OUR APPROACH

Flourish San Diego believes that three key elements are necessary to help form churches and organizations that are seeking the common good of their world. Such entities:

Understand the comprehensive scope of the God’s mission in the world (the renewal of all things)

Embrace the biblical vision of vocation, wherein God gifts and calls His people into other-centered service

Implement effective discipleship practices that form congregants’ hearts and minds for authentic, powerful, and glad participation in the missio Dei

Consequently, the Flourish San Diego Collective Academy will inform participating churches with a sense of mission that:

Embraces the image of God in all people, including their innate calling to create and produce in service of others

Anticipates the renewal, redemption and restoration of all things, not just the rescuing of souls

Is conversant with an economic/stewardship lens, giving a more helpful picture of how to help the least among us. This lens is one that is informed by economic wisdom.

And is shaped by the narrative of God’s work in history as recorded in Scripture

The Flourish San Diego Collective Academy will teach a robust understanding of Vocation and Calling:

That embraces people’s gifts, passions, training, and resources to be employed in the specific places of God’s mission into which He is calling them

Which is increasingly free of the debilitating dualism that elevates the sacred while devaluing the ordinary and everyday

That sacralizes ordinary work whether in the marketplace, the community or the home

Informs apprentices of Jesus of the ways they can steward their lives in fresh new avenues of service that contribute to the shalom of their cities

It will also reframe or recover a Discipleship that:

Transforms the inner life and character of people so that they are willing to live into their callings to flourish the world

Motivates people into kingdom service because of the gospel of grace rather than religious performance

Embraces spiritual practices as a means to cultivate and increasingly reflect the imago Dei

Places a high value on hearing/listening for God’s voice to foster the kind of reliance and response to Him for which we were created