Gospel in Life
On the last day of August 2009, a team from Redeemer could be seen hauling a huge six-foot high replica of a bracket into a building in the Meatpacking district. A few hours later, Tim Keller spent all day standing between two of said brackets with the skyline of the city immediately behind him. Now, in March 2010, you can discover why.
‘Gospel in Life’ is a joint project between Congregational Life and Redeemer City to City. It is an intensive eight-week course on the gospel and how it is lived out in all of life—first in our hearts, then in community, and out into the world. We sometimes refer to it as a compilation of “Redeemer’s greatest hits.” We expect it to be used in several venues.
• Redeemer Church will use ‘Gospel in Life’ as the flagship course of its discipleship and leadership formation pathway. Congregational Life will first use it with an invited group of participants this spring. It will be made more widely available in monthsandyearstocome.
• Redeemer City to City will use the course as a recruiting and training tool for key movement leaders, pastors, church planters, and cultural leaders in our target cities.
• Redeemer City to City will partner with Zondervan to distribute ‘Gospel in Life’ to other churches as a small group curriculum.
So, the brackets? The brackets capture the theme of the course, which is “between”—how do you live out the gospel in life between the world that is and the world that is to come? How do you live out the gospel in life between Sunday morning and Saturday night? How do you live out the gospel in life between mission and discipleship, between evangelism and justice, between cultural engagement and distinctive practices? Between your Christian community and the community around you?
Week 1, therefore, begins with the theme of the city: our home now, the world that is. Week 8 closes the course with the theme of the eternal city: our heavenly home, the world that is to come. In between these ‘Gospel in Life’ bookends, we look at how the gospel changes our hearts, changes our community, and changes how we live in the world.
The course materials are very rich. Each week consists of a 1-hour home study, a group Bible study, a 10-minute DVD segment of Tim Keller teaching, followed by a guided discussion about the ideas in the teaching. The participant materials contain a substantial amount of reading, as well as questions for reflection and discussion.
Tim Keller says, “The concept behind the ‘Gospel in Life’ course is that Christ-likeness happens when we bring the gospel to bear on the roots of a person’s heart. We want to help people work out what it means to believe the gospel more deeply and rejoice in Jesus’ salvation more fully in a community. So we’re working these things into people’s lives, we’re doing it in community and that is the basic concept behind the ‘Gospel in Life’ discipleship curriculum.”
Visit www.gospelinlife.com to learn more.
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