find freedom, they were trying to figure out a way for them to navigate their way.
And I think today we're still trying to navigate our way. Different situations, I think we all understand that, yet we're trying to navigate our way. We're trying to navigate our way to freedom. We're trying to navigate our way to life. We're trying to navigate our way towards hope.
And how do you navigate your way, or maybe I should ask it this way. How do you navigate your way to back to God? How do you find God? How do you. How do you get there?
And what I want to say is, well, just look north. Just look north. Like. Like. Like maybe, like think about the North Star.
Like. Like think north. Or. Or maybe if I was to think about this, I think about the North Pole. Because just like the North Star doesn't move, neither does the North Pole.
And you can navigate by looking at the stars, or you can navigate by simply looking at a compass. And if you know anything about a compass, then you know that it has a needle. And because of the magnetism and all that in the Earth and the North Pole, the needle will point towards the north. So if you look at a compass, you can always find true north. And if you know true north well, then you can also find east and south and west.
And this is what I think is that if you can think of a compass and remember the dials on a compass, then you can understand, as a Christian, how to navigate your way towards God. You can understand, as a non Christian, somebody who doesn't have a relationship with Jesus, you can understand man. This is how I can navigate my way to God. This is how I can navigate the way. If you're a Christian, you can understand how to navigate your way, but also how to help somebody else navigate their way.
That as a church, we can understand how to do it as well. That as a church. I can explain our church real simple by looking at this compass. Everything about our church I can explain just using a compass. But I don't want you to think this series is necessarily about the church.
It is. We will deal with the church a lot in this series, but it's really about you as an individual. Because just as the compass can explain our church, the compass can explain how you can navigate the way back to God. That if you think about a compass, a compass has north on a compass. Maybe you can see it on the screen there, that we have a north.
When it comes to our church, that is our mission. Make disciples. We're gonna talk about that a lot today. If you go to the east now, some of you don't know which way is east and which way is west, right? Like, some of you are, like, I always get that one confused.
It spells we. All right, I'm just helping you right now. For all of you needing a geography class, if you don't know which side of the compass is the W and which side is the E, just remember, it spells we, okay? But anyway, east over there, we have philosophy. People matter to Jesus.
That we understand that everyone, meaning each one, meaning you, you matter to Jesus. We'll talk about that next week. On the south end of the compass, it says our strategy. It means to connect people to Jesus and others. You hear that at the Rock all the time.
It is kickoff weekend. You are hearing it in a massive way right now. Because we want everybody to get connected. We want you to go to a group, a group experience, start serving in a ministry. Because when you do, you get out of a row and into a circle.
And when you're in a circle, you can be in community and you can have a coach in your life. All right, we'll talk about that a lot in a couple weeks. And then there's what we call waypoints. You call them mile markers. There's these steps along your journey that in your personal life, man.
These are steps that, that each and every one of us should take. These are steps that we help other people take. They're steps in our journey. It's part of our navigating our way back to God. And I want us to hit that over the next four weeks.
But today I just want it to be real simple. I want us to talk about north. I want us to talk about what does it look like to be heading north as a church? What does it look like to be heading north as an individual. I want you to think of north as your mission.
That as an individual you should have a mission. As a church, we should have a mission. Like every good company has a mission. Right? Let me read a couple of them for you real quick.
Apple, their mission statement to create the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it. I don't know about the back half, but I do believe their products are pretty good.
Nobody else.
Well, okay, sorry for some of you, Microsoft, eh? But they are good. But anyway, their mission statement to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Google, to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Tesla, to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.
Nike, to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. And if you have a body, you are an athlete. That's their mission statement. All right? Now whether or not you like the companies or not really doesn't matter.
Any good company has a mission statement. Any good company, organization, any good team has a mission statement, right? I've got a couple coaches in this room From a baseball, a mission statement that we had from a baseball side was this idea of own it right. From a football team, it's family that each group has a mission. As a church, we have a mission statement as individuals.
As if you're a Christian, you have a mission statement. Now here's what I want to make sure you understand. You don't get to choose it. You don't get to choose your mission statement. Nike gets to choose their mission statement.
Microsoft gets to choose their mission statement. When it comes to the church, the Rock doesn't choose our mission statement. Here's why I say that. Jesus gave the mission statement. Like, we don't get to go, oh, well, we want our mission statement to be this.
No. Jesus gave every biblical church their mission statement. All you have to do is choose whether or not you're gonna accept that mission. As Christians, we don't get to choose. Well, what's my mission gonna be in life?
No. Jesus already gave it to you. The only thing you have to decide now is are you going to choose to accept the mission he gave us? Because the mission statement of the church and the mission statement for each person who claims to be a follower of Christ, it's the exact same, and it's to make disciples. That's it.
It's that simple. Jesus gave it to us. I'll show you the scripture. It's Matthew, chapter 28 starts in verse 16. And it goes on.
It says this. Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go when they saw him. They worshiped him. But some doubted. I think this is.
Before I go any further. I think it's really important for us to camp out of here for a second. That Jesus, like, right before he ascends up into heaven, he gathers his people and he says, man, let's go up to the mountain. Let's go and talk. And 11 of them went.
Now, that's the 11 apostles. All right, we know they went. But you need to understand, if you. It wasn't just the 11 apostles. We can look at the book of Acts, we can look at the book of First Corinthians, and we can see at this juncture, there was more than just 11.
But here, it's just mentioning the 11. But then it also, I believe, mentions the others, because it says, and some doubted. Some worshiped him. Those who were gathered, some worshiped and some doubted. I think that's really important for us to know because that's the way it is with us right now at church.
It doesn't matter if you're an aner. You're a South Online J. Rubin here in Conway. There's some of you, you gather today because you're like, man, I'm ready to worship, right? Some of you like, throwing your hands up, some of you dancing, some of you kneeling, some of you just taking it in. You know what I mean?
And you're like, this is My version of my hands up. Yeah. You know, I mean, like, you. Like, you came to worship. Some of you are like, eh, they invited me.
I'm gonna come. I just don't know how I feel about Jesus. Some of you are here and you come because it's good for your family, but you still have a lot of doubts. Like, listen, when Jesus gathered with the people at the very end before he ascended, he didn't say, all right, which ones of you believe? All right, you're welcome.
And those of you who doubt, get away from me. No, he brought everybody around him because he knew even those who doubt, man, if they see the work that I'm doing, they might just believe. And I want you to know, if you're here right now, no matter which campus you're at, and you have some doubts, you're in the right place. You're in the right place because my goal for you is. My goal for everybody is that we will follow the next things he said.
And that is we'll become disciples. Remember, it says, some doubted. Then he said this. He said, then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.
Right there. That's the mission statement. Again, like I said, we don't get to choose. Well, what's my mission gonna be as a church? We don't get to choose that.
As individuals, we don't get to choose that because Jesus very clearly gave us the mission. And the mission is to make disciples. Now, for us to make disciples, it means you have to be a disciple. So we have to understand, my mission is to first be a disciple so that I can make disciples. Now, when I say that, I know you might go, okay, Josh, but what's a disciple or what's that look like to be a disciple?
And how do I make disciples? Those are good questions, and I want us to dive into it. What I'm actually going to do right now is I'm going to ask our campus pastors in Aner and at South Strand to come up and talk about what does it really mean to be a disciple while I continue here to our other campuses. So really think about this for a second. Like, what does it mean to be a disciple?
You know what I mean? Like, maybe if you've been in church very long, you've heard that word. I've heard disciple. I've heard people say discipleship. I've heard people say that we're supposed to make disciples, but what does it even mean?
To be a disciple. Here's the definition. A disciple is a student. A disciple is a learner. A disciple is a follower.
A disciple is an apprentice. Like, you could use any of those words. A follower, a student, an apprentice. All right, now let's make sure we understand this. You can be a disciple of anything, right?
How many of y' all would say, and I want you to be vulnerable here, raise your hand. How many of y' all would say, you know a decent bit about cars, right? Right. If you know a decent bit about cars, you are a disciple of cars, whether that's the car industry, whether that's car maintenance. Like, you've studied it, you've learned it.
You figured that out. Some of you are disciples of shopping.
Oh, I thought my daughter was sitting over there. She's not. She knew this part of the sermon was coming, right? All right, here's one. Anybody excited about NFL and college football coming?
Yeah. Yeah. And some of you have studied your teams. Like, you know your depth chart. You are a disciple of.
Like, you've learned it, you've studied it, you follow it. All right? And nothing's wrong with that. Okay? There's nothing wrong with those kind of things.
I don't want you to hear that in a negative. I want you to hear in a positive. But more important than that is we should be disciples of Jesus. More important than anything else, we should say, man, I want to know Jesus. I want to learn from Jesus.
I want to follow Jesus. I want to be an apprentice of Jesus. I want to figure Jesus out and then do everything I can to live according to what his desire is. I should want to be a disciple who makes disciples because he told me to go and make disciples. So.
So let's break this down a little bit this way. At first, we. We gotta make sure that we are a disciple. Well, what's it look like to be a disciple of Jesus? Before we talk about making disciples, let's talk about, am I a disciple?
Have I navigated my way to God? Have I navigated my way back to Jesus? Because a disciple is somebody who follows Jesus because you've accepted his love and his lordship. Another way I could say that is a disciple of Jesus is one who loves Jesus. And you love Jesus because of the way he loves you.
And you love Jesus because of the way that he is Lord of your life. That if we go continue on with the scripture, this is how it reads. Remember, it said, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. Let's keep reading. Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and the Son and 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. So in this text, it starts by saying, go and make disciples. Well, what's a disciple? A disciple is somebody who's been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. Here's what that means.
It means somebody who is being converted, or another way for me to say it, as I've said already, is somebody who's accepting the love of Jesus. Because Jesus absolutely loves you. That's the whole reason he came, is because he saw our need. He saw that we had been separated from God. He saw that we needed to figure out a way to navigate our way back to God.
And he knew the only way to do that was for him to come to this earth. And when he came to this earth, he showed us what it meant. He showed us how to love. Because he loved everyone. But if you know how he loved everyone, he did it by loving the one that he went to, the individual.
He went to Zacchaeus, and he loved the one that he went to, Peter, and he loved the one. He went to Mary Magdalene, and he loved the one that he went to, the guy who was full of leprosy. And he loved the one. He went to blind Bartimaeus, and he loved the one. He loved everybody by loving the one.
So much so that he was willing to go to the cross. He was willing to take the nails, take the thorns, take the whips, and die on that cross for our sins because of his great love. And then he says, accept that love. Be saved by that love. Be a follower of mine by accepting this free gift of grace.
And when we accept this free gift of grace, we accept it through faith. But the response of faith is baptism. Again, going back to that verse, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, Baptizing them. Here's what the idea of baptizing them simply means. That is a response of somebody's faith.
That is a response of somebody saying, I'm accepting the love of Jesus. That when we think about discipleship, this part of it is really about the conversion aspect that you're saying, man, I'm coming to Jesus, and I'm taking this step of baptism. Cause I'm letting everybody know that I've responded to Jesus. Free gift of grace. But it doesn't stop there.
It goes another step that maybe this first part of conversion is accepting his love. The second part is accepting his lordship. Now, when I say this, I want to be real careful because it says it in the scripture. It says in teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you that we accept his lordship, that we go, jesus, I want to hear what you have to say, and I want to obey you. Now, when we respond to Jesus gift of grace, we should immediately say, I'm not just accepting your love, I'm also accepting your lordship.
That we don't get to really separate him. We don't get to say, well, I want your love, but I don't want your lordship. When we accept Jesus love, we're accepting his lordship. We're saying, you, you have rule over my life. Yet we have this process, big word here called sanctification, that means over time, we start the Holy Spirit's working in our life, and we start walking closer and closer and closer with Jesus.
We start obeying better and better and better because we come to understand him more and more. That's part of the maturity side of discipleship. So here's what I'm trying to say is, as a disciple, for us to be better disciples, it means that we accept his love and his lordship, that we go from conversion to maturity. Let me show it to you like this. This is just a little graph that we came up with.
And I know if you're totally on the side, you might not be able to see it, and I apologize for that. But if you can see it, it's this idea of negative 5 to positive 5. See, oftentimes we think like, I don't know Jesus. I know Jesus. But no, there's this huge, huge, like, range of where you're at in your.
In your discipleship path. And we gotta navigate for the whole path. Somebody here you might be and. Or you might know of somebody who's at what I would call a negative five. A negative five is, I absolutely hate God.
I don't believe in God. I. And I'm antagonistic against God or Christianity. Like, negative 5 is, like, way against God. You know what I'm saying?
Then maybe there's negative three where you're like, man, I'm not against God. I just don't know if I really want God or I'm a little confused by God. I just don't know. Maybe negative one is, man, I'm really interested and I really want to take that step.
I'm just not for sure. You see what I'm getting at? This is all part of the conversion process. We've all been on this continuum at some point in our life. If You've accepted Christ as your savior.
You didn't love Jesus all of your life and have your sins forgiven, right? Even if you've grown up in church all of your life, at some point you were in the negatives. I know I was. I was never over here in the negative five. But I can tell you I was definitely a negative three, maybe a negative four.
I was never antagonistic towards God. I just didn't know anything about him. I was running my own life. But at some point we get to that where it's like, maybe, and maybe I could say it like this, that we hit that point, that if I could call zero, if I could just put the cross right there, that when you hit that zero, it's when you've taken that step and all of a sudden you understand. You're like, yes, Jesus, I want to accept your love.
Yes, Jesus, I want your grace. Yes, Jesus, I want forgiveness. Yes, Jesus, you are my Lord. It doesn't mean that I've got it all figured out yet. It just means, man, I'm in.
And then we continue on that path of navigating that path, which means, I just want to be a better disciple. Now, you told me to learn everything you've commanded. Well, then I want to live out what you've commanded. Here's the problem that happens oftentimes with Christianity is we accept Jesus love and lordship, but we get stuck at about a plus one. Now, if you're brand new to your Christian walk and you're at a plus one, praise God.
But if you're 20 years into your Christian life and you're at a plus one, something's wrong, y'. All. I'm just gonna, like, if I can just be honest, right? Because if we should be maturing in our faith, we should be growing. We should be navigating that path to God and learning from him and saying, jesus, I just wanna obey you.
So the goal is that I would get out of the negatives, accept Christ, and then grow to a plus one, a plus two, a plus three, a plus four, and just keep going. Because honestly, there's never an ending point in growth until you get to heaven, right? We just keep navigating our way. That's what it means to really be a disciple, as I accept his love and his lordship. But then I also have to make disciples.
And to make disciples, it means I have to love people. Let me go back to the verse. Remember, it says this. It says, therefore, go and make disciples. Jesus didn't say sit and take.
He said, go and make. Jesus didn't say, like, okay, you're good. No, Jesus said, listen, I'm giving you this ministry. I'm getting ready to leave. But to carry out my desires, to carry out my will, to carry out my work.
Now it's up to you. You've got to go and make a difference. Go back to the Underground Railroad for a second. Go back to those who were trying to find freedom by the North Star. The one thing that they might have had to help them was the Underground Railroad.
And the Underground Railroad was made up of stations, which would be safe houses, and conductors. They called them stations. So a safe house where they would hide some slaves, and then there was conductors. Conductors were one who would walk the road with them to get them to the next safe house, walk the road with them to help them get the freedom. I want you to think about that for a second.
The church, it's a safe house. The church is not a country club. The rock is not a place that is for us. The rock is a place that is for those who don't know Christ. And we wanna do everything we can to bring him into a safe house, into a hospital, into a trauma center, into a rehab center, where we say, let us help you find what matters.
Let us help you find healing. Let us help you find the truth of Jesus and the grace of Jesus. Let us help you go from a negative whatever to a zero to a plus one to a plus two. As a church, we understand, man. That's the mission.
We gotta do everything we can to go and make disciples. But the only way we do that, check this out, is with conductors. And who's the conductors? It's you. It's me.
Not as the preacher, not as the lead pastor. It's me as Josh, the Christian. It's you as the Christian. You going to college, be a conductor. You doing your work.
Being a conductor, that we all do whatever God has called us to do, whether it's fixing cars, whether it's working in the school, whether it's going to school, whether it's playing on the team, we go. My job is to be a conductor. Meaning I'm the one who is going to help connect somebody to the safe house. I'm gonna take somebody north so that they can become a disciple of Jesus. That's what Jesus said.
Look at these scriptures. All right, going back, he said, go and make disciples. Matthew 4. He said, Come, follow me. Jesus said, I will send you out to fish for people again.
He didn't say, I'm gonna let you Just sit and take. He said, no, you go and make. Go fish for people. In Acts 1:8, he said this, which this is what. When Jesus said this, it was the same time that he said what he said in Matthew 28.
Understand? It's the same conversation. Matthew records what he heard from Jesus the way he did in Matthew. Luke records it the way Luke heard it and put it in the book of Acts. It would be just like me preaching this sermon and you going to dinner and one of you saying, oh, when Josh said this.
And the other of you going, oh, wait, no, when Josh said, this is what hit me. You see? I'm saying. So it's the same conversation, same sermon, same dialogue that Jesus had given, but this time he says this. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.
And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. He's saying, you're the one that has to be the witness. You're the one that has to connect with people and help them get to a safe house. Help them find me. Help them find freedom.
Which takes me back to this illustration. Some of you will remember this. A year ago, I put this diagram, this graphic on the screen. We talk about it. It's our ones.
I said, think about every little stick figure here. Think about every little stick figure, every one in your life, and start identifying them, saying, man, I gotta help them accept the love of Jesus. I gotta help them accept Jesus as Lord. I want to help them navigate the way back to God. So if we were to look at this, this graphic inside of Acts 1:8, we would say that, go to your Jerusalem.
Go to your home. Go to the place you live. Go to the place just closest to you and see who there needs Jesus. Go to Jerusalem. Go to Judea.
Go to that next circle that you live in and say, who's in that circle? Who do I need to reach out to? Who do I need to help? Go to Jerusalem, go to Judea, go to Samaria. Who's in that circle that I can reach out to?
Who do I need to help find what matters? You see what I'm getting at? We all have ones that need Jesus. Will you risk everything and go to them?
Think about Harriet Tubman.
Harriet Tubman was a slave back in the 1850s, if I remember right. And she was afraid that she was about to get sold. So she ran for her life.
She ran for freedom. She found her way to the north. She found her way into freedom. She found a Life where she was no longer a slave.
She found freedom. She found hope. She found life. But her heart broke for the family she left behind. Her heart broke for the friends she left behind.
Her heart broke for her community she left behind. So she was willing to sacrifice her freedom and go back down and go find somebody. And when she found somebody, she brought them along the Underground Railroad. She kept traveling north, looking at the Northern Star, figuring it out, navigating their way to freedom. And then she went back again, and then back again, and then back again.
13 different times. She risked her life, her freedom, and went back to rescue more people. And by the time it was all said and done, she helped rescue 70 different individuals.
It's crazy, crazy. The sacrifice and the risk she was willing to make when she didn't have to. She had found freedom.
But she said, how can I allow them to stay in chains?
I can't.
Listen, if you found freedom in Christ, how can we let others stay in chains? How can we live in just this lally la land where we go? Well, I'm good. I've got a nice church. I've got a nice building.
Everything's comfortable. I'm good. Like, just let me have my own little Jesus. That's never what Jesus gave us as a mission. Jesus didn't say, come unto me and be comfortable.
Jesus didn't say, come unto me and sit on your butts. Jesus didn't say, come unto me and take life easy. No. Jesus said, come unto me and I will give you life, but you're going to have to lose your life to find it.
And he said, leave and go and make. See, a disciple loves Jesus and loves people enough to say, I'm going to be the best disciple I can be so that I can make the most disciples as possible. And that's the challenge today. Let's learn from Harriet Tubman. Let's learn from the disciples.
Let's learn from Jesus. Let's understand what our true north is. And that's the mission that he gave us. And if we accomplish the mission, we'll reach our vision, which is to help one more find what matters. And I want you to have that right now.
So why don't you stand up with me? And we're going to go into this time of response. And as we do so, I invite you, that man, maybe, maybe tonight, maybe you're here. And if you were to be honest and identify where you're at on that discipleship path, you'd say, I'm at a negative, man. I haven't responded yet.
Well, will you today? Will you say yes to Jesus today? You can. You say yes to Jesus, love and his lordship. Right now we have people in the back that'll be right by our prayer matters banner and they would love to pray with you about that.
Maybe tonight you're gonna do what the scripture said and you're gonna take it to the step of baptism where you're gonna say, by faith, I am receiving his grace. And my response to his grace is a step of baptism. And our pool is ready. Yeah. We celebrated 103 in the beach.
We've celebrated baptisms every week. But there are going to be more because there's one more and it could be you. Or maybe it's about taking communion. Maybe it's about making a decision to say, man, I've been stuck at a plus one. Maybe tonight you realize that's not what God called you to do.
God called you to grow so that you can go and make. Let's respond to him right now. Jesus, we love you. We surrender. We give it to you.
Amen.
-
-
-
📘 Small Group Curriculum
–
Week 1
Series: Navigating The Way
Week 1: Northbound – Mission
Title: The Mission Matters: Make Disciples
Main Text: Matthew 28:18–20
Big Idea: The mission of every believer and every church is to make disciples—people who love Jesus
and love people.
CONNECT: Opening Discussion or Activity
Opening Question:
• Have you ever been lost—physically, emotionally, or spiritually?
Follow-up: How did you find your way back? What or who helped you reorient?
Optional Activity – “Find Your North”
• Bring a compass or pull up a compass app.
• Ask: If this compass pointed to what matters most in your life, what would it be pointing at
today?
• Lead into discussion on how True North should always be our mission from Jesus.
DISCOVER: Exploring the Message and Scripture
1. The Mission Is Clear
–
Make Disciples
📖 Matthew 28:18–20
• Jesus doesn’t leave room for confusion. Our mission is to make disciples—people who follow
Jesus, love Him, and love others.
• This mission is for everyone—not just pastors or leaders.Discussion:
• What do you think it means to “make disciples”?
• Why do you think Jesus gave this command at the very end of His ministry?2. A Disciple Loves Jesus
📖 John 14:15; Matthew 22:37–38
• Loving Jesus is more than emotion—it’s about obedience, relationship, and prioritizing Him above
all else.
• Discipleship begins with loving Jesus because we’ve experienced His love.
Discussion:
• How do you express love for Jesus in your daily life?
• What areas of your life are hardest to surrender to His Lordship?
3. A Disciple Loves People
📖 Matthew 22:39–40; Matthew 4:19
• Discipleship isn’t just personal—it’s relational. If we love Jesus, we’ll love the people He died for.
• Jesus called His followers to be “fishers of people”—to pursue others with grace and truth.
Discussion:
• What does loving people look like when they’re difficult or far from God?
• How can your love for others reflect Jesus more clearly this week?
4. Mission Creates Movement
📖 Proverbs 29:18; Acts 1:8
• Mission gives us direction, motivation, and focus. It determines how we spend our time, money,
and energy.
• When we live on mission, we stop drifting and start moving with purpose.
Discussion:
• Where in your life do you feel spiritually stuck or directionless?
• How could living more intentionally “on mission” bring clarity or passion to your faith?RESPOND: Application & Challenge
1. Personal Reflection:
• If someone watched your life this week, would they know your “True North” is Jesus?
• What’s one step you can take to make disciples—at home, work, school, or church?2. Group Challenge:
• Set a goal to pray for one person by name this week—your “One More.”
• As a group, commit to encouraging each other to live on mission. Consider choosing one
outreach action for the month (invite someone, serve together, etc.).3. Prayer Focus:
• Pray for boldness to follow Jesus more closely.
• Ask God to give you eyes to see people who need His love and courage to step toward them. -
Coming Soon