The Deeper Walk Mission  

Equipping Life-Changers!

The Deeper Walk Philosophy   

The Deeper Walk logo is based on our philosophy that a changed life requires a trained heart.  The boot represents the imprint of a deeper walk with Christ.  The heart represents the target of our ministry.  Our goal is to help people identify and overcome the obstacles that keep them from a deeper walk with Christ.  To do this, we focus on two areas of heart-focused discipleship: freedom and maturity.  

1)    Freedom

Many Christians are stuck and unable to move forward in their walk with God because they are trapped in spiritual bondage and weighed down by emotional baggage.  Traditional forms of discipleship often do nothing to help such people break free from their bondage and move into the freedom God desires for them.  Spiritual bondage is caused by such things as sin, participation in the occult, unforgiveness, and believing lies from the enemy.  Living in freedom requires reclaiming surrendered ground and learning to overcome the flesh by walking in the Spirit. 

Beliefs play a big role in creating bondage.  As Timothy Warner wrote, “People do not always practice what they say they believe, but they always practice what they REALLY believe!”  There is a big difference between what a person has learned to be true at an intellectual level and what a person believes to be true at a functional level.   A changed life requires a transformation at the level of our core beliefs, and not just the accumulation of knowledge. 

2)    Maturity

Breaking free from the devil’s snares is only part of the story.  We also need to grow in our capacity to be the person God made us to be.  Every Christian is given a new identity in Christ that is rooted in grace.  We mature as we grow in our capacity to live out of that new identity in the power of the Spirit.    

A deeper walk with Christ is about developing a strong connection with Him that gives us the joy and perspective we need to flourish even when life gets hard.   We can experience this kind of intimacy as we learn to sense His presence and hear His voice.  We also develop this kind of maturity as we choose to trust in His promises even when we don’t feel His presence.   God wants us to know that He loves us as the apple of His eye and to trust that love.   

People who grow up with lots of joy in their relationships generally have greater capacity to handle to the pressures of life.  People who learn to bond in fear rather than joy often become stunted in their emotional capacity and find themselves struggling to deal with the trials of life.  People who have not developed the capacity that comes from such joy bonds will need to acquire the relational skills were not passed on to them as a child. 

The Deeper Walk Strategy

Deeper Walk provides training and resources that equip people to facilitate the freedom and maturity that lead to genuine life change.  We offer seminars that introduce key elements of our message.  We also offer a variety of resources at our web site from books to DVDs to small group materials and a 25-session course on freedom and maturity (ICBC Classic Training).  At the heart of our ministry is a three course series of intensive trainings called the Deeper Walk Institute.  Certificates are available for those who complete this training.   

At Deeper Walk we believe that there are many tools and many approaches that may be necessary to help people find freedom and grow in maturity.  We have joined with many ministry partners in an effort to equip people with the best and most effective tools and ministry perspectives available.  Some of the tools we promote are . . .

• The “Steps to Freedom in Christ” by Neil T. Anderson (www.ficm.org)
• The “Immanuel”  approach to emotional healing by Karl Lehman (www.kclehman.com)
• Biblically-balanced teaching on spiritual warfare (Bubeck, Dickason, Logan, Warner, et al)
• Practical teaching related to our identity in Christ and Spirit-led living (Toward a Deeper Walk by Marcus Warner)
• The “Life Model” approach to trauma recovery by Jim Wilder (www.lifemodel.org)
• Lydia Discipleship training for helping deeply wounded people and those with dissociative identity disorder find healing and hope (www.ldm.homestead.com)

In addition we provide resources and promote training from a variety of ministry partners who are all working to see the church of Christ experience freedom and grow in maturity. 

People who are equipped with these tools and walking in intimacy with God become life-changers!  They aren’t perfect people, and they haven’t “arrived” spiritually, but they are growing in ways that enable them to facilitate breakthroughs to freedom and growth in maturity.