T hirteen years ago, Rev. Chip Sauer, pastor of Community Reformed Church in Charlevoix, Michigan, took part in a pilot cohort—a group of a dozen pastors—focused on personal transformation and discipleship. In his congregation today, the ripple effects are still spilling over.
“At the core of the cohort was that belief that personal transformation leads to congregational transformation,” says Sauer. “Another core conviction was the recognition that the church is often guilty of dissemination of information without transformation. We have to put into practice our faith, not just take in information.”
Related: Prayer for transformation
Adapting for congregational transformation
Coming out of the cohort, the pastors each discerned how to incorporate the content from the Churches Learning Change cohort into their congregations.
“I think many pastors need to confront the idea of consulting an expert and just doing what they tell you,” says Sauer. “It’s a bit naive to just do what someone else did somewhere else. That can be helpful, but you have to ask what God is calling you to do in the place where you are? That was part of the Churches Learning Change experience. You have to embrace the truth that God has called and equipped you to be where you are. Then incorporate discipleship in the life of your church.
“That’s a shared conversation among consistory, staff, and the congregation,” he adds. “It’s not just me leading the charge, although I have responsibility as the lead pastor of this church to answer: what does it look like to do discipleship at Community Reformed Church? My personal experience has been so profoundly helpful; there’s such a desire to invite others to participate in that.”
For Sauer and Community Reformed Church, adapting the cohort content manifested in the development of the church’s Transformational Leadership Pathway.
“A few evolutions came out of the Churches Learning Change process,” says Sauer. “At Community Reformed, we developed five classes. We ask people to make a ten-week commitment to participate in class weekly, read the material, do homework, and connect with Christ every day—a daily spiritual workout.
“Those practical parameters work for us, and people are participating.”
The principles behind the Transformational Leadership Pathway
“Part of the goal of the Transformational Leadership Pathway is to confront the mental model that there’s one way to connect with Christ,” explains Sauer. “We help people to try something else if they’re not connecting with Christ: walking, journaling, whatever helps make that connection. We encourage them to experiment with different spiritual practices.”
Walking with Christ is what discipleship—and the pathway—is all about, but a second strong conviction is growth in and through community. A key structure of the Transformational Leadership Pathway is small groups, which are carefully curated to allow for trust and safety for all participants.
“When we evaluate the course at the end, that Christian community rises to the top every time,” says Sauer. “It is meaningful and essential to the transformation. It’s not about giving advice or counseling, but a shared time in which people share what is on their heart or mind. And it is foundationally helpful to experience the gifts of encouragement and grace in relationships with others. None of us have this figured out. We’re all on this journey.”
As part of the courses, participants are paired with a coach, who meets with them every other week and walks alongside them. The coaching portion is mutually beneficial, says Sauer.
“I’m so convinced that the way we grow is to allow people to speak into our lives. Receiving and giving feedback is so important,” he says. “Our coaches learn how to ask good questions, be comfortable with silence, and just walk alongside someone. That has been such a blessing, especially for those doing the coaching.”
Topics that lead to transformation
Community Reformed Church offers three core courses in the Transformational Leadership Pathway: The Values of Jesus, The Practices of Jesus, and Missional Living.
“We start with the values of Jesus, such as courage, authenticity, curiosity, integrity, and love, then move into the practices of Jesus: emotional maturity, seeing and managing anxiety, differentiation of self, conflict transformation, woundedness and shame, shalom and sin,” says Sauer. “And the missional living class is all about what it means for us as individuals to be on mission in the world today. How do we live in obedience to God’s direction?”
Related: How did Jesus deal with conflict?
In addition, there are two elective courses: one on coaching and one on discovering self and recognizing family systems.
Sauer and his leadership team believe that spiritual, emotional, and mental growth all work together for godly transformation and healthy leadership.
“Our curriculum incorporates resources that are not blatantly Christian, including the disciplines of psychology, mental health, and more,” he says. “But they are grounded in truth. And we expect people to bring their Christian eyes into the material. God speaks through all sorts of things. He could be calling us to learn through these resources.”
Living it out: signs of transformation
“The Transformational Leadership Pathway is about information, practice, and reflection,” says Sauer. “We don’t just take info in and regurgitate it; that’s the Greek way. But the Hebrew way is to follow a rabbi—to see it and emulate it. It’s about practicing your faith. People need to be doers of the Word, not just hearers of the Word (James 1:22).
“That’s part of the challenge of church culture today: we’re information providers,” he adds. “When you live in a world of information, it’s all about what you know and it’s often a place of comfort. Putting our faith in action requires courage and dependence upon God. You don’t often get to that reflection piece if it’s only about collecting information. It doesn’t provide much opportunity to see God move, to see that he can do abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. When we practice our faith, we see that God is faithful.”
Throughout the courses, as people engage the material and share with one another, people are indeed learning change, says Sauer, particularly in their daily walks with God. As people live out what they are learning, the information and reflection get put into practice as discipleship.
“For many, the Transformational Leadership Pathway has really helped confront the mental model that ‘God is disappointed in me, and he is waiting for me to mess up,’” says Sauer. “There’s been such a hesitation for people to spend time with God because they enter into a place of shame. The pathway is helping people see God for who he really is and to experience him on a daily basis—that he’s grounded in love and grace.
“People look at Jesus more fully,” he adds. “The emotional side of our being is one that churches don’t always address very well. Jesus was the most emotionally mature person who ever walked this earth. How did he deal with anger and emotions? What do we do with those? What are the patterns for us? What does it look like to do that differently and to act in appropriate ways? That’s been a huge piece for many: recognizing the emotions that drive us. We can’t avoid them, but we can manage them in healthy ways with God’s help and in community with others.”
“People’s lives are being transformed, including my own. That’s how transformation happens in the life of the church: one person at a time. This discipleship pathway has impacted my life, and I want others to experience that too.”
Becky Getz is a writer and editor for the Reformed Church in America's communication team. You can contact Becky at bgetz@rca.org.