SCU

SCU

Goal

To bring all Stonebrook leaders into a single community for unity, edification, instruction, and mentoring.

Background

Stonebrook has godly leaders throughout its various ministry groups, but these groups are somewhat “siloed” into separate bodies such as Rock, International Student Ministry (ISM), community Life Group leaders, and youth ministry. Because we do not have a consistent, well-articulated discipleship plan for the whole church, our discipleship is far less effective than we think it could be. Thus, the development of Stonebrook Community Underground (SCU) — The word “Underground” is from the sense that we’re in a war, and we’re the resistance united against the Evil One.

Built up to Maturity

Driving our desires for the church’s growth is the Apostle Paul’s call to the church in Ephesus.

Ephesians 4:11–16 ESV And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

God has given gifted leaders to the church to equip each saint for the work of ministry, which results in the body of Christ being built up in the faith and the knowledge of Christ to full maturity.

Spiritual Formation Plan

In this past year or so, we have articulated a new Vision Statement, including Core Values, and Outcomes. To make this Vision a reality, we are developing a Spiritual Formation Plan (SFP) which lays out how we can better disciple one another. This plan is broad, and includes things such as:

  • Sunday morning services
  • Small groups
  • Evangelism
  • Mission
  • Retreats and conferences
  • Personal disciplines
  • Family life
  • Training materials
  • Discipleship tools

Most of this list includes things we are already doing, but we are attempting to document and articulate exactly what we do, why we do it, and what we desire to accomplish. Another very important part of our SFP focuses on our leaders.We not only want to establish our leaders in the core truths of the faith, we want to train them to train others. And we want to do this better by bringing all SCC leaders into one community — SCU.

Benefits of SCU for our Leaders

  1. It brings leaders from across ministry lines and generational lines into one identifiable family. It makes us a more cohesive team and brings mutual benefit to all, regardless of ministry or age or station in life.

  2. It allows the pastors to work together more closely as we train leaders, bringing our varied gifts together in a practical way.

  3. We will develop plans and tools that are more consistent from ministry to ministry, bringing increased simplicity in passing on the faith to one another.

  4. Relationships across ministry “lines,” e.g., from youth ministry to Rock to community, will increase since the leaders in those ministries will know one another better. Sort of a “cross-pollination” of the church.

Key Components of SCU

  • Meeting together the Second Saturday of every month for Community Time
  • Meeting together each Wednesday night for Ordered Learning
  • Ordered learning
    • BILD leadership courses
    • BILD First Principles study guides
    • GCLI materials
    • shepherding/counseling training
    • evangelism training
  • Prayer
  • Mentoring
    • development/evaluation tools or assessments
    • ensuring each leader is actively discipled
    • Pastors-in-Training group for a smaller group of men who want to pursue being an elder in the church

Schedule

We will partition the year into three semesters: Fall, Spring, and Summer with breaks at natural vacation times. Our desire is that every leader at Stonebrook participate in at least one semester per year of the Ordered learning time on Wednesday nights.

We would also love to have every leader attend our “Community time” the second Saturday of every month. While this may not be practical for many, we hope to have the community time so edifying and uniting that every leader sees it as vital to the growth of the body, and so places it as a high priority in his life and schedule.

May the Lord be glorified as we strive to “maintain the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) and “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).