At New Life, we desire to see our mem­bers press­ing toward spir­i­tual matu­rity, becom­ing dis­ci­ples who pur­sue holi­ness and respond in joy­ful obe­di­ence to Jesus. Toward that goal, we believe that it is essen­tial, and ben­e­fi­cial for the entire body, that the men and women step up to the front lines. We have grown weary of “account­abil­ity groups.”  Too often they sim­ply become either legal­is­tic exer­cises that attempt to earn for us the favor of God and our peers or serve to give us license to sin as long as we com­mis­er­ate with other so-called strug­glers on a reg­u­lar basis. What we need is real fight­ing against sin and real faith in our Savior.

Inspired largely by Jonathan Dodson’s book titled, “Fight Clubs”, we sug­gest that every mem­ber join or begin a Fight Club in order to fight the fight of faith by trust­ing in the promises of God. As described in the book, “fight clubs are small, sim­ple groups of 2–3 who meet reg­u­larly to help one another beat the flesh and believe in the promises of God…There are 3 rules of fight clubs: 1. Know your sin. 2. Fight your sin. 3. Trust your Sav­ior.”  You can read about the book and order a copy here.

If you are not in a Fight Club and are inter­ested in join­ing one, please email Pas­tor Jason Kin­nard.

Fight Clubs are com­prised of two men or two women, ide­ally, with a max­i­mum of three. Our efforts are to con­nect you to a peer of sim­i­lar age and life stage. We ask that you com­mit to meet reg­u­larly as often as is fea­si­ble and respect­ful of each other’s time.  Meet­ing times and places will be arranged by the mem­bers of each Fight Club.

Here are some gen­eral guide­lines for Fight Clubs:

1. Even if you have already been meet­ing with a group that has func­tioned as your Fight Club, take the oppor­tu­nity to begin afresh and estab­lish the club pur­pose based on the “3 rules of fight clubs”. Talk about how often you want to meet and make seri­ous efforts to do things together out­side of your reg­u­lar meet­ings. It is rec­om­mended that you read Dodson’s book to help grasp the vision for how these clubs should function.

2. The clubs must be based on the Gospel, not on account­abil­ity. These are not just con­fes­sional times. These are times to share how we are or are not under­stand­ing and apply­ing the Gospel to our lives.

3. Every­one must be trans­par­ent and share both areas of obe­di­ence and areas of strug­gle. Con­ceal­ing and hedg­ing on our own strug­gles with indwelling sin pre­vents an oppor­tu­nity to grow.

4. Respect those in your club. Noth­ing curbs trans­parency and hon­esty like gos­sip out­side of the club.

5. Com­mit­ment requires dis­ci­pline and con­sis­tency, but also a desire to be transformed.

For if you live accord­ing to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.  Romans 8:13

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not wag­ing war accord­ing to the flesh. For the weapons of our war­fare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strong­holds. We destroy argu­ments and every lofty opin­ion raised against the knowl­edge of God, and take every thought cap­tive to obey Christ, being ready to pun­ish every dis­obe­di­ence, when your obe­di­ence is com­plete. 2 Corinthi­ans 10:3–6