The following are the articles and stories from the September 2025 MIT Monthly newsletter. If you would like to sign up to receive this newsletter from the Missional Initiatives Team, you can fill out this form.
Making the Shift from Programs to Practices
Becoming Like Christ
By Deb Judas, Missional Initiatives Team
If you have been following our “Making the Shift” series in our monthly newsletter for the past four months, you may have noticed all the shifts we are writing about seem riskier and less reliable. This is true. Shifting from our former ways of doing things to exploring new ways of being the church is much more difficult to measure. In fact, it is a completely different measuring stick from previously.
For example, when we look at from doing for and to being with, it requires patience and a slower pace and is far more inconvenient. Moving from our own agency and to God’s agency necessitates a letting go of control and allowing God to invite us into his work.
As well, entering into a discernment process rather than formulating a three- to five-year strategic plan calls us to rely on the Holy Spirit’s guidance, paying attention to what is going on in our neighbourhoods and seeing where God is already at work.
While these shifts are quite often less efficient and more time-consuming, they, in fact, create a path to accomplishing God’s purposes rather than our own desires. They also lend themselves to a deeper experience with Jesus and discovering how God works through ordinary people in ordinary life.
We have come now to our final article in this series to look at moving from programs to moving to practices. Once again, it can feel vague. Programs and events are tangible, measurable, and rewarding. But practices? What exactly is the goal of engaging in them? Richard Foster says they open the door to transformation. How do you measure transformation?
I am not here to condemn church programs and events. They serve a purpose, and they give opportunities to build relationships and meet the needs of the neighbourhood. However, as we are doing these activities, we also need to look at who we are becoming.
What is the goal of being a Christian? It is much more than being saved. We are to become like Jesus, taking on his character, bearing witness to him. We are a people who have been sent out. We are a sign and foretaste of God’s Kingdom. This is vitally important to understand.
Most churches have a tagline that follows the church name, and it is usually a description of what we hope our church will become. My church’s tagline is “in, with and for the neighbourhood.”
It is our hope that we are an integral part of life in the neighbourhood we are located in. But more than that, we want do life WITH people and we want them to know we are FOR them. We will help them, stand with them, and advocate for them in order for our neighbourhood to prosper (Jeremiah 29:7). We desire to do life with them, sharing meals together and helping each other along the way. And it’s reciprocal. Our neighbours help us, too.
For sure, programs do help us accomplish this. But what has become more apparent and, dare I say, more important is this: does our neighbourhood see Jesus in who we are? Do we bring peace, love, and compassion into the neighbourhood?
It is difficult to do any of these things unless we are becoming the kind of people who reflect the character of Christ.
Our churches are full of believers. But how do we move people from believing in God to understanding they are sent out by God? Through spiritual practices that transform us into the likeness of Christ. This journey from believing to being sent is the path of transformation.
This is where shared practices (both personal and corporate) are vital to the flourishing of our churches and, in turn, our neighbourhoods. Practices are not the goal. Becoming like Jesus is. When we become more like Jesus, we begin to desire what he desired – which is the will of God and ushering in his Kingdom. In essence, according to Eugene Peterson, we are practicing resurrection – ordinary people with extraordinary power.
Practices strengthen us and train us in the Way of Jesus, just like fitness training. When practiced over time, we find ourselves developing the character of Christ. It’s like building spiritual muscle. Ruth Haley Barton says we cannot transform ourselves. Only God can. But we can create the conditions for transformation to take place.
Jesus announced his Kingdom has come. He has already saved the world. We just need to announce it, and we do this by being God’s faithful presence in our neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools, families, and friendship circles.
A Local Story
The Canoe Trip
By Josh Evans, Year of Equipping participant, 2025–26
Every June, I take our young adults canoeing down the river for a day. We soak up the sun, dip our toes in the water, and enjoy a relaxed time of hanging out. Everyone loves the event, myself included, but as I was putting everything away this year, I found myself asking: “Is this really advancing your Kingdom, God? Or just for fun?”
Fast forward three months. I’m doing a wedding for a former youth. As I’m visiting with guests at the reception, I meet a young woman who immediately asks if I remember her. I don’t until she says she came on the young adults’ canoe trip two years ago. Then it clicks. It was her first time at a young adults’ event, and we’d had a really good conversation about God that day.
Excitedly, she bursts out: “That trip changed my life! I’d never met such kind people before. The way you guys treated me and each other was . . . amazing. I was basically depressed. Planning to drink myself to sleep that night. But after meeting you guys, I knew there had to be more.”
She proceeded to tell me how she started reading the Bible and talking to a Christian uncle and eventually attending his church. Two years later, she’s freshly married to one of the young guys in the church and excited as ever about Jesus.
“Jesus changed my life,” she told me with a big grin. “And you Christians have way more impact than you think.” Way more, indeed. I was humbled and so thankful for the chance to be reminded how God is working through us as his people to draw others to himself.