Faith For Exiles:
Five Practices for Resilient Disciples in
Digital Babylon

David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock, Faith for Exiles: Five Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon. Baker, 2019.

In Faith for Exiles, David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock identify five practices that are keys to developing faithful and resilient disciples of Jesus in our world; the kind of disciples that Sardis Community Church desires to produce.  As a Church, we want to lean into these practices.  We are committing ourselves in 2022 to exploring how we might cultivate these five practices in the life of Sardis Community.  We want to explore and discern creative and intentional ways that we can embody these practices in our ministries and our communal life.  Please commit yourself to praying and discerning this with us. If you have any suggestions, we would love to hear them.  Feel free to send them to us through the form on our Contact Us page.

1. Identity in Jesus – Knowing who we are and experiencing Jesus
   
   Faithful and resilient disciples find their identity in Jesus.  They move beyond a familiarity and knowledge of Jesus to an intimacy with him.
    
2. Cultural Discernment – Being part of a robust learning community that navigates a complex culture
   
   Faithful and resilient disciples learn to exercise their muscles of cultural discernment. By participating in a robust learning community, they gain wisdom that produces faithfulness in an increasingly complex age.
    
3. Intergenerational Relationships – Having relationships with fellow believers we want to be around and become
   
   Faithful and resilient disciples are part of communities where meaningful relationships are nurtured. These relationships provide shared experiences and  offer examples of faithfulness to emulate.
    
4. Vocational Discipleship – Knowing and living God’s calling, especially in the arena of work (or retirement)
   
   Faithful and resilient disciples understand how their life with Jesus transforms their daily life and  work into a vocation of participating in God’s work of ordering and bringing life into the world. 
    
5. Countercultural Mission – Living as a faithful presence in a countercultural way that curbs entitlement
   
   Faithful and resilient disciples live lives that trust in God enough to live differently in our
   world.  They are prepared and enabled to live against the grain of cultural norms.