Our Freedom Ministries process at Gateway Church begins with five amazing classes we call  Foundations of Freedom. They include:

1. A Kingdom Parable
2. Levels of Change
3. Kingdom of God
4. Hearing God
5. Life in the Kingdom

What is so important about these five classes? I’m glad you asked! People who begin the Freedom Ministries process at Gateway Church often do so because something in their life isn’t working. They’re stuck in some area of spiritual growth. They’re trapped in some repeating cycle of destructive behavior. They have a problem and they want help.

The critical thing to understand is that though a problem may be driving a decision to participate in Freedom Ministries, focusing on that problem will not help anyone experience lasting freedom. So the very first component in our process doesn’t focus on problems at all. A perspective shift is essential and these five classes are designed to help people begin to make that shift.

Seeking First the Kingdom – You will never find solutions to your problems by focusing on your problems. That kind of focus is always dependent upon human effort where the only solution to frustration and failure is to try harder. Solving the root issues in our lives is something only God can do. What we need is the presence and power of Jesus. Seeking the King and his Kingdom is the only path to lasting freedom. Our five Foundations of Freedom classes are all designed to help you begin to shift your focus away from seeking first solutions to problems and on to seeking first the Kingdom of God.

Hearing God’s Voice – It is very typical for people in our time and culture to assume that more and better knowledge is the answer to life’s problems. If my life isn’t working, then surely there must be some principle I need to learn and apply. If the root of my issues is truly ignorance, then that kind of solution might serve me reasonably well. But what if my problem is worse than ignorance? What if the deepest root of my problem is self-reliance and what if the process of learning and applying principles would really only serve to reinforce my tendency to rely on self? That’s why we must learn to connect to God as our source. We don’t need to learn and apply. We need to hear and believe. We don’t need to try harder we need to surrender. Our five Foundations of Freedom classes are designed to help you begin to live a different way from a different source, learning to hear and respond to the voice of God.

Becoming a Disciple - Our Foundations of Freedom classes are designed to equip you to hear God, respond to his voice, receive from his hand, and live out an ongoing experience of deepening freedom. In these classes you will hear and respond to God, but more than that, you will learn that you can hear and respond to God in your day to day life. This process will actually equip you to follow Jesus, to be led by the Spirit, to be a disciple.

Pursuing Process – Freedom Ministries doesn’t offer a quick fix. It will include powerful and transforming moments with God, but these encounters will be experienced within the context of a broader process, an ongoing process we invest in throughout our lives. God wants more for you than to merely free you from your issues and struggles. He’s created you for more than sobriety and/or good behavior. He has made you to live a life of relational connection with him, a life of re-presenting his nature within the earth. Real freedom is the ability to live that life without obstruction. In that sense, freedom isn’t just a class or an event. It’s more than a powerful moment. It’s a lifelong pursuit of identity and calling. It’s never something of which you can say “Been there; done that.”

Free People Free People – This isn’t redundant. The first “free” is an adjective. The second is a verb. The point is this: We give away what’s in us. We reproduce who we are. Pursuing freedom is essential because the very thing God has called you to involves spreading the influence of his presence and nature in all the earth. There’s no way to do this without first being this. We pursue freedom in order to become who we were made to be that we might do what we were made to do. By surrendering to the process of transformation at the identity level, the natural (or should I say supernatural) outflow of this will be giving away the freedom we’ve received to others.

So, don’t just attend these classes to meet a requirement for Kairos. Come and have your entire mindset re-calibrated to a Kingdom focus. It will change everything. It’s the only thing that can.

These classes are offered at Gateway Church, Southlake Campus on Sunday mornings, 9am, upstairs in Room 2D. The DVDs are available for purchase at the Passages Bookstore on any Gateway Campus. The classes are also available to view streaming for free at GatewayPeople.com