Kairos Course – Becoming people after God’s own heart

No one on Earth – except for Jesus – was born to love God or to have a relationship with Him. We all have the capacity to have both, but someone needs to come alongside us to share the Gospel, share what a loving relationship with God looks and acts like, and teach us how to be disciple-makers. It is part of the reason Jesus came to Earth.

The original disciples were not men of faith but rather came from career fields that included fishermen and tax collectors. Jesus took these men under His wing to show them the men God meant them to be, how to become men after God’s own heart, and how to carry on with disciple-making. 

In the Old Testament, King David was described as a man after God’s own heart. King Solomon possessed God-given wisdom. You may have wished on occasion to have a heart like God or to have wisdom as Solomon did. What if I told you that you can have both? It’s called Kairos Course.

Why Kairos Course?

As local missionaries, we have been ministering to those inside and now outside the prison system, we have been teaching them how to be disciple-makers. The next step in their Spiritual journey is how to be men after God’s heart, just like King David and help them grow to – one day – possess the wisdom of King Solomon.

And that is where Kairos Course comes in and why it is so important for us to help those men we minister to in taking the next step in their relationship with God and grow in their journey as disciple-makers.

First and foremost, Kairos Course is designed to be learning God’s Heart for the Nations for those who seek to take the next step in their disciple-making, on-mission ministry efforts, whatever course their lives may take them based on the path God is laying out for them.

In short, we are building in mission-minded training for the men. We believe there is no better sending agency than Team Expansion to facilitate the training the men of Freedom Lake need. The Kairos Course comes at an important juncture in the journey of the men coming out and joining us at Freedom Lake.

What is Kairos Course?

As followers of God, it is always our goal to act on His will, not our own and in His timing, not ours. Kairos is a Greek word for “right time” and specifically for a kind of special or opportune time, moment, or season. 

Timing in life can mean the difference between being right where we need to be at that moment and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kairos Course provides an opportunity for people to learn about “God’s time” and then how to recognize God’s timing as opposed to man’s timing. 

The Kairos Course is an intensive nine lesson interactive study of the purpose and plan of God from Genesis to the end of the age. This course seeks to align every believer’s worldview with God’s heart for the nations and mobilize the whole Church for His global mission. Kairos Course is offered at Team Expansion’s headquarters and is geared toward deepening one’s faith, identity, relationships, and connection to God’s role in our lives.

Topic areas include God’s mission and His plan for the world; His covenants; the Messiah, the Message and the Messenger; on-mission strategies and reaching cross-cultural populations. 

The Heart of Kairos Course 

Love God. Love thy neighbor. Those are two key components of being a Christ-follower and a disciple-maker. But imagine if you don’t know how to do that. Imagine you don’t know how to love yourself.

If you don’t love yourself – not in a vain way but you actually don’t believe you are worth love and don’t like yourself – how can you love others or love God?

For the men to whom we minister and mentor, heart is something that is critical and is somewhat foreign to them. They have lived a life where they don’t love – don’t even like – themselves who, through our time with them, have learned to love others and are now learning how to be men after God’s own heart.

Many of the men we minister to have been subjected to physical, mental, or emotional abuse – sometimes at an extremely young age – that has not only undermined but obliterated their self-worth.

The way they expressed themselves in their life choices manifested as less-than-desirable behavior as a survival mechanism (physically and emotionally), in addition to engaging in some form of substance abuse to numb the pain they felt from the void existing inside them. This void they felt was partially due to the lack of love shown to them, but mainly due to the absence of God.

These are men who are broken but in a way that requires them to be rebuilt from the heart up. We recognize that one must be able to love him or herself before we can expect them to be able to love others.

Then when their hearts have been rebuilt through the message of the Gospel and the examples Jesus gave us in Scripture that are the foundation of the restoration process. But then comes the next step – and one of the critical aspects of the Kairos Course is knowing and having a heart like God’s.

It is understandable that most people – perhaps even you – believe that it is impossible for us to know the heart of God. That is not true.

If you read Scripture – particularly involving Jesus’ ministry, I would contend it is impossible NOT to know the heart of God. Jesus came to Earth to show us how to live a godly life not as God (though He is) but in human form, to show us humans can do it.

But knowing God’s heart and being a man or woman after God’s own heart are two different things. During the Kairos Course, the men we are mentoring learned from Scripture what it means to be someone after God’s heart but also what being so looks and acts like. 

Kairos Course requires an intellectual acquisition of the subject matter BUT demands a physical expression of the principles. This doesn’t mean throwing a hug on every individual encountered but rather means coming alongside people in a meaningful way – depending on each individual’s situation – and God’s love to him or her. This could be helping a mom carry her groceries or the baby carrier to the car or seeing someone in emotional distress and asking if you can help in any way and/or asking how you can pray for her.

Little actions like these are at the heart of the Gospel in action and, ultimately, the heart of God in action. And it is a heart the men of Freedom Lake are developing as a result of training opportunities like the Kairos Course.

Testimonials