THE APPRENTICE TRACK
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” - John 15:5
The Apprentice Track is a 9-month cohort for pastors and emerging Church leaders (25-35yrs) committed to an abiding life with God. Together we will grow as a community of friends and apprentices of Jesus learning to embody the postures and practices that help align us with the empowering, healing, and sustaining work of the Holy Spirit.
Why Journey Together
We’re fortunate to live in a time when people throughout the global Church are rediscovering the wonderful treasures of Christian spiritual writers and faithful practices that have helped form great men and women of faith across the centuries. There are excellent resources available (and more each year) that can help stir our hearts and intimacy, deepen our thinking, and ground us in our life with God. For too many leaders, however, this journey is increasingly lonely as we pray to keep our hearts hopeful and eyes ahead of the many challenges that inevitably come with leading others.
While there is a breadth of content widely at our disposal (and some classics we will explore together), what we need more than mere content are the soul friends— fellow disciples who can help navigate, discern, and contend with us as we move towards maturity, wholeness, and holiness.
As a group of leaders representing many local church communities, we will come together to "earnestly contend for the faithfulness which was once for all handed down to the saints" (Jude 3:3).
Over these 9-months, the goal of our time will not be to learn new leadership theory or skills; our goal is to grow in our capacity for a life of love as we deepen our relationship with God. We will explore and seek to lay down the many means by which we perform, pretend and hide - even from ourselves and even through our well-intentioned spiritual practices.
To honestly know what lies beneath the surface of our lives is an invaluable gift to every leader. More importantly, it is the beginning of a rich and abundant life as the beloved of God.
The Program & Process
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Each month, we’ll spend a day in person dialoguing about the monthly reading, sharing the contours of our practice and lived experience, and learning from teachers/practitioners around the themes of the spiritual life and growth.
Apprentice Gathering Components:
Cohort Sharing and Group Discussion
2 Teaching Sessions
Q&A w/ Guest Teacher
Prayer & Practice
Ministry Time
Catered Lunch (*cost included)
10am-4pm in Costa Mesa
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The Apprentice track will consist of 30 or so leaders who are grouped into smaller cohorts of 6 people. These cohorts will sit together each month for our gatherings, connect for Cohort Meetups (at least once per month), and be accompanied by two Apprentice Guides who serve as a hosts and mentors for the duration of the Apprentice Track.
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The Apprentice Track Resource Guide will provide a simple path week-to-week that will help move our learnings from our heads to our lives and hearts through simple, sustained and intentional practice, reflection, and dialogue.
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Over the course of these 9-months we’ll read 6 books together focusing on the central spiritual practices common throughout the history of the Church and engage with the supplemental material & practices in the Apprentice Track Resource Guide.
Booklist:
Invitation to Silence and Solitude by Ruth Haley Barton
Prayer by Richard Foster
Shaped by the Word by M. Robert Mulholland
Subversive Sabbath by A.J. Swoboda
Abundant Simplicity by Jan Johnson
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Even if these are familiar texts to you, reading them with others in this process will undoubtedly bring new insight, new challenge, new invitations, and create the environment to move from mere insight to growth. The content always serves as a place of entry into deeper areas of growth. It’s not just information to ingest, but an invitation for a new way of living and being.
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While the resource Guide will provide a place for journaling, deeper reflection, and tracking your experience, the Online Community Hub is a place for us to engage with one another daily through directed prompts, group sharing and discussion, prayer invitations/requests, and anything that people want to share with each other.
Hosted within the Mighty Networks platform, the hub is an easy tool to use and a great way to deepen relationships between the Cohort Meetups and Monthly Gatherings.
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Apprentice Guides will serve as mentors and group hosts throughout the Apprentice Track. These men and women are prayerfully invited to be Guides because of their spiritual maturity, wisdom, and familiarity with the nuances of the spiritual formation journey. Furthermore, they each have experience in local church ministry, whether as spiritual directors, or counselors, or serving in various ministry leadership.
We are all beginners in our life with God, as Eugene Peterson says, but some are more familiar with the beginning terrain than others—and these are the gifts of having Guides with us on the way.
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Every-other-month, Roots&Embers hosts an open worship night for its growing community of friends, pastors, and practitioners. This means that on the evenings following every other Apprentice Gathering, there will be a night of corporate worship, prayer and ministry time.
We want this to be a priority for the Apprentices to have a space where they can be refreshed and step into the ministry of the Spirit in a context where they aren’t required to lead or facilitate the service environment. The goal is that you might show up and be attentive to where the Spirit might lead.
Timeline and Dates
2024-2025 Dates Will be Posted Soon
By the end of our 9-month journey, we hope that every apprentice is more equipped to live and lead wisely from an overflow of love and wholeness—and to do so in the power of the Holy Spirit alongside a community of soul friends.
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” - Ephesians 4:17b-19
We will provide the contexts for deep growth through uniquely crafted content, teaching, practice, and reflection—all within a community of fellow apprentices and guides.
The upfront program fee of $1650 before August 31 ($1800 after) covers all the expenses for the 9-month journey. Alternatively, you or your sponsoring church/organization can make 3 payments of $600 at set intervals during the cohort period.
Program Fee Includes:
All Books and Resource Materials
Lunch and Refreshments for Monthly Apprentice Gatherings
Two-Night Retreat (Lodging & Meals)
Welcome and Closing Celebration Dinners
Access to Online Community Hub (hosted by Mighty Networks)
FAQs
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The Apprentice Track is for men and women (25-35yrs) currently serving in vocational ministry or those who have discerned a call to vocational ministry and are transitioning into that in the upcoming season.
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No. Whether you are well-versed in the writers/theologians within the Christian Spiritual Formation movements or not, the power of this space is God’s work in us through this process that we take together.
While we will challenge you to think deeply, none of the content or teaching is aimed at an academic audience. There will certainly be folks in this group who come alive in the nerdy academic conversations (so if that’s you, you and Bryan will be friends).
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If you are unable to attend one of the gathering dates, please feel free to apply. While your presence within each apprentice gathering is an important part of the journey (for both you and for those you are in cohort with), missing one date shouldn’t prevent you from applying.
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Yes. There are a limited number of scholarships available, but if finances are the reason you cannot join the Apprentice Track, then please email us after applying to see if you are eligible.
email: info@rootsandembers.com