One of Gateway’s offerings for those who are passionate about deepening their discipleship to Christ are the Ascending Leaders tracks.  The core purpose of Ascending Leaders groups is life change: growing more like Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.  You’ll grow stronger in living and leading like Christ. If you are looking for a way to accelerate your life change, and you are willing to make a resolute commitment of time, energy, and your authentic self, then the Ascending Leaders program is for you!

Structure

Do you crave transformation: the process of growing more in love with Christ and more like Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit?  If you want to advance your discipleship to Christ, and you are willing to make a resolute commitment of time, energy, and your authentic self in community, then the ASCENDING LEADERS program is for you!  Check out an ASCENDING LEADERS group.  You’ll grow stronger in living and leading like Christ.

ASCENDING LEADERS uses individual study and practical experience, small groups of 9 to 12 people, and accountability triads - all within an atmosphere of authenticity and confidentiality - to allow participants to experience life change at an accelerated rate.  ASCENDING LEADERS is for growing or seasoned Christ-followers.  The most critical factor is a willingness to wholly surrender to Christ and to devote time and vulnerability in individual study, practice, and community time to achieve powerful Spirit’s work in your life.  

Gearing Up: Character
Base Camp: Knowledge
Approach: Skill
Summit: Integration
Currently, the Gearing Up series is available for study. This series has four units:

Christ Habits (video introduction)
Being a disciple means falling more in love with Christ and increasingly becoming like Him.  It is all about relationship! The question then is:  What activities does the Holy Spirit normally use to grow people to be more like Christ?  To find the answer, we need to look at some of the habits that Christ followed.  Rather than ‘try’ to be more like Christ, we need to ‘train’ to be more like Christ.  People in training increase or add specific exercises designed to enhance parts of their bodies that need strengthening.  In the same way, to train to be more like Christ, we need to practice spiritual exercises, actions that we could also call habits or disciplines.  The ASCENDING LEADERS Christ Habits unit identifies myriad ‘spiritual exercises’ Christ used during His ministry on earth and allows you to explore the various techniques through real-life application.  Spiritual exercises include, but are not limited to, spiritual direction, prayer, spiritual reading, confession, and worship.  Whether you are now discovering what your relationship with Christ can look like or you are ready to fall passionately in love again with Him through a renewed vigor in practicing spiritual disciplines, Christ Habits is for you!  

Spirit's Fruit (video introduction)
 What does it look like when a person’s life intensely reflects the character of Christ?  What does it look like when a person’s actions, thoughts, feelings, and words consistently echo the actions, thoughts, feelings and words of Jesus?  When the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia, he described the character traits that describe a Christ-like life as “fruit of the Spirit”.  Becoming like Jesus is what the Christian walk is all about.  And becoming like Jesus requires you to challenge how you live, think, talk, and love.  The Spirit’s Fruit ASCENDING LEADERS unit challenges you to cultivate the Spirit’s fruit in every part of your being.  It uses practical exercises to grow that fruit in your life.

Your Self (video introduction)
Being precedes doing.  You act out of who you are.  The secret is not to invent or re-invent yourself, but to understand better the unique you God has shaped and formed through the journey of life. Accurate awareness of your own uniqueness will allow you to be a better servant of Jesus, a better friend and parent, a better employee and leader.  You fall more in love with Christ for forming you so uniquely and are more able to relate to others with love, rather than out of reaction. As you understand yourself better and make decisions according to that uniqueness, life will work better for you and those who interact with you.

One of the tools the Your Self unit uses is the Grip/Birkman Blueprint. It is a tool that will tell you your spiritual gifts, your leadership style, your team style, your equipping style, your interests, your usual behavior, your stress behavior, why you move into stress behavior, and your thinking styles.  Whew! You’ll identify where you are weak and whom you need alongside to make you and others stronger as a team.  The Grip/Birkman Blueprint is a high caliber tool that is exceptionally affordable in this setting.  In addition to the insights about yourself from the Grip/Birkman Blueprint, the Your Self unit provides deep insights into your unique calling and mission, your family of origin, your transitions, your life timeline, and your sacred pathways.

 The ASCENDING LEADERS Your Self unit will help you gain clarity of your unique design and how to apply that understanding in many aspects of your life.  A personal mission statement, which includes values and vision like that which you write in a Charting Your Course weekend, is necessary to participate in a Your Self group.  

Your Influence (soon to be available).  
stew-ard   [stoo-erd]   -noun   A person who manages another's property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.

What if nothing on this earth really belongs to you or anyone else, ultimately, but it really belongs to God?!  Despite what someone might wish, you cannot steal it from God or borrow it incognito.  It all belongs to God. He entrusts it to you to cause it to thrive on His behalf. He puts things under your authority for a period of time, for you to influence it with His desires in mind.  Wow.  You are influencing everything God has put in your life for His purposes.  God the Master with unlimited resources, loves you the steward.  You, as steward, can call on the full resources of God and adopt your Master’s values and love for others.  The Your Influence unit considers your stewardship in a variety of contexts:  time, relationships, leadership and conflict to name a few.  This final unit in the Gearing Up series is about having the character to influence as God, the owner and master, desires.  

Each unit has a cost ranging from $50-$60. Each unit is comprised of ten modules and typically is completed over twenty weeks. Each module has a small group meeting and a triad meeting, typically conducted over two weeks. Each module may take anywhere from 3 to 5 hours to complete, not including group time. A trained Ascending Leaders group guide, who has been certified through specific training, will facilitate your group and the mini-retreat in the final module of each unit.
 

Audience

Ascending Leaders is for growing or seasoned Christ-followers.  The most critical factor is a willingness to wholly surrender to Christ and to devote the time necessary in individual study, practice, and community time to achieve powerful Spirit’s work in your life.

Prerequisites for Partipating in Ascending Leaders:

• I have been a Christ-follower for at least six months.
• I have received guidance in the basics of the Christian faith.
• I read Scripture on my own at least two times a week.
• I intercede for others in prayer several times a week.
• I participate in corporate worship at least 40 weeks a year.
• I give back to God of my time and finances.
   

Charting Your Course

The Charting Your Course weekend is an opportunity to discover your driving purpose in life.  As a participant, you will discover the important people, circumstances and events that God has placed in your life and what He is saying through them about your values.  Working step by step in a group of four, you’ll recognize your own preferred picture of who God is and how He relates to you.  Then you’ll create a storyboard of your own life in order to identify your core values and key life lessons.  In discussion with a few others and in time alone with God, you’ll search out God’s vision for your future. By the end you will have written your own unique "Statement of Driving Purpose."  The weekend culminates with you choosing your next step—that strategic “next action” for you to move in the direction of your driving purpose!  

This event is an opportunity to get a taste of what Ascending Leaders has to offer, and is also a worthwhile event on its own.  The Charting Your Course weekend is offered in nearly every Gateway U session on a Friday evening and Saturday.  View a video introduction.
 

How to Get Involved

Existing Small Groups can choose to use Ascending Leaders curriculum.  Small Group Leaders might talk to their Community Leaders about this decision.  Individuals who are not already in Small Groups can join special groups that form just to use Ascending Leaders curriculum. These groups start from time to time.

For more info on either your existing Small Group using Ascending Leaders curriculum, or joining an Ascending Leaders group as an individual, please fill out this contact card.  Choose "Ascending Leaders Info" from the drop-down menu and write your type of interest (group or individual) in the notes section, and which of the "Gearing Up" modules you are most interested in (view the video introductions above for more info about each).


(The contact card is thru Fellowship One, which we use for event registrations. If you haven't registered for an event at Gateway recently, you may need to create an account -- simply follow the on-screen directions.)