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1. soul61: the point
Soul61 is a leadership course, its aim is to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus and equip you to lead for him. It’s for you to explore the riches of his Word and the excitement of hearing his voice. It is for you to grow in your gifts but more importantly it is to allow him to develop your character.
Although it's a course and there will be lots of ‘doing’ involved you’re coming not to ‘do’ but to hang out.
it's about character...
You might have picked up that we’ve only got five days of the week (including Sunday) scheduled – this is intentional! We’ve only got five days of the week (including Sunday) scheduled – this is intentional! Soul61 is not a honed-down, slick, timed-to-the-minute course. We are inviting you to come and be part of us. We are convinced that the most life changing things that will happen during your 10 months will be the relationships you form – with each other and with the Soul Survivor family in Watford. We are really excited about getting to know you as individuals; your struggles, hopes and dreams. We want to build friendships with you and invest in you. We want to walk beside you, serve you, and see you run far beyond us as leaders. We won’t be spoon feeding you, we want to allow you to think for yourselves and use initiative.
More than anything Soul61 is a chance for God to develop your character. Leadership must firstly be about not looking, gifting or personality but how we live out our love for God in the everyday. The key to being a leader in the church is knowing, loving and following Jesus. We’ll spend lots of time worshipping him, waiting on him, listening to him and letting him change us.
it's about learning...
People have been following Jesus for over 2000 years... and we can learn and grow from their experiences. The Bible is probably the best place to start! At Soul61 you'll spend around 2 days a week studying the Bible and looking into some theological stuff. But don't worry, it's not all academic... there will be the chance to get all practical and test out the stuff you're learning in the real world!
it's about Jesus...
The key to being a leader in the church is knowing, loving and following Jesus. We want to help you grow in relationship with Jesus. We'll spend lots of time worshipping him, waiting on him, listening to him and letting him change us.
it's about service...
Leadership is about service. Jesus washed the disiples feet, said the first will be last and came to give all of himself to humanity so that we might know God. If Jesus is our example of leadership then we see it's got to be about service. So, at Soul61 you'll spend time serving God and serving others.
it's about family...
At Soul Survivor we’re a family, we’re passionate about community and relationship and we’re excited about you coming to be stretched and to grow as part of our family. We want to formally invest in you in all sorts of ways but also our intention is to make hanging out with you one of our priorities; we are longing to serve you, to cheer you on, and to run with you as we journey towards Jesus together. Our hope is that after ten months you’ll leave rooted in Jesus, committed to his people and equipped to serve and love the kingdom of God.
The aim of the 10 months is to help you develop the key qualities for leadership:
Feet-washing
Listening
Serving
Encouraging
‘Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ’
Developing character.
In addition to this we’ll also be looking to develop some of the gifts of lesser importance with regard to leadership:
Communication and teaching
Worship Leading
Evangelism
Youth Work
General leadership skills
By the time you leave we hope you will have deepened your relationship with God and your understanding of the Bible and its teachings; we want to equip you to love God’s church and be a leader whether in the workplace or full-time ministry. As we mentioned earlier, our main hope is that as you spend time being ‘family’ with us these characteristics will develop. At the same time we’ll be looking to develop the above qualities in more formal ways.