All class recordings can be viewed via Steve’s Meeks’ FreshWater Int’l YouTube page.

TENSIONS IN KNOWING GOD

Beginning January 11, 2023

Register here for this class. You will receive weekly class notes and updates, via e-mail.

This Prophetic Life Workshop takes us immediately in the deep end of the pool. God has built creative tensions into the fabric of creation. God uses these tensions to mature us, guide us, unveil His own nature, and to make us suitable to be His dwelling place. Here is an abbreviated list of many such tensions:

a. Immanence and transcendence

b. Incarnational and eschatological

c. Contemplative practice and kingdom agenda

d. God is both “now” and “not yet”

God’s presence and activity are found at both ends of these tensions and everywhere inbetween. Creative tensions are about who God is and how He lives. If you really want to know God, the real God, then you must explore, expect, and experience God’s life inside these tensions. The more mature our relationship with God, the more spacious our attitudes will be toward recognizing God’s presence and activity in our lives and in our world. Each of these tensions has their own delights and dangers.

As we mature, we are enabled to hold these tensions together. In our current world, we grow deeper and stronger as we learn to live in the tensions of the “now” and the “not yet.”

If you desire to know the real God, if you long for God’s wisdom to overflow your living, making you fruitful, then make this Prophetic Life Workshop a priority beginning in January.

CLASS NOTES

Tensions in Knowing God – Cover page (January 11)

Immanent and Transcendent Tensions – Journal exercise (January 18 and 25)

Five Truths for Maturing in the Tensions of Life (February 1)

LEARNING TO HEAR THE VOICE OF GOD: Knowing the God who speaks, why He speaks, and how we hear Him…

Beginning October 19, 2022

YouTube link for this class.

What would you pay to hear the voice of God? How valuable would that be to you? Every meaningful friendship happens through interaction, fellowship, and conversation. It is God’s nature to speak. After all, he describes himself as the “Word” (John 1:1). God is a communicating being. He delights in our response to his voice. This workshop will explore God’s communicating nature, how he speaks, and how we can hear his voice.

CLASS NOTES

Who is the God Who Speaks (October 19)

The Simple Secret of Knowing God (October 26)

Three Capacities for Hearing God Speak (November 2)

Preparing to Hear God’s Voice (November 9)

Does God Speak Today (November 16, December 1, and 7)

How to Hear God Speak through the Bible and 14 Ways God Speaks to Us (December 14)

FINISHING STRONG: DEVELOPING THE CONTOURS OF A FINISHING SPIRIT

Beginning August 10, 2022

YouTube link for this workshop

This Prophetic Life Workshop focuses on living a significant life all the way to the finish line. In our time together, we will explore the contours of a finishing spirit, leaving a legacy, dealing with imperfections, cultivating heavenly mindedness, and how to carry passion as we age. FINISHING STRONG will equip us in living a sacramental theology, creating a living awareness that we live in a God-bathed world. It is the presence of God that will enable us to say with the Apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). I pray that this workshop will help us all to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and to Finish Strong.

CLASS NOTES

Finishing Strong (August 10)
Aging with Joy – Finishing with Grace (August 17)
The Strength of a Finishing Spirit (August 24)
Trust and Obey (August 31)
The Habit of Heavenly Mindedness (September 7, 14, and 28)
Creating Liminal Space (October 5)

Prophetic Life Workshop Archives

THE UNITIVE LIFE: Reflections on Spiritual Maturity

April 6 – June 1, 2022

YouTube link for this workshop

This Prophetic Life Workshop will seek to give you a clear picture and concrete guidance for cultivating genuine maturity in your relationship with God. The Triune God created us for intimate fellowship, partnership, and friendship. In this workshop, Pastor Steve will guide us toward a life that brings joy to the heart of our heavenly Father.

God’s Word calls us to a life lived in union with God, filled with His Spirit, and abiding in His Son. As we grow deeper in God, we begin to experience His presence, His peace, and His power.

If you are hungry for something more, join us in this Prophetic Life Workshop as we explore our capacities to be filled with God.

CLASS NOTES

God’s Dwelling Place (April 6)
Holons and the Bonding Process (April 13)
Holons, Christification, and Five Characteristics of Spiritual Maturity. (April 20 and April 27)
The Unitive Life (April 27)
Living With Love (May 4 and 11)
Basics of the Spirit Filled Life (May 18 and 25)
Baptism and Filling of the Holy Spirit ( June 1)

EMBERS TO FLAME: IGNITING YOUR LIFE THROUGH PRAYER

January 12 – March 30, 2022

YouTube link for this workshop.

God is intimately with us, and He is also infinitely beyond us. It is prayer alone that can reconcile these two polarities. Through prayer we begin to experience both God’s intimate presence and transcendent dominion. Consistent prayer helps us to feel companioned by God.

Ps. 62:8 Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.

Prayer is a key that opens the door to a secret chamber of your heart where your true life is hidden with Christ in God (See Colossians 3:3-4). In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender. As a tree torn from the soil, as a river separated from its source, the human soul wanes when it is detached from God through the absence of prayer. Without prayer, we are like the scattered rungs of a broken ladder. To pray is to become a ladder on which our lives and others can mount up to God. And He also comes down the ladder to us.

This Prophetic Life Workshop will explore how to experience a satisfying life of prayer that leads you into ever deepening companionship with God.

CLASS NOTES

Real Prayer (January 12)
What is Prayer? (January 19)
Praying in the Spirit (January 26)
Reflections on Prayer (February 2)
Principles of Prayer Life and The Soul of Prayer (February 9)
Prayer Basics (February 16)
Prayers, Simplicity, and Mystery (February 23)
Prayer’s Mystery and The Serious Sin of Prayerlessness (March 2)
Teach Us to Pray (March 9)
The Power of the Praying Church (March 23)

BEDROCK: FAITH THAT LASTS FOREVER

August 11 – October 13, 2021

YouTube link for this workshop.

This class will address the issue of faith. What is faith? How does it work? Why is faith important? These and many other questions concerning our faith and its nature will be explored over this semester. The world we live in will trivialize our lives unless we learn to “walk by faith and not by sight.”

This class is aimed at deepening our intimacy with God through cultivating a bedrock faith in our soul. “Without faith it is impossible to please God, for those who come to Him must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Faith is a bedrock substance that increases God’s pleasure and presence in our lives.

CLASS NOTES

The Nature of Faith (August 11)
THE RIVER Poem, Perfecting Faith, Faith–Over All, Through All, In All (August 18)
Perfecting Faith, Bedrock (poem), God’s Self Revelation (August 25)
The Physics of Faith – Expecting the Unexpected (September 1)
The Physics of Faith – Seeing the Invisible (September 8)
The Physics of Faith – Believing the Impossible (September 15)
Belief vs Faith (September 22)
Overcoming Faith (September 29)
Living Faith and Understanding Faith (October 6)
A Theology of Hope (October 13)

SPRITUAL FORMATION: BECOMING LIKE JESUS

April 7 – May 26, 2021

YouTube link for this workshop.

Spiritual formation is not a quick-fix, a one-size-fits-all, or a controllable technique. Disciples are hand-crafted, not mass produced.

Authentic spirituality must touch our lives in meaningful and practical ways. During this course, Pastor Steve will bring a comprehensive approach to spiritual growth, revealing a number of ways that God conforms us to the “image of His Son.” Ultimately, all spiritual formation is about learning to be loved and to love the Living One we call God.

CLASS NOTES:

Living With Love (April 7)
Living With Love and Spiritual Formation–Some basics (April 14)
“Self” Centered (April 21)
SELF Centered (April 28)
The Bonding Process and Rules for Second Half of Life (May 5)
Rules for Second Half of Life (May 12 and 19)
What is Bible and Transformational Agenda (May 26)

LIVING A GOD-FILLED LIFE

January 6 – March 31, 2021

YouTube link for this workshop.

Through His Spirit and His Word, God continually calls us to be filled…to be filled with his Word (Col. 3:16), to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18), to be filled with Christ (Gal. 4:19), and to be filled to the fulness of God (Eph. 3:19). Our calling as followers of Christ leads us to experience God’s presence and anointing until our cup overflows (Ps. 23:5).

Would you say that your cup is overflowing? Is your life bathed in the presence of God? What would your life be like if you were filled to all the fullness of God? How would your life be different?

This Prophetic Life Workshop will guide and inspire you to experience all that God is offering. Augustine said, “We come to God by love, not by navigation.” Spiritual formation is about removing the things that hinder love. If you are longing to increasingly experience God’s nearness, this workshop is just for you.

CLASS NOTES:

Living a God-filled Life – Sessions 1, 2, and 3 (January 6, 13, and 20)
Living a God-filled Life – Session 4 (January 27)
Spiritual Practice Comparisons (February 3)
Everything Belongs (February 10)
Character Comes Through (February 10)
Creating Liminal Space and Five Truths for Everyday Living (March 3)
Five Truths for Everyday Living (March 10)
Whoever Loses Wins (March 24)
Lose Your Life for My Sake (March 31)