Skill Trees: A way to follow Jesus with our feet and not only our minds
Photo by niko photos on Unsplash
By Brandon Morgan
Matthew 7:24-27 NKJV
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.
In Western Christianity, we love the word of God, and we love quoting the word of God. We have Bible studies, where we talk about it; sermons, where we talk about it; conversations, where we talk about it. But how often are we intentional about doing it? In the Scripture above, Jesus mentions “hear[ing] these sayings of Mine, and does them.” There is an act of hearing and adhering to what one hears that is essential. And to be completely honest, we don’t often open the space for people to practice obedience instead of just hearing about it. The question is, how does one practice obedience in community? Another question is, how does one practice obedience in community with the barriers of or created by the novel coronavirus of 2020?
That’s where the Project Arctos’ skill tree initiative comes into play. The skill tree is a practice-based initiative based on the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5. Using these beatitudes, we’ve developed a skill tree for each beatitude that contains tasks and achievements for walking through the spirit of the beatitude with the grace of God.
We’ll use an example below to illustrate:
As you can see, below is the Poor in Spirit skill tree, and in it, you’ll find three different levels: Seed, Bud, and Fruit. Typically the seed tasks (first-tier) are something you can do in a day. The purpose of these is to try something new in a small way; to begin moving from the conformation of the world to instead being transformed in a new way. The bud tasks (second-tier) tend to be continuations of the task or sharing it with others. The intention of the fruit tasks is to develop godly habits by sustaining a habit over a few weeks or by teaching someone else about it.
For example in the Poor in Spirit skill tree, the branch in humility has Seed, Bud, and Fruit tasks:
-The Seed task asks you to admit you were wrong about something to someone else without making excuses. Once completed, this opens up the Bud task.
-The Bud task asks you to ask God where someone else may be holding a grudge against you and to seek reconciliation.
-The Fruit task asks you to pray for the person you’ve sought to be reconciled with for 28 days.
Now, it’s all well and good to try to go about this tree alone, but as the African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” This skill tree initiative is meant to be done in community.
We’ve developed a four-session “starter” course for people to do this in community. This “starter pack” is a once weekly, four-week course that includes four sessions to review the progress on the skill tree and how to “walk out” or “live out” godly community. The sessions can also be facilitated virtually via Zoom as well to surmount the barriers that COVID can present.
Overall, the skill tree sessions emphasize practicing obedience in community settings, building a foundation that will not be shaken when the storms of life come.
This writeup was written by one of the Project Arctos core team members, Brandon Morgan. For additional information, please reach out to us at hello@projectarctos.com or to read more, check out a simple guide at https://docs.projectarctos.com/skill-trees.