FOUNDations
FOUNDations
a classroom discipleship series
Found Jesus? Now What? Well…most simply put, we follow Christ and learn from Him and His Word. This classroom style discipleship journey is designed specifically to educate and inform those that might often say, “I believe, but I don’t know much about God or much about the Bible.” Our faith is not dependent upon knowing information about God or the Bible for our salvation. However, our faith encourages a consistent and faithful walk that follows Jesus and learns from Him and His Word. Our lives and life experiences on this side of heaven can be “entirely transformed by the renewing of our minds,” as Paul wrote to the Church of Rome. This classroom series will offer teaching that is low hanging fruit, so to speak, that most can grasp and understand. It will give a foundation of truth that your journey of faith can not only stand on but grow from and re-produce a fruitful life as you follow the way of the Teacher, Jesus Christ. This is not only just for new believers but also for those who have been standing on the shore waiting for the perfect time to step out further in faith. Each of these courses will be stand alone, meaning one will not progressively depend on the last to be fully engaged with However, a richer meaning and depth of understanding will certainly come if the entire series was to be completed.
Classes will be at Found Church Downtown, 141 E. Michigan Ave., Jackson, MI
A minimum of 10 participants is required for each class to take place.
Jesus for President
October 7th and 21st
6:30 - 8:30 pm
The political atmosphere of election time in our beautiful nation often makes it seem less beautiful. As Christians, we have a drastically different obligation than those who aren’t following Jesus or His example, which is always to love our neighbor. Even the one we don’t think should vote the way they do. Jesus is not running for the office of the President of the United States in case you were confused. However, He should be the One that informs the way in which we live under our government and political system. This will not be a class on who to vote for or what to vote on. This class is specifically designed to educate people to a deeper understanding of our political system and how we fight lovingly for the things we believe are so important. If we have a higher understanding of the governmental system to which we operate, we would find that many of our opinions might actually be wrong in the first place. Second, when we understand that unity was Jesus’ primary prayer, our obligation is to put our politics aside when it comes to prioritizing the love of our neighbors despite the political views they hold. Anything less than that exalts our politics to the place of idolatry. This class will be dynamite! Our very own Professor, Jon Williams, will lead us through some great discussion and lecture of how we at Found Church can live above the rhetoric and divisiveness of election season.
Foundations
November 4th and 18th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
This course is a two-part class that not only qualifies you for membership at Found Church if you desire, but it also informs you of the basic foundational truths as a Nazarene Church as well as faithful participants and servants at Found Church. Membership is not a requirement at Found Church to participate in worship and fellowship in any way. However, we believe very passionately that a good foundation of members that are committed to the culture, the ministry, and the health of Found Church greatly impacts our influence and our community of Jackson around us as well as each other. This course serves to unify each of us to the call of serving God through this local church that God has given to our care, which is Found Church. This experience will certainly provide opportunity for discussion, questions, and learning that help us all take ownership and intentional steps of faith in and through this incredible church, which is our family and yours.
Jesus 101
December 2nd and 16th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Jesus is King! Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Savior! “I hear all these things and for some unexplainable reason I believe it!” Because of the power of God and God alone, we can place our faith In Jesus Christ. This is the beauty of the grace of God through Jesus Christ. But, even though our faith in Christ comes to us as a gift from God, wouldn’t it also be important that we begin to experience God with a deeper understanding at some point too? Of course! Especially when it comes to sharing our faith in Jesus, we kind of need to know why we believe in Jesus and who this Jesus actually is. We use the 101 description because this is going to be an intro level course that we believe will set you on a trajectory of knowing Jesus relationally more so than only intellectually. We look forward to helping you discover a deeper relationship with God by understanding and knowing Jesus more fully and powerfully.
Old Testament Fun-duh-MENTALS
February 3rd and 17th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Most people find Jesus then decide to open the Bible to the beginning of the Old Testament and almost immediately get lost. “Wait a minute, where’s Jesus? And why is there so much death and vengeance and war?” The Bible does read as a larger story and all of it is true, but it does tend to help when some of the ending is revealed for the beginning to come alive. This two-session course will give a foundation of understanding in order to see that although there are so many layers of good truth in the Old Testament Scriptures, the larger view of the OT is to set up the scene for the Messiah to come. Join us for a high-level view of God’s plan of redemption and watch the scriptures come alive.
10 Basic Doctrines of Truth
March 3rd, 17th, and 31st, April
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Does this sound ominous…or at least daunting? It isn’t we promise. The suffix -ology- added to a word simply means the study of that particular thing the word describes. In Greek, Theos means God. Therefore, Theology simply means the study of God. Doctrine is monumentally significant to our faith and at its most basic level simply means, “what is true of.” With that, at the core of our faith in God, lay 10 basic truths or “doctrines.” Now there is good doctrine and bad doctrine, and honestly doctrine kind of gets a bad rap. Mostly because of humanity’s intentional or unintentional quest to redefine truth. But scripture defines for us what truth is, and it is our most basic and fundamental obligation to discover what is true. This class will be fascinating and will aid to guard your hearts and minds from many of the enemy’s schemes to deceive us as we seek to know and understand Christ and His calling on our lives.
Foundations
May 5th and 19th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
This course is a two-part class that not only qualifies you for membership at Found Church if you desire, but it also informs you of the basic foundational truths as a Nazarene Church as well as faithful participants and servants at Found Church. Membership is not a requirement at Found Church to participate in worship and fellowship in any way. However, we believe very passionately that a good foundation of members that are committed to the culture, the ministry, and the health of Found Church greatly impacts our influence and our community of Jackson around us as well as each other. This course serves to unify each of us to the call of serving God through this local church that God has given to our care, which is Found Church. This experience will certainly provide opportunity for discussion, questions, and learning that help us all take ownership and intentional steps of faith in and through this incredible church, which is our family and yours.
Accidentally Prophetic
June 2nd and 16th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Do you ever wonder what voice you're hearing? Or, have you been woken up by a strange dream? Have you ever been weirded out by one of your own thoughts? Maybe it’s not your strange thought or your crazy dream, maybe God is just trying to speak to us. God really wants us to hear His voice. Our problem is we have never been taught that He has created us with built in receivers or how they work. Even more than that once we do hear from God, what are we supposed to do with that strange thought or crazy dream? What if God doesn’t want this to be an accidental or incidental experience from time to time but rather, He wants every one of us to lean more into the gift called prophecy. This course won’t be an overly in-depth study of the prophetic and supernatural. However, we believe this is one of the most undervalued gifts of the Holy Spirit, and if we could simply ignite this gift in even a few at a time within our family at Found, imagine how much richer our worship and relationship with God could be. Not only that, be we also quickly forget as 2 Corinthians 10:1 reminds us, “the weapons we use are not of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” We need to engage the power of God even if only to start with the faith like a child.
A Just Cause
July 7th and 21st
6:30 - 8:30 pm
What if God didn’t actually cause bad things to happen to good people as much of the world believes? What if bad people just too often hurt people? What if a dark and broken world simply fights to further break people and hold them in the darkness? I think if people truly recognized the depravity of the world’s sin, they could realize that God seeks only to destroy the things of evil and injustice so that the darkness would lose its hold on the world and the light could break through. Scripture gives us a picture of making the wrong things right. In fact, part of God’s call for us as servants of Christ is to be peacemakers. Not simply finding peace in a storm but working to calm the storm altogether. All through scripture, we see God’s command for us to seek justice and make wrong things right. This two-part class will reveal to us the why and the how to this quest of “Your Kingdom come, on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” It will also show us tangible steps to which we can impact our own little parts of the world for the sake of making wrong things right in the name of Jesus.
Missional Theology
August 4th and 18th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
It is so fun to grow in faith and understanding of God and His love for us. And God certainly wants each of us to know His crazy love for us at a deep personal level. But all too often we lose sight of the fact that at some point in time, we received the truth of Christ and His grace and love for us because someone sacrificed their time, energy, and potentially even resources to bring this truth into our lives. The message of Jesus must and will proliferate to every nook and cranny of the world including our neighborhoods, workplaces, and local communities. Everywhere we go is a mission field waiting for the truth of Jesus Christ to break in. When the power of God shows up, I like to say it's impossible to say the wrong thing to the right person. But that is rarely the case. More often than not, there needs to be some intentionality and personality to go with the good news we’re sharing. This course will help us discover why this depends on us as well as give us some equipping so that we have confidence in not only what to share but how to share it.
Gospel 101
January 6th and 20th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
What is the Gospel? At its most rudimentary level, it means, the good news. The good news in fact is actually the news of Jesus Christ. But what is our participation in this good news of Jesus Christ? Here’s the thing about God, He’s the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. However, the New Testament is a completely different operating system than the Old. This class will teach us the basic redefinition of redemption through the eyes of the Apostles and the power of God to change the world through the Power of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Yes, the good news is all about Jesus and will always be about Jesus. But now we get to participate in the divine nature and plan of God. What does that mean for my life? What does that mean for your life? What does that mean for the world around me? This course will help you understand why your life matters, what your calling looks like and how God may want to use our unique gifts to change the world so that His Kingdom would come, through me and you.
our prayer
It is our prayer, whether you plan to engage with us in one of these courses or all of them, is that the Holy Spirit empowers you with ears to hear and eyes to see His great love for you. We pray that the scriptures come alive in your heart and set you on a journey of discovering God in powerful and fresh new ways. Although these courses are entry level in concept and understanding we ask You Lord to humble each of our hearts that we not be above learning of Your goodness, grace, calling and claim that You have for each of us. We are Yours, God! We humbly ask You to teach us as only the Great Teacher is able. We come under Your truth and lean not on our own understanding. In Jesus’ Glorious and powerful name.