Thursdays: September 3, September 17, October 1, October 15, October 29, November 12, November 19, December 10.

This year we'll explore practices for growing in church community (e.g., hospitality, listening, generosity and stewardship) and engaging our city and culture with the gospel (e.g., evangelism, justice, service).

We often see these two topics as separate ends of the spectrum of the Christian life: community as what I do with other Christians, culture as what I do outside of church. But Scripture shows that they are more like two sides of the same coin. We are called to holiness and hospitality, deep church community and deep culture engagement, to be in the world, but not of it.

The Scripture passage which will serve as our guiding framework is 1 Peter 2:9-12: “ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. ¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. ¹² Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

Feel free to come and go, there’s no need to commit to every session of the cohort. We will have dinner from 6-6:45, a talk on a topic from 6:45-7:15 and a discussion from 7:15-8.