whyrhythm?
Following Jesus is about your way of life – it consumes all that you are and do. The church is a community of people who are striving to follow Jesus. If that is true, church has to be more than just an event and more than just a gathering. Pathways is not simply a few programs that meet each week that we hope people will come to. Pathways is about rhythm. It is about inviting people to join into the rhythm of Pathways as we seek to live life in the way of Jesus.

ourweeklyrhythm
Each week, Pathways goes through a rhythm of life as we seek to follow Jesus together. We hope that this rhythm will help all of us to participate in being the church all week, rather than just attending the church for a few hours each week.

At the beginning of each week, we will introduce a text or theme for the week. This might be a passage from Scripture we are studying for the week, or perhaps a theme is found throughout Scripture. It will be posted on the staff blog. We invite everyone to begin to wrestle with that theme. Read over it on your own. Ask yourself questions about it. Explore what it would look like if it was part of your life each day. Throughout the week, all are invited to share their thoughts on the theme by commenting on the blog or sending an email to the staff. This will allow discussion to continue regarding the theme at an even larger level. All of us have different experiences and perspectives that will shape how we view the theme, and we can all learn from those.

During the week, we meet in our smaller home gatherings to explore this theme. Each home group will have a directed discussion to explore the theme. The staff prepares guides for these discussions, but where they go relies solely on those in the group. This allows all of us to explore the theme further, and see how others are living with it.

Our weekend gatherings will be a final look at the theme. The sermon will be focused on the theme, and what the pastor has discovered about the theme from interacting with the community that week alongside his own more in-depth study. Our hope is that the theme of the week won’t necessarily be resolved, but will be something that all can better understand and live.

Through this process, we pray that the discussions and teaching will lead to an understanding of the meaning of the theme. As that understanding develops, there will be growth in each of us as we are challenged by that theme, and that this will lead us each to put it in action.